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April 29 - October 5, 2021
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Shakespeare
The mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.
Many of the things that don’t kill you can damage you for life.
For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.
We understand new or complex things in relation to things we already know.
Feelings of guilt, lust, or fear were often stronger than reasoning.
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. —BUDDHA2
“There is no reality, only perception.”
“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.”7
Responses to threats and unpleasantness are faster, stronger, and harder to inhibit than responses to opportunities and pleasures.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”32
You have to do something that will change your repertoire of available thoughts.
Life is what we deem it, and our lives are the creations of our minds.
Gossip is a policeman and a teacher. Without it, there would be chaos and ignorance.22
We must compare ourselves to other people, and our actions to their actions, and we must somehow spin those comparisons in our favor. (In depression, part of the illness is that spin goes the other way, as described by Aaron Beck’s cognitive triad: I’m bad, the world is terrible, and my future is bleak.)
Good and evil do not exist outside of our beliefs about them.
Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them.
Happy people grow rich faster because, as in the marriage market, they are more appealing to others (such as bosses), and also because their frequent positive emotions help them to commit to projects, to work hard, and to invest in their futures.27
The keys to flow: There’s a clear challenge that fully engages your attention; you have the skills to meet the challenge; and you get immediate feedback about how you are doing at each step
Variety is the spice of life because it is the natural enemy of adaptation.
The point here is that maximizers engage in more social comparison, and are therefore more easily drawn into conspicuous consumption. Paradoxically, maximizers get less pleasure per dollar they spend.
“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
Because human beings were shaped by evolutionary processes to pursue success, not happiness, people enthusiastically pursue goals that will help them win prestige in zero-sum competitions. Success in these competitions feels good but gives no lasting pleasure, and it raises the bar for future success.
