Worrying Is Pointless Quotes

She taught me the pointlessness of wishing for a different past and the futility of worrying about all of the frightening futures over which I had no control.

Nothing. I wanted to hit him but hitting a masochist is pretty pointless. Wesley?” She finally looked him full in his face. For a moment his brown eyes turned silver and she saw Michael’s face floating in front of her. “What if I’m a bad person, too?” “You’re not a bad person. If you were a bad person you wouldn’t be sitting fully dressed in a bathtub with no water in it because you’re terrified you might be a bad person. The devil doesn’t worry about going to hell.” “Only because he’s already there.

It was pointless to worry about problems I didn't yet have.

there came a point when if a conspiracy was that powerful and subtle it became pointless to worry about it.

You do not have to overdo to be loved. You do not have to perform to be loved. You do not have to worry that your life will become meaningless or pointless if you soften.

Mankind is perpetually the victim of a pointless and futile martydom, fretting life away in fruitless worries though failure to realise what limit is set to acquisition and to the growth of genuine pleasure

We won’t know what hit us, because we’ll be dead; or we will know, and we’ll die in protracted agony. There’s no point worrying about it beforehand.

Sixteen is an intensely troublesome age. You worry about little things, can't pinpoint where you are in any objective way, become really proficient at strange, pointless skills, and are held in thrall by inexplicable complexes. As you get older, though, through trial and error you can learn to get what you need, and throw out what should be discarded. And you start to recognize (or be resigned to the fact) that since your faults and deficiences are well nigh infinite, you'd best figure our your good points and learn to get by with what you have.

Be calm," she said soothingly, and I realized she was not talking to the bird. "How am I supposed to be calm? I worry," I retorted. She gave a snort. "Then you are more stupid than I supposed. Worry, what is that? A pointless thing is Mr. Worry-an intruder. He steals into your house and creeps into your bed and what do you do child? Do you push him away and tell him to be gone and bolt the door fast against him? No, you move over and let him have the good pillow and the best quilt to warm himself." She flapped a hand in disgust. "Worry never did a man a bit of good. All he does is robs one's peace and make lines on the face.

Aster, occasionally, through no will of her own, worried she wasn’t pretty enough, and why? Pretty was a strange thing to concern oneself over. Pretty was subjective and fallacious. Pretty couldn’t be replicated in a lab. She, as much as anyone, enjoyed the prismatic sweep of amaranth in bloom and the geography of animalian bodies. Yet when applied to people, it didn’t jive with her that pretty was meant for some and not others. More pressingly, it didn’t jive with Aster that some days she wanted to be one of those folks who was prettier than the other folks. It was like wanting to be more vanadium-based, or wanting to have orange-pigmented skin—arbitrary, bizarre, pointless. Still, she wanted it, and Theo made her feel like it was already so.

What is toast?” says Snowman to himself, once they’ve run off. Toast is when you take a piece of bread – What is bread? Bread is when you take some flour – What is flour? We’ll skip that part, it’s too complicated. Bread is something you can eat, made from a ground-up plant and shaped like a stone. You cook it . . . Please, why do you cook it? Why don’t you just eat the plant? Never mind that part – Pay attention. You cook it, and then you cut it into slices, and you put a slice into a toaster, which is a metal box that heats up with electricity – What is electricity? Don’t worry about that. While the slice is in the toaster, you get out the butter – butter is a yellow grease, made from the mammary glands of – skip the butter. So, the toaster turns the slice of bread black on both sides with smoke coming out, and then this “toaster” shoots the slice up into the air, and it falls onto the floor . . . Forget it,” says Snowman. “Let’s try again.” Toast was a pointless invention from the Dark Ages. Toast was an implement of torture that caused all those subjected to it to regurgitate in verbal form the sins and crimes of their past lives. Toast was a ritual item devoured by fetishists in the belief that it would enhance their kinetic and sexual powers. Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast.

Where's my life gone? Where's it going? Looking across the grassy marshland to Flint and up the coast to Point Of Air, I start to wonder what all those poor fuckers in Wales are doing with their lives. Screwing? Sleeping in? Debating whether to take breakfast in bed to their broken fathers? Unlikely. They're probably doing what the gilded folk of Hollywood are doing, or Kowloon or Port Elizabeth. Worrying. Worrying about getting old, or about work, or about money, or about their boyfriend, mistress, lover, house, health, future. Life is shit. There is no fucking point to any of it. Not now that we've evolved past the survival stage. Maybe we used to live to hunt to kill to eat to live another day. Now we just kill time in as many sophisticated ways as possible. Pointless jobs. Pointless lives. Work. Television. Football.

