How To Be Positive Everyday Quotes

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Your happiness is affected by 1) your outlook, that is, how you choose to view the events and circumstances of your everyday life; 2) specific actions with positive impact—things like writing down three things your grateful for, or sending appreciative emails, doing random acts of kindness, practicing forgiveness, meditating, and exercising; and 3) where you put your time and energy, and especially investing more time into important relationships and personally meaningful pursuits.
Jeff Olson (The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness)
We are not at the bargaining table in agreement to end abuse to our world. We are on the battlefield deciding everyday if we will let this world die or live, by how we contribute to its treatment.
Shannon L. Alder
Negative energy can be a positive motivating force devoid human emo-tion, isolation, and extinction.” “Be careful of the company that you keep, for everyone who smiles in your face is not your friend.” (Thought or Idea) ….. “That’s how the game is told, and that’s how the game is sold.” “For every action there is a reaction, however for every action there is also completely separate action that negates the first action.” “Life’s journey deals you friends in both high places ( + ), and low places ( - ), one can always mate the other.” “Every ending in one’s Life Series, constitutes a beginning De novo, al-ways every time.” “It’s not about your past, it’s about your future …… everyday.
T'adaram Alasadro Maradas
the phenomenology of enjoyment has eight major components. When people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following. First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
Don't practice to just win a match or competition instead practice winning everyday and this is how you will excel in your life.
Bhawna Dehariya
Too many children live with the feeling that they are not accepted for who they are, that, somehow, they are “disappointing” their parents or not meeting their expectations, that they don’t “measure up.” How many parents spend their time focusing on the ways in which their child is “too this” or “too that,” or “not enough of this or that”? A great deal of unnecessary pain and grief is caused by this withholding, judging behavior on the part of parents. When has parental disapproval, in the form of shaming, humiliating, or withholding, ever been a positive influence on a child’s behavior? It might result in obedience; but at what cost to the child, and to the adult that child becomes?
Myla Kabat-Zinn (Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting)
At some point, sisters began to talk about how unseen they have felt. How the media has focused on men, but it has been them - the sisters - who were there. They were there, in overwhelming numbers, just as they were during the civil rights movement. Women - all women, trans women - are roughly 80% of the people who were staring down the terror of Ferguson, saying “we are the caretakers of this community”. Is it women who are out there, often with their children, calling for an end to police violence, saying “we have a right to raise our children without fear”. But it is not women’s courage that is showcased in the media. One sister says “when the police move in we do not run, we stay. And for this, we deserve recognition”. Their words will live with us, will live in us, as Ferguson begins to unfold and as the national attention begins to really focus on what Alicia, Opal and I have started. The first time there’s coverage of Black Lives Matter in a way that is positive is on the Melissa Harris-Perry show. She does not invite us - it isn’t intentional, I’m certain of that. And about a year later she does, but in this early moment, and despite the overwhelming knowledge of the people on the ground who are talking about what Alicia, Opal and I have done, and despite of it being part of the historical record, that it is always women who do the work even as men get the praise. It takes a long time for us to occur to most reporters and the mainstream. Living in patriarchy means that the default inclination is to center men and their voices, not women and their work. The fact seems ever more exacerbated in our day and age, when presence on twitter, when the number of followers one has, can supplant the everyday and heralded work of those who, by virtue of that work, may not have time to tweet constantly or sharpen and hone their personal brand so that it is an easily sellable commodity. Like the women who organized, strategized, marched, cooked, typed up and did the work to ensure the civil rights movement; women whose names go unspoken, unknown, so too that this dynamic unfolds as the nation began to realize that we were a movement. Opal, Alicia and I never wanted or needed to be the center of anything. We were purposeful about decentralizing our role in the work, but neither did we want, nor deserved, to be erased.
Patrisse Khan-Cullors (When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir)
Stress in the mind has an effect on the body because it causes us to physically be in a “survival mode.” This can cause serious physical problems over time because we were not designed to function in fight or flight mode on an everyday basis.
Ian Tuhovsky (Meditation: Beginner's Guide: How to Meditate (As An Ordinary Person!) to Relieve Stress, Keep Calm and be Successful (Positive Psychology Coaching Series Book 4))
But how enjoyable an activity is depends ultimately on its complexity. The small automatic games woven into the fabric of everyday life help reduce boredom, but add little to the positive quality of experience. For that one needs to face more demanding challenges, and use higher-level skills.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
Psychologists Julie and John Gottman have studied conflict in some three thousand married couples over the years, and they’ve found that the couples most capable of keeping conflict healthy were the ones whose everyday positive interactions exceeded the negative by a ratio of 5 to 1. This is the “magic ratio,
Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
They are almost like mentally challenged children who go on playing with teddy bears even as they age. Your teddy bears can change their shape: somebody’s teddy bear is money and somebody’s teddy bears are women, and somebody’s teddy bears are men. But whatever you are doing—and you are feeling very happy that money is accumulating, that you have found a new girlfriend, that you are promoted to a higher position—you are utterly happy. Unless you are stupid it is not possible. A man of intelligence will be able to see without fail that all these small things of life are preventing you from the beyond. They keep you engaged here, which is not your home. They keep you engaged in a life which is going to end up in a graveyard.
Osho (Mindfulness in the Modern World: How Do I Make Meditation Part of Everyday Life? (Osho Life Essentials))
The impact we have on others and the world around us is our legacy. For better or for worse, each of us affects our community and the planet we live on, even through the actions of our everyday lives. If we want our impact to be a positive one, we need to remember that what we do matters - but how we do it, the joy we bring to it, and how it aligns with our best selves, also matters.
Joe Kelly (The Gandhiana Jones Project: An 8-Week Course in Becoming the Change You Want to See in the World)
Power is a very dangerous aphrodisiac to the ego; many people are deeply attracted to power. Even in our ordinary everyday world, issues of power arise. If you lead a company or you’re a manager, you’re exercising power over people’s lives; they have to fit in with the structure and power dynamics that were put in place by the people above them. Power at any level, whether its an intrinsic power or a relative power due to your position in the world, can really bring to light and activate desire, because power begets the desire for more power. In every esoteric spiritual tradition there are grave warnings about indulging in these kinds of powers and seeking out the psychic abilities that may come with awakening. The usual counsel is neither to push away or deny these powers, nor to grasp or desire or indulge in them. In Jesus’ case, what we get through the story is a vital reflection of what it means to use power wisely. Jesus is a man of great authority, great inner power, and great charisma, and people are deeply attracted to him, whether for healing or spiritual transformation or simply to be in his presence. In example after example, he wields this power with wisdom and love. Throughout the Gospels we see how Jesus utilizes power, when he utilizes it and when he pulls back and leaves things as they are. He’s a master of the wise use of power.
Adyashanti (Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic)
Every choice in life is a battle between two wolves inside us. One represents anger, envy, greed, fear, lies, insecurity, and ego. The other represents peace, love, compassion, kindness, humility, and positivity. They are competing for supremacy.’ “ ‘Which wolf wins?’ the grandson asks. ‘The one you feed,’ the elder replies.” “But how do we feed them?” I asked my teacher. The monk said, “By what we read and hear. By who we spend time with. By what we do with our time. By where we focus our energy and attention.
Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Everyday)
Social class positioning influences all aspects of everyday interaction – how to talk, if to talk and when, whom to trust, whether or not to plan or risk, what can or cannot be done, how to belong, and who to be. Of course, how people respond to these social interactions depends on how social class intersects with the meanings and practices associated with other significant sociocultural categories (gender, race, ethnicity, age, cohort, religion, geography, sexual orientation) that also influence psychological tendencies.
