Here's a quote that's a quicker picker upper in times of trouble. I found it on some martial arts site:

"The meaning of life is struggle and its goal is domination. There are deeper meanings and higher goals but the reality of life is war. You may walk down a path in the woods one day and see a large tree growing out from a slab of granite. That tree once started as a little seed; but even a seed has a dream. This seed had a dream of domination. The seed did not seek this confrontation nor did it submit and die. It only obeyed the first law of the universe:

TO WIN!

So day by day, year by year, the seed slowly pushed upward, seeking every crack in its monolithic opponent, making its home in the granite's weakest points until one day the tree smashed through to victory.



Very inspiring, even though how any tree can survive deprived of light, is beyond me. Although most of the folks who go for Asian philosophy tend to slant to the wishy-washy Taoism and Buddhism, I prefer the stuff that works in the real world like Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Book of Five Rings. Hardcore warrior philosophy...