Quotes by Chris Matakas

I have always found that effort is most easily produced when performed for the benefit of something external to ourselves.

As a human being, I know of no greater example of success than someone who is self-sustaining through using his passion in the service of others.

You have been blessed to stand on the shoulders of giants. Make sure that someone stands on yours as well. This is the only way of human progress.

I believe it is the responsibility of each of us to pass on whatever we have learned in our time here. If I reach enlightenment after meditating in a cave for 10 years, but do not pass on this teaching and it dies with me, this was a wasted life. I believe we are here to help one another, and each of us has a unique wisdom that we should do our best to convey to others.

The most fulfilled among us are those who serve others.

Life is always easier when lived for others, and living for others is the best way I know to live for yourself.

Those who serve others have purpose. Those who serve themselves are lost.

Service, it seems, is the only antidote to existential frustration.

Your happiness is in direct proportion to the amount you serve others.

Every interaction with another is an opportunity to serve.

There is no higher calling than the service of your fellow man, and to do so through your own personal mastery of a craft is a gift enjoyed by few.

I believe the devil exists in those little, seemingly unnoticeable moments when we choose to value our own insecurities over the service of others.

I have found the more worthwhile something is, the more of your life is required to achieve it.

If we do not master ourselves, we will be a slave to ourselves.

True mastery, it turns out, is not found in accumulating each and every tool under the sun. True mastery is learning that there are really only a handful of tools, and it is the proper application with correct timing and setting that makes them so useful.

Mastery does not exist.

If you are fortunate enough to have a particular activity with which you find greatest joy and technical success, it is your responsibility as a growing human being to continue that study. Whatever your endeavor, if you can expand upon the knowledge in your strongest subject, that new found understanding of all things will trickle down to every other area of your life.

Mastery, to whatever degree your circumstance allows, is determined by a handful of choices repeated daily.

Mastery lies on an infinite continuum, and as a result we will never reach the end. We can, however, see to it that we are as far along that continuum as our circumstance allows.

The best yardstick for our progress is not other people, but ourselves. Am I better than I was yesterday? This is the only question worth asking. As long as you go to bed at night a better practitioner than the one who woke up that morning, you have succeeded. Your worth should have nothing to do with how your progress stacks up relative to another.