I imagined my first night alone in bed with my stranger. I conjured our future years together unhampered by worries about money or officialdom. We would enjoy the day, the night, a smile, a word, a kiss, a glance. All lovely thoughts. All pointless dreams.

You need to wait until you are worthy of having a child of your own.' She pats her hair down, which is rock hard. Her action is pointless, but she’s worried about appearances as usual. 'And someone like you who’s responsible for killing my babies—your own siblings—is not worthy.

It is pointless to worry about the possible malevolent intentions of an advanced civilization with whom we might make contact. It is more likely that the mere fact they have survived so long means they have learned to live with themselves and others. Perhaps our fears about extraterrestrial contact are merely a projection of our own backwardness, an expression of our guilty conscience about our past history: the ravages that have been visited on civilizations only slightly more backward than we.

She taught me the pointlessness of wishing for a different past and the futility of worrying about all of the frightening futures over which I had no control. In

Let others consume their efforts in pointless trifles. Let others drain their energy in futile worries.

You shouldn't be wasting your time worrying about what's going to happen after you die. It's pointless. Think about what's happening now. In your life. That's what's important. So change the subject, will you?

That’s not to say forward planning is pointless, but unless you can actively contribute something practical towards your future growth right now, there’s no point worrying about the things you can’t yet control.

Carlos, your mysophobia does affect my health. I feel freer – more alive, more vivacious and, ironically enough, healthier – if I’m not constantly made to worry about germs and unhealthy choices. Whether it’s for a moment of spontaneous kissing in a phone booth or eating an occasional hamburger…Obsessing about your health doesn’t actually make you healthier. The fact of the matter is, Carlos, our bodies are decaying at every moment, regardless of what we do. Living is bad for your health.” “It doesn’t have to be.” “Maybe if you live in an antiseptic bubble specially designed by the CDC it doesn’t. But in a place like New York City, you’re fighting a pointless battle. You can either embrace the dirt and the germs as part of the risky joy of living in an exciting, overpopulated metropolis, or you can spend lots of mental real estate obsessing over whether you touched a few extra microbes when you got on the subway.

He worried that this approach encouraged apathy and disconnection, and removed personal responsibility. It allowed a person to witness suffering and immediately comfort themselves with the belief it would be addressed in the next life. But if you reject meaning, placing you squarely in the reality of the present moment, accepting there is no cosmic divination or kindness, you are left with the responsibility of acting now. You can’t expect the universe to course correct later.

[...] dGT: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. My concern here is that the philosophers believe they are actually asking deep questions about nature. And to the scientist it’s, what are you doing? Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?" (another) interviewer: I think a healthy balance of both is good. dGT: Well, I’m still worried even about a healthy balance. Yeah, if you are distracted by your questions so that you cannot move forward, you are not being a productive contributor to our understanding of the natural world. And so the scientist knows when the question “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” is a pointless delay in our progress. (Neil deGrasse Tyson - EPISODE 489: NERDIST PODCAST, 20m19s)

Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it?

-Well, that’s actually quite understandable, Deepak gently returned, -there are a lot of things people fear, yet really the only thing people have any reason to fear is uncertainty. Of course, the biggest uncertainty is what happens to us after this life, which is why we fear death so much. But even death is rather pointless to worry about, it will happen to each and every one of us, whether we care for it or not, all we can do is try to accept it as gracefully as possible. -This is why, living day to day, my greatest uncertainty hasn’t been about death, but whether you will love me by returning all of my affection. I can’t think of anything I would find more fearful or disturbing than if you were to refuse my feelings or worse if you were to fall in love with someone else before you had a chance to love me.

There’s no point worrying about work, he’d say, adding his favorite quote: ‘worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it’s due’. You spend your time thinking about things that might never happen. It’s pointless. If it happens, figure it out. If it doesn’t, don’t worry about it.

The Universe is like a flowing river, and you are connected to it. It’s pointless to worry about which of the endless branches in the river to take, or to try and fight the flow, far better just to drift and let the river take you where it will, because ultimately you will end up at the same destination anyway.

anxiety is just groundless and pointless. It occurs only as a hangover of bad habits established when we were trusting things—like human approval and wealth—that were certain to let us down. Now our strategy should be one of resolute rejection of worry, while we concentrate on the future in hope and with prayer and on the past with thanksgiving.

The Dalai Lama was referring to the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva, who wrote, "If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?" The Archbishop cackled, perhaps because it seemed almost too incredible that someone could stop worrying just because it was pointless.

