Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life.

You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something.

The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life.

Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

We all have slow days, off days, days we feel tired or uninspired, but they are nothing to concern yourself with. Like an ocean the stillness is just another of our natural states. Soon, the winds will pick up, the waves will rise, and your imagination will flow again.

Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything.

Julie Zhou:

We are a culture that glorifies ideas. In tech circles, everyone wants to discuss the latest tech trends (live-streaming! Drones!) In the movie or publishing industry, thousands of e-mails are exchanged about which genres are hot (fantasy!) and which are not (vampires!) Do a Google search for “The Next Big Idea” and you’ll get 300 million results, many of them blog posts purporting to contain the secret to success. In interviews, candidates are often assessed on the strength of their ideas. At dinner parties, we all love sitting next to the “Idea Person”.

And yet, the people who are most likely to be called “Idea People” from the outside know exactly how little an idea in of itself is worth. [...]

Ideas are like candy—colorful, fun, easy to indulge in.

The hard part—the part that really matters—is the follow-through.

Why don’t we glorify that instead?

What is a Follow-Through Person?

Someone who knows that good execution is 90% of what makes anything succeed.

Someone who values getting shit done.

Someone who honors the craft of getting shit done well.

Someone who recognizes that in order to make the idea live, she must inspire others to also want to make the idea live, through a combination of planning, research, critical thinking, and effort.

Someone who fights the devil in the details every single day.

Someone who does not pat herself on the back when the idea is good, but only when the incarnation of the idea is good.

Someone who does not flinch at the possibility that her idea may not be good enough.

Someone who soldiers on through the hard, the repetitive, the frustrating, the boring, all for the sake of making something real.

Let’s celebrate that person.

Let’s fantasize about being that person.

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in awhile.

When experts are wrong, it’s often because they’re experts on an earlier version of the world.

Tim Cook in Businessweek:

Throughout my professional life, I’ve tried to maintain a basic level of privacy. I come from humble roots, and I don’t seek to draw attention to myself. Apple is already one of the most closely watched companies in the world, and I like keeping the focus on our products and the incredible things our customers achieve with them.

At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ” I often challenge myself with that question, and I’ve come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That’s what has led me to today.

For years, I’ve been open with many people about my sexual orientation. Plenty of colleagues at Apple know I’m gay, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the way they treat me. Of course, I’ve had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation and knows it can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences. Not everyone is so lucky.

While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.

Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It’s made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple.

The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out have helped change perceptions and made our culture more tolerant. Still, there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation.

I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.

I’ll admit that this wasn’t an easy choice. Privacy remains important to me, and I’d like to hold on to a small amount of it. I’ve made Apple my life’s work, and I will continue to spend virtually all of my waking time focused on being the best CEO I can be. That’s what our employees deserve—and our customers, developers, shareholders, and supplier partners deserve it, too. Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender. I’m an engineer, an uncle, a nature lover, a fitness nut, a son of the South, a sports fanatic, and many other things. I hope that people will respect my desire to focus on the things I’m best suited for and the work that brings me joy.

The company I am so fortunate to lead has long advocated for human rights and equality for all. We’ve taken a strong stand in support of a workplace equality bill before Congress, just as we stood for marriage equality in our home state of California. And we spoke up in Arizona when that state’s legislature passed a discriminatory bill targeting the gay community. We’ll continue to fight for our values, and I believe that any CEO of this incredible company, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, would do the same. And I will personally continue to advocate for equality for all people until my toes point up.

When I arrive in my office each morning, I’m greeted by framed photos of Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy. I don’t pretend that writing this puts me in their league. All it does is allow me to look at those pictures and know that I’m doing my part, however small, to help others. We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.

— Tim Cook