Life is Beautiful

I think this is on my "Words of Wisdom" thing on the side of my blog, but it deserves repeating:

"I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a yes-sayer."
-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

I have been too much an accuser and negator lately. I've had a rough couple of weeks with a lot of presentations and more reading than I could handle, and while I got it done and performed well with my presentations, I wasn't satisfied. I think it's because of my approach to them, my orientation towards these challenges. One of the things that I love about Nietzsche is his approach to failure. It does not matter if you fail, it only matters that you strove for greatness. What paralyzed me and made me so frustrated, and ultimately feel empty and unaccomplished regarding my presentations and such, was that I fixated on the potential for failure. It's incredibly hard to do, but I should throw that concern aside and rise to meet my challenges. Failure is only possible if you strive for something greater than you are, and that reaching toward greatness should be my focus.

I think this mindset should help me power through these pages and pages of Bourdieu that I have to read now!