The mind is the most sophisticated computer on the planet, and yet most people have no idea how to use it effectively. The mind has no subtractions and divisions; it only has addition and multiplication. This means that trying to remove negative thoughts forcefully is futile. Instead, one must understand how the mind functions and create distance between the self and the mind.

Understanding the Mechanism of Mind

The most significant aspect of a person is their aliveness. The focus should be on the fundamental sense of aliveness within the self. Beyond thought and emotion, a person exists. Understanding this and creating distance between the self and the mind and body can lead to the end of suffering.

The Importance of Aliveness

Avoiding negative thoughts may provide temporary relief, but it is not a long-term solution. Negative thoughts will return, sometimes with even greater force. It is essential to understand and confront one's negative emotions to create lasting change.

Avoiding Negative Thoughts Is Not Enough 

The mind is like a throttle. Whatever a person touches, it will only go faster. This means that trying to remove negative thoughts forcefully is counterproductive. It is necessary to understand the mechanics of the mind and create distance between the self and the mind to achieve inner peace.

The Mind is a Throttle, Not a Brake 

The mind and body are vehicles that must serve a person. If they do not serve the person, they are a nuisance. The mind is the most beautiful thing a person has, but they must pay attention to how it functions to use it effectively.

 The Mind is a Vehicle That Must Serve Us 

There is a distinction between the self and what a person has gathered. The self exists beyond thoughts, emotions, and physiological processes. By understanding this distinction, a person can create distance between the self and the mind to achieve inner peace.

The Difference Between You and What You Have Gathered

Creating distance between the self and the mind can lead to the end of suffering. There are only two kinds of suffering that humans experience: physical and mental. By creating space between the self and the mind and body, a person can achieve inner peace.

The End of Suffering

The Isha Kriya process is designed to distance a person from their physiological and psychological processes. This process can help a person understand the distinction between the self and the mind and achieve inner peace. It is essential to focus on the fundamental sense of aliveness within the self to create lasting change.

The Importance Of The Process

The mind is a sophisticated computer, and in order to understand its mechanics, we must first understand that there are no subtractions and divisions in the mind, only addition and multiplication. Trying to remove negative thoughts is not the solution, as our minds cannot be controlled forcefully. Instead, we must focus on distancing ourselves from our physiological and psychological processes, and recognize the fundamental sense of aliveness within us. By creating space between ourselves and our minds, we can put an end to suffering.

Sadhguru looks at how the mind, which should be the greatest boon, is unfortunately being used by most people as a misery-manufacturing machine. He also gives us a simple process to begin the process of experiencing the magic of the mind. #sadhguru #sadhgurujaggivasudev To watch this video in Tamil - https://youtu.be/ZX4zuS6K1Mw #Sadhguru Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times. Sadhguru Exclusive (Register Now) ⚡ http://isha.co/ex-yt Sadhguru App (Download) 📱 http://onelink.to/sadhguru__app Official Sadhguru Website 🌎 http://isha.sadhguru.org Donate Towards Crafting A Conscious Planet 🙏 http://isha.co/sanghamitra-yt﻿ Offerings from Sadhguru in Challenging Times 🌼 https://isha.sadhguru.org/sadhana-support Guided Yoga & Meditations by Sadhguru (Free Online) 🌼 http://isha.sadhguru.org/5-min-practices 🌼 http://isha.sadhguru.org/IshaKriya Inner Engineering Online Program 50% off | FREE for COVID Warriors 🌼 http://isha.co/IEO-YT (Register Now) Sadhguru's space:- https://www.quora.com/q/sadhguru Official Social Profiles of Sadhguru (Subscribe) 🌐 https://youtube.com/sadhguru?sub_confirmation=1 🌐 https://facebook.com/sadhguru 🌐 https://instagram.com/sadhguru 🌐 https://twitter.com/SadhguruJV 🌐 https://t.me/Sadhguru

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Sadhguru looks at how the mind, which should be the greatest boon, is unfortunately being used by most people as a misery-manufacturing machine. He also gives us a simple process to begin the process of experiencing the magic of the mind.

#sadhguru #sadhgurujaggivasudev 
To watch this video in Tamil - https://youtu.be/ZX4zuS6K1Mw 
#Sadhguru
Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times. 

