Nietzsche on living dangerously

The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as soon as you ca not be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon past when you could be content to live concealed int he woods like timid deer!

Friedrich Nietzsche

 The Gay Science: with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

View Alain de Botton's programme on Nietzsche

Vivian Greene on not waiting for the storm to the pass

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain.”

 Vivian Greene


Whilst this quote might sound over-idealistic and, as my good friend Peter Cooper says "be the kind of thing John Lennon would have written a song about", I  believe it contains a healthy nugget of wisdom.

It's a vote against resignation, against giving in, against just waiting for things to get better.  When I see depressed clients a key message is

 Dont wait to feel motivated - take a small step in the right direction now, and then motivation will follow.

That's the "don't wait for the storm to pass" part.

Dancing in the rain, though, seriously? Well.  the idea of Singing in the Rain is hardly new ..

 I'm also reminded of John Locke's characteristic response in the first series of Lost.

The good idea here  is to adapt to the circumstances we find ourselves in as best we can. Don't assume that you can't do anything positive because there is a storm in our life. You might even find something really positive ...