Susan T. Fiske (Facing Social Class: How Societal Rank Influences Interaction)
The institutionalized practices of excluding women from the ideological work of society are the reason we have a history constructed largely from the perspective of men, and largely about men. This is why we have so few women poets and why the records of those who survived the hazards of attempting poetry are so imperfect.40 This is why we know so little of women visionaries, thinkers, and political organizers.41 This is why we have an anthropology that tells us about other societies from the perspective of men and hence has so distorted the cross-cultural record that it may now be impossible to learn what we might have known about how women lived in other forms of society. This is why we have a sociology that is written from the perspective of positions in a male-dominated ruling class and is set up in terms of the relevances of the institutional power structures that constitute those positions.42 This is why in English literature there is a corner called “women in literature” or “women novelists” and an overall critical approach to literature that assumes it is written by men and perhaps even largely for men. This is why the assumptions of psychological research43 and of educational research and philosophy take for granted male experience, orientation, and concerns and treat as normative masculine modes of being.
Dorothy E. Smith (The Everyday World As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology (New England Series On Feminist Theory))
This book deals with four ultimate concerns: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. The individual's confrontation with each of these facts of life constitutes the content of the existential dynamic conflict. Death. The most obvious, the most easily apprehended ultimate concern is death. We exist now, but one day we shall cease to be. Death will come, and there is no escape from it. It is a terrible truth, and we respond to it with mortal terror. "Everything," in Spinoza's words, "endeavors to persist in its own being";3 and a core existential conflict is the tension between the awareness of the inevitability of death and the wish to continue to be. Freedom. Another ultimate concern, a far less accessible one, is freedom. Ordinarily we think of freedom as an unequivocally positive concept. Throughout recorded history has not the human being yearned and striven for freedom? Yet freedom viewed from the perspective of ultimate ground is riveted to dread. In its existential sense "freedom" refers to the absence of external structure. Contrary to everyday experience, the human being does not enter (and leave) a well-structured universe that has an inherent design. Rather, the individual is entirely responsible for-that is, is the author of-his or her own world, life design, choices, and actions. "Freedom" in this sense, has a terrifying implication: it means that beneath us there is no ground-nothing, a void, an abyss. A key existential dynamic, then, is the clash between' our confrontation with groundlessness and our wish for ground and structure. Existential Isolation. A third ultimate concern is isolation-not interpersonal isolation with its attendant loneliness, or intrapersonal isolation (isolation from parts of oneself), but a fundamental isolation-an isolation both from creatures and from world-which cuts beneath other isolation. No matter how close each of us becomes to another, there remains a final, unbridgeable gap; each of us enters existence alone and must depart from it alone. The existential conflict is thus the tension between our awareness of our absolute isolation and our wish for contact, for protection, our wish to be part of a larger whole. Meaninglessness. A fourth ultimate concern or given of existence is meaninglessness. If we must die, if we constitute our own world, if each is ultimately alone in an indifferent universe, then what meaning does life have? Why do we live? How shall we live? If there is no preordained design for us, then each of us must construct' our own meanings in life. Yet can a meaning of one's own creation be sturdy enough to bear one's life? This existential dynamic conflict stems from the dilemma of a meaning-seeking creature who is thrown into a universe that has no meaning.
Irvin D. Yalom (Existential Psychotherapy)
A language that will at last say what we have to say. For our words no longer correspond to the world. When things were whole, we felt confident that our words could express them. But little by little these things have broken apart, shattered, collapsed into chaos. And yet our words have remained the same. They have not adapted themselves to the new reality. Hence, every time we try to speak of what we see, we speak falsely, distorting the very thing we are trying to represent. It's made a mess of everything. But words, as you yourself understand, are capable of change. The problem is how to demonstrate this. That is why I now work with the simplest means possible - so simple that even a child can grasp what I am saying. Consider a word that refers to a thing - "umbrella", for example. When I say the word "umbrella", you see the object in your mind. You see a kind of stick, with collapsible metal spokes on top that form an armature for a waterproof material which, when opened, will protect you from the rain. This last detail is important. Not only is an umbrella a thing, it is a thing that performs a function - in other words, expresses the will of man. When you stop to think of it, every object is similar to the umbrella, in that it serves a function. A pencil is for writing, a shoe is for wearing, a car is for driving. Now, my question is this. What happens when a thing no longer performs its function ? Is it still the thing or has it become something else ? When you rip the cloth off the umbrella, is the umbrella still an umbrella ? You open the spokes, put them over your head, walk out into the rain, and you get drenched. Is it possible to go one calling this object an umbrella ? In general, people do. At the very limit, they will say the umbrella is broken. To me this is a serious error, the source of all our troubles. Because it can no longer perform its function, the umbrella has ceased to be an umbrella. It might resemble an umbrella, it might once have been an umbrella, but now it has changed into something else. The word, however, has remained the same. Therefore, it can no longer express the thing. It is imprecise; it is false; it hides the thing it is supposed to reveal. And if we cannot even name a common, everyday object that we hold in our hands, how can we expect to speak of the things that truly concern us? Unless we can begin to embody the position of change in the words we use, we will continue to be lost.
Paul Auster (City of Glass (The New York Trilogy, #1))
For the next week, every day, listen to the words of your friends or colleagues. Try to hear what others communicate as a need or want. Your goal is to begin to give to others out of things that you already have in your possession. They may just need to borrow something, or you may choose to give them a gift with no strings attached. Listen to statements like this: “I really need _______.” “I could really use a _______.” “I have been wanting to get ______.” Try to think about everyday things in your home that you could give to make a friend’s life easier and your life simpler. Match something you have in your possession with a need of a friend. No strings attached. Just let it go. Give it away. Be generous. Give something larger than usual. You will be amazed how others will respond positively and with surprise. Get a taste of what it feels like to give out of your excess this week.
Jeff Shinabarger (More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity)
Everybody needs a place where they feel protected, secure, and welcome. Everybody yearns for a place where they can relax and be fully themselves. Ideally, the childhood home was one such place. For those of us who felt accepted and loved by our parents, our home provided this warmth. It was a heartwarming place—the very thing that everybody yearns for. And we internalize this feeling from childhood—that of being accepted and welcome—as a fundamental, positive attitude toward life that accompanies us through adulthood: we feel secure in the world and in our own life. We’re self-confident and trusting of others. There’s the notion of basic trust, which is like a home within ourselves, providing us with internal support and protection. Many people, however, associate their childhood with largely negative experiences, some even traumatic. Others had an unhappy childhood, but have repressed those memories. They can barely recall what happened. Then there are those who believe their childhood was “normal” or even “happy,” only to discover, upon closer examination, that they have been deluding themselves. And though people may attempt to repress or, as an adult, downplay childhood experiences of insecurity or rejection, there are moments in everyday life that will reveal how underdeveloped their basic trust remains. They have self-esteem issues and frequently doubt that they are welcome and that their coworkers, romantic partner, boss, or new friend truly likes them. They don’t really like themselves all that much, they have a range of insecurities, and they often struggle in relationships. Unable to develop basic trust, they therefore lack a sense of internal support. Instead, they hope that others will provide them with these feelings of security, protection, stability, and home. They search for home with their partner, their colleagues, in their softball league, or online, only to be disappointed: other people can provide this feeling of home sporadically at best. Those who lack a home on the inside will never find one on the outside. They can’t tell that they’re caught in a trap.
