“Here’s something you probably already know: the world is a furnace of constant, unrelenting pressure. Either you’re crushed by it or it makes you into a diamond. Either you’re burned by it, or it forges you into unbreakable steel.”

However the world transforms you, it usually does it slowly, so you don’t notice. You watch yourself the whole time, and you always think of this person as being you. But over the years, you change—so much, perhaps, that you don’t get recognized by old friends anymore. You, yourself, don’t see it either. You feel the same as you always have.

Ask yourself this: would your childhood self be proud of you, or embarrassed?

The world is a 6-billion-person final exam with little to no class time before it. You walk into the world, you’re given a pencil, and you’re told to take the test. Worse, the piece of paper you get is blank.

But passing the test—or not—isn’t an accident. The test is largely about your flinch response; it’s a challenge in which you are either beaten down and back away, or you hunker down and withstand it.”