There’s so much to be happy about, but lately, my mind only focuses on the bad stuff. There’s a voice in my head that constantly reminds me of my failures and gives me reasons to fear the future. Every effort feels pointless, every accomplishment feels temporary, and every bump in the road feels like the end of the world. No matter what I do, I can’t get it to stop. I’m worried I’m going to be miserable forever!

do him no good, that it’s pointless to rail about the difficulty of the twists in that river, and that he shouldn’t worry about where the current will take him, but I confess that even after more than eighty years of living, I still struggle to understand what I know in my heart is a mystery beyond human comprehension. Perhaps the most important truth I’ve learned across the whole of my life is that it’s only when I yield to the river and

The doorbell rang, but we all knew better than to get up. I don't know how many keys to my parent's house circulated in Montgomery. It was largely pointless as the door never seemed to be locked anyway. I wondered if my parents worried about crime, but having at least nineteen serving police officers in the family, I figured any criminal who decided to break in would probably get a standing ovation for sheer audacity. And then live to regret it.

If I was in Talon, I would be the one in charge, I'd be the one calling the shots. I wouldn't have to take pointless exams, listen to humans or worry that my every move was being watched. In Talon, dragons were the bosses, the presidents, the CEOs. If I was a part of the organization, no one would tell me what to do ever again. I would have to let some things go. I t might be painful, but in the end, it would be worth it. Sacrifice was necessary, but I would be free.

According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama was heir to a small Himalayan kingdom, sometime around 500 BC. The young prince was deeply affected by the suffering evident all around him. He saw that men and women, children and old people, all suffer not just from occasional calamities such as war and plague, but also from anxiety, frustration and discontent, all of which seem to be an inseparable part of the human condition. People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want two million. Those who have two million want 10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it?

People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want two million. Those who have two million want ten. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age, and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it?

People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want two million. Those who have two million want 10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They are too haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it?

men and women, children and old people, all suffer not just from occasional calamities such as war and plague, but also from anxiety, frustration and discontent, all of which seem to be an inseparable part of the human condition. People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want 2 million. Those who have 2 million want 10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But

Something they seem to omit to mention in Boston AA when you're new and out of your skull with desperation and ready to eliminate your map and they tell you how it'll all get better and better as you abstain and recover: they somehow omit to mention that the way it gets better and you get better is through pain. Not around pain, or in spite of it. They leave this out, talking instead about Gratitude and Release from Compulsion. There's serious pain in being sober, though, you find out, after time. Then now that you're clean and don't even much want Substances and feeling like you want to both cry and stomp somebody into goo with pain, these Boston AAs start in on telling you you're right where you're supposed to be and telling you to remember the pointless pain of active addiction and telling you that at least this sober pain now has a purpose. At least this pain means you're going somewhere, they say, instead of the repetitive gerbil-wheel of addictive pain. They neglect to tell you that after the urge to get high magically vanishes and you've been Substanceless for maybe six or eight months, you'll begin to start to 'Get In Touch' with why it was that you used Substances in the first place. You'll start to feel why it was you got dependent on what was, when you get right down to it, an anesthetic. 'Getting In Touch With Your Feelings' is another quilted-sampler-type cliche that ends up masking something ghastly deep and real, it turns out. [178: A more abstract but truer epigram that White Flaggers with a lot of sober time sometimes change this to goes something like: 'Don't worry about getting in touch with your feelings, they'll get in touch with you.’] It starts to turn out that the vapider the AA cliche, the sharper the canines of the real truth it covers.

The literature is full of discussions of these questions; full of stories of the ‘entrepreneurial personality’ and of people who will never do anything but innovate. In the light of our experience – and it is considerable – these discussions are pointless. By and large, people who do not feel comfortable as innovators or as entrepreneurs will not volunteer for such jobs; the gross misfits eliminate themselves. The others can learn the practice of innovation. Our experience shows that an executive who has performed in other assignments will do a decent job as an entrepreneur. In successful entrepreneurial businesses, nobody seems to worry whether a given person is likely to do a good job of development or not. People of all kinds of temperaments and backgrounds apparently do equally well. Any young engineer in 3M who comes to top management with an idea that makes sense is expected to take on its development.

