In terms of making meaningful and authentic decisions, we are a species walking a narrow bridge with two chasms framing our way: the finite and the infinite. On the finite side lie the fixed conditions of everything we are. These are the facts of our existence that force us to live in certain ways: the needs of our body, the wiring of our brain, and the pull and push of necessity. On the infinite side lies a universe of potential — all the things we think we might someday do or become, a future full of possibilities with no set course laid out.

Two Chasms

Both sides have their sirens’ calls that beckon us with promises of comfort, and both risk rendering us unable to move forward authentically in our lives. For the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, the wise but hard task of life is to walk the path between these two abysses: to be neither finite nor infinite but find the middle way.

Two Sirens

For many of us, the finite side, the reality and necessity of life, is all there is: a world that Kierkegaard calls “aesthetic.” The problem is that if we live only for our needs and whims, then life will rattle by without anything bigger. When we live only for the aesthetic, and embrace too fully the finite alone, we risk losing ourselves. We can do this in two ways. One is to become a slave to our desires — a kind of hedonistic automaton. Another is to become a faceless, uninteresting drone among the masses — or, as Kierkegaard put it, “an imitation, a number, a cipher in the crowd.”

A Person Of No Importance

Kierkegaard believed that the finite is not all there is to being human. There is also the infinite — the recognition that we have the capacity to choose and direct our lives in essentially any way we can dream. But spending too much time gawping at the cosmos of possibilities we face is not entirely healthy. For a lot of people, it’s terrifying.

A Deer Caught In The Headlights

Most of us can remember the anxious vertigo that comes in those “infinite” moments of life, when you leave your parents’ home, end a relationship, or stare at the blank first page of a novel. To know the infinite is also to be dreadfully aware of the vastness of the future. In a phrase Kierkegaard made famous (philosophically famous, anyway), this is to experience and know the “dizziness of freedom.”

The Dizziness Of Freedom

For many people, the anxiety and panic that comes from confronting the vast potential of life is crippling. There’s a paralysis that comes in being unable to choose, because there are too many choices to make, and too many potential options to choose from. For so much of our lives we’re led by the hand by those around us, or we’re given easy and impulsive answers from our biology. However, a human is someone who can take stock of things and who can — who has to — make decisions that no one else will make.

The Paralysis Of Choice

Kierkegaard’s advice is that we must each “learn to be anxious.” We must take a stand where we will but get used to facing outward. We must take a step along that narrow bridge between the infinite and finite. After all, like a spinning top, we risk toppling and losing our very selves when we stop moving.There’s a paradox in all this (and Kierkegaard is particularly fond of paradoxes) and we must hold two seemingly contradictory beliefs in tandem, while never giving sway to either.

We Must Learn To Be Anxious

We must recognize that we are puny and insignificant — primates running on hormones and synapses. But we must also recognize that we are powerful beyond belief, that each of our decisions reaches out into the future, and that our decisions define our future. Embracing and living with this paradox is a maturing of the soul and it is a necessary step in becoming a human being. As Kierkegaard wrote, “I will say that this is an adventure that every human being must go through.” We all live in contradiction. Wisdom comes in accepting that.

We Play A Solo Tug-Of-War

...even the richest personality is nothing before he has chosen himself, and on the other hand even what one might call the poorest personality is everything when he has chosen himself; for the great thing is not to be this or that but to be oneself, and this everyone can be if he wills it.

Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.

The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me.

According to Søren Kierkegaard, we are each pulled in two directions: toward the "finite" or the "infinite." When we lean too far in either direction, we risk living stagnant and inauthentic lives.

Everyday we risk losing ourselves. We either become the plaything of our desires or we are crippled by indecision. We must avoid both.

How Not To Be A Phony: Kierkegaard On The 2 Main Ways We Lose Our True Selves

<ul><li>For humans, rats, and all animals , the desire and motivation to pursue sex arise largely from a neurochemical called dopamine. Dopamine amps up the centerpiece of the primitive part of the brain—the reward system. It’s where we experience cravings and pleasure, and where we get addicted.</li><li>At the top of our human reward list are food, sex, love, friendship, and novelty. These are called ‘natural reinforcers,’ as contrasted with addictive chemicals.</li><li>Sexual stimulation offers the biggest natural blast of dopamine available to your reward circuitry. Dopamine’s nickname is molecule of addiction.</li></ul>

More Dopamine, Please!

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self"

Excess consumption (food or sex) is the signal to your primitive brain that you have hit the evolutionary jackpot. With continued daily over-consumption, high levels of dopamine trigger the production of the protein DeltaFosB. DeltaFosB acts on the reward circuit, stronger nerve connections are behind all learning. This process is called neuroplasticity. The more intense the experience, the stronger the connections. The stronger the connections, the easier it is for electrical impulses to travel along this new pathway.

More Pleasure Seeking Leads To Less Pleasure 

<ul><li>This habit distracts the person towards his/her goals, dreams, better life and good mental health.</li><li>This addiction at any age can ruin the relationship between couples, in career or social life. Many a times one is unable to realize this.</li><li>Sex is a powerful motivational force which plays a vital role in evolving human race but due to the frequent watching of porn and masturbation, the quality of sex decreases. It decreases human connection and people are becoming uncomfortable becoming social. This happens because one creates a different world in his/her brain and is most comfortable in it</li></ul>

Impacts

<ul><li>Men who developed an understanding of how their brain worked and how they were reinforcing negative, self-destructive habits were able to cut pornography out of their lives completely. They were once again attracted to their wives and girlfriends, and the symptoms disappeared. The brain is changeable - you can reverse your symptoms and replace your negative habits with positive ones.</li><li>People find after quitting that their social anxiety and shyness disappears. They can look people in the eyes again, have higher self-esteem and better senses of humour, and have increased female attraction.</li></ul>

Free From Porn

<ul><li>Self-esteem increases</li><li>Good at management in emotional level</li><li>Energetic at every work</li><li>Positivity and sociable easily</li><li>Concentration increases</li><li>Comfort zone increases with talking to people</li><li>Relationship benefits</li><li>No more guilt </li></ul>

Benefits Of Not Watching Porn

<ul><li>Delete all pornography.</li><li>Change your environment.</li><li>Keep a journal and record your progress.</li><li>Engage in regular exercise. Exercise distracts your brain from urges, improves self-confidence and fitness, helps improve your mood.</li><li>Try out cold showers.</li><li>Get outside in nature, walk through the park, breathe the fresh air.</li><li>Get outside and socialise.</li><li>Meditation and prayer help repair the control centre of your brain.</li><li>Engage in exciting, meaningful and productive habits and activities.</li><li>Learn more about what’s happening in your brain and how addiction works.</li><li>Join Nofap.</li></ul>

Tips and Strategies For Overcoming The Addiction

<ul><li>For the start, at least for one month or seven days one has to stay away from sexual activities. One has to be consistent in it. This period may be tough but this is the rebooting period for a better and healthy future.</li><li>In this period, one has to rediscover one’s existence in the life without porn. By this one’s mind will shut down and restart.</li><li>It’s Ok to relapse, Start again with greater enthusiasm.</li><li>DON’T GIVE EXCUSES!!</li></ul>

Reset Your Brain

“We are what we repeatedly do”

Let’s be free to know about our brain!!

The internet has made access to sexually explicit content radically more easy than ever before. This book is essential reading for those who are troubled by their own relationship with pornography, and for those who want to understand the world we now live in. Republished with extensive revisions in December 2017.

Your Brain on Porn

"If you want the rewards, but not the struggle, you don’t really want it."

• If you are able to not give a f*ck about the pain your goals require, then you become unstoppable.• Finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most productive use of your time and energy.• You can’t merely be in love with the result. Everybody loves the result. You have to love the process.• Rejection of alternatives liberates us. In a strange way, commitment to one thing offers more freedom than anything else.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck 

1.Be comfortable with being different, not being indifferent.2. Find something meaningful to give a f*ck about – otherwise you’ll waste energy on meaningless worries.3. You always have a choice over what to give a f*ck about – as we get older, we realise what matters are the simple things.

What Not Giving a F*ck Means

Freedom grants the opportunity for greater meaning, but by itself there is nothing necessarily meaningful about it. Ultimately, the only way to achieve meaning and a sense of importance in one’s life is through a rejection of alternatives, a narrowing of freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief, or one person.

The Importance of Saying No

The way to be happy and fulfilled, Manson says, is to not give a f*ck about everything we’re told to care about.Instead, get clear on what truly matters, focus your choices on those few priorities, and accept that in spite of that, you’ll still make stupid mistakes and suffer occasionally.

Focus On What Matters

Depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That’s true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle— in everything.

Freedom Through Commitment

Do something now, even if it’s really small, and let good actions cascade as a result.

Do Something Principle

The acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others. The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your relationships. Suffering through your fears and anxieties is what allows you to build courage and perseverance.

The Feedback Loop from Hell

<ul><li>Instead of striving for certainty, we should be in constant search of doubt: doubt about our own beliefs, doubt our own feelings, doubt about what the future may hod for us unless we get out there and create it for ourselves. </li><li>Openness to being wrong must exist for any real change or growth to take place.</li></ul>

You’re Wrong About Everything (But So Am I)

"Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s the cause of it.”

<ul><li>Fault is past tense.</li><li>Responsibility is present tense.</li></ul>Maturity == to become more selective about the f*cks you are willing to give.

Fault Vs Responsibility 

<ul><li>Confronting the reality of our own mortality is important because it obliterates all the crappy, fragile, superficial values in life.</li><li> Simple optioning for your own values in life, already makes you beautiful, already makes you successful, and already makes you loved. Even if you don’t realize it.</li></ul>

… And Then You Die

“Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a f*ck about what’s truly f*ckworthy”

Only give a f*ck about what’s truly f*ckworthy :)

#1 New York Times Bestseller Over 1 million copies sold In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

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Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

#lifedecisions

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IDEAS ABOUT #lifedecisions

How Not To Be A Phony: Kierkegaard On The 2 Main Ways We Lose Our True Selves

Your Brain on Porn

It's time to

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A PRO!

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career