Stefanie Stahl (The Child in You: The Breakthrough Method for Bringing Out Your Authentic Self)
When people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following. First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Classic Work On How To Achieve Happiness: The Psychology of Happiness)
As our studies have suggested, the phenomenology of enjoyment has eight major components. When people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following. First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
As our studies have suggested, the phenomenology of enjoyment has eight major components. When people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following. First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it. We
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
It was too easy! It was much too easy! Five hours had not yet gone by since I had met you. How easy it was! If only you had shown at least a modicum of resistance. Well, how long should you have resisted to satisfy me? Six hours? Seven? Eight? I was being stupid and ridiculous. Your licentiousness would be the same, if you held back for five, fifty, or five hundred hours. Well, why didn’t I have the courage to put an end to this festering triangle? Because of a desire for revenge? Perhaps. But I think there was a different motive. Had it been simply desire for revenge, would it not have been more effective to tear the mask from my face on the spot? But I was afraid. Of course, the behavior of the mask, which was demolishing my calm everyday life, was cruel, but returning to the faceless, enclosed days was even more terrifying. Fear strengthened fear, and like a bird that has lost its feet and is unable to alight upon the ground, I would have to keep endlessly hovering. But that was not the end of it. If I really could not endure the situation, the mask, alive as it was, might well kill you. Your fornication would be difficult to deny, which gave me an alibi. But I did not kill you. Why? I wonder. Because I did not want to lose you? No, precisely not wanting to lose you was reason enough for killing you. It would be senseless to seek rationality in jealousy. Just look at yourself. You who had rejected me so positively, who had rebelled against my face, now lay broken beneath the mask!
Kōbō Abe (The Face of Another)
A common problem plagues people who try to design institutions without accounting for hidden motives. First they identify the key goals that the institution “should” achieve. Then they search for a design that best achieves these goals, given all the constraints that the institution must deal with. This task can be challenging enough, but even when the designers apparently succeed, they’re frequently puzzled and frustrated when others show little interest in adopting their solution. Often this is because they mistook professed motives for real motives, and thus solved the wrong problems. Savvy institution designers must therefore identify both the surface goals to which people give lip service and the hidden goals that people are also trying to achieve. Designers can then search for arrangements that actually achieve the deeper goals while also serving the surface goals—or at least giving the appearance of doing so. Unsurprisingly, this is a much harder design problem. But if we can learn to do it well, our solutions will less often meet the fate of puzzling disinterest. We should take a similar approach when reforming a preexisting institution by first asking ourselves, “What are this institution’s hidden functions, and how important are they?” Take education, for example. We may wish for schools that focus more on teaching than on testing. And yet, some amount of testing is vital to the economy, since employers need to know which workers to hire. So if we tried to cut too much from school’s testing function, we could be blindsided by resistance we don’t understand—because those who resist may not tell us the real reasons for their opposition. It’s only by understanding where the resistance is coming from that we have any hope of overcoming it. Not all hidden institutional functions are worth facilitating, however. Some involve quite wasteful signaling expenditures, and we might be better off if these institutions performed only their official, stated functions. Take medicine, for example. To the extent that we use medical spending to show how much we care (and are cared for), there are very few positive externalities. The caring function is mostly competitive and zero-sum, and—perhaps surprisingly—we could therefore improve collective welfare by taxing extraneous medical spending, or at least refusing to subsidize it. Don’t expect any politician to start pushing for healthcare taxes or cutbacks, of course, because for lawmakers, as for laypeople, the caring signals are what makes medicine so attractive. These kinds of hidden incentives, alongside traditional vested interests, are what often make large institutions so hard to reform. Thus there’s an element of hubris in any reform effort, but at least by taking accurate stock of an institution’s purposes, both overt and covert, we can hope to avoid common mistakes. “The curious task of economics,” wrote Friedrich Hayek, “is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”8
Kevin Simler (The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life)
In one of her most influential studies, she and her team tracked the emotional experiences of nearly two hundred people over years of their lives. The subjects spanned a broad range of backgrounds and ages. (They were from eighteen to ninety-four years old when they entered the study.) At the beginning of the study and then every five years, the subjects were given a beeper to carry around twenty-four hours a day for one week. They were randomly paged thirty-five times over the course of that week and asked to choose from a list all the emotions they were experiencing at that exact moment. If Maslow’s hierarchy was right, then the narrowing of life runs against people’s greatest sources of fulfillment and you would expect people to grow unhappier as they age. But Carstensen’s research found exactly the opposite. The results were unequivocal. Far from growing unhappier, people reported more positive emotions as they aged. They became less prone to anxiety, depression, and anger. They experienced trials, to be sure, and more moments of poignancy—that is, of positive and negative emotion mixed together. But overall, they found living to be a more emotionally satisfying and stable experience as time passed, even as old age narrowed the lives they led. The findings raised a further question. If we shift as we age toward appreciating everyday pleasures and relationships rather than toward achieving, having, and getting, and if we find this more fulfilling, then why do we take so long to do it? Why do we wait until we’re old? The common view was that these lessons are hard to learn. Living is a kind of skill. The calm and wisdom of old age are achieved over time. Carstensen was attracted to a different explanation. What if the change in needs and desires has nothing to do with age per se? Suppose it merely has to do with perspective—your personal sense of how finite your time in this world is. This idea was regarded in scientific circles as somewhat odd. But Carstensen had her own reason for thinking that one’s personal perspective might be centrally important
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
The tyranny of caste is that we are judged on the very things we cannot change: a chemical in the epidermis, the shape of one’s facial features, the signposts on our bodies of gender and ancestry—superficial differences that have nothing to do with who we are inside. The caste system in America is four hundred years old and will not be dismantled by a single law or any one person, no matter how powerful. We have seen in the years since the civil rights era that laws, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, can be weakened if there is not the collective will to maintain them. A caste system persists in part because we, each and every one of us, allow it to exist—in large and small ways, in our everyday actions, in how we elevate or demean, embrace or exclude, on the basis of the meaning attached to people’s physical traits. If enough people buy into the lie of natural hierarchy, then it becomes the truth or is assumed to be. Once awakened, we then have a choice. We can be born to the dominant caste but choose not to dominate. We can be born to a subordinated caste but resist the box others force upon us. And all of us can sharpen our powers of discernment to see past the external and to value the character of a person rather than demean those who are already marginalized or worship those born to false pedestals. We need not bristle when those deemed subordinate break free, but rejoice that here may be one more human being who can add their true strengths to humanity. The goal of this work has not been to resolve all of the problems of a millennia-old phenomenon, but to cast a light onto its history, its consequences, and its presence in our everyday lives and to express hopes for its resolution. A housing inspector does not make the repairs on the building he has examined. It is for the owners, meaning each of us, to correct the ruptures we have inherited. The fact is that the bottom caste, though it bears much of the burden of the hierarchy, did not create the caste system, and the bottom caste alone cannot fix it. The challenge has long been that many in the dominant caste, who are in a better position to fix caste inequity, have often been least likely to want to. Caste is a disease, and none of us is immune. It is as if alcoholism is encoded into the country’s DNA, and can never be declared fully cured. It is like a cancer that goes into remission only to return when the immune system of the body politic is weakened.
Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
Motion in space can proceed in any direction and back again. Motion in time only proceeds in one direction in the everyday world, whatever seems to be going on at the particle level. It’s hard to visualize the four dimensions of spacetime, each at right angles to the other, but we can leave out one dimension and imagine what this strict rule would mean if it applied to one of the three dimensions we are used to. It’s as if we were allowed to move either up or down, either forward or back, but that sideways motion was restricted to shuffling to the left, say. Movement to the right is forbidden. If we made this the central rule in a children’s game, and then told a child to find a way of reaching a prize off to the right-hand side (“backward in time”) it wouldn’t take too long for the child to find a way out of the trap. Simply turn around to face the other way, swapping left for right, and then reach the prize by moving to the left. Alternatively, lie down on the floor so that the prize is in the “up” direction with reference to your head. Now you can move both “up” to grasp the prize and “down” to your original position, before standing up again and returning your personal space orientation to that of the bystanders.* The technique for time travel allowed by relativity theory is very similar. It involves distorting the fabric of space-time so that in a local region of space-time the time axis points in a direction equivalent to one of the three space directions in the undistorted region of space-time. One of the other space directions takes on the role of time, and by swapping space for time such a device would make true time travel, there and back again, possible. American mathematician Frank Tipler has made the calculations that prove such a trick is theoretically possible. Space-time can be distorted by strong gravitational fields,and Tipler’s imaginary time machine is a very massive cylinder, containing as much matter as our sun packed into a volume 100 km long and 10 km in radius, as dense as the nucleus of an atom, rotating twice every millisecond and dragging the fabric of space-time around with it. The surface of the cylinder would be moving at half the speed of light. This isn’t the sort of thing even the maddest of mad inventors is likely to build in his backyard, but the point is that it is allowed by all the laws of physics that we know. There is even an object in the universe that has the mass of our sun, the density of an atomic nucleus, and spins once every 1.5 milliseconds, only three times slower than Tipler’s time machine. This is the so-called “millisecond pulsar,” discovered in 1982. It is highly unlikely that this object is cylindrical—such extreme rotation has surely flattened it into a pancake shape. Even so, there must be some very peculiar distortions of space-time in its vicinity. “Real” time travel may not be impossible, just extremely difficult and very, very unlikely. That thin end of what might be a very large wedge may, however, make the normality of time travel at the quantum level seem a little more acceptable. Both quantum theory and relativity theory permit time travel, of one kind or another. And anything that is acceptable to both those theories, no matter how paradoxical that something may seem, has to be taken seriously. Time travel, indeed, is an integral part of some of the stranger features of the particle world, where you can even get something for nothing, if you are quick about it.
John Gribbin (In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics And Reality)
How to use the law of attraction for successful life of Jack Canfield The Law of Attraction says that you will attract into your life whatever you focus on. Whatever you give your energy and attention to will come back to you. So, if you stay focused on the good and positive things in your life, you will automatically attract more good and positive things into your life. Let Jack Canfield guide us If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have first have to believe what you want is possible and you are capable of making it happen. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to do your dreams? 1. Whatever you focus on, think about, read about, and talk about intensely, you’re going to attract more of into your life. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) 2. If you are clear about your goals and take several steps in the right direction everyday, eventually you will succeed. So decide what it is you want, write it down, review it constantly, and each day do something that moves you toward those goals. —  Jack Canfield Read more on my site 3. Write your goals down in detail and read your list of goals every day. Some goals may entail a list of shorter goals. Losing a lot of weight, for example, should include mini-goals, such as 10-pound milestones. This will keep your subconscious mind focused on what you want step by step. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) 4. If we are not a little bit uncomfortable every day, we’re not growing. All the good stuff is outside our comfort zone. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to believe? 2. Whatever your dream is, look yourself in the mirror and declare that you are indeed going to achieve it – no matter what the price. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to think? Psychologists tell us we think 50,000 thoughts a day…between 1,000 and 5,000 thoughts in a single hour. Many of those thoughts are about ourselves and about our performance, about our lovability, our capability and our significance. So the key is to control those thoughts, making certain they’re always positive. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to choose? 1. I choose to believe things are possible, even when I don't know how they will happen. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) 1. All your dreams await just on the other side of your fears. —  Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements)
Letusmakeyourich
How to use the law of attraction for successful life of Jack Canfield The Law of Attraction says that you will attract into your life whatever you focus on. Whatever you give your energy and attention to will come back to you. So, if you stay focused on the good and positive things in your life, you will automatically attract more good and positive things into your life. Let Jack Canfield guide us If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have first have to believe what you want is possible and you are capable of making it happen. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to do your dreams? 1. Whatever you focus on, think about, read about, and talk about intensely, you’re going to attract more of into your life. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) 2. If you are clear about your goals and take several steps in the right direction everyday, eventually you will succeed. So decide what it is you want, write it down, review it constantly, and each day do something that moves you toward those goals. — Jack Canfield Write your goals down in detail and read your list of goals every day. Some goals may entail a list of shorter goals. Losing a lot of weight, for example, should include mini-goals, such as 10-pound milestones. This will keep your subconscious mind focused on what you want step by step. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) 4. If we are not a little bit uncomfortable every day, we’re not growing. All the good stuff is outside our comfort zone. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to believe? 2. Whatever your dream is, look yourself in the mirror and declare that you are indeed going to achieve it – no matter what the price. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to think? Psychologists tell us we think 50,000 thoughts a day…between 1,000 and 5,000 thoughts in a single hour. Many of those thoughts are about ourselves and about our performance, about our lovability, our capability and our significance. So the key is to control those thoughts, making certain they’re always positive. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) How to choose? 1. I choose to believe things are possible, even when I don't know how they will happen. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements) 1. All your dreams await just on the other side of your fears. — Jack Canfield(Law of Attraction statements)
Letusmakeyourich
Send out love and harmony, put your mind and body in a peaceful place, and then allow the universe to work in the perfect way that it knows how. — Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Louise L. Hay (Everyday Positive Thinking)
Daily news reports of various crimes actually affirm and support the humanistic insistence that humans are essentially good. It is, paradoxically, the fact that we read of horrific things in the news on a daily basis that bolsters an abiding faith in humanity. Indeed, there is no greater evidence for the veracity of humanism than the daily news. How so? Simple: it is because the news reports on what is rare, what is unusual, what is out of the ordinary. That’s why murder and rape are headlines: because they are notable exceptions to otherwise decent, everyday human behavior. If humanity were naturally, intrinsically evil—if people’s default position were bad, immoral, unethical—then the newspaper would look very different. It would be replete with shocking, unbelievable headlines such as: ...“Couple Takes Morning Walk Every Day Around Their Neighborhood Without Incident!” … But we don’t see such headlines, because they are the mundane, all-too-expected stuff of cooperative, communal, daily human life.
Phil Zuckerman
Automatic thoughts occur because the subconscious mind stores information that is meant to protect you. However, it also stores negative associations better than positive ones because it acts as a safety mechanism. Although this is effective from an evolutionary standpoint, it unfortunately perpetuates a lot of anxious and hopeless thoughts. Also keep in mind that since the subconscious mind is programmed through repetition and emotion, the more we perpetuate beliefs, the more deeply ingrained they become over time. So, how do we identify automatic thoughts and the core triggers that created them? Well, the brain is always looking for information to support what it believes. This is called supportive evidence. Supportive evidence is the information that the brain picks out of its environment to reinforce its existing thoughts. In the context of reprogramming your subconscious, this is a negative practice. An example of this may occur if Connor were to go to a work party—remember that he believes that he is fundamentally unworthy of emotional connection. When he walks in, his automatic thoughts include “No one likes me, and no one wants me here.” The brain then begins to look for supportive evidence: Someone frowning in conversation while looking in his direction, to Connor, means that they hate him and want him to leave. With Suneel, supportive evidence may occur when Suneel makes grammatical corrections in the project they’re working on together. To Connor, this may again reinforce that Suneel is trying to undermine him. A powerful aspect of supportive evidence to consider is that it occurs every day and everywhere in our lives. Our mind is constantly looking for supportive evidence of what our subconscious believes. When the subconscious stores fundamentally painful beliefs, they become projected onto our reality everywhere we look. Therefore, it is essential to begin looking for contradictory evidence for our core wounds to reprogram our subconscious and heal our everyday perspectives. Contradictory evidence is information that disproves existing beliefs. Since memory is colored by emotion, finding contradictory evidence in our past and present and pairing it with the emotions associated with that experience allows us to begin reprogramming our subconscious. Essentially, finding proof of the opposite helps to equilibrate our subconscious, and from there, it can be taught new and updated beliefs.
Thais Gibson (Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life)
what is salient about this exchange is how it functions racially and what that means for the white people engaged in it. For my friend and me, this conversation did not increase our awareness of the danger of some specific neighborhood. Rather, the exchange reinforced our fundamental beliefs about black people. Toni Morrison uses the term race talk to capture “the explicit insertion into everyday life of racial signs and symbols that have no meaning other than positioning African Americans into the lowest level of the racial hierarchy.”8 Casual race talk is a key component of white racial framing because it accomplishes the interconnected goals of elevating whites while demeaning people of color; race talk always implies a racial “us” and “them.
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
When children are young, they love to imitate parents, grandparents, and other caregivers. Your toddler will want to push the vacuum cleaner, squirt the bottle of bathroom cleaner, and cook breakfast (with lots of supervision). As your little one grows more capable, you can use these everyday moments of life together to teach her how to become a competent, confident person
Jane Nelsen (Positive Discipline: The First Three Years: From Infant to Toddler--Laying the Foundation for Raising a Capable, Confident Child)
Statement on Generative AI Just like Artificial Intelligence as a whole, on the matter of Generative AI, the world is divided into two camps - one side is the ardent advocate, the other is the outspoken opposition. As for me, I am neither. I don't have a problem with AI generated content, I have a problem when it's rooted in fraud and deception. In fact, AI generated content could open up new horizons of human creativity - but only if practiced with conscience. For example, we could set up a whole new genre of AI generated material in every field of human endeavor. We could have AI generated movies, alongside human movies - we could have AI generated music, alongside human music - we could have AI generated poetry and literature, alongside human poetry and literature - and so on. The possibilities are endless - and all above board. This way we make AI a positive part of human existence, rather than facilitating the obliteration of everything human about human life. This of course brings up a rather existential question - how do we distinguish between AI generated content and human created material? Well, you can't - any more than you can tell the photoshop alterations on billboard models or good CGI effects in sci-fi movies. Therefore, that responsibility must be carried by experts, just like medical problems are handled by healthcare practitioners. Here I have two particular expertise in mind - one precautionary, the other counteractive. Let's talk about the counteractive measure first - this duty falls upon the shoulders of journalists. Every viral content must be source-checked by responsible journalists, and declared publicly as fake, i.e. AI generated, unless recognized otherwise. Littlest of fake content can do great damage to society - therefore - journalists, stand guard! Now comes the precautionary part. Precaution against AI generated content must be borne by the makers of AI, i.e. the developers. No AI model must produce any material without some form of digital signature embedded in them, that effectively makes the distinction between AI generated content and human material mainstream. If developers fail to stand accountable out of their own free will, they must be held accountable legally. On this point, to the nations of the world I say, you can't expect backward governments like our United States to take the first step - where guns get priority over children - therefore, my brave and civilized nations of the world - you gotta set the precedent on holding tech giants accountable - without depending on morally bankrupt democratic imperialists. And remember, the idea is not to ban innovation, but to adapt it with human welfare. All said and done, the final responsibility falls upon just one person, and one person alone - the everyday ordinary consumer. Your mind has no reason to not believe the things you find on the internet, unless you make it a habit to actively question everything - or at least, not accept anything at face value. Remember this. Just because it's viral, doesn't make it true. Just because it's popular, doesn't make it right.
Abhijit Naskar (Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One)
Focus on the positives, look toward the future. Concentrate on where you want to be, how you want to feel, and remind yourself of that every hour of everyday until you believe it. Until you no longer have to repeat it. Know where you are going and only focus on that, stop dwelling on the rest
Leddy Harper (My Biggest Mistake)
Starting today, declare your devotion to remembering the sublime soul, brave warrior and undefeatable creator that your natural wisdom is calling on you to be. The trials of your past have skillfully served to reinvent you into one who is tougher, more aware of the powers that make you special and more grateful for the basic blessings of a life beautifully lived—splendid health, a happy family, a job that fulfils and a hopeful heart. These apparent difficulties have actually been the stepping stones for your current and future victories. The former limits that have shackled you and the “failures” that have hurt you have been necessary for the realization of your mastery. All is unfolding for your benefit. You truly are favored. Oh yes, whether you accept this or not, you are a lion, not a sheep. A leader, never a victim. A person worthy of exceptional accomplishment, uplifting adventure, flawless contentment and the self-respect that, over time, rises steeply into a reservoir of self-love that no one and no thing can ever conquer. You are a mighty force of nature and a dynamic producer, not a slumbering casualty caught flat-footed in a world of degrading mediocrity, dehumanizing complaint, compliance and entitlement. And with steadfast commitment and regular effort, you will evolve into an idealist, an unusual artist and a potent exceptionalist. A genuine world-changer, in your own most honest and excellent way. So be not a cynic, critic and naysayer. For doubters are degenerated dreamers. And average is absolutely unworthy of you. Today, and for each day that follows of your uniquely glorious, brilliantly luminous and most-helpful-to-many life, stand fiercely in the limitless freedom to shape your future, materialize your ambitions and magnify your contributions in high esteem of your dreams, enthusiasms and dedications. Insulate your cheerfulness, polish your prowess and inspire all witnesses fortunate enough to watch your good example of how a great human being can behave. We will watch your growth, applaud your gifts, appreciate your valor and admire your eventual immortality. As you remain within the hearts of many.
Robin Sharma (The Everyday Hero Manifesto: Activate Your Positivity, Maximize Your Productivity, Serve The World)
Maya Angelou once wrote this piece of wisdom: “People may forget what you say and people may forget what you do. But no one will ever forget how you made them feel.
Robin Sharma (The Everyday Hero Manifesto: Activate Your Positivity, Maximize Your Productivity, Serve The World)
We needn’t reduce our thoughts and words to 100 percent sunshine and positivity. But we should challenge ourselves to dig to the root of negativity, to understand its origins in ourselves and those around us, and to be mindful and deliberate in how we manage the energy it absorbs.
Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Everyday)
The silence that surrounds mom rage is filled with fear. This fear gets instilled in us through cultural messaging that tells us motherhood is just the best. And if anyone dare disagree? Shame! We worry if our shameful words hit the air, our monstrousness might be true. So many of us struggling with mom rage don't tell our partners. We are afraid our friends will think badly of us, or they won't relate. We are terrified that if we share how furious we've become since having babies, it will get twisted into "I hate being a mom," which will further twist into "I don't love my children." At the end of the a rage-filled day, we lie in bed curled in a fetal position, sobbing. We think of the softness of our babies' skin, the way our children have a dep knowing that our bodies are nests, and they snuggle in till everything's just right, like a cat turning circles before she settles down. Not loving our children? This couldn't be further from the truth. But the fear that someone might misunderstand takes our breath away. So we retreat - into our beds, our cars, our drinks, our screens, ourselves. We shut the windows. We lock the doors. We don't tell a soul.
Minna Dubin (Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood)
When people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following. First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Classic Work On How To Achieve Happiness: The Psychology of Happiness)
Stoicism ultimately aims to enable anyone to be happy. In Stoicism, happiness – eudaimonia – depends upon three elements: control, responsibility, and virtue.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
The Stoics encourage us to focus on and improve at the things we can control and let go of things we cannot.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
The Stoics require us to assume responsibility for all that transpires within our control, without accusing others. What use is accusing another? Stoicism believes the best in people and that no one consciously acts at the villain of their own tale.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
When we assume responsibility for things and decide to react to them with intelligence and judgment, we become more reasonable and autonomous — liberating us from mental subjugation to other people.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Your daily routine should begin, perhaps counterintuitively, in the evening. Your actions the evening before truly set the foundation for the day ahead.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Not only are there health benefits attached to cold water showering, such as increased circulation, deeper breathing, and being more awake, but it reduces your unnecessary dependence on being comfortable all the time.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Nature has bound us to each other. It has taught us compatibility and mutual love. Hold everything together that is important to co-exist in this world. We all stem from one common source.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Consider everything as if it is happening for the last time. In this way, you will become more focused and appreciate everything in the moment. Particularly be present and attentive when you spend time with people. You never know when they will leave your life. Put the phone away and pay attention. It is not just about hearing, but actually listening to others.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Remember we are all two tragedies away from desperation.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Do not track your good deeds like they can be cashed in at the karmic bank. Each good deed, each time you help, is a single instance of being purely human. Help, but do not expect to get a reward in return.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Arguments drain energy that could otherwise be allocated to beneficial activities. Eliminate distractions from life by avoiding unnecessary ones.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Stoics hold daily court with themselves. Self-examination and reviewing your day will make you a better person day-by-day. You need to sit down and place your case in your court; be the judge and jury to try and ensure not to repeat your mistakes.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
This routine of reviewing will immensely enhance your mindfulness and attention, which is the prerequisite in practicing Stoicism effectively. The awareness of what you are doing each moment is a must if you want to understand why you are doing that and effectively boost yourself. Otherwise, you may fall into dangerous reactivity and lose your path, as you do not know or understand your actions.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Continuously remain kind and forgiving to yourself. Give some self-empathy. You are making an honest effort. That is everything you need to do.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Embrace what is in control, and let it go of what is not. You must know that the outcome is beyond anyone’s control.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Temperance is one of the four classical cardinal virtues. You have many easy events to do it daily; consider every time you sit and eat a chance to practice.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Practicing poverty and living your fears and the worst-case scenarios in your real life are fruitful long-term acts.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Do negative visualization about what can go wrong.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
You cannot control external factors. Stoics focus more on things under their control. Fate is not one of those things. Their emotional and behavioral responses are.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
When we show resentment, we wrongly assume that we had a choice in what happens to us. Accepting the events as they are will bring you freedom and peace.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Fate is not making you suffer personally; you are too small for that. Negative events happen as a part of life and that is inevitable.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Learn to balance the books of your life each day. When you do that and put the finishing touches to your life every day, time will never feel limited.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
In Buddhist texts, one term that is very prominent is maraṇasati – which means ‘remember death can strike at any time.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Adopt amor fati and love your fate without giving up your goals. Work towards what is needed and intended to be done. Do it without unnecessarily linking yourself to any results or outcomes. It is about accepting the results, whatever they might be, because you can only control the process and not the outcome.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Train yourself to accept the transition, learn from it, and then move on. Lost time and opportunities are gone forever. There is no way to regain them. So, make yourself a promise today to stop wasting time, and start training yourself to let go of your past.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
If you consider words to be like bricks, throwing more bricks onto a pile won’t make a wall, not matter how many you put on. But selected words, placed carefully, make a wall and then a structure. Well-structured words have great power, and power should be handled carefully. Kind words have the ability to soothe the soul, like lying on warm brick in the sunlight. While on the other hand, harsh words feel like a sharp knife or a brick to the face.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Practice negative visualization, as expanded upon in section 2.4. Imagining losing what you love most in life not only helps us to acknowledge what we have today, but it can also be used as a type of pre-mortem arranging – setting ourselves up for most pessimistic scenarios mentally prepares us, helps us develop the resilience to survive, and sometimes empowers us to dodge them at times. Mishaps weigh most intently on the people who anticipate only favorable luck.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Companions and partners do not offer us the chance to rehearse persistence, adoring graciousness, and empathy. We need to depend on foes for that.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Breathe in deep, feel the desire to get annoyed swell up – and say to yourself, “I purchase peace” and trade in your anger for stillness by letting the situation go.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Epictetus instructed the following, “Never say of anything, “I have lost it”; but, “I have returned it.”“ This is develops from the understanding of what we can and cannot control. What we can control, we can own. What we cannot control, we cannot own.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Continuously be prepared to give back what you have been given and be appreciative for the time it was yours to utilize
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today. will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
You should not permit external conditions to stir outrage. It is like getting frantic at something far greater than you. It resembles an ant worrying it will be hit by a rain drop – thinking about something literally that could not care less about you. Things do not occur against us. They simply occur. Blowing up at a circumstance does not affect the circumstance. It does not transform or improve it.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
What is not good for the hive is not good for the honeybee.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Life May Not Give You What You Want. But It Will Give You What You Need
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
Companions and partners do not offer us the chance to rehearse persistence, adoring graciousness, and empathy. We need to depend on foes for that. This is the mindset you need to adopt – enemies are gifts from the universe for us to discover peace through.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
The essential driver of the fear is the projection onto the future about something we cannot control that causes a hazardous measure of stress.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
we are lonely. We all feel lonely at some point despite having people around us.
Marcus Epictetus (How to Practice Stoicism: Lead the stoic way of life to Master the Art of Living, Emotional Resilience & Perseverance - Make your everyday Modern life ... & Positive (Mastering Stoicism Book 2))
We are creatures full of creativity and curiosity so start every day with a purpose to accomplish something new, something that puts you a step closer to where you want to be, don’t let the days pass without a reason, without a purpose, each new day we are in this planet is a God given new opportunity to discover new things and to be creative. Don’t live other people’s dreams, create your own path, your own dream and always move forward. You will discover all you are capable of achieving once you push yourself to attain what you want, that is the magic of motivation. The life you want is the life you build and nothing gets built without action, determination and a strong motivation, so keep on going and always believe YOU CAN!
Frank Mullani (MOTIVATION - Discover the Magic of Motivation Now: Discover how to be motivated, how to stay motivated and how to start everyday with a positive attitude, ... and motivational books series Book 1))
Dad, I’m going out in the field later. I’m undercover. Have you forgotten what you used to look like when you were the most respected homicide detective in your squad? Back before you got stuck behind a desk, forced to kiss bureaucratic ass?” His father’s glare was enough to make him back off. “How dare you insult me or my position?” Michaels looked his father in the eye. “I apologize, Sir. That was disrespectful and completely out of line.” “You’re damn right it was.” Michaels sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just don’t know what the hell I have to do to make you proud.” His dad looked at him dolefully before placing his strong hands on both of his shoulders, and turning Michaels to face him. “I am proud of you, son. Everyday. I just—” A sigh escaped his father before he continued. “I just don’t want you limiting yourself. You have the potential to lead, son. It’s in your blood. Following God and Day is not going to put you in that position. You’re the leader, not the follower.” “I can make sergeant, lieutenant and any other rank as long as I continue to be a good cop.  Working with them, I’m able to finally show what I’m capable of. So many departments have egomaniac lieutenants that are so afraid of rules and regulations that they’re barely able to let their detectives make an arrest. I just want to be able to show what I can do, and God and Day let me do that.” “Like dropkicking a man through a window.” He saw the amused glint in his father’s eye. “Yeah. Like that.” Michaels laughed. The story of their last bust - when he’d taken down three men, one of whom he’d kicked through a window - had circulated pretty fast. His father laughed with him, patting his cheek. “I’m damn proud of you, son. I’m just being a father I guess.” “I’m good Dad. Really. I’m happy with what I do. The guys are great, I trust them, and they trust me. We do good work together.” “You do, son. I can’t dispute that. I didn’t mean to insult you, either.” “I know.” His father turned to get in his car. “I’ll see you at the house tomorrow night, right?” “Tomorrow?
A.E. Via (Don't Judge (Nothing Special, #4))
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs.
Frank Mullani (MOTIVATION - Discover the Magic of Motivation Now: Discover how to be motivated, how to stay motivated and how to start everyday with a positive attitude, ... and motivational books series Book 1))
So when you work on correcting what goes in your mind, you are able to get rid of all sorts of negativity and pessimism and are able to think positively. The moment positive thoughts inhabit your mind, everything in your life starts straightening up. Your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors- all become right and as a result, you are able to live a comfortable life clear of all sufferings.
Elias Axmar (Buddhism: How To Practice Buddhism In Your Everyday Life (Buddhism for Beginners, Zen Meditation, Inner Peace, Four Noble Truths))
When little-league baseball players are thought to be incompetent, they are only allowed to play where the ball is rarely hit (for little leaguers, in right field), and thus they have few opportunities to overcome their unfortunate reputation. The continued absence of any positive contributions can then easily be mistaken for an absence of talent rather than an absence of opportunity. This type of expectancy effect is obviously a special case of the hidden data problem described above. A perceiver’s expectation can cause him or her to behave in such a way that certain behaviors by the target person cannot be observed, making what is observed a biased and misleading indicator of what that person is like. The employers, college admissions officers, and grant review panelists discussed earlier are all potential victims of seemingly-fulfilled prophecies: Their own actions guarantee that they will rarely receive a challenge to their negative assessments of job applicants, potential students, and research proposals.
Thomas Gilovich (How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life)
This can sound rather grim, but it does have a positive flip-side: It suggests that our negative assessments of other people are less likely than our positive assessments to be correct, and we should give our foes another chance.
Thomas Gilovich (How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life)
Now consider what the participants in this experiment did not do. They did not miscontrue the evidence against their position as being more favorable than it really was. They correctly saw hostile findings as hostile findings. Nor did the participants simply ignore these negative results. Instead, they carefully scrutinized the studies that produced these unwanted and unexpected findings, and came up with criticisms that were largely appropriate. Rather than ignoring outright the evidence at variance with their expectations, the participants cognitively transformed it into evidence that was considered relatively uninformative and could be assigned little weight. Thus, the participants’ expectations had their effect not through a simple process of ignoring inconsistent results, but through a more complicated process that involved a fair amount of cognitive effort.
Thomas Gilovich (How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life)
Nevertheless, it is also clear that people sometimes perform this task rather poorly by being too inclined to ask questions for which a positive response would confirm the hypothesis.9 When trying to determine if a person is an extrovert, for example, people prefer to ask about the ways in which the target person is outgoing; when trying to determine if a person is an introvert, people are more inclined to ask about the ways in which the target is socially inert. Although a tendency to ask such one-sided questions does not guarantee that the hypothesis will be confirmed, it can produce an erroneous sense of confirmation for a couple of reasons. First, the specific questions asked can sometimes be so constraining that only information consistent with the hypothesis is likely to be elicited. For example, in one widely-cited study,10 one of the questions that the participants were fond of asking when trying to determine if a person was an extrovert was: “What would you do if you wanted to liven things up at a party?” A question such as this one is clearly biased against disconfirmation: Even the most inner-directed individual has been to a party or two and can at least discuss how to liven one up if explicitly asked to do so. By asking such constraining questions, it is difficult for anyone, including introverts, not to sound extroverted.
Thomas Gilovich (How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life)
With respect to the formation of erroneous beliefs, the implications of people’s difficulties in detecting covariation should be clear. By placing too much emphasis on positive instances, people will occasionally “detect” relationships that are not there. For many of the real-world phenomena that are of greatest interest, one is sure to encounter many positive instances even when there is no relationship at all between the two variables. Although there is surely no validity to the common belief that we are more likely to need something once we have thrown it away, examples of acute longing for a discarded possession may be easy to come by. By letting necessary evidence “slip by” as sufficient evidence, people establish an insufficient threshold of what constitutes adequate support for a belief, and they run the risk of believing things that are not true.
Thomas Gilovich (How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life)
The Palestinian leadership failed disastrously by not coming up with an alternative to the U.S.-Israeli position at Camp David and subsequent negotiations through the end of the Clinton presidency. It also failed by not explaining what was wrong with the terms being negotiated at Camp David, and how the whole process, from Oslo on, represented the subordination of international law to Israeli demands.
Saree Makdisi (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation)
A second level of analysis for conceptualizing spirituality is in terms of personalized goals or strivings, or what Emmons and colleagues have called "ultimate concerns" (Emmons, 1999; Emmons, Cheung, & Tehrani, 1998). A rapidly expanding database now exists that demonstrates that personal goals are a valid representation of how people structure and experience their lives: They are critical constructs for understanding the ups and downs of everyday life, and they are key elements for understanding both the positive life as well as psychological dysfunction (Karoly, 1999). People's priorities, goals, and concerns are key determinants of their overall quality of life. The possession of and progression toward important life goals are essential for long-term well-being. Several investigators have found that individuals who are involved in the pursuit of personally meaningful goals possess greater emotional well-being and better physical health than do persons who lack goal direction (see Emmons, 19 9 9, for a review).
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (A Life Worth Living: Contributions to Positive Psychology (Series in Positive Psychology))
As part of an effort to prod college seniors to get tetanus shots, a group of students was given a lecture meant to educate them about the dangers of tetanus and the importance of getting inoculated against it. A large majority of those students reported that they were convinced and planned to get their shots, but in the end only 3 percent got them. Bu another group of students, who were presented with the same lecture, had a 28 percent inoculation rate. The difference? The second group was given a map of the campus and asked to plan their route to the health center and pick a date and time to go. Sometimes, you see, motivation isn't our problem. Rather, we need to identify life's everyday mental obstacles - regret, fatigue, overconfidence, fear, to name just four - and put ourselves into position to hurdle them.
Gary Belsky (Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them: Lessons from the Life-Changing Science of Behavioral Economics)
Drinks DUI expert group to help guide However, the best men s and women s drunken food you like it petty crimes, other traffic violations on the wrong goal that seems to be the direction. If you see that the light sentences and fines to get website traffic is violated, the citizen towards crime. When under the influence of a great interest behind the violation was due to more significant impact. Prison term effects were stuck down the back of people who are well, these licenses is likely that you want to deal with nutrition break and automated attacks can be, that s why. Yes it is expensive insurance, and other options in the outcome of the order of DUI, in everyday life, it affects people and the need to process, I love you. An experienced legal drunk driving charges, and it was presented to a lawyer immediately after the contract has announced that although his own. You are trying to remember the legal rights towards the maximum is very cool, you must be straight. The alternative thinking in any direction, does not encourage conservation officials as a record on suspicion of drunken driving after turning self, yourself simplest explanation, it may be possible to do so until is. His car really only answer whether the director should start by asking, encourages statement. A judgment is impaired, you probably have a file, you can use your account to say that the elements can get. When he finished, completely, their legal rights, and in a quiet warehouse to check their own direction and I will speak, and the optimal route is being used against itself. Most use a positive direction, you might think it accuses because your self, and also to examine the consequences of drinking have been able to rule out the presence of blood. Of course, as long as you do not accept the claims are by drinking in the area, they are deprived of a lawyer. Additional measures will not fix it claims that his lawyer, the Czech-out you can. Therefore, it is also within the laws of their country to be aware of your car. Owned independent certification system will be canceled. It can record their own and as an alternative to the paper license, driving license, was arrested for drunken driving, the licensee, are confiscated in accordance with the direction. License, for how long, but canceling function is based on the severity of their crime. But even apart from some a license, you completely lose its supply is proposed well motivated are not sure. Your sins, so not only is it important for your car can pass only confiscated. DUI price of any of the reception towards obtaining a driving license, DMV hearing is removed again, but the case was registered, although this aspect of themselves independently as a condition of. The court file, however, take care of yourself, as well as independent experts was chosen to listen to their constitution.
Amanda Flowers
I have long held the belief—and encouraged it in my students and employees—that failures are an essential part of exploration and creativity. If designers and researchers do not sometimes fail, it is a sign that they are not trying hard enough—they are not thinking the great creative thoughts that will provide breakthroughs in how we do things. It is possible to avoid failure, to always be safe. But that is also the route to a dull, uninteresting life. The designs of our products and services must also follow this philosophy. So, to the designers who are reading this, let me give some advice:        •  Do not blame people when they fail to use your products properly.        •  Take people’s difficulties as signifiers of where the product can be improved.        •  Eliminate all error messages from electronic or computer systems. Instead, provide help and guidance.        •  Make it possible to correct problems directly from help and guidance messages. Allow people to continue with their task: Don’t impede progress—help make it smooth and continuous. Never make people start over.        •  Assume that what people have done is partially correct, so if it is inappropriate, provide the guidance that allows them to correct the problem and be on their way.        •  Think positively, for yourself and for the people you interact with.
Donald A. Norman (The Design of Everyday Things)
I have been given the rare opportunity to teach Jiu Jitsu for a living. This is a privilege that I wake up everyday grateful for, and a responsibility that I hold dearly. I understand how rare it is to be employed through a labor you genuinely love, and one which can be used as a vehicle for positive change in the lives of others. Even rarer still, I am often reminded of the quality of Jiu Jitsu I have learned, and the opportunity to have learned it.
Chris Matakas
Art is very much a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace. Art is not so much what we make, but how we relate to the world. Not a noun, but a verb. This puts art back in a position to be claimed by the many.
Scott W. Alexander (Everyday Spiritual Practice: Simple Pathways for Enriching Your Life)
But this obsession with the most minor activities of our everyday life means that they function as a kind of highly charged political battleground. The result is that struggles are no longer fought over political ideologies. Instead, the politics we become passionately invested in are those that are closely related to our habits and bodies. Indeed we become deeply interested in what some have called ‘bio-politics’ (Foucault, 1978). Broadly put, this involves political contestation focusing on life itself (Esposito, 2008). This means political struggles take place around the most basic aspects such as bodily health and lifestyle. No big ideas here. The pressing political questions are no longer your position on patriarchy – it is how many burgers you ate this month or where you stand on spray-tanning. The increasing importance of this kind of bio-politics can be seen in the fact that many contemporary political movements today are focused on quotidian issues close to the body such as health, food and lifestyle. And one of the central demands which is often bound up with these bio-political movements is a demand for authenticity – real food, real wine, real music and the ability to live a real life which is not artificially clouded by various in-authenticities.
André Spicer (Guilty lives: The authenticity trap at work)
The basic point of all the scientific ideas we threw at you is that there is a lot of disagreement about how the flow of time works and how or whether one thing causes another. If you take home one idea out of all of these, make it that the everyday feeling that the future has no effect on the present is not necessarily true. As a result of the current uncertainty about time and causality in philosophical and scientific circles, it is not at all unreasonable to talk in a serious way about the possibility of genuine precognition. We also hope that our brief mention of spirituality has opened your mind to the idea that there may be a spiritual perspective as well. Both Theresa and Julia treasure the spiritual aspects of precognition, because premonitions can act as reminders that there may be an eternal part of us that exists outside of time and space. There may well be a scientific explanation for this eternal part, and if one is found, science and spirituality will become happy partners. Much of Part 2 will be devoted to the spiritual and wellbeing components of becoming a Positive Precog, and we will continue to marry those elements with scientific research as we go. 1 Here, physics buffs might chime in with some concerns about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Okay, physics rock stars! As you know, the Second Law states that in a closed system, disorder is very unlikely to decrease – and as such, you may believe this means that there is an “arrow of time” that is set by the Second Law, and this arrow goes in only the forward direction. As a result, you might also think that any talk of a future event influencing the past is bogus. We would ask you to consider four ideas. 2 Here we are not specifically talking about closed timelike curves, but causal loops in general. 3 For those concerned that the idea of messages from the future suggests such a message would be travelling faster than the speed of light, a few thoughts: 1) “message” here is used colloquially to mean “information” – essentially a correlation between present and future events that can’t be explained by deduction or induction but is not necessarily a signal; 2) recently it has been suggested that superluminal signalling is not actually prohibited by special relativity (Weinstein, S, “Superluminal signaling and relativity”, Synthese, 148(2), 2006: 381–99); and 3) the no-signalling theorem(s) may actually be logically circular (Kennedy, J B, “On the empirical foundations of the quantum no-signalling proofs”, Philosophy of Science, 62(4), 1995: 543–60.) 4 Note that in the movie Minority Report, the future was considered set in stone, which was part of the problem of the Pre-Crime Programme. However, at the end of the movie it becomes clear that the future envisioned did not occur, suggesting the idea that futures unfold probabilistically rather than definitely.
Theresa Cheung (The Premonition Code: The Science of Precognition, How Sensing the Future Can Change Your Life)
At one time in the West, Christianity seemed plausible because elements of the Christian story were intentionally woven into the fabric of everyday life. Leading institutions, daily practices, and common communication assumed realities such as a heavenly realm, a transcendent moral code, sin, divine judgment, and the possibility of ultimate redemption. These formed the tacit background of much of the culture’s everyday stories, the tapestry of meaning by which people lived. At the very least, the belief in God—and more specifically the God of the Bible—seemed a viable option for most and was generally viewed as a positive influence on society
Joshua D. Chatraw (Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age)
How do companies, producing little more than bits of code displayed on a screen, seemingly control users’ minds?” Nir Eyal, a prominent Valley product consultant, asked in his 2014 book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. “Our actions have been engineered,” he explained. Services like Twitter and YouTube “habitually alter our everyday behavior, just as their designers intended.” One of Eyal’s favorite models is the slot machine. It is designed to answer your every action with visual, auditory, and tactile feedback. A ping when you insert a coin. A ka-chunk when you pull the lever. A flash of colored light when you release it. This is known as Pavlovian conditioning, named after the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who rang a bell each time he fed his dog, until, eventually, the bell alone sent his dog’s stomach churning and saliva glands pulsing, as if it could no longer differentiate the chiming of a bell from the physical sensation of eating. Slot machines work the same way, training your mind to conflate the thrill of winning with its mechanical clangs and buzzes. The act of pulling the lever, once meaningless, becomes pleasurable in itself. The reason is a neurological chemical called dopamine, the same one Parker had referenced at the media conference. Your brain releases small amounts of it when you fulfill some basic need, whether biological (hunger, sex) or social (affection, validation). Dopamine creates a positive association with whatever behaviors prompted its release, training you to repeat them. But when that dopamine reward system gets hijacked, it can compel you to repeat self-destructive behaviors. To place one more bet, binge on alcohol—or spend hours on apps even when they make you unhappy. Dopamine is social media’s accomplice inside your brain. It’s why your smartphone looks and feels like a slot machine, pulsing with colorful notification badges, whoosh sounds, and gentle vibrations. Those stimuli are neurologically meaningless on their own. But your phone pairs them with activities, like texting a friend or looking at photos, that are naturally rewarding. Social apps hijack a compulsion—a need to connect—that can be even more powerful than hunger or greed. Eyal describes a hypothetical woman, Barbra, who logs on to Facebook to see a photo uploaded by a family member. As she clicks through more photos or comments in response, her brain conflates feeling connected to people she loves with the bleeps and flashes of Facebook’s interface. “Over time,” Eyal writes, “Barbra begins to associate Facebook with her need for social connection.” She learns to serve that need with a behavior—using Facebook—that in fact will rarely fulfill it.
Max Fisher (The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World)