The central figure of Buddhism is not a god but a human being, Siddhartha Gautama. According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama was heir to a small Himalayan kingdom, sometime around 500 BC. The young prince was deeply affected by the suffering evident all around him. He saw that men and women, children and old people, all suffer not just from occasional calamities such as war and plague, but also from anxiety, frustration and discontent, all of which seem to be an inseparable part of the human condition. People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want two million. Those who have two million want 10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it? At the age of twenty-nine Gautama slipped away from his palace in the middle of the night, leaving behind his family and possessions. He travelled as a homeless vagabond throughout northern India, searching for a way out of suffering. He visited ashrams and sat at the feet of gurus but nothing liberated him entirely – some dissatisfaction always remained. He did not despair. He resolved to investigate suffering on his own until he found a method for complete liberation. He spent six years meditating on the essence, causes and cures for human anguish. In the end he came to the realisation that suffering is not caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. Rather, suffering is caused by the behaviour patterns of one’s own mind. Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied and restless. This is very clear when we experience unpleasant things, such as pain. As long as the pain continues, we are dissatisfied and do all we can to avoid it. Yet even when we experience pleasant things we are never content. We either fear that the pleasure might disappear, or we hope that it will intensify. People dream for years about finding love but are rarely satisfied when they find it. Some become anxious that their partner will leave; others feel that they have settled cheaply, and could have found someone better. And we all know people who manage to do both.

Prayer is one of the few spiritual practices that is pointless unless God is real. Meditation calms the body whether or not there's a spiritual being receiving our deliberate breathing and clear mind. Reading sacred texts aligns us with the wisdom of our ancestors whether or not it was divinely inspired. Church attendance connects us to the needs of our community. Fasting cleanses the body of toxic substances. Resting on Sundays allows us to let go of stress and worry. But prayer? Taking time to pour out our needs and our anxieties, demanding change, confessing sin, crying out for help - all of these things depend upon the existence of God, and specifically the existence of a God who hears and responds to our cries. Prayer in the face of insurmountable problems is an admission of weakness and need. Prayer is a commitment to a better future, a sign of faith that the world will one day be made right. Prayer is an act that emerges out of helplessness. Prayer is an act of hope.

There was something different about Severin today, Devon thought. A look of being stranded in some foreign place without a map. “How are you, Tom?” he asked with a touch of concern. “Why are you really here?” Severin’s usual response would have been something flippant and amusing. Instead, he said distractedly, “I don’t know.” “Is there a problem with one of your businesses?” “No, no,” Severin said with a touch of impatience. “All that’s fine.” “Your health, then?” “No. It’s only that lately … I seem to want something I don’t have. But I don’t know what it is. And that’s impossible. I have everything.” Devon bit back a wry smile. The conversation always became somewhat tortured whenever Severin, who was habitually detached from his emotions, tried to identify one of them. “Do you think it could be loneliness?” he suggested. “No, it’s not that.” Severin looked pensive. “What do you call it when everything seems boring and pointless, and even the people you know well are like strangers?” “Loneliness,” Devon said flatly. “Damn it. That makes six.” “Six what?” Devon asked in bewilderment. “Feelings. I’ve never had more than five feelings, and they’re hard enough to manage as it is. I’ll be damned if I’ll add another.” Shaking his head, Devon went to retrieve his glass of brandy. “I don’t want to know what your five feelings are,” he said. “I’m sure the answer would worry me.

Something they seem to omit to mention in Boston AA when you're new and out of your skull with desperation and ready to eliminate your map and they tell you how it'll all get better and better as you abstain and recover: they somehow omit to mention that the way it gets better and you get better is through pain. Not around pain, or in spite of it. They leave this out, talking instead about Gratitude and Release from Compulsion. There's serious pain in being sober, though, you find out, after time. Then now that you're clean and don't even much want Substances and feeling like you want to both cry and stomp somebody into goo with pain, these Boston AAs start in on telling you you're right where you're supposed to be and telling you to remember the pointless pain of active addiction and telling you that at least this sober pain now has a purpose. At least this pain means you're going somewhere, they say, instead of the repetitive gerbil-wheel of addictive pain. They neglect to tell you that after the urge to get high magically vanishes and you've been Substanceless for maybe six or eight months, you'll begin to start to 'Get In Touch' with why it was that you used Substances in the first place. You'll start to feel why it was you got dependent on what was, when you get right down to it, an anesthetic. 'Getting In Touch With Your Feelings' is another quilted-sampler-type cliche that ends up masking something ghastly deep and real, it turns out. [178: A more abstract but truer epigram that White Flaggers with a lot of sober time sometimes change this to goes something like: 'Don't worry about getting in touch with your feelings, they'll get in touch with you.’] It starts to turn out that the vapider the AA cliche, the sharper the canines of the real truth it covers.

