Comparing Ourselves To Others Quotes

We become so absorbed in our flaws and faults that we forget that it is better to be a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. To have flaws is beauty in itself, a fact so frightening that we hurry to hide them from sight and tarnish the whole in the process of comparing ourselves to others.

Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.

Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad. [...] There are patterns of life... Rhythms. It is so easy, while trapped in just the one life, to imagine that times of sadness or tragedy or failure or fear are a result of the particular existence. That it is a by-product of living a certain way, rather than simply living. I mean, it would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunise you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can't have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness for ever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you're in.

While we are threading our way through the vagaries of life, our shortage of reciprocity and solidarity may corner us into breaches of culpability. We can eschew this and kindle a dream of universalism that does not impose itself but emerges from the world's numerous cultural and topical particularities and enable us to compare, discern, and identify, allowing us to marvel at the diversity. In this way, we can embrace universal recognition, human understanding, peace of mind, and compassion with others and with ourselves. ("I only needed a light ")

I think it is easy to imagine there are easier paths,’ she said, realising something for the first time. ‘But maybe there are no easy paths. There are just paths. In one life, I might be married. In another, I might be working in a shop. I might have said yes to this cute guy who asked me out for a coffee. In another I might be researching glaciers in the Arctic Circle. In another, I might be an Olympic swimming champion. Who knows? Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.

Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are.

I am giving you permission to tell the truth about where you are in your process of dismantling your fucked-up schemas. I am not pressuring you to dismantle anything. I am saying let’s be here together, undismantled, and just accept that this is where we are. Let’s love each other right where we are, even as we compare ourselves to one another. I am saying, yes, baby, I know it’s hard.

We become our own opposition when we accept the following: procrastinating, lying to ourselves, comparing ourselves to others, and having self-doubts—in short, anything that gets in the way of our becoming who we were created to be.

We shift from comparing ourselves to others to considering our real needs and desires. We shift from “more” to “enough” and ultimately get more of what money can’t buy. Priceless.

The brain does much more than recollect. It compares, synthesizes, analyzes, generates abstractions. We must figure out much more than our genes can know. That is why the brain library is some ten thousand times larger than the gene library. Our passion for learning, evident in the behaviour of every toddler, is the tool for our survival. Emotions and ritualized behaviour patterns are built deeply into us. They are part of our humanity. But they are not characteristically human. Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behaviour patterns of lizards and baboons. We are, each of us, largerly responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves.

Let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

When we look at other people comparatively and competitively, we're not seeing them as our brothers and sisters. We're not loving them more than we love ourselves, and we we're definitely not seeing them as God sees them.

As women in today's society, we are encouraged to compare ourselves to other women when what we need to do is focus on our own strengths, our own capabilities, our own beauty.

Elephant, beyond the fact that their size and conformation are aesthetically more suited to the treading of this earth than our angular informity, have an average intelligence comparable to our own. Of course they are less agile and physically less adaptable than ourselves -- nature having developed their bodies in one direction and their brains in another, while human beings, on the other hand, drew from Mr. Darwin's lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it. This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets -- and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other.

There is absolutely no point in comparing ourselves to others. Everyone brings to the world exactly what they are meant to bring, and in doing so touches exactly who they are meant to touch.

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simple to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

Comparison to others also puts you into an energy and frame of lack and scarcity, and it’s also one of the most toxic money blocks when we compare ourselves based on money.

It doesn’t matter whether we can point to other people who seem more traumatized than we are, for there is no comparing suffering. Nor is it appropriate to use our own trauma as a way of placing ourselves above others—“You haven’t suffered like I have”—or as a cudgel to beat back others’ legitimate grievances when we behave destructively. We each carry our wounds in our own way; there is neither sense nor value in gauging them against those of others.

In Buddhist psychology “conceit” has a special meaning: that activity of the mind that compares itself with others. When we think about ourselves as better than, equal to, or worse than someone else, we are giving expression to conceit. This comparing mind is called conceit because all forms of it—whether it is “I’m better than” or “I’m worse than,” or “I’m just the same as”—come from the hallucination that there is a self; they all refer back to a feeling of self, of “I am.

We compare ourselves to others to seek solace, or get more depressed. When in reality, everyone has problems of their own.

I’ve also learned that the more we diminish our own pain, or rank it compared to what others have survived, the less empathic we are to everyone. That when we surrender our own joy to make those in pain feel less alone or to make ourselves feel less guilty or seem more committed, we deplete ourselves of what it takes to feel fully alive and fueled by purpose.

For we are so constituted by nature, that we are ever prone to compare ourselves with others; and our happiness or misery depends very much on the objects and persons around us. On this account, nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a new flight on the wings of fancy, pictures to us a chain of beings of whom we seem the most inferior.

Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.

Often we want to be somewhere other than where we are, to even to be someone other than who we are. We tend to compare ourselves constantly with others and wonder why we are not as rich, as intelligent, as simple, as generous, or as saintly as they are. Such comparisons make us feel guilty, ashamed, or jealous. It is very important to realize that our vocation is hidden in where we are and who we are. We are unique human beings, each with a call to realize in life what nobody else can, and to realize it in the concrete context of the here and now. We will never find our vocations by trying to figure out whether we are better or worse than others. We are good enough to do what we are called to do. Be yourself!

Because loners are born everywhere, we end up living everywhere. We do not, have not, tended to single ourselves out as special, elite, requiring rarefied environments. Too often we have done the opposite; lived where we lived because our jobs were there, or families, or because we'd heard the schools were good there, or that we would love a place with changing seasons. Then, no matter what, we put our noses to the grindstone. We take living there as a fait accompli, a fact. Too often we are miserable somewhere without realizing why. We blame ourselves for not buckling down, settling in, fitting in. The problem is the place, but too often we do not see this, we will not allow ourselves to see this. It's the same old thing: This is a friendly town, so what's your problem? ...To the non-loner, or the self-reproaching loner, the fact of being a loner is not comparable to those other determinants. It is not a matter of life and death, we tell ourselves. It its not a matter of breathing or of execution by stoning. But home is the crucible of living...So how can living not be a matter of life and death?

Happiness too often seems to be less a reflection of our actual happiness and more a reflection of the ways in which we compare ourselves to others.

We fall apart when we look at our fears and inadequacies and compare ourselves to every other runner. But fix your eyes on a God like Jesus, and you will not quit. You will not shrink back. Not from others, and not from yourself. Risk something. Step out and fail. Be the fool. Build a life that needs our God.

God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect. Let me add: God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not. And yet we spend so much time and energy comparing ourselves to others—usually comparing our weaknesses to their strengths. This drives us to create expectations for ourselves that are impossible to meet. As a result, we never celebrate our good efforts because they seem to be less than what someone else does.

It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do. The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?

If you spend time comparing yourself with someone else, the only thing you’re doing is setting yourself up for disappointment and failure. You won’t ever feel good enough. There are seven and half billion people in the world, so chances are that someone will always be “better” than you in some respect. But is that person you? Did she grow up in your family? Did she grow up at the same time you did, share your parents, your siblings, your childhood, your teachers, your friends, your advantages, your disadvantages, your education, your jobs, or . . . ? Of course she didn’t. When we frame things that way, the idea of comparing ourselves to other people seems ridiculous. I compare myself with only one person: me. Am I doing the best I can at my job? Am I being the best wife, the best mother, the best friend, the best human being? How can I keep learning and improving?

We know better than to compare ourselves with others online. We know a Facebook feed, for most, is a glorified highlights reel, a round-up of our best moments, our funniest selves, our greatest champions. We know not to compare our worst with someone else’s best. But

we don’t need to constantly compare ourselves with other people

Why do we need to compare ourselves to others or the images we have of others (who are, after all, also flawed)? What does this do for us? It’s harmful, not helpful.

We can all focus on our chapter of life instead of complaining about, and comparing ourselves with, other people who are enjoying their own chapter of life.

