The quintessential source of positive emotion is taking responsibility - defining goals and projects, then making progress.

Turn and confront the difficulties of the future rather than hiding; reduce suffering.

Stand up straight with your shoulders back and enjoy the journey.

Where responsibility is abdicated, there is opportunity.

• Notice where responsibility has been shirked and take it upon yourself to set things right instead of blaming others.
• Step up to address problems rather than carping from the sidelines.
• Approach issues needing leadership with the desire to make things better through your efforts.

If you feel contempt and inauthenticity doing something merely to maintain superficial order and expectations, pause and seriously reconsider.

• Minor moral transgressions snowball when left unaddressed. Listen to your conscience.
• Refuse what you know to be wrong.
• Speak truth.

Beware of resentful us-versus-them ideologies that distort truth. Maintain humility about your own flaws.

The enemy is often biases within our own minds.

Set your own house in perfect order before self-righteously criticizing others as the problem. Change begins from within.

Aiming intensely at a precise goal or vision fuels you with meaning and drive. If you aim at nothing, you'll be plagued by distractions and drift through life.

Decide what you want, plan, and work diligently. Imperfect action beats perfect indecision. Value conscious effort.

Art expands vision, cultivates the soul, and connects us to the transcendent. Making something beautiful is intrinsically meaningful, not just a means to an end.

Don't become so task-driven that you lose touch with beauty and degrade into soulless cynicism. What we aim at determines what we perceive.

• Unresolved, unprocessed painful memories from your past disrupt your present self.
• Carefully deconstruct those memories to understand them, then integrate them into your story.
• This frees you from lingering pain and anger.
• Old ghosts must be confronted to move forward.

• Consciously plan enjoyable activities to nurture romance, fun, intimacy, and deep trust in a long-term relationship.
• Dishonesty and poor communication erode foundations.
• Protect your shared journey through openness. Invest when apart to sustain when together.

• Understand that good and evil exist within all people, including yourself.
• Maintain hope in human potential while accepting flaws realistically, not cynically.
• Bitter resentment and blind arrogance breed hatred.
• Integrate your full humanity compassionately.

Suffering is inevitable in our imperfect world. But you can choose to be grateful anyway. Courageously give thanks even in the midst of life's catastrophes; do not become bitter.

Suffering is in the mind. Find meaning through responsibility despite adversity.