You don’t know me! You know Miss Erstwhile, but--” “Come now, ever since I witnessed your abominable performance in the theatrical, it’s been clear that you can’t act to save your life. All three weeks, that was you.” He smiled. “And I wanted to keep knowing you. Well, I didn’t at first. I wanted you to go away and leave me in peace. I’ve made a career out of avoiding any possibility of a real relationship. And then to find you in that circus…it didn’t make sense. But what ever does?” “Nothing,” said Jane with conviction. “Nothing makes sense.” “Could you tell me…am I being too forward to ask?...of course, I just bought a plane ticket on impulse, so worrying about being forward at this point is pointless…This is so insane, I am not a romantic. Ahem. My question is, what do you want?” “What do I…?” This really was insane. Maybe she should ask that old woman to change seats again. “I mean it. Besides something real. You already told me that. I like to think I’m real, after all. So, what do you really want?” She shrugged and said simply, “I want to be happy. I used to want Mr. Darcy, laugh at me if you want, or the idea of him. Someone who made me feel all the time like I felt when I watched those movies.” It was hard for her to admit it, but when she had, it felt like licking the last of the icing from the bowl. That hopeless fantasy was empty now. “Right. Well, do you think it possible--” He hesitated, his fingers played with the radio and light buttons on the arm of his seat. “Do you think someone like me could be what you want?” Jane smiled sadly. “I’m feeling all shiny and brand new. In all my life, I’ve never felt like I do now. I’m not sure yet what I want. When I was Miss Erstwhile, you were perfect, but that was back in Austenland. Or are we still in Austenland? Maybe I’ll never leave.” He nodded. “You don’t have to decide anything now. If you will allow me to be near you for a time, then we can see.” He rested his head back, and they looked at each other, their faces inches apart. He always was so good at looking at her. And it occurred to her just then that she herself was more Darcy than Erstwhile, sitting there admiring his fine eyes, feeling dangerously close to falling in love against her will. “Just be near…” she repeated. He nodded. “And if I don’t make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world every day of your life, then I don’t deserve to be near you.” Jane breathed in, taking those words inside her. She thought she might like to keep them for a while. She considered never giving them up. “Okay, I lied a little bit.” He rubbed his head with even more force. “I need to admit up front that I don’t know how to have a fling. I’m not good at playing around and then saying good-bye. I’m throwing myself at your feet because I’m hoping for a shot at forever. You don’t have to say anything now, no promises required. I just thought you should know.” He forced himself to lean back again, his face turned slightly away, as if he didn’t care to see her expression just then. It was probably for the best. She was staring straight ahead with wide, panicked eyes, then a grin slowly took over her face. In her mind was running the conversation she was going to have with Molly. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I found a man as crazy intense as I was.

Is there any shame to sleeping? There are news reports on all the time about how sleep deprived we are and how dangerous it is with drivers falling asleep at the wheel and machine operators pushing the wrong buttons. I’m actually performing a public service by sleeping. Maybe I’m worried that they’ll think I’m lazy. At three o’clock in the morning, however, I figured subterfuge was pointless.

A bunch of us were worried you were going to kill yourself last year,” she said. “You so were just so nihilistic. The only reason we decided you wouldn’t was that you had said suicide was pointless and stupid.

a wreck, wouldn’t you say?” Madeline bobbed her head in agreement. “Exactly. So don’t make it even harder on yourself by worrying about stupid things that don’t matter and are completely out of your control. Think about it. That guy over there, crossing the street—let’s say he saw you trip earlier. If he thought you were the dumbest, clumsiest moron of a girl he’d ever seen—what difference would it make? How would that affect you at all? His random, pointless opinion doesn’t suddenly change your friends, your work, your grades, your bank account—nothing. It only affects you if you let it, which means the solution is simple—don’t let it. You have more important things to worry about.” Madeline stared straight ahead, angry. Sure, Gina had a point. Maybe. But it was still too simple. You can’t just snap your fingers and decide not to care. “What if he’s in one of my classes? Then

Every experience that you go through is part of the process of the unfolding of your myth. If you sit back and reflect on your own 2019, on how Life dealt with you this year, you will see how every upheaval, every scar in your Life, is precious in its own way. You will realize how you have emerged stronger and wiser from each experience you have been through. You will be amazed at how you have learnt to cope, how you have moved on this year too, just as you have done, all your Life. This is why it is pointless to label a year as good or bad (or ugly). A set of events simply happened to you this past year. And another set will happen in the year coming up. So, instead of over-analyzing and labeling the year gone by, embrace what is, and train your mind to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. This holds the key to your Happiness.

Worrying about life’s circumstances of those I love, but over which I have no control is a dangerous, never-ending and pointless game to play.