God will not be tolerated. He instructs us to worship and fear Him. In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him. Because we don’t often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that He is worthy to be worshiped and loved. We are to fear Him. The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because He’s God. He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving. As much as we want God to explain himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us. Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation? If God is truly the greatest good on this earth, would He be loving us if He didn’t draw us toward what is best for us (even if that happens to be Himself)? Doesn’t His courting, luring, pushing, calling, and even “threatening” demonstrate His love? If He didn’t do all of that, wouldn’t we accuse Him of being unloving in the end, when all things are revealed? Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live? Do you see evidence of God’s kingdom in your life? Or are you choking it out slowly by spending too much time, energy, money, and thought on the things of this world? Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. Jesus’ call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing. Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. How could we think for even a second that something on this puny little earth compares to the Creator and Sustainer and Savior of it all? True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity. When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You’ll drive for hours to be together, even if it’s only for a short while. You don’t mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You’ll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you’re crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it’s painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together. There is nothing better than giving up everything and stepping into a passionate love relationship with God, the God of the universe who made galaxies, leaves, laughter, and me and you. Do you recognize the foolishness of seeking fulfillment outside of Him? Are you ready and willing to make yourself nothing? To take the very nature of a servant? To be obedient unto death? True love requires sacrifice. What are you doing right now that requires faith? God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. If one person “wastes” away his day by spending hours connecting with God, and the other person believes he is too busy or has better things to do than worship the Creator and Sustainer, who is the crazy one? Am I loving my neighbor and my God by living where I live, by driving what I drive, by talking how I talk?” If I stop pursuing Christ, I am letting our relationship deteriorate. The way we live out our days is the way we will live our lives. What will people say about your life in heaven? Will people speak of God’s work and glory through you? And even more important, how will you answer the King when He says, “What did you do with what I gave you?

Too often we compare our weaknesses with other people’s strengths only to find ourselves coming up short.” We compare our worst to someone else’s best which sets us up to sound like failures. Essentially, we begin lying to ourselves.

I've also learned that the more we diminish our own pain, or rank it compared to what others have survived, the less empathic we are to everyone. That when we surrender our own joy to make those in pain feel less alone or to make ourselves feel less guilty or seem more committed, we deplete ourselves of what it takes to feel fully alive and fueled by purpose.

Despite our human intelligence, we are very much like our friends in the wild; the world we live in is a survival of the fittest. But to this I say, let the fittest survive! Survival is overrated. We’re alive; we die. How long we survive for is of little significance. Our true significance lies not in the endless comparing of ourselves to one another, trying to see who is the fittest, using scales of evaluation and meaning that differ in the heart and mind of every individual; no - it lies in our deeds alone with the time we have.

At work we tend to compare and compete with others, instead of comparing and competing with ourselves. ‘Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful . . . that’s what matters to me.’ —Steve Jobs

True understanding is unattainable without both love and detachment, and we can only learn to view anything with detachment by comparing it with other things which are both like and unlike it. We cannot understand the present without a knowledge of the past, our native land without having spent some time in a foreign country, our mother-tongue without a working knowledge of at least two other languages. Without such knowledge, our love of ourselves at the present moment, of our country, of our language, remains an ignorant idolatry, exemplified by the Frenchman who said: “The great advantage of the French language is that in it the words occur in the order in which one thinks them.” In

As it relates to morality, we typically compare ourselves to others. Stand yourself up next to Hitler, a terrorist, or some sex offender, and all of a sudden, you’re a saint by comparison. But when matched up beside God’s pristine holiness and standards, you and I come up very short.

Studies show that our moods plummet toward anxiety and depression the more we spend time online.1 When we’re busy tweeting and checking our Facebook feeds, we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others rather than listening to and trusting our own inner wisdom. When we zone out to surf the Web, we’re not resting in our spacious awareness, and our bully inner selves sneak in and take over. Unless we train our minds to rest in the present moment, through daily periods of kindhearted mindfulness meditation and active communication with our inner selves, we will become more and more disconnected from our highest Selves.

Nature puts us all in our places. Being made to feel small isn't something we welcome when it's done to us by another person, but to be apprised of our essential nothingness by something so much greater than ourselves is in no sense humiliating. Our egos, exhaustingly aware of every slight they receive and prone relentlessly to compare their advantages with those enjoyed by others, may even be relieved to find themselves finally humbled by forces so much more powerful than any human being could ever muster.

The more we diminish our own pain, or rank it, compared to others have survived, the less empathic we are to everyone. That when we surrender our own joy to make those in pain feel less alone or to make ourselves feel less guilty, or somehow more committed, we deplete ourselves of what it takes to feel fully alive and fueled by purpose. And sometimes when we can't acknowledge the pain of others while experiencing our own joy, we close our eyes, insulate ourselves, pretended that there's nothing we can do to make things better, and opt out of helping others. This ability to opt out of suffering and injustice or pretend everything is okay is the core of privilege...The goal is to get to the place where we can think 'I am aware of what's happening, the part I play, and how I can can make it better, and that doesn't mean I have to deny the joy in my life.

Unfortunately, as women, we are constantly being pressured about being more beautiful, about being thinner, about looking younger, or sexier, or blonder, or more brunette. As women in today's society, we are encouraged to compare ourselves to other women when what we need to do is focus on our own strengths, our own capabilities, our own beauty.

the form of gossip, betrayal, and unwarranted judgment. Women are also more prone than men to compare themselves to one another. We often measure our value and worth by comparing ourselves to another woman’s weight, breast size, complexion, career, talents, financial status, intellect, personal style, marital status, and every other aspect of their lives.

Isn’t it tragic how we women always compare ourselves to one another? Comparing our faults to others’ perfections?

Run your own race. Fear creeps in when we compare ourselves too much with others.

When we look at other people, we are prone to construct our own ideal images of ourselves, which we then detract from and judge. Imagine, for example, a child who never talks back to his parents, excels in both schoolwork and sports, attends a good university, and joins a large company. There are parents who will compare their child to such an image of an ideal child—which is an impossible fiction—and then be filled with complaints and dissatisfaction. They treat the idealized image as one hundred points, and they gradually subtract from that. This is truly a “judgment” way of thinking. Instead, the parents could refrain from comparing their child to anyone else, see him for who he actually is, and be glad and grateful for his being there. Instead of taking away points from some idealized image, they could start from zero. And if they do that, they should be able to call out to his existence itself.

We must understand that each one of us is unique in this universe. Hence, it is pointless to compare ourselves with any other person. Just like a cow is not inferior to a dog, since both of them are perfect in themselves, we too are perfect in the way we are. We can make ourselves better and reach higher levels of perfection, but we can’t become like anyone else.

Child prodigies amaze us because we compare them not with other performers who have practiced for the same length of time, but with children of the same age who have not dedicated their lives in the same way. We delude ourselves into thinking they possess miraculous talents because we assess their skills in a context that misses the essential point. We see their little bodies and cute faces and forget that, hidden within their skulls, their brains have been sculpted—and their knowledge deepened—by practice that few people accumulate until well into adulthood, if then. Had the six-year-old Mozart been compared with musicians who had clocked up 3,500 hours of practice, rather than with other children of the same age, he would not have seemed exceptional at all.

We cannot exchange even a fart with another, can we? Each and every one of us has to live out our self. Who’s better looking, who’s smarter: you or I? We don’t need to compare ourselves with others.

But such a life will be higher than mere human nature, because a man will live thus, not in so far as he is man but in so far as there is in him a divine Principle: and in proportion as this Principle excels his composite nature so far does the Working thereof excel that in accordance with any other kind of Excellence: and therefore, if pure Intellect, as compared with human nature, is divine, so too will the life in accordance with it be divine compared with man's ordinary life. [Sidenote: 1178a] Yet must we not give ear to those who bid one as man to mind only man's affairs, or as mortal only mortal things; but, so far as we can, make ourselves like immortals and do all with a view to living in accordance with the highest Principle in us, for small as it may be in bulk yet in power and preciousness it far more excels all the others.

