Very few animals on
earth have the ability to think cogent thoughts to begin with, but we humans
have the luxury of being able to have thoughts about our thoughts.
Wanting positive
experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a
positive experience.
Everything
worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative
experience.
Indifferent people
are afraid of the world and the repercussions of their own choices. That's why they don't make any meaningful
choices.
Here's another
sneaky little truth about life. You
can't be an important and life-changing presence for some people without also
being a joke and an embarrassment to others.
When a person has no
problems, the mind automatically finds a way to invent some.
We suffer for the
simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature's preferred agent for inspiring
change.
Emotions are merely
signposts, suggestions that our neurobiology gives us, not commandments.
A more interesting
question, a question that most people never consider, is, "What pain do
you want in your life? What are you
willing to struggle for?" Because that seems to be a greater determinant
of how our lives turn out.
The true measurement
of self-worth is not how a person feels about her positive experiences, but
rather how she feels about her negative experience.
If suffering is
inevitable, if our problems in life are unavoidable, then the question we
should be asking is not "How do I stop suffering" but "Why am I
suffering -- for what purpose?"
Self-awareness is
like an onion. There are multiple layers
to it, and the more you peel them back, the more likely you're going to start
crying at inappropriate times.
Denying negative
emotions leads to expanding deeper and more prolonged negative emotions and to
emotional dysfunction. Constant
positivity is a form of avoidance.
These values --
pleasure, material success, always being right, staying positive -- are poor
ideals for a person's life. Some of the
greatest moments of one's life are not pleasant, not successful, not known, and
not positive.
Values are about
prioritization.
The only way to
solve our problems is to first admit that our actions and beliefs up to this
point have been wrong and are not working.
This openness to being wrong must exist for any real change or growth to
take place.
The more something
threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it.
If it feels like
it's you versus the world, chances are it's really just you versus yourself.
Improvement at
anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your
success is based on how many times you've failed at something. If someone is better than you at something,
then it's likely because she has failed at it more than you have. If someone is worse than you, it's likely
because he hasn't been through all of the painful learning experiences you
have.
Many people, when
they feel some form of pain or anger or sadness, drop everything and attend to
numbing out whatever they're feeling.
Their goal is to get back to "feeling good" again as quickly
as possible, even if that means substances or deluding themselves or returning
to their shitty values.
Learn to sustain the
pain you've chosen. When you choose a new value, you are choosing to introduce
a new form of pain into your life.
Relish it. Savor it. Welcome it with open arms. Then act despite it.
Life is about not
knowing and then doing something anyway.
All of life is like this.
Action isn't just
the effect of motivation; it's also the cause of it.
Absolute freedom, by
itself, means nothing. Freedom grants
the opportunity for greater meaning, but by itself there is nothing necessarily
meaningful about it. Ultimately, the only way to achieve meaning and a sense of
importance in one's life is through a rejection of alternatives, a narrowing of
freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief, or (gulp) one person.
The desire to avoid
rejection at all costs, to avoid confrontation and conflict, the desire to
attempt to accept everything equally and to make everything cohere and
harmonize, is a deep and subtle form of entitlement.
Most elements of
romantic love that we pursue -- the dramatic and dizzyingly emotional displays
of affection, the topsy-turvy ups and downs -- aren't healthy, genuine displays
of love.
When you have murky
areas of responsibility for your emotions and actions -- areas where it's
unclear who is responsible for what, whose fault is what, why you're doing what
you're doing -- you never develop strong values for yourself.
In general, entitled
people fall into one of two traps in their relationships. Either they expect other people to take
responsibility for their problems…. Or they take on too much responsibility for
other people's problems.
It can be difficult
for people to recognize the difference between doing something out of
obligation and doing it voluntarily. So
here's a litmus test: ask yourself,
"If I refused, how would the relationship change?"
People with strong
boundaries are not afraid of a temper tantrum, an argument, or getting
hurt. People with weak boundaries are
terrified of those things and will constantly mold their own behavior to fit
the highs and lows of their relational emotional roller coaster.
For a relationship
to be healthy, both people must be willing and able to both say no and hear no.
If people cheat,
it's because something other than the relationship is more important to them.