The fundamental insight of polytheism, which distinguishes it from monotheism, is that the supreme power governing the world is devoid of interests and biases, and therefore it is unconcerned with the mundane desires, cares and worries of humans. It’s pointless to ask this power for victory in war, for health or for rain, because from its all-encompassing vantage point, it makes no difference whether a particular kingdom wins or loses, whether a particular city prospers or withers, whether a particular person recuperates or dies. The Greeks did not waste any sacrifices on Fate, and Hindus built no temples to Atman. The

If you are a “what-if” person, then focusing on the now can be particularly difficult. My mom is a “what-if” person. She worries about all kinds of future scenarios: What if my dad never retires? What if Shaan doesn’t find a good wife to marry? What if she has a major health problem? All of these “what-ifs” are pointless to think about because they all occur in imaginary scenarios within my mom’s mind’s future.

Disconnection I pretended that I had no worries, but it was just a pointless ruse. Just like a rose I’ve got some thorns, and I’ve cut more than a few. I felt so disconnected, and also disrespected. I’ve got some wounds still left to heal, from those years in deep rejection. It took some introspection, and a year of self correction. I’m grateful for your saving grace, my god, I felt so broken.

When you can solve a problem, there is no point in worrying about it. And when you can’t solve a problem, there’s again no point in worrying about it. Instead of pointlessly worrying about it, apply yourself to solving the problem on hand. The bottom line: Be non-worrying. That’s the secret to being happy despite the circumstances.

December 20th FEAR THE FEAR OF DEATH “Do you then ponder how the supreme of human evils, the surest mark of the base and cowardly, is not death, but the fear of death? I urge you to discipline yourself against such fear, direct all your thinking, exercises, and reading this way—and you will know the only path to human freedom.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.26.38–39 To steel himself before he committed suicide rather than submit to Julius Caesar’s destruction of the Roman Republic, the great Stoic philosopher Cato read a bit of Plato’s Phaedo. In it, Plato writes, “It is the child within us that trembles before death.” Death is scary because it is such an unknown. No one can come back and tell us what it is like. We are in the dark about it. As childlike and ultimately ignorant as we are about death, there are plenty of wise men and women who can at least provide some guidance. There’s a reason that the world’s oldest people never seem to be afraid of death: they’ve had more time to think about it than we have (and they realized how pointless worrying was). There are other wonderful resources: Florida Scott-Maxwell’s Stoic diary during her terminal illness, The Measure of My Days, is one. Seneca’s famous words to his family and friends, who had broken down and begged with his executioners, is another. “Where,” Seneca gently chided them, “are your maxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years’ study against evils to come?” Throughout philosophy there are inspiring, brave words from brave men and women who can help us face this fear. There is another helpful consideration about death from the Stoics. If death is truly the end, then what is there exactly to fear? For everything from your fears to your pain receptors to your worries and your remaining wishes, they will perish with you. As frightening as death might seem, remember: it contains within it the end of fear.

That man is a hundred red flags made out of silk sheets and you’re too busy worrying about the thread count.” Aiden didn’t even know what that meant but he wasn’t going to be lectured again. It wouldn’t change anything. “The last guy you dated was literally on America’s Most Wanted,” Aiden recalled. “So, sticks and stones…” Lola scoffed. “I didn’t date him. I fucked him. Then I took him to the Marshall’s and collected a big, fat bounty on him. We are not the same.” Arguing with Lola was pointless.

Of course, battling past the ego to get to the truth has been at the heart of countless spiritual teachings in countless countries for countless centuries. Ego-death as a means to no-self—abiding non-dual awareness—is what this journey is all about. That’s the reason behind the devotion, the prayer, the meditation, the teachings, the renunciation. Anyone headed for truth is going to get there over the ego’s dead body or not at all. There’s no shortcut or easy way, no going under or around. The only way past ego is through it, and the only way through it is with laser-like intent and a heart of stone. The caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly, it enters a death process that becomes the birth process of the butterfly. The appearance of transformation is an illusion. One thing doesn’t become another thing. One thing ends and another begins And why do so few succeed in this greatest of all journeys? For the simple reason that success, within the context of the dream, is pointless, whereas failure, or, at least, struggle, is very much to the point. Chasing enlightenment holds as many lessons for the unawakened soul as any other pursuit in the dreamscape of ego-bound reality; as any other ride in the park. The supposed mega-bliss of spiritual awakening is a carrot dangling from a stick no less than love or wealth or power. In other words, actual enlightenment is seldom the point of the quest for enlightenment. And why should it be? Success in realizing one’s true nature is absolutely assured because, well, because it’s one’s true nature. The greatest wonder isn’t that you’ll make it back, it’s that you made it away. Returning is the motion of the Tao. Struggling to achieve truth is, in its own way, as preposterous as struggling to achieve death. What’s the point? Both will find you when it’s time. Should we worry that if we fail to find death, death will fail to find us? Of course not, and neither death, nor taxes, nor gravity, nor tomorrow’s sunrise is as certain as the fact that everyone will end up fully “enlightened” regardless of the “path” they take. So, if I have to be interested in something, this seems like a good choice; watching the homeward migration of souls. And if I have to have a job, this seems like a good one; standing on the distant shore, keeping a beacon fire burning, helping newcomers ashore, offering a welcome and pointing out some of the sights.