We all see very clearly in others tendencies which we, ourselves, have overcome. The older and wiser we grow, the more we can see the arrogance of youth. The more authentic we become, the more we can see the lies of insecurity. The more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, the more we see the dangerous symptoms of unexpressed emotions. There is no finish line to learning. There is no point where we're done growing, and all we will ever do is look down upon others who are behind us. No one is ever at the top. We are all growing at our own rates, and no matter how terrible or how enlightened we fancy ourselves to be today, the future will be sure to give us a different perspective. There is really no use in comparing yourself to others. There will always be someone ahead and someone behind, and there will be dozens (if not hundreds) of different scales and gradients to be behind and ahead on. To be number one is never final. It is and always will be a momentary, fleeting instant. But to be a growing version of yourself? That, you can be. You can be that every single day.

We all think we understand each other,' Kin heard Silver say. 'We eat together, we trade, many of us pride ourselves on having alien friends - but all this is only possible, only possible, Kin, because we do not fully comprehend the other. You've studied Earth history. Do you think you could understand the workings of of the mind of a Japanese warrior a thousand years ago? But he is as a twin to you compared with Marco, or with myself. When we use the word "cosmopolitan" we use it too lightly - it's flippant, it means we're galactic tourists who communicate in superficialities. We don't comprehend. Different worlds, Kin. Different anvils of gravity and radiation and evolution.

Do people know which risks lead to many deaths and which risks lead to few?” the legal scholar Cass Sunstein asks. “They do not. In fact, they make huge blunders.” Sunstein draws this observation from the work of Paul Slovic, author of The Perception of Risk. In a study that invited people to compare various causes of death, Slovic found that people tended to believe that accidents cause more deaths than disease and that homicide causes more deaths than suicide, when the opposite is true in both cases. In another study, people significantly overestimated the fatality rates of highly publicized or dramatic dangers like cancer or tornadoes. One could interpret this, as Sunstein does, to mean that most people are just wrong about risk. But risk perception may not be about quantifiable risk so much as it is about immeasurable fear. Our fears are informed by history and economics, by social power and stigma, by myths and nightmares. And as with other strongly held beliefs, our fears are dear to us. When we encounter information that contradicts our beliefs, as Slovic found in one of his studies, we tend to doubt the information, not ourselves.

Have patience . . . We are not the masters of our own feelings of attraction or revulsion; these come from places in ourselves over which we have little or no control. All we can do is try not to follow inclinations which make for barriers within the community. We have to hope that the Holy Spirit will come to forgive, purify and trim the rather twisted branches of our being. Our emotional makeup has grown from a thousand fears and egoisms since our infancy, as well as from signs of love and the gift of God. It is a mixture of shadow and light. And so it will not be straightened out in a day, but will take a thousand purifications and pardons, daily efforts and above all a gift of the Holy Spirit which renews us from within. It is a long haul to transform our emotional makeup so that we can really start loving our enemy. We have to be patient with our feelings and fears; we have to be merciful to ourselves. If we are to make the passage to acceptance and love of the other - all the others - we must start very simply, by recognizing our own blocks, jealousies, ways of comparing ourselves to others, prejudices and hatreds. We have to recognize that we are poor creatures, that we are what we are. And we have to ask our Father to forgive and purify us. It is good, then, to speak to a spiritual guide, who perhaps can help us to understand what is happening, strengthen us in our efforts and help us discover God's pardon.

Challenge: we find personal meaning in pursuing a goal that’s difficult but not impossible. Curiosity: we’re intrigued and find pleasure in learning more. Control: we like the feeling of mastery. Fantasy: we play a game; we use our imagination to make an activity more stimulating. Cooperation: we enjoy the satisfaction of working with others. Competition: we feel gratified when we can compare ourselves favorably to others. Recognition: we’re pleased when others recognize our accomplishments and contributions.

It helps to ask ourselves why we choose to play so small when we don’t have to. Belief is powerful, and whatever we believe, we will subconsciously make manifest. So why do we hold on to core beliefs about ourselves that are so demeaning? When we ask that question, the answers emerge: “My family told me it wasn’t okay to think I was a big deal.” “I thought people wouldn’t like me if I ‘had it all.’” “I thought it might hurt my father’s feelings if I made more money than he did.” Yet whatever pain we might experience at others’ negative reactions to our spreading our wings, is nothing compared to the pain we cause ourselves by clipping them. At this time on the planet, no one can feel good about withholding their magnificence. Expressing your full potential is not just your right; it’s your responsibility. As long as you keep thinking in limited terms, disbelieving in the possibility of infinite possibility in your life, then you will never experience the miracles God has in store for you. You will deny His gifts, taking on the ego’s servitude instead. In a world such as this, fear is often the path of least resistance. If you want a miracle, you have to consciously claim it. And for everyone out there who might say, “How dare you?” there are at least two more who will say, “Thank you for showing me how.

No, you don't understand, naturally' said the second swallow. 'First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us...'I tried stopping on one year,' said the third swallow. 'I had grown so fond of the place that when the time came I hung back and let the others go on without me. For a few weeks it was all well enough, but afterwards, O the weary length of the nights! The shivering, sunless days! The air so clammy and chill, and not an insect in an acre of it! No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold, stormy night I took wing, flying well inland on account of the strong easterly gales. It was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great mountains, and I had a stiff fight to win through; but never shall I forget the blissful feeling of the hot sun again on my back as I sped down to the lakes that lay so blue and placid below me, and the taste of my first fat insect. The past was like a bad dream; the future was all happy holiday

Back in Svetlana’s room, we listened to the CDs she had bought—Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion—and made necklaces, periodically holding up the strands and comparing them. Svetlana explained how her necklace was characteristic of her and mine was characteristic of me, and I thought about how probably, as long as civilization had existed, women had been threading beads onto strings or reeds or whatever. Then I wondered whether it had always been women. Maybe in ancient times men had been into beads. Today, though, it was hard to imagine boys sitting around on beanbags, listening to Joni Mitchell, holding necklaces against each other’s necks, and talking about Svetlana’s sister. Some part of me worried that this was why women would never amount to anything, that we were somehow holding ourselves back.

Climate change demands that we consume less, but being consumers is all we know. Climate change is not a problem that can be solved simply by changing what we buy---a hybrid instead of an SUV, some carbon offsets when we get on a plane. At it's core, it is a crisis born of overconsumption by the comparatively wealthy, which means the world's most manic consumers are going to have to consume less so that others can have enough to life. The problem is not "human nature," as we are so often told. We weren't born having to shop this much, and we have, in our recent past, been just as happy (in many cases happier) consuming significantly less. The problem is the inflated role that consumption has come to play in our particular era. Late capitalism teaches us to create ourselves through our consumer choices: shopping is how we form our identities, find community, and express ourselves. Thus, telling people they can't shop as much as they want to because the planet's support systems are overburdened can be understood as a personal attack, asking to telling them they cannot truly be themselves. This is likely why, of environmentalism's original "three Rs" (reduce, reuse, recycle), only the third one has ever gotten any traction, since it allows us to keep on shopping as long as we put the refuse in the right box. The other two, which require that we consume less, were pretty much dead on arrival.

Clarity of vision allows us to have this belief. That’s not to say we’re always going to be 100 percent certain of everything, or that we even should be. Rather, it’s that we can rest assured we’re heading generally in the right direction—that we don’t need to constantly compare ourselves with other people or change our mind every three seconds based on new information. Instead, tranquility and peace are found in identifying our path and in sticking to it: staying the course—making adjustments here and there, naturally—but ignoring the distracting sirens who beckon us to turn toward the rocks.

Self-love, which concerns itself only with ourselves, is content to satisfy our own needs; but selfishness, which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and never can be; for this feeling, which prefers ourselves to others, requires that they should prefer us to themselves, which is impossible.

What interested me in the Vita Activa was that the contrary notion of complete quietness in the Vita Contemplativa was so overwhelming that compared with this stillness all other differences between the various activities in the Vita Activa disappeared. Compared to this quiet, it was no longer important whether you labored and tilled the soil, or worked and produced use-objects, or acted together with others in certain enterprises. Even Marx, in whose work and thought the question of action played such a crucial role, “uses the expression ‘Praxis’ simply in the sense of ‘what man does’ as opposed to ‘what man thinks.’”6 I was, however, aware that one could look at this matter from an altogether different viewpoint, and to indicate my doubts I ended this study of active life with a curious sentence that Cicero ascribed to Cato, who used to say that “never is a man more active than when he does nothing, never is he less alone than when he is by himself’ (Numquam se plus agere quam nihil cum ageret, numquam minus solum esse quam cum solus esset).7 Assuming Cato was right, the questions are obvious: What are we “doing” when we do nothing but think? Where are we when we, normally always surrounded by our fellow-men, are together with no one but ourselves?

