Start with where the world is

Do now what nature demands of you. Get right to it if that's in your power. Don't look around to see if people will know about it. Don't await the perfection of Plato's Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.29.(4)

As an  organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be -- it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.

-- Saul Alinksy in Rules for Radicals

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman 

There is always more room to maneuver than you think

Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties -- hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure.

-- Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 10.4b

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman 

Don't get emotional, get focused

You must stop blaming God, and not blame any person. You must completely control your desire and shift your avoidance to what lies within your reasoned choice. You must no longer feel anger, resentment, envy or regret.

-- Epictetus, Discourses, 3.22.13 

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

The place to do your work, to live the good life, is HERE

At this moment you aren't on a journey, but wandering about, being driven from place to place, even though what you seek -- to live well -- is found in all places. Is there any place more full of confusion than the Forum? Yet even there you can live at peace, if needed.

-- Seneca, Moral Letters, 28.5b-6a 

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Perfection, expect not! Don't seek it

That cucumber is bitter, so toss it out! There are thorns on the path, then keep away! Enough said. Why ponder the existence of nuisance? Such thinking would make you a laughing-stock to the true student of Nature, just as a carpenter or cobbler would laugh if you pointed out the sawdust and chips on the floors of their shops. Yet while those shopkeepers have dustbins for disposal, Nature has no need of them.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.50 

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman