Time Batteries, or What do you see in 3 hours?

http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/11/the-power-of-patience

immersive attention: the opposite of this post, and oh, so important, so necessary.

She said,

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.” --Anne Lamott

Paul Harding's "Tips"

This article, http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/60070-5-writing-tips-paul-harding.html#path/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/60070-5-writing-tips-paul-harding.html , says so much, so well, it deserves to be read and re-read, again and again.

He said,

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”

Clearly, I'll need to read more about Aristotle, the source of this! From a brief look online, it seems that this quote probably comes from one of his two books on Ethics, and the word translated as "Excellence" may also be translated as "Virtue."

There are many questions that come to mind (about context, about meaning and translation to name a few), but let's put those aside for now: I simply haven't time.

The key element here is this formula:
high intention + sincere effort + intelligent execution = excellence.

What a scale for measuring our endeavors! Even if the goal isn't guaranteed (I'm dubious that "choice... determines your destiny"), what a magnificent criteria!

Such a criteria must certainly set a path towards success... even if the meaning of "success" itself gets redefined along the way.