But this kind of motivation never lasts. Guilt produces a dramatic, knee-jerk reaction, but the human spirit has mechanisms for getting beyond guilt. We assuage it by comparing ourselves positively with others. We rationalize our indulgences. We numb ourselves to others’ pain. “Smacking” us with guilt never produces sustained generosity.

Here are some key attributes of the voice in my head. I suspect they will sound familiar. • It’s often fixated on the past and future, at the expense of whatever is happening right now. The voice loves to plan, plot, and scheme. It’s always making lists or rehearsing arguments or drafting tweets. One moment it has you fantasizing about some halcyon past or Elysian future. Another moment you’re ruing old mistakes or catastrophizing about some not-yet-arrived events. As Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “Some of the worst things in my life never even happened.” • The voice is insatiable. The default mental condition for too many human beings is dissatisfaction. Under the sway of the ego, nothing is good enough. We’re always on the hunt for the next dopamine hit. We hurl ourselves headlong from one cookie, one promotion, one party to the next, and yet a great many of us are never fully sated. How many meals, movies, and vacations have you enjoyed? And are you done yet? Of course not. • The voice is unrelievedly self-involved. We are all the stars of our own movies, whether we cast ourselves as hero, victim, black hat, or all three. True, we can get temporarily sucked into other people’s stories, but often as a means of comparing ourselves to them. Everything ultimately gets subordinated to the one plotline that matters: the Story of Me.

Against Hume, Kant has found a more proper ground for humility: “True humility follows unavoidably from our sincere and exact comparison of ourselves with the moral law” . The proper way to come to terms with our limits is not to compare ourselves with others but to hold ourselves accountable to those rational moral standards we know to be most properly our own.

If you now ask me if there is any difference between the human sense of fairness and that of chimpanzees, I really don’t know anymore. There are probably a few differences left, but by and large both species actively seek to equalize outcomes. The great step up compared with the first-order fairness of monkeys, dogs, crows, parrots, and a few other species is that we hominids are better at predicting the future. Humans and apes realize that keeping everything for themselves will create bad feelings. So second-order fairness can be explained from a purely utilitarian perspective. We are fair not because we love each other or are so nice but because we need to keep cooperation flowing. It’s our way of retaining everyone on the team.

Bohm believes the same is true at our own level of existence. Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy, it is a ripple on its surface, a comparatively small "pattern of excitation" in the midst of an unimaginably vast ocean. "This excitation pattern is relatively autonomous and gives rise to approximately recurrent, stable and separable projections into a three-dimensional explicate order of manifestation, " states Bohm.1 2 In other words, despite its apparent materiality and enormous size, the universe does not exist in and of itself, but is the stepchild of something far vaster and more ineffable. More than that, it is not even a major production of this vaster something, but is only a passing shadow, a mere hiccup in the greater scheme of things. This infinite sea of energy is not all that is enfolded in the implicate order. Because the implicate order is the foundation that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it also contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be; every configuration of matter, energy, life, and consciousness that is possible, from quasars to the brain of Shakespeare, from the double helix, to the forces that control the sizes and shapes of galaxies. And even this is not all it may contain. Bohm concedes that there is no reason to believe the implicate order is the end of things. There may be other undreamed of orders beyond it, infinite stages of further development.

But the coffeehouse was still the best place to keep up with everything new. In order to understand this, it must be said that the Viennese coffeehouse is a particular institution which is not comparable to any other in the world. As a matter of fact, it is a sort of democratic club to which admission costs the small price of a cup of coffee. Upon payment of this mite every guest can sit for hours on end, discuss, write, play cards, receive his mail, and, above all, can go through an unlimited number of newspapers and magazines. Perhaps nothing has contributed as much to the intellectual mobility and the international orientation of the Austrian as that he could keep abreast of all world events in the coffeehouse, and at the same time discuss them in the circle of his friends. For, thanks to the collectivity of our interests, we followed the orbis pictus of artistic events not with two, but with twenty and forty eyes. What one of us had overlooked was noticed by another, and since in our constant childish, boastful, and almost sporting ambition we wished to outdo each other in our knowledge of the very latest thing, we found ourselves actually in a sort of constant rivalry for the sensational.

The second discipline, that of action, relates to our relationship with other people. Human beings, for Marcus as for the Stoics generally, are social animals, a point he makes often (e.g., 5.16, 8.59, 9.1). All human beings possess not only a share of the logos but also the ability to use it (that is what makes us human and distinguishes us from other animals). But it would perhaps be more accurate to say that we are participants in the logos, which is as much a process as a substance. Marcus himself more than once compares the world ruled by logos to a city in which all human beings are citizens, with all the duties inherent in citizenship. As human beings we are part of nature, and our duty is to accommodate ourselves to its demands and requirements—“to live as nature requires,” as Marcus often puts it. To do this we must make proper use of the logos we have been allotted, and perform as best we can the functions assigned us in the master plan of the larger, cosmic logos, of which it is a part. This requires not merely passive acquiescence in what happens, but active cooperation with the world, with fate and, above all, with other human beings. We were made, Marcus tells us over and over, not for ourselves but for others, and our nature is fundamentally unselfish. In our relationships with others we must work for their collective good, while treating them justly and fairly as individuals.

Obviously we’re not in prison; we’re free to turn off the TV and step away from the smartphone. But to do that is to cut ourselves off. Our need to belong, to be part of our community, makes us vulnerable to the power of our culture’s ideals. Our need to compare ourselves to others, which in turn helps us survive and thrive in a hostile world,32 makes us susceptible to anxiety about every aspect of our selves, from how we look to how much money we make to how many friends we have.

Most people cannot stand being alone for long. They are always seeking groups to belong to, and if one group dissolves, they look for another. We are group animals still, and there is nothing wrong with that. But what is dangerous is not the belonging to a group, or groups, but not understanding the social laws that govern groups and govern us. When we're in a group, we tend to think as that group does: we may even have joined the group to find "like-minded" people. But we also find our thinking changing because we belong to a group. It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissent opinion, as a member of a group. It seems to me that this is something we have all experienced - something we take for granted, may never have thought about. But a great deal of experiment has gone on among psychologists and sociologists on this very theme. If I describe an experiment or two, then anyone listening who may be a sociologist or psychologist will groan, oh God not again - for they have heard of these classic experiments far too often. My guess is that the rest of the people will never have had these ideas presented to them. If my guess is true, then it aptly illustrates general thesis, and the general idea behind these essays, that we (the human race) are now in possession of a great deal of hard information about ourselves, but we do not use it to improve our institutions and therefore our lives. A typical test, or experiment, on this theme goes like this. A group of people are taken into the researcher's confidence. A minority of one or two are left in the dark. Some situation demanding measurement or assessment is chosen. For instance, comparing lengths of wood that differ only a little from each other, but enough to be perceptible, or shapes that are almost the same size. The majority in the group - according to instruction- will assert stubbornly that these two shapes or lengths are the same length, or size, while the solitary individual, or the couple, who have not been so instructed will assert that the pieces of wood or whatever are different. But the majority will continue to insist - speaking metaphorically - that black is white, and after a period of exasperation, irritation, even anger, certainly incomprehension, the minority will fall into line. Not always but nearly always. There are indeed glorious individualists who stubbornly insist on telling the truth as they see it, but most give in to the majority opinion, obey the atmosphere. When put as baldly, as unflatteringly, as this, reactions tend to be incredulous: "I certainly wouldn't give in, I speak my mind..." But would you? People who have experienced a lot of groups, who perhaps have observed their own behaviour, may agree that the hardest thing in the world is to stand out against one's group, a group of one's peers. Many agree that among our most shameful memories is this, how often we said black was white because other people were saying it. In other words, we know that this is true of human behaviour, but how do we know it? It is one thing to admit it in a vague uncomfortable sort of way (which probably includes the hope that one will never again be in such a testing situation) but quite another to make that cool step into a kind of objectivity, where one may say, "Right, if that's what human beings are like, myself included, then let's admit it, examine and organize our attitudes accordingly.

It means, first, that everything that appears in public can be seen and heard by everybody and has the widest possible publicity. For us, appearance—something that is being seen and heard by others as well as by ourselves—constitutes reality. Compared with the reality which comes from being seen and heard, even the greatest forces of intimate life—the passions of the heart, the thoughts of the mind, the delights of the senses—lead an uncertain, shadowy kind of existence unless and until they are transformed, deprivatized and deindividualized, as it were, into a shape to fit them for public appearance.41 The most current of such transformations occurs in storytelling and generally in artistic transposition of individual experiences. But we do not need the form of the artist to witness this transfiguration. Each time we talk about things that can be experienced only in privacy or intimacy, we bring them out into a sphere where they will assume a kind of reality which, their intensity notwithstanding, they never could have had before.

The differences between religions are reflected very clearly in the different forms of sacred art: compared with Gothic art, above all in its “flamboyant” style, Islamic art is contemplative rather than volitive: it is “intellectual” and not “dramatic”, and it opposes the cold beauty of geometrical design to the mystical heroism of cathedrals. Islam is the perspective of “omnipresence” (“God is everywhere”), which coincides with that of “simultaneity” (“Truth has always been”); it aims at avoiding any “particularization” or “condensation”, any “unique fact” in time and space, although as a religion it necessarily includes an aspect of “unique fact”, without which it would be ineffective or even absurd. In other words Islam aims at what is “everywhere center”, and this is why, symbolically speaking, it replaces the cross with the cube or the woven fabric: it “decentralizes” and “universalizes” to the greatest possible extent, in the realm of art as in that of doctrine; it is opposed to any individualist mode and hence to any “personalist” mysticism. To express ourselves in geometrical terms, we could say that a point which seeks to be unique, and which thus becomes an absolute center, appears to Islam—in art as in theology—as a usurpation of the divine absoluteness and therefore as an “association” (shirk); there is only one single center, God, whence the prohibition against “centralizing” images, especially statues; even the Prophet, the human center of the tradition, has no right to a “Christic uniqueness” and is “decentralized” by the series of other Prophets; the same is true of Islam—or the Koran—which is similarly integrated in a universal “fabric” and a cosmic “rhythm”, having been preceded by other religions—or other “Books”—which it merely restores. The Kaaba, center of the Muslim world, becomes space as soon as one is inside the building: the ritual direction of prayer is then projected toward the four cardinal points. If Christianity is like a central fire, Islam on the contrary resembles a blanket of snow, at once unifying and leveling and having its center everywhere.

NO BEATING UP ON YOURSELF It’s self-love, and a simple trust that we can learn from our mistakes, that allows us to be compassionate rather than ruthless as we try to lift our game, psychologically and spiritually. There’s no merit, it seems to me, in giving ourselves a hard time while struggling to be more generous to others! Self-respect requires that we notice, learn from our mistakes and clean up our messes. It doesn’t require that we beat up on ourselves, compare ourselves to other people or remind ourselves how hopeless we are.

What do you do when your greatest accomplishments lead you straight down the path of an even greater fear? Instead of summoning his faith and standing firm to see the deliverance of his God, Elijah retreats. And in his escape from his geographical surroundings, he begins to back down from the boldness that has characterized his whole ministry up to this point. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. (1 Kings 19:3–5) Now I’m confused. Verse 3 says he was running for his life. Yet verse 4 says he asked God to kill him. Which one is it? Are you looking for life support, Elijah? Or shall God send the angels of euthanasia? One of these things is not like the other. The more I studied this text, though, and considered the context of Elijah’s despair and compared it to similar feelings I’ve experienced under much less duress, the more I got it. Although the text says Elijah ran for his life—and I’m sure that’s how it appeared—it seems like something deeper is going on. In fact, I’m not sure Elijah was running for his life at all, at least not in the sense we would use that phrase. I believe Elijah was actually running from his life. You see, it had been a long, lonely three years for Elijah. Did he survive the drought? Undoubtedly. And through him God won the battle with a unanimous decision. But winning can be as exhausting as losing. Sometimes the pressure of success can drain you at an even deeper level than the frustration of failure. Elijah knows Queen Jezebel doesn’t have the power to call on her gods and end his life. If she had, he’d have been buried beside his bull back on the mountain. So it’s safe to assume that his greatest fear at this point isn’t dying. His greatest fear is living—and having to fight yet another agonizing battle. Jezebel’s threat is ultimately impotent, yes. But that doesn’t make it ineffective. Because fear often finds its power, not in our actual situation, but in what we tell ourselves about our situation.

But it's not your fault. You can't control what other people do. No, but I was responsible for my own actions. At some point we had abandoned responsibility and began fostering corruption in others so that we might shield ourselves from persecution by virtue of a common guilt. We did this in the name of profit, and we justified our crimes with the rationalization that, somewhere down the line, better people would safeguard our victims from us. I wasn't a looter or a moocher. I wasn't a producer either. None of us were. We certainly weren't capitalists. We were pillagers. Decency exists. That alone must make it important; even the great Darwin himself would say that. But we tried to cut decency out of others so as to lower the bar for ourselves. We are relative creatures. The man who teaches his slaves to read is a saint in a world where slavery is legal, and a monster where it isn't. We aren't born knowing if we're good or bad. We decide by comparing ourselves to others - and by that yardstick it's no different to measure by our own successes than our neighbors failures, save that it's easier to corrupt the neighbor.

Sometimes I wonder how much of our suffering we allow or impose on ourselves simply in search of our worthiness to accept our own respect and appreciation. I’d written before some years ago that we often cause suffering in another so that we can then love them, as in, “You have suffered for me, so I can love you now.” The eventual shock of realizing the sacrifice made for you destroys the walls of self-righteousness and protection. The suffering sacrifice of another creates the willingness and capacity to do the same. Finally, love and respect (respect is part of the body of love) come from the recognition of something else already given up for them. Within the individual, you or me, a similar process takes place toward oneself. It is as if we know some- where that we are not worthy of our own love or respect until we have earned the right to it, and that is mainly through some kind of suffering. That suffering may be generic, as in a life lived in which tragedy after tragedy accumulate, or it may be specific, as in the constant sacrifice of other easier things for a being or vision. Or, perhaps more correctly, it is either consciously chosen or not.

Self-love, which concerns itself only with ourselves, is content to satisfy our own needs; but selfishness, which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and never can be; for this feeling, which prefers ourselves to others, requires that they should prefer us to themselves, which is impossible. Thus the tender and gentle passions spring from self-love, while the hateful and angry passions spring from selfishness. So it is the fewness of his needs, the narrow limits within which he can compare himself with others, that makes a man really good; what makes him really bad is a multiplicity of needs and dependence on the opinions of others.

Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was, “I have nothing to expect from life any more.” What sort of answer can one give to that? What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.

Then you understand how we live insecurely when we’re in the box, desperate to show that we’re justified—that we’re thoughtful, for example, or worthy or noble. It can feel pretty overwhelming always having to demonstrate our virtue. In fact, when we’re feeling overwhelmed, it generally isn’t our obligation to others but our in-the-box desperation to prove something about ourselves that we find overwhelming. If you look back on your life, I think you’ll find that that’s the case—you’ve probably felt overwhelmed, over-obligated, and overburdened far more often in the box than out. To begin with, you might compare your night last night with the nights that came before.

