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We are like beggars who try to show other beggars where we found bread.
First, there is physical joy. There are moments when you are doing some physical activity, often in rhythm with other people, when you experience flow.
collective effervescence, celebratory dance.
The third layer of joy is what you might call emotional joy. This is the sudden bursting of love that you see,
The fourth layer of joy is spiritual joy. Sometimes joy comes not through movement, not through love, but from an unexpected
The fifth layer of joy is transcendent joy, feeling at one with nature, the universe, or God.
But moral joy has an extra feature. It can become permanent. Some
When people make generosity part of their daily routine, they refashion who they are.
The goal of life is to climb Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and achieve self-actualization and self-fulfillment.
who are you to judge if another person’s moral order is better or worse than any others?
life of commitment means saying a thousand noes for the sake of a few precious yeses.
Furthermore, workaholism is a surprisingly effective distraction from emotional and spiritual problems.
Acedia is the quieting of passion. It is a lack of care. It is living a life that doesn’t arouse your strong passions and therefore instills a sluggishness of the soul, like an oven set on warm. The person living in acedia may have a job and a family, but he is not entirely grabbed by his own life. His heart is over there, but his life is over here.
Nietzsche says that he who has a “why” to live for can endure any “how.”
The right thing to do when you are in moments of suffering is to stand erect in the suffering. Wait. See what it has to teach you. Understand that your suffering is a task that, if handled correctly, with the help of others, will lead to enlargement, not diminishment.
And then there are moments, maybe more toward middle or old age, when the leopard comes down out of the hills and just sits there in the middle of your doorframe. He stares at you, inescapably. He demands your justification. What good have you served? For what did you come? What sort of person have you become? There are no excuses at that moment. Everybody has to throw off the mask.
When we are well-off we chase the temporary pleasures that actually draw us apart.
egoism.
aesthetic enthusiasm.
“historic impulse,”
political purpose.
The natural tendency is to put oneself at the center of any activity. To ask, How am I doing?
becomes paralyzing if you ask it all the time.
teach you not to be afraid to write badly. Get the first draft out even if it’s awful. Your ego is not at stake.
struggle is the good part.
When making the big choices in life, as L. A. Paul puts it, “You shouldn’t fool yourself—you have no idea what you are getting into.”2
when you are considering quitting your job, apply the 10-10-10 rule. How will this decision feel in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years?
“whether you are writing parking tickets or software or books, than to simply do your work. But only skillful, competent work will do.”
The only proper attitude, I discovered, is, Love your enemies. Treat them as people who are in their own strange way bringing you gifts. Any other attitude—hatred toward them or fear of them—is emotional suicide.
And that’s when it happened. I was sitting in my apartment one day when Jesus Christ floated through the wall, turned my water into wine, and commanded me to come follow him. No, I’m kidding. Nothing like that happened at all.
There is a Muslim saying, Whatever you think God is, He is not that.
gratitude is a soil in which egotism tends not to grow.
A hyper-individualist sees the individual as a self-sufficient unit; the relationalist says, a person is a node in a network, a personality is a movement toward others.