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Considered among India’s 50 most influential people, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, bestselling author, and poet. Absolute clarity of perception places him in a unique space, not only in matters spiritual but in business, environmental and international affairs, and opens a new door on all that he touches.

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How to Remove Negative Thoughts? Sadhguru Jagadish Vasudev Answers

How to Remove Negative Thoughts?

Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams. You need to know your personal philosophy of what makes you happy and what’s worth doing.

A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work. Hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers will work. The rest are details.

If you think your life’s purpose needs to hit you like a lightning bolt, you’ll overlook the little day-to-day things that fascinate you.If you think revolution needs to feel like war, you’ll overlook the importance of simply serving people better. When you’re on to something great, it won’t feel like revolution. It’ll feel like uncommon sense.

Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.Present each new idea or improvement to the world. If multiple people are saying, “Wow! Yes! I need this! I’d be happy to pay you to do this!” then you should probably do it. But if the response is anything less, don’t pursue it. Don’t waste years fighting uphill battles against locked doors. Improve or invent until you get that huge response.

When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say no. When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision — even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone — according to what’s best for your customers. If you’re ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, “How can I best help you now?” Then focus on satisfying those requests.It’s counterintuitive, but the way to grow your business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. Just thrill them, and they’ll tell everyone.

Watch out when anyone (including you) says they want to do something big, but can’t until they raise money. It usually means they’re more in love with the idea of being big big big than with actually doing something useful. For an idea to get big big big, it has to be useful. And being useful doesn’t need funding. If you want to be useful, you can always start now, with only 1% of what you have in your grand vision. It’ll be a humble prototype version of your grand vision, but you’ll be in the game. You’ll be ahead of the rest, because you actually started, while others are waiting

You have something that people want. It might be something you own, something you’ve learned how to do, or access to resources, space, or people.Find a way to share it with everyone who needs it. Not necessarily for profit, but just because it’s what you’d do for friends, and it’s the right thing to do. If it takes some effort for you to share it, charge a little something for your effort, to ensure that this giving can continue.Start by sharing whatever you’ve got.

Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

You can’t pretend there’s only one way to do it. Your first idea is just one of many options. No business goes as planned, so make ten radically different plans. Realizing the initial choice you made was just one of many brings all kinds of weathered wisdom and insight into your business.

Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?

All bad service comes from a mindset of scarcity. They act like they’ll go out of business if they don’t fiercely guard their bottom line. The short-term thinking of desperate survival blocks the long-term thinking of smart strategy.If you really feel secure and abundant — that you have plenty to share — then this feeling of generosity will flow down into all of your interactions with customers.Of course you should care about your customers more than you care about yourself! Isn’t that rule #1 of providing a good service? It’s all about them, not you.

When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it, like a desperate lover. It’s a turn-off. When someone’s doing something for love, being generous instead of stingy, trusting instead of fearful, it triggers this law: We want to give to those who give. It’s another Tao of business: Set up your business like you don’t need the money, and it’ll likely come your way.

Customer service is not an expense to be minimized. It’s a core profit center, like sales. It’s where you should put your best people.Companies focus so much on getting new customers, but keeping existing customers thrilled is a better investment

Three minutes spent talking with them is going to shape their impression of your company more than your name, price, design, or features all combined. This is your shining moment to be the best you can be — to blow them away with how cool it was to contact you. If your customer service is taught to be efficient, it sends the message, “I don’t really want to talk with you. Let’s make this quick.” Do the opposite. Take a few inefficient minutes to get to know anyone who contacts you.

Customer service often starts when someone has a problem, and is upset. When you feel attacked, it’s hard not to fight back, especially when you know they’re wrong. But the best thing to do is to lose the fight. Let them know that they were right, and the company was wrong. Tell them you’re prepared to do whatever it takes to make them happy again.

When one customer wrongs you, remember the thousands that did not. Resist the urge to punish everyone for one person’s mistake.

It’s dehumanizing to have thousands of people passing through our computer screens, so we say things we’d never say if those people were sitting next to us.

If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff.

To be a true business owner, make sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.

There’s a benefit to being naïve to the norms of the world — deciding from scratch what seems like the right thing to do, instead of just doing what others do.

When you want to learn how to do something yourself, most people won’t understand. They’ll assume the only reason we do anything is to get it done, and doing it yourself is not the most efficient way. But that’s forgetting about the joy of learning and doing.