We that are bred up in learning, and destinated by our parents to this end, we suffer our childhood in the grammar-school, which Austin calls magnam tyrannidem, et grave malum, and compares it to the torments of martyrdom; when we come to the university, if we live of the college allowance, as Phalaris objected to the Leontines, [Greek: pan ton endeis plaen limou kai phobou] , needy of all things but hunger and fear, or if we be maintained but partly by our parents' cost, do expend in unnecessary maintenance, books and degrees, before we come to any perfection, five hundred pounds, or a thousand marks. If by this price of the expense of time, our bodies and spirits, our substance and patrimonies, we cannot purchase those small rewards, which are ours by law, and the right of inheritance, a poor parsonage, or a vicarage of 50 l. per annum, but we must pay to the patron for the lease of a life (a spent and out-worn life) either in annual pension, or above the rate of a copyhold, and that with the hazard and loss of our souls, by simony and perjury, and the forfeiture of all our spiritual preferments, in esse and posse, both present and to come. What father after a while will be so improvident to bring up his son to his great charge, to this necessary beggary? What Christian will be so irreligious, to bring up his son in that course of life, which by all probability and necessity, coget ad turpia, enforcing to sin, will entangle him in simony and perjury, when as the poet said, Invitatus ad hæc aliquis de ponte negabit: a beggar's brat taken from the bridge where he sits a begging, if he knew the inconvenience, had cause to refuse it." This being thus, have not we fished fair all this while, that are initiate divines, to find no better fruits of our labours, [2030] hoc est cur palles, cur quis non prandeat hoc est? do we macerate ourselves for this? Is it for this we rise so early all the year long? [2031] "Leaping" (as he saith) "out of our beds, when we hear the bell ring, as if we had heard a thunderclap." If this be all the respect, reward and honour we shall have, [2032] frange leves calamos, et scinde Thalia libellos: let us give over our books, and betake ourselves to some other course of life; to what end should we study?

Thus pleasantly conversing on the favorable circumstances of our position as compared with those of past pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at the present day, we soon found ourselves at the foot of the Hill Difficulty. Through the very heart of this rocky mountain a tunnel has been constructed of most admirable architecture, with a lofty arch and a spacious double track; so that, unless the earth and rocks should chance to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the builder's skill and enterprise. It is a great though incidental advantage that the materials from the heart of the Hill Difficulty have been employed in filling up the Valley of Humiliation, thus obviating the necessity of descending into that disagreeable and unwholesome hollow.

Yet God clearly says first and foremost, “Have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Nothing here shall compare to me in your heart. Everything should so pale in comparison to me that it is as if you hated it. With our minutes and days and decades, we build houses and savings accounts and busy calendars full of activity. And in some deeper way, we build our reputations and friendships and invest in our kids and careers. We are looking for this life to matter. No, we are actually looking for ourselves to matter. So we keep so busy, so distracted, so in love with everything but our invisible, patient, jealous God. Christ said, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). This covers literally everything.

A trauma is a place where it becomes impossible to remain connected in and to the present moment. Trauma is a part of the human condition! Healing is also a part of the human condition, and we have the capacity to transform difficult experiences into a wellspring of personal and spiritual power. Trauma occurs when there is a rupture in our boundary system and our capacity to metabolize an experience is compromised. Every single human being on earth has trauma. It's an interruption of our ability to stay in the present moment, anything that lags or is not harmonized on the layers of body/mind/spirit/soul/psyche. Rachael Maddox has called it an" embodied interpersonal violation hangover." Ale Duarte called it "an open loop." Lately, many people have been telling me their stories and then telling me how they are "lucky," that "it's not that bad" compared to other people's situations. All of those statements happen in the mind, and they are largely attempts to keep ourselves from feeling the depth of our pain or sorrow. We may have white privilege, we may have class privilege, we may have had homebirth privilege—the animals of our bodies don't actually understand mental and philosophical constructs like privilege. What those constructs contribute to on an individual healing level is a lot of confusion, shame and guilt, that in spite of everything we "have," we may have still experienced helplessness, hurt, anger, or outrage or collapse, or whatever it is that our system felt. We actually cannot control those responses.

O Petronius, thou hast seen what endurance and comfort that religion gives in misfortune, how much patience and courage before death; so come and see how much happiness it gives in ordinary, common days of life. People thus far did not know a God whom man could love, hence they did not love one another; and from that came their misfortune, for as light comes from the sun, so does happiness come from love....Thou didst say to me that our teaching was an enemy of life; and I answer thee now, that, if from the beginning of this letter I had been repeating only the three words, ‘I am happy!’ I could not have expressed my happiness to thee. To this thou wilt answer, that my happiness is Lygia. True, my friend. Because I love her immortal soul, and because we both love each other in Christ; for such love there is no separation, no deceit, no change, no old age, no death. For, when youth and beauty pass, when our bodies wither and death comes, love will remain, for the spirit remains. Before my eyes were open to the light I was ready to burn my own house even, for Lygia’s sake; but now I tell thee that I did not love her, for it was Christ who first taught me to love. In Him is the source of peace and happiness. It is not I who say this, but reality itself. Compare thy own luxury, my friend, lined with alarm, thy delights, not sure of a morrow, thy orgies, with the lives of Christians, and thou wilt find a ready answer. But, to compare better, come to our mountains with the odor of thyme, to our shady olive groves on our shores lined with ivy. A peace is waiting for thee, such as thou hast not known for a long time, and hearts that love thee sincerely. Thou, having a noble soul and a good one, shouldst be happy. Thy quick mind can recognize the truth, and knowing it thou wilt love it. To be its enemy, like Cæsar and Tigellinus, is possible, but indifferent to it no one can be. O my Petronius, Lygia and I are comforting ourselves with the hope of seeing thee soon. Be well, be happy, and come to us.

The primatologist Thelma Rowell conducted a study of feral sheep that she specifically designed to challenge the prejudices and assumptions about intelligence and social complexity embodied by comparative psychology’s preference for studying animals most like ourselves: that is, other primates. Sheep were chosen as an alternative because they ‘are popularly taken as the very paradigm of both gregariousness and silliness’, and the study concluded that, at least when they are allowed to flock naturally, sheep display forms of emotional and social intelligence equal to or exceeding those of primates. These include ‘an elaborate communicative repertoire and an interactive set of rules for using it’; ‘long-term relationships which can carry over periods in which they are not evident’; and techniques for ‘assessing and attempting to modify interactions between other sheep’, including combinations of behaviours ‘akin to reconciliation’. Moreover, ‘their ability to lead and to respond to leadership exceeds anything that has been reported for a primate.

SELF-RELIANCE Self-reliance is not only the belief that you can handle things and become successful; it is something more than that. It is having the courage to listen to your inner promptings for a hint of the kind of success you truly desire. It means taking your cue from yourself—not listening to something or someone outside yourself to get an idea of what you should be, do, or have. When we learn to read the “signs” correctly and follow our intuition, we can begin to trust ourselves and not follow the beat of someone else’s drum. RECOGNIZING AND BREAKING THE DEPENDENCY HABIT Dependency is slavery by mutual agreement. It is degrading for both the person who is dependent and the person who is being depended upon. Both parties are equally lacking in self-reliance, for such a relationship flourishes on mutual exploitation. The most unfortunate aspect of dependency is that when you think you are dependent on another individual—you are! You neglect to develop the necessary self-reliance to meet and solve your own problems. A sure sign of dependency is when you habitually look up to others as superior. The moment you begin to compare yourself

We are all permeable to the influence of the group. What makes us more permeable is our insecurities. The less we are certain about our self-worth as individuals, the more we are unconsciously drawn toward fitting in and blending ourselves into the group spirit. Gaining the superficial approval of group members by displaying our conformity, we cover up our insecurities to ourselves and to others. But this approval is fleeting; our insecurities gnaw at us, and we must continually get people’s attention to feel validated. Your goal must be to lower your permeability by raising your self-esteem. If you feel strong and confident about what makes you unique—your tastes, your values, your own experience—you can more easily resist the group effect. Furthermore, by relying upon your work and accomplishments to anchor your self-opinion, you won’t be so tied to constantly seeking approval and attention. It is not that you become self-absorbed or cut off from the group—outwardly you do what you can to fit in, but inwardly you subject the ideas and beliefs of the group to constant scrutiny, comparing them with your own, adapting parts or all of those that have merit and rejecting others that go against your experience. You are putting the focus on the ideas themselves, not on where they come from.

