"Learn not only to find what you like, learn to like what you find"
About this Quote
Self-help advice often flatters our appetites: chase what thrills you, curate your preferences, optimize your life like a playlist. D'Angelo flips that consumer logic with a line that sounds gentle but lands as a discipline. "Find what you like" is the familiar half, the permission slip for taste and ambition. The second half is the provocation: "learn to like what you find". Not tolerate. Not endure. Like. He smuggles agency into the one place we pretend we have none: our reactions.
The intent is practical, almost behavioral. If you can train your attention, you can change your experience of the same external world. The subtext pushes against the modern fetish for perfect alignment - the right job, right city, right partner, right vibe. D'Angelo implies that happiness isn't only a scavenger hunt for ideal conditions; it's also an internal skill, a kind of emotional literacy. That can sound suspiciously like "settle", but the wording avoids resignation. "Learn" suggests effort, repetition, and growth, not surrender. It's closer to resilience than complacency.
Context matters: coming from a contemporary motivational author, the quote sits in the ecosystem of late-20th-century self-improvement, where control is framed as mindset. The line works because it names a tension people live with daily: we don't always get to choose our circumstances, but we do get to practice how we metabolize them. It's aspirational without being utopian, and slightly challenging without sounding punitive - a neat rhetorical balance that makes it sticky.
The intent is practical, almost behavioral. If you can train your attention, you can change your experience of the same external world. The subtext pushes against the modern fetish for perfect alignment - the right job, right city, right partner, right vibe. D'Angelo implies that happiness isn't only a scavenger hunt for ideal conditions; it's also an internal skill, a kind of emotional literacy. That can sound suspiciously like "settle", but the wording avoids resignation. "Learn" suggests effort, repetition, and growth, not surrender. It's closer to resilience than complacency.
Context matters: coming from a contemporary motivational author, the quote sits in the ecosystem of late-20th-century self-improvement, where control is framed as mindset. The line works because it names a tension people live with daily: we don't always get to choose our circumstances, but we do get to practice how we metabolize them. It's aspirational without being utopian, and slightly challenging without sounding punitive - a neat rhetorical balance that makes it sticky.
Quote Details
| Topic | Contentment |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Anthony
Add to List






