Quotes of the Day 35: Live Life Well

Quote 1: “The trick is to live life in such a way that its absence is barely noticed.” - Tim, About Time

Quote 2: “There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you.” - Sir Richard Branson

About Time is a 2013 romantic science fiction comedy-drama movie starring Tim who at age 21 discovers that he can travel through time. Tim meets with his father after a bad New Years party where he explains that men in their family can manipulate time. Tim is unable to make massive history changing manipulations, but he can make his own piece of the world just a bit of a better place by getting himself a girlfriend. This isn’t as easy as Tim would hope as he meets a woman by the name of Mary and they fall in love, however Tim experiences a time travel related incident where Tim finds that he hasn’t met Mary at all. Through chaos, love, and time travel shenanigans, Tim tries to make his life as great as he can, but his time travel powers can’t prevent the sorrows of life as there is no perfect solution to loss. On top of that, Tim’s time travel powers are also dangerous despite the limits of his time traveling. Just to enunciate the inability to save everyone, this movie was dedicated to actor Richard Griffiths who made his final role in this movie as he died just a few months before the movie’s release.

Tim’s quote reminds us that our time is limited, and in knowing this, we must make our lives in such a way that once we are gone, our legacy is left behind and remembered. We can’t time travel and fix our mistakes or improve our life like that, but we can still live our lives well by making the most of the time we have on this planet to leave behind an impact that will be remembered and cherished postmortem.

Sir Richard Branson was born on July 18th, 1950. Branson is a British entrepreneur who is the head of Virgin Group Ltd. In 1973, Branson helped form Virgin Records which would become a mainstay for punk and new wave music. In 1984, Branson backed an airlines company which he named Virgin Atlantic Airways which succeeded despite competition from other airline companies. In 1986, Branson and a campaign set a record for power boating across the Atlantic Ocean and in 1987, Branson and Swedish aeronaut Per Lindstrand became the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hot air balloon and then again in 1991 but across the Pacific Ocean. In 1992, Branson sold Virgin Records so he could invest more into Virgin Atlantic. Through the 1990s and 2000s, Branson would expand the Virgin conglomerate with Virgin Megastores, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Mobile (later renamed to Virgin Media, Inc), Virgin Comics LLC, and Virgin Animation Private Limited. Branson would continue his hot air ballooning adventures during the 1990s and 2000s with a hot air balloon flight over all of Asia until they were forced to land in Hawaii with American adventurer Steve Fossett who Branson helped fund a record flight in 2005. Branson also used his wealth for global benefits when in 2006 he pledged $3 billion to environmentally friendly fuel research and received the Citizen of the Year Award from the United Nations Correspondents Association in 2007 for his humanitarian and environmental support. Branson has published two books, one an autobiography titled “Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way” in 1998 with an updated 2011 version and the other a business philosophy book titled “The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership”. Branson has the “sir” title in his name since he was knighted in 1999.

Branson’s quote really reflects on his whole life journey and accomplishments as he remained a successful and profiting business man while pursuing his aviation passion through Virgin Galactic and his hot air balloon adventures. Branson demonstrates how we can spend our lives well without needing to sacrifice our passions and hobbies in order to achieve financial success. Not only that, but Branson has also managed to make his own life great through this method and he has improved the world around him in the process.

I hope that today’s quotes helped you live your life better. Have a great day everyone!

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