It is unsurprising that social isolation or loneliness have been strongly associated with depression,18 suicide,19 anxiety,20 insomnia,21 fear and the perception of threat.22 It’s more surprising to discover the range of physical illnesses that they can cause or exacerbate. Dementia,23 altered brain function,24 high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes,25 lowered resistance to viruses,26 even accidents,27 are all more common among chronically lonely people. One study suggests that loneliness has a comparable impact on physical health to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.28 The doctrine has also helped to create what some people describe as a spiritual void: when human life is conceived as a series of transactions, when relationships are recast in purely functional terms, when personal gain counts for everything and pro-social values for nothing, the sense of meaning and purpose is sucked from our lives. We find ourselves in a state of alienation, of anomie, an experience of dislocation that extends beyond the more immediate determinants of mental health. Our psychological and economic welfare depends on our connection with others. Of all the fantasies human beings entertain, the idea that we can go it alone is the most absurd, and perhaps the most dangerous. We stand together or we fall apart.

• The trick to staying out of resentment is maintaining better boundaries—blaming others less and holding myself more accountable for asking for what I need and want. • There is no integrity in blaming and turning to “it’s not fair” and “I deserve.” I need to take responsibility for my own well-being. If I believed I was not being treated fairly or not getting something I deserved, was I actually asking for it, or was I just looking for an excuse to assign blame and feel self-righteous? • I am trying not to numb my discomfort for myself, because I think I’m worth the effort. It’s not something that’s happening to me—it’s something I’m choosing for myself. • This rumble taught me why self-righteousness is dangerous. Most of us buy into the myth that it’s a long fall from “I’m better than you” to “I’m not good enough”—but the truth is that these are two sides of the same coin. Both are attacks on our worthiness. We don’t compare when we’re feeling good about ourselves; we look for what’s good in others. When we practice self-compassion, we are compassionate toward others. Self-righteousness is just the armor of self-loathing. In Daring Greatly, I talk about how the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah”—“Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”—capture how daring greatly can feel more like freedom with a little battle fatigue than a full-on celebration. The same is true for rising strong. What

Buxton says that when one partner in a marriage comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, about a third of the couples break up right away, a third break up after about two years, and a third stay married indefinitely.3 We don’t know a whole lot about that last third—the more than 30 percent of mixed-orientation marriages that remain intact. From the research I’ve read, many of them are negotiating open relationships, but few consider themselves polyamorous or identify with or seek out a nonmonogamous community. As a result, they are left out of significant discussions about nonmonogamy. Research and writing on this topic (including Buxton’s) makes a point of distinguishing between partners who come out as gay or lesbian and partners who come out as bisexual. Those are individual identity choices; I am less concerned with how a person identifies and more interested in the relationship between the straight spouse and the nonstraight spouse, because that ultimately determines what style of open relationship will work for them. Some couples remain primary partners and continue to have a sexual relationship, while others end the sexual element of their partnership. In one of Buxton’s studies, the straight husband of a bisexual woman wrote: “I compare my wife and me to a glove with fingers that fit absolutely perfect. It’s the thumb that is just wrong. The more we struggle to make the thumb fit, the worse off we make the fingers. If we free ourselves to adjust the gloves for our thumbs, then the fingers return to their old wonderful fit.”4

It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of illness. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we must differentiate between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is the immediate, short-term body response to threat. Chronic stress is activation of the stress mechanisms over long periods of time when a person is exposed to stressors that cannot be escaped either because she does not recognize them or because she has no control over them. Discharges of nervous system, hormonal output and immune changes constitute the flight-or-fight reactions that help us survive immediate danger. These biological responses are adaptive in the emergencies for which nature designed them. But the same stress responses, triggered chronically and without resolution, produce harm and even permanent damage. Chronically high cortisol levels destroy tissue. Chronically elevated adrenalin levels raise the blood pressure and damage the heart. There is extensive documentation of the inhibiting effect of chronic stress on the immune system. In one study, the activity of immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells were compared in two groups: spousal caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and age- and health-matched controls. NK cells are front-line troops in the fight against infections and against cancer, having the capacity to attack invading micro-organisms and to destroy cells with malignant mutations. The NK cell functioning of the caregivers was significantly suppressed, even in those whose spouses had died as long as three years previously. The caregivers who reported lower levels of social support also showed the greatest depression in immune activity — just as the loneliest medical students had the most impaired immune systems under the stress of examinations. Another study of caregivers assessed the efficacy of immunization against influenza. In this study 80 per cent among the non-stressed control group developed immunity against the virus, but only 20 per cent of the Alzheimer caregivers were able to do so. The stress of unremitting caregiving inhibited the immune system and left people susceptible to influenza. Research has also shown stress-related delays in tissue repair. The wounds of Alzheimer caregivers took an average of nine days longer to heal than those of controls. Higher levels of stress cause higher cortisol output via the HPA axis, and cortisol inhibits the activity of the inflammatory cells involved in wound healing. Dental students had a wound deliberately inflicted on their hard palates while they were facing immunology exams and again during vacation. In all of them the wound healed more quickly in the summer. Under stress, their white blood cells produced less of a substance essential to healing. The oft-observed relationship between stress, impaired immunity and illness has given rise to the concept of “diseases of adaptation,” a phrase of Hans Selye’s. The flight-or-fight response, it is argued, was indispensable in an era when early human beings had to confront a natural world of predators and other dangers. In civilized society, however, the flight-fight reaction is triggered in situations where it is neither necessary nor helpful, since we no longer face the same mortal threats to existence. The body’s physiological stress mechanisms are often triggered inappropriately, leading to disease. There is another way to look at it. The flight-or-fight alarm reaction exists today for the same purpose evolution originally assigned to it: to enable us to survive. What has happened is that we have lost touch with the gut feelings designed to be our warning system. The body mounts a stress response, but the mind is unaware of the threat. We keep ourselves in physiologically stressful situations, with only a dim awareness of distress or no awareness at all.

think at times our situation could be compared to that of Simba in The Lion King. Simba is turned around by a lion in his life—his uncle Scar. Though he was the prince, he ends up running away. He is supposed to fight his evil uncle Scar and take his rightful place as the king, but he backs off from the confrontation. It is not long before he forgets that he was ever a king, a prince or even a lion. His friends offer little help because they are not lions. His identity is lost. The one person who is able to help him is Rafiki. Rafiki’s message to Simba is simple. He explains that Simba does not know who he is anymore, but that his father is alive in him. At first Simba does not believe this is possible. Then his dad appears to him in a vision and tells Simba, “You are MY son, and the one true king.” What an affirmation. As a result, Simba knows what he must do. He knows he must go home and fight the giant before him. He was meant to be the king. Before this though, his father tells him something that has never left me. He tells Simba, “You are more than what you have become.” In the same way, we are more than what we have become. Many of God’s people have forgotten who they are. We have forgotten that we are children of the Living God, and sons and daughters of The King. We fail to see our inheritance, which was provided through the cross. We have settled for a life that was never meant for us. The lions, Goliaths, and foreign armies have been our stopping point. And the lies of the enemy have defined us. There is a greater measure of Christ to be attained as we awaken to the voice of the Father. It is only the voice of the Father that will restore our identity. It will not be found anywhere else. Even Jesus is affirmed by His Father at His baptism: “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Our identity, like Simba’s, must be found in the Father. We are indeed more than what we have become. As we learn from David’s life and the lives of others, let us submit ourselves to the Father. Let us allow Him to re-envision us, so that we hear who we really are. Let us allow God to bring us into a place of worship and trust. In submission to Him, let us become a stone in His hands—a priesthood equipped to do His Will and to establish His kingdom. There is victory in that place!

