Choose the fucks you wish to give wisely and hold them, dear.
“The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important and being comfortable with being different.” It’s not giving a fuck about everything your partner gives a fuck about; it’s giving a fuck about your partner regardless of the fucks he/she gives — that’s unconditional love, baby!! In a truly loving relationship, each partner is independent and takes responsibility for his her own issues. To show your support for your loved one, you simply need to care about that person not necessarily about every single interest he/she has.
Learn how to say no.
We are constantly being forced to choose between different things. “we are defined by what we choose to reject. For many people, this is a very difficult truth, because they seek to avoid rejection by any means. They seek the pleasure of acceptance regardless of their cost. You must learn to prioritize your values and reject values that don’t define who you are — learn to say NO.
Accept your complete and utter averageness — that you are not special and your life actually sucks
Pretending that everything is okay when it’s not is a bad coping strategy. It’s more productive to acknowledge your negative feelings—not wallow in them, but sit with them and then move on. “Denying negative emotions leads to experiencing deeper and more prolonged negative emotions and to emotional dysfunction. Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a solution to life’s problems.” Talk is cheap!! Merely telling yourself that you’re awesome in the face of contrary evidence is not helpful. Working hard to overcome your less-awesome reality is. “It turns out that merely feeling good about yourself doesn’t really mean anything unless you have a good reason to feel good about yourself.”
Think long and hard about your core values and how you express them.
Much of our misery is caused by valuing the wrong things or valuing things without thought. Good values lead to productive problems, whereas bad values lead to bad problems. Our values dictate our lives and relationships, so it’s worth thinking long and hard about the values that you hold. Good values include “honesty, innovation, vulnerability, standing up for oneself, standing up for others, self-respect, curiosity, charity, humility, creativity.”
Court failure and learn from it with enthusiasm.
We may not be responsible for trauma or setback, but we are responsible for how we respond to it. “many people may be to blame for your unhappiness, but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you. This is because you always get to choose how you see things, how you react to things, how you value things.” We can’t determine what will happen to us, but we can decide how we react to it. We’re only as powerless as we feel.
Constantly reevaluate your assumptions and beliefs.
Our minds are subject to faulty memories, faulty pattern-making, faulty knowledge, and so many other cognitive biases. Never get too comfortable with your beliefs. If you want to grow, you must constantly challenge your assumptions and values, no matter how painful it may be to do so.
Failure is the way forward — be more than okay with being wrong.
Pain and discomfort suck, but they’re unavoidable if we want to accomplish something hard. To overcome pain, always use the do something principle — “when you’re stuck, and resistance seems insurmountable, do something, no matter how small. The very act of taking action is empowering, and will (eventually) set off a chain of inspiration that will motivate you.”
Try to have “good” problems.
Much of our misery is caused by valuing the wrong things or valuing things without thought. To figure out what our values require a lot of introspection. Too often we use the wrong metrics to assess our lives and circumstances. In our lives, this means thinking long and hard about the values we hold. Good values lead to productive problems, whereas bad values lead to bad problems — divorce, imprisonment. Four shitty values are the cause of much of our misery — pleasure, material success, always being right and staying positive. Good values are — reality-based, socially constructive, immediate and controllable. Bad values are — superstitious, socially destructive, not immediate and controllable. Good values include — honesty, innovation, vulnerability, standing up for oneself, standing up for others, self-respect, curiosity, humility, creativity, charity. Our values dictate our lives, it’s worth thinking long and hard about the values that you hold.
Get to work even when you’re not inspired.
Inspiration will find you after you get started; if you wait for it, you’ll just waste time. Action isn’t just the effect of motivation, it’s also the cause of it. Waiting around for motivation to strike almost never works, motivation and often inspiration comes once we get to work, so get to work already.
Accept that someone or something else may be to blame for your pain, but only you are responsible for how you react to it — you always get to choose.
We can’t determine what will happen to us but we can decide how to react to it. We are only as powerless as we feel.
Confront the fact that you’re going to die, and use this knowledge as a reminder to live how you want.
Death is terrifying. Our lives are driven by fears instead of values that we care so much about death. Instead of living authentically and staying true to who you are, we are so terrified by the prospect of death, that we will do anything possible to escape it and ensure that our “immortality projects” are secure. If we let it in, death can terrify us into choosing the wrong values. By accepting the inevitability of death, we can clarify our true values and free ourselves to live a life with purpose.
Happy reading!