Never forget that you can make your role anything you want it to be. Anything you hate to do, someone else loves. So find those people and let them do it.Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don’t forget it.

Those of us with business ideas? We need a company. Not for the money, but because it’s our place to experiment, create, and turn thoughts into reality. We need to pursue our intrinsic motivation.The happiest people are not lounging on beaches. They’re engaged in interesting work! Following curiosity is much more fun than being idle. Even if you never have to work a day in your life.That’s the best reason to have a company. It’s your playground, your instrument, your laboratory. It’s your place to play! Get the ideas out of your head and into the world.

Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you’re being the real you and when you’re trying to impress an invisible jury.Whatever you make, it’s your creation, so make it your personal dream come true.

Series : Books in Quotes#1 : If it’s not a hit, switch - Derek Sivers

You can follow the beaten path and call yourself an entrepreneur or you can blaze your own trail and really be one. When Derek Sivers started CD Baby, he wasn’t planning on building a major business. He was a successful independent musician who just wanted to sell his CDs online. When no one would help him do it, he set out on his own and built an online store from scratch. He started in 1998 by helping his friends sell their CDs. In 2000, he hired his first employee. Eight years later, he sold CD Baby for $22 million. Sivers didn’t need a business plan, and neither do you. You don’t need to think big; in fact, it’s better if you don’t. Start with what you have, care about your customers more than yourself, and run your business like you don’t need the money.

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You can follow the beaten path and call yourself an entrepreneur or you can blaze your own trail and really be one. When Derek Sivers started CD Baby, he wasn’t planning on building a major business. He was a successful independent musician who just wanted to sell his CDs online. When no one would help him do it, he set out on his own and built an online store from scratch. He started in 1998 by helping his friends sell their CDs. In 2000, he hired his first employee. Eight years later, he sold CD Baby for $22 million. Sivers didn’t need a business plan, and neither do you. You don’t need to think big; in fact, it’s better if you don’t. Start with what you have, care about your customers more than yourself, and run your business like you don’t need the money.

Derek Sivers is an author of philosophy and entrepreneurship, known for his surprising quotable insights and pithy succinct writing style.Formerly a musician, programmer, TED speaker, and circus clown, he sold his first company for $22 million and gave all the money to charity.Sivers’ books (How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Your Music and People, Anything You Want) and newest projects are at his website: https://sive.rs/

Derek Sivers

Anything You Want

Some people love being right. They love it even more when everyone knows they’re right. In any given room, there’s almost always a portion of people who yearn to be the seen as the best. They want others to gasp at their superior intelligence or their years of hard-won acumen. These people can’t stand an incorrect statement to go uncorrected. So often, as they put you right, they’ll give you a torrent of erudition. You’ll get a much better answer than if you simply asked.

Want The Right Answer? State The Wrong Thing. 

Of course, this does sound a lot like trolling. But it’s trolling of a multi-millennia vintage — the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, did a lot of it. Socrates would sit on some public bench and talk to whoever happened to sit next to him. He’d often open his dialogues by presenting a false or deeply flawed argument and go from there. He would ironically agree with whatever his partner would say, but then raise a seemingly innocuous question to challenge that position.

Socratic Trolling

In the dialogue called “Meno,” Socrates explores the idea of virtue. Socrates goes along with what his friend, Meno, says, hoping that they’ll elicit some further revelation on their conversational journey. “Okay, so let’s say that virtue can be taught…” Socrates will say, and then, through clever questioning, will go on to reveal why that’s wrong. “Socratic irony” is where you pretend to be ignorant of something so you can get greater clarity about it. In short, it’s a lot like Cunningham’s Law.

Socratic Irony

If you’ve been to any “away day” professional training recently, or spent enough time around bureaucratic middle managers, you’ll have probably come across “coaching.” Coaching is, essentially, a catch-all term for any strategy by which you can draw out answers from someone.Asking someone, “How do you think you could be better at your job?” will be met with blank stares. But if you ask, “What obstacles are stopping you from being great?” or “Who do you think is excellent at their job and how do they do it?” you’re more likely to get better answers.

Coaching It Out

Cunningham’s Law is an example of coaching. It’s a backdoor way of accessing knowledge when the front door is barred and shut. Here are two ways you can use Cunningham’s Law:The Bad Option: Have you ever been in a group where no one can decide what decision to make, and so you hover about in an awkward, polite limbo? “What restