I May Be Wrong: And Other Wisdoms From Life as a Forest Monk

by Björn Natthiko Lindeblad

A job, what we spend our days doing, has to nourish and stimulate some deeper part of our being. That type of nourishment is rarely derived from success. Rather, it comes from feeling connected to the people you work with, feeling that your work has meaning, that your talents are somehow making a difference.

Directing our attention, choosing what we aim it at, is the best and possibly the only thing we can do when things get really hard.

‘Don’t believe your every thought.’

We don’t choose our thoughts. We don’t control the shape they take. Possibly, we can encourage some more than others, allow them more or less room. But we can’t control what pops into our minds. We can only choose whether or not to believe it.

We all have access to the intelligence of the moment. There’s a finely honed, quiet compass inside each of us. All we have to do is pay attention, because our wisdom isn’t as loud as our ego.

If you want someone to be easy to deal with, to behave in a way you find tolerable, there’s really only one way: learn to like them exactly as they are.