The biology of potential illness arises early in life. The brain’s stress-response mechanisms are programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so are the implicit, unconscious memories that govern our attitudes and behaviours toward ourselves, others and the world. Cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and the other conditions we examined are not abrupt new developments in adult life, but culminations of lifelong processes. The human interactions and biological imprinting that shaped these processes took place in periods of our life for which we may have no conscious recall. Emotionally unsatisfying child-parent interaction is a theme running through the one hundred or so detailed interviews I conducted for this book. These patients suffer from a broadly disparate range of illnesses, but the common threads in their stories are early loss or early relationships that were profoundly unfulfilling emotionally. Early childhood emotional deprivation in the histories of adults with serious illness is also verified by an impressive number of investigations reported in the medical and psychological literature. In an Italian study, women with genital cancers were reported to have felt less close to their parents than healthy controls. They were also less demonstrative emotionally. A large European study compared 357 cancer patients with 330 controls. The women with cancer were much less likely than controls to recall their childhood homes with positive feelings. As many as 40 per cent of cancer patients had suffered the death of a parent before the age of seventeen—a ratio of parental loss two and a half times as great as had been suffered by the controls. The thirty-year follow-up of Johns Hopkins medical students was previously quoted. Those graduates whose initial interviews in medical school had revealed lower than normal childhood closeness with their parents were particularly at risk. By midlife they were more likely to commit suicide or develop mental illness, or to suffer from high blood pressure, coronary heart disease or cancer. In a similar study, Harvard undergraduates were interviewed about their perception of parental caring. Thirty-five years later these subjects’ health status was reviewed. By midlife only a quarter of the students who had reported highly positive perceptions of parental caring were sick. By comparison, almost 90 per cent of those who regarded their parental emotional nurturing negatively were ill. “Simple and straightforward ratings of feelings of being loved are significantly related to health status,” the researchers concluded.

This is what sin does to us all. At a deep and often unnoticed level, sin replaces worship of God with worship of self. It replaces submission with self-rule. It replaces gratitude with demands for more. It replaces faith with self-reliance. It replaces vertical joy with horizontal envy. It replaces a rest in God’s sovereignty with a quest for personal control. We live for our glory. We set up our rules. We ask others to serve our agenda. We curse whatever gets in our way. We hate having to wait. We get upset when we have to go without. We strike back when we think we have been wronged. We do all we can to satisfy our cravings. We think too much about our own pleasure. We envy those who have what we think we deserve. We pout when we think we have been overlooked. We hate suffering of any kind. We manipulate others for our own good. We attempt to work ourselves into positions of power and control. We are obsessed about what is best for us. We demand more than we serve, and we take more than we give. We long to be first and hate being last. We are all too concerned with being right, being noticed, and being affirmed. We find it easier to judge those who have offended us than to forgive them. We require life to be predictable, satisfying, and easy. We do all these things because we are full of ourselves, in awe more of ourselves than of God. This is what Paul is talking about when he writes that Christ “died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves” (2 Cor. 5:15). Here we see the great replacement again. It is what sin does to us all; no longer living for God, we live for ourselves. The myriad of dysfunctions of the human community can be traced to this one thing: awe. When we replace vertical awe of God with awe of self, bad things happen in the horizontal community. You see it played out in a thousand ways every day. If you listen, you will discover that the universal language of sinners in this broken world is complaint. When you’re at the center, when you feel entitled, when your desires dominate your heart, and when it really is all about you, you will have much to complain about. It is amazing how much more natural complaint is for us than thanks or how much more we tend to grumble than we tend to praise. We talk much more about what we want than about what we have been given. Notice how much we compare what we have to what others have and how little of the time we are satisfied. Listen to people very long, and you’ll hear the drone of complaint far more frequently than you’ll hear the melody of thankfulness. You see, we don’t first have a grumbling problem. No, we have an awe problem that results in a life of personal dissatisfaction and complaint. When awe of self replaces awe of God, praise will be rare and grumbling plentiful.

55. We should, therefore, have a guardian, as it were, to pluck us continually by the ear and dispel rumours and protest against popular enthusiasms. For you are mistaken if you suppose that our faults are inborn in us; they have come from without, have been heaped upon us. Hence, by receiving frequent admonitions, we can reject the opinions which din about our ears. 56. Nature does not ally us with any vice; she produced us in health and freedom. She put before our eyes no object which might stir in us the itch of greed. She placed gold and silver beneath our feet, and bade those feet stamp down and crush everything that causes us to be stamped down and crushed. Nature elevated our gaze towards the sky and willed that we should look upward to behold her glorious and wonderful works. She gave us the rising and the setting sun, the whirling course of the on-rushing world which discloses the things of earth by day and the heavenly bodies by night, the movements of the stars, which are slow if you compare them with the universe, but most rapid if you reflect on the size of the orbits which they describe with unslackened speed; she showed us the successive eclipses of sun and moon, and other phenomena, wonderful because they occur regularly or because, through sudden causes they help into view – such as nightly trails of fire, or flashes in the open heavens unaccompanied by stroke or sound of thunder, or columns and beams and the various phenomena of flames. 57. She ordained that all these bodies should proceed above our heads; but gold and silver, with the iron which, because of the gold and silver, never brings peace, she has hidden away, as if they were dangerous things to trust to our keeping. It is we ourselves that have dragged them into the light of day to the end that we might fight over them; it is we ourselves who, tearing away the superincumbent earth, have dug out the causes and tools of our own destruction; it is we ourselves who have attributed our own misdeeds to Fortune, and do not blush to regard as the loftiest objects those which once lay in the depths of earth. 58. Do you wish to know how false is the gleam that has deceived your eyes? There is really nothing fouler or more involved in darkness than these things of earth, sunk and covered for so long a time in the mud where they belong. Of course they are foul; they have been hauled out through a long and murky mine-shaft. There is nothing uglier than these metals during the process of refinement and separation from the ore. Furthermore, watch the very workmen who must handle and sift the barren grade of dirt, the sort which comes from the bottom; see how soot-besmeared they are! 59. And yet the stuff they handle soils the soul more than the body, and there is more foulness in the owner than in the workman.

There are two fundamentally different ways for the strong to bend down to the weak, for the rich to help the poor, for the more perfect life to help the “less perfect.” This action can be motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one’s own life and existence. All this unites into the clear awareness that one is rich enough to share one’s being and possessions. Love, sacrifice, help, the descent to the small and the weak, here spring from a spontaneous overflow of force, accompanied by bliss and deep inner calm. Compared to this natural readiness for love and sacrifice, all specific “egoism,” the concern for oneself and one’s interest, and even the instinct of “self-preservation” are signs of a blocked and weakened life. Life is essentially expansion, development, growth in plenitude, and not “self-preservation,” as a false doctrine has it. Development, expansion, and growth are not epiphenomena of mere preservative forces and cannot be reduced to the preservation of the “better adapted.” ... There is a form of sacrifice which is a free renunciation of one’s own vital abundance, a beautiful and natural overflow of one’s forces. Every living being has a natural instinct of sympathy for other living beings, which increases with their proximity and similarity to himself. Thus we sacrifice ourselves for beings with whom we feel united and solidary, in contrast to everything “dead.” This sacrificial impulse is by no means a later acquisition of life, derived from originally egoistic urges. It is an original component of life and precedes all those particular “aims” and “goals” which calculation, intelligence, and reflection impose upon it later. We have an urge to sacrifice before we ever know why, for what, and for whom! Jesus’ view of nature and life, which sometimes shines through his speeches and parables in fragments and hidden allusions, shows quite clearly that he understood this fact. When he tells us not to worry about eating and drinking, it is not because he is indifferent to life and its preservation, but because he sees also a vital weakness in all “worrying” about the next day, in all concentration on one’s own physical well-being. ... all voluntary concentration on one’s own bodily wellbeing, all worry and anxiety, hampers rather than furthers the creative force which instinctively and beneficently governs all life. ... This kind of indifference to the external means of life (food, clothing, etc.) is not a sign of indifference to life and its value, but rather of a profound and secret confidence in life’s own vigor and of an inner security from the mechanical accidents which may befall it. A gay, light, bold, knightly indifference to external circumstances, drawn from the depth of life itself—that is the feeling which inspires these words! Egoism and fear of death are signs of a declining, sick, and broken life. ... This attitude is completely different from that of recent modern realism in art and literature, the exposure of social misery, the description of little people, the wallowing in the morbid—a typical ressentiment phenomenon. Those people saw something bug-like in everything that lives, whereas Francis sees the holiness of “life” even in a bug.