101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

by Brianna Wiest

There is nowhere to “arrive” to. The only thing you’re rushing toward is death.

The pattern of unnecessarily creating crises in your life is actually an avoidance technique. It distracts you from actually having to be vulnerable or held accountable for whatever it is you’re afraid of. You’re never upset for the reason you think you are: At the core of your desire to create a problem is simply the fear of being who you are and living the life you want.

You think “problems” are roadblocks to achieving what you want, when in reality they are pathways.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

So many people get caught up in allowing the past to define them or haunt them simply because they have not evolved to the place of seeing how the past did not prevent them from achieving the life they want, it facilitated it.

Most negative emotional reactions are you identifying a disassociated aspect of yourself.

The things you love about others are the things you love about yourself. The things you hate about others are the things you cannot see in yourself.

In short, routine is important because habitualness creates mood, and mood creates the “nurture” aspect of your personality,

Your habits create your mood, and your mood is a filter through which you experience your life.

They don’t allow their thoughts to be chosen for them.

They don’t just become close friends with anyone. They recognize true trust and intimacy as something you build, and something you want to be discerning with whom you share. But they’re not guarded or closed as they are simply mindful and aware of who they allow into their lives and hearts. They are kind to all, but truly open to few.

They don’t confuse a bad feeling for a bad life.

The dynamics afterward always tell you more than what the relationship did—grief is a faster teacher than joy—but

I want to believe that you either love someone, in some way, forever, or you never really loved them at all. That once two reactive chemicals cross, both are changed.

We find souls made of the same stuff ours are.

We find classmates and partners and neighbors and family friends and cousins and sisters and our lives intersect in a way that makes them feel like they couldn’t have ever been separate.

They do not speak in definitives about people, politics, or ideas.

The fastest way to sound unintelligent is to say, “This idea is wrong.”

To speak definitively about any one person or idea is to be blind to the multitude of perspectives that exist on it. It is the definition of closed-minded and short-sightedness.

They don’t use “you always” or “you never” to illustrate a point. Likewise, they root their arguments in statements that begin with “I feel” as opposed to “you are.”

They speak with precision. They say what they intend to say without skirting around the issue. They speak calmly, simply, concisely, and mindfully. They focus on communicating something, not just receiving a response from others.

They know how to practice healthy disassociation. In other words, they know that the world does not revolve around them. They are able to listen to someone without worrying that any given statement they make is actually a slight against them.

when there is a strong emotional response involved, it is always there. If you genuinely disliked something, you would simply disengage with it.

They do not argue with people who only want to win, not learn.

Socially intelligent people know that not everybody wants to communicate, learn, grow or connect—and so they do not try to force them.

They listen to hear, not respond.

While listening to other people speak, they focus on what is being said, not how they are going to respond. This is also known as the meta practice of “holding space.”

They do not post anything online they would be embarrassed to show to a parent, explain to a child, or have an employer find.

posting anything that you are not confident to support means you are not being genuine to yourself (you are behaving on behalf of the part of you that wants other people to validate it).

Their primary relationship is to themselves, and they work on it tirelessly. The main thing socially intelligent people understand is that your relationship to everyone else is an extension of your relationship to yourself.

Your anxiety is your resistance to the process, your last grasps at a control you are becoming more and more aware that you do not have. Your tiredness is your resistance to who you really are, the person you actually want to be. Your annoyance is your repressed anger.

And what happens when we stow away the emotions that accompany our experiences, never give ourselves time to process, try to force ourselves into feeling any given way at any given time, is we disregard what will give us

the ultimate peace: just allowing, without judgment.

Every feeling is worthwhile. You miss so much by trying to change every one of them away, or thinking there are some that are right or wrong or good or bad or that you should have or shouldn’t, all because you’re afraid that you’ll tell yourself something you don’t want to hear.

When you choose to value having other people’s acceptance over your own, you accept a fate of battling your instincts to assimilate to the needs of other people’s egos.

Sadness will not kill you. Depression won’t, either. But fighting it will. Ignoring it will. Trying to escape it rather than confront it will. Denying it will. Suffocating it will. Allowing it no place to go other than your deep subconscious to embed and control you will.

Most people don’t want to be happy, which is why they aren’t.

Nobody wants to believe happiness is a choice, because that puts responsibility in their hands.

Many desires, dreams, and ambitions are built out of a space of severe lack.

It seems that the people who are steadfast in their belief that circumstances create happiness are not to be swayed—and that makes sense. It’s for the same reason that we buy into it so much: It’s easier.

Some of the statistically happiest countries in the world are nearly impoverished. Some of the most notable and peaceful individuals to grace the Earth died with only a few cents to their name. The commonality is a sense of purpose, belonging, and love: things you can choose to feel and cultivate, regardless of physical/material circumstance.

The thing is that nothing has to be an essential part of you unless you decide it is—least of all anxiety and fear.

It is people who don’t choose a better life that are naive and truly vulnerable, as “happy people” may lose everything they have, but people who never choose to fully step into their lives never have anything at all.

Eric Greitens says that there are three primary forms of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and the happiness of excellence5. He compares them to the primary colors, the basis on which the entire spectrum is created.

And then there is the happiness of excellence. The kind of happiness that comes from the pursuit of something great. Not the moment you arrive at the top of the mountain and raise your fists in victory, but the process of falling in love with the hike. It is meaningful work. It is flow. It is the purpose that sears identity and builds character and channels our energy toward something greater than the insatiable, daily pursuit of our fleeting desires.

Happiness is not only how we can astound our senses, but also the peace of mind that comes from knowing we are becoming who we want and need to be. That’s what we receive from pursuing the happiness of excellence: not accomplishment, but identity. A sense of self that we carry into everything else in our lives. A technicolor pigment that makes the entire spectrum come alive.

You will never be ready for the things that matter,

Anxiety builds in our idle hours. Fear and resistance thrive when we’re avoiding the work.

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking rather than think your way into a new way of acting, so do one little thing today and let the momentum build.

Everything is hard; it’s just a matter of what you think is worth the effort.