If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?” The Archbishop cackled, perhaps because it seemed almost too incredible that someone could stop worrying just because it was pointless.

Worrying was pointless, and besides, it was too late now.

How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow) 1. Appreciate happiness when it is there 2. Sip, don’t gulp. 3. Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more. 4. There is absolutely nothing in the past that you can change. That’s basic physics. 5. Beware of Tuesdays. And Octobers. 6. Kurt Vonnegut was right. “Reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found.” 7. Listen more than you talk. 8. Don’t feel guilty about being idle. More harm is probably done to the world through work than idleness. But perfect your idleness. Make it mindful. 9. Be aware that you are breathing. 10. Wherever you are, at any moment, try to find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind. 11. Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you. 12. Go for a run. Then do some yoga. 13. Shower before noon. 14. Look at the sky. Remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek vastness at every opportunity, in order to see the smallness of yourself. 15. Be kind. 16. Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim. 17. Do not watch TV aimlessly. Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don’t value TV less. Value it more. Then you will watch it less. Unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction. 18. Sit down. Lie down. Be still. Do nothing. Observe. Listen to your mind. Let it do what it does without judging it. Let it go, like Snow Queen in Frozen. 19. Don’t’ worry about things that probably won’t happen. 20. Look at trees. Be near trees. Plant trees. (Trees are great.) 21. Listen to that yoga instructor on YouTube, and “walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet”. 22. Live. Love. Let go. The three Ls. 23. Alcohol maths. Wine multiplies itself by itself. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it is hard to stop at one glass, it will be impossible at three. Addition is multiplication. 24. Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through. 25. Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don’t wish for it to end, or for it to never end. 26. No drug in the universe will make you feel better, at the deepest level, than being kind to other people. 27. Listen to what Hamlet – literature’s most famous depressive – told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 28. If someone loves you, let them. Believe in that love. Live for them, even when you feel there is no point. 29. You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven’t experienced. Some will. Be grateful. 30. Jules Verne wrote of the “Living Infinite”. This is the world of love and emotion that is like a “sea”. If we can submerge ourselves in it, we find infinity in ourselves, and the space we need to survive. 31. Three in the morning is never the time to try and sort out your life. 32. Remember that there is nothing weird about you. You are just a human, and everything you do and feel is a natural thing, because we are natural animals. You are nature. You are a hominid ape. You are in the world and the world is in you. Everything connects. 33. Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or ups and down. At your lowest and your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters.

Eventually, you'll learn to focus on the present and let the past go". [...] "Reliving what could have been but never will be is pointless. It'll only hold you back from what you are. One of the hardest things anyone can do is live in the here and now. Not worry about the future, not rehash the past. Be present, that's the secret to changing your future. To finding true happiness.

If we want to know why some people are rich, for example, or why some companies are successful, it may seem sensible to look for rich people or successful companies and identify which attributes they share. But what this exercise can’t reveal is that if we instead looked at people who aren’t rich or companies that aren’t successful, we might have found that they exhibit many of the same attributes. The only way to identify attributes that differentiate successful from unsuccessful entities is to consider both kinds, and to look for systematic differences. Yet because what we care about is success, it seems pointless—or simply uninteresting—to worry about the absence of success.

It is often said that Vietnam, with its quotidian cruelties and pointlessness broadcast on the nightly news, caused Americans to lose their innocence about war. I don’t deny that this is true. The immediate power of the moving image is well attested to. It does, however, call to mind a quip I once heard: “The Americans have lost their innocence, but don’t worry, they’ll find it soon.” The power of the written word has the capacity to counteract this tendency, a value of which broadcast television is at best less capable. It provides every reader with a permanent opportunity for a private encounter with the reality of experience. So perhaps someone reading this book, now or many years in the future, will encounter a passage about a wounded Marine with “the hurt, dumb eyes of a child who has been severely beaten and does not know why.” Or they will read about an experienced NCO’s assessment that “one of the most brutal things in the world is your average nineteen-year-old American boy.

I cannot worry about what I don’t know. It seems a pointless waste of energy,

My mother had a philosophy that guided her through many a rough time. 'Only worry when you can do something about it--whatever it is. Then it's not worry, it's thinking things through, trying to decide what's best. When there's nothing you can do, it's just plain worry, and it's pointless and self-destructive.

Do I need to prep his arm?" Isabel gave me a look. "We're intentionally infecting him with meningitis. It seems pointless to be worried about infection at the injection site.

Cass didn’t know what she and Falco were looking for, but whatever it was, they weren’t going to find it rowing around wealthy neighborhoods in the dark. “This is pointless,” she said. “The man with the falcon mask could live in any of these palazzos, or none at all. Besides, we don’t even know if he has anything to do with this mess.” Falco shook his dark hair back from his face. “I was worried this would be a dead end, but I…” He trailed off. “You what?” Cass asked. Falco rubbed at the scar under his eye. “I wanted to see you,” he said. “I wanted to spend time with you.” Cass looked away from him. Again, she felt like someone was stabbing her between her ribs. “Maybe that’s pointless too,” she said. Their boat floated past a gondola. Two forms were visible in the moonlight. A man and woman lay intertwined on the base of the boat. Bare skin, gentle rocking. Falco followed her eyes. “You know that I care about you, Cass.” “But it doesn’t mean anything.” Cass tried to keep her voice from trembling. “Because it can’t lead to anything more.” Falco set aside the oars and turned her face toward his. “You’re wrong. It means everything. You mean everything.” He held her chin between his thumbs and forefingers. “Why do my feelings have to lead anywhere at all? Why can’t we just be here, now, in this moment?” His touch made shivers dance up and down her back. Maybe Falco was right. Why did she care so much about the future? Maybe she should just be thankful that they could be together here, right now. “Why can’t you just be who you are?” Falco asked, his lips moving toward hers. Because I don’t know who that is anymore. “You’re changing me,” she whispered. “I see everything differently now.” Cass didn’t fight it when Falco leaned in and kissed her. She didn’t resist as he tipped her gently backward and laid her down on the wooden bottom of the batèla. Just be who you are. Easy to say, but so difficult to do. Falco unfolded a blanket over her. “So you don’t get cold,” he said. “What’s going to keep you warm?” Cass asked softly, reaching up to tousle his hair. Falco laughed. “Trust me, I’m plenty warm.” “Prove it,” Cass said, pulling him down to her level.

This is pointless,” she said. “The man with the falcon mask could live in any of these palazzos, or none at all. Besides, we don’t even know if he has anything to do with this mess.” Falco shook his dark hair back from his face. “I was worried this would be a dead end, but I…” He trailed off. “You what?” Cass asked. Falco rubbed at the scar under his eye. “I wanted to see you,” he said. “I wanted to spend time with you.

I was worried this would be a dead end, but I…” He trailed off. “You what?” Cass asked. Falco rubbed at the scar under his eye. “I wanted to see you,” he said. “I wanted to spend time with you.” Cass looked away from him. Again, she felt like someone was stabbing her between her ribs. “Maybe that’s pointless too,” she said. Their boat floated past a gondola. Two forms were visible in the moonlight. A man and woman lay intertwined on the base of the boat. Bare skin, gentle rocking. Falco followed her eyes. “You know that I care about you, Cass.

I recognize, of course, that this statement of belief is partly governed by the circumstance that I am old, and in at most a decade or so, will be dead. In earlier years I should doubtless have expressed things differently. Now the prospect of death overshadows all others. I am like a man on a sea voyage nearing his destination. When I embarked I worried about having a cabin with a porthole, whether I should be asked to sit at the captain’s table, who were the more attractive and important passengers. All such considerations become pointless when I shall so soon be disembarking.

You shouldn't be wasting your time worrying about what's going to happen after you die. It's pointless. Think about what's happening now. In your life. That's what's important. So change the subject, will you

Soberly, when our trust is in things that are absolutely beyond any risk or threat, and we have learned from good sources, including our own experience, that those things are there, anxiety is just groundless and pointless. It occurs only as a hangover of bad habits established when we were trusting things—like human approval and wealth—that were certain to let us down. Now our strategy should be one of resolute rejection of worry, while we concentrate on the future in hope and with prayer and on the past with thanksgiving.

When you’re circling the drain, worrying about direction is pointless.

It's pointless to worry...It's more prudent to prepare for all possibilities than fret.

Don't worry Jeff, life is meaningless; it's strange and inexplicable that we exist to begin with. we are all basically dead already in the grand scheme of things, and our feelings of sadness are pointless - they are just how our meat sacks react to the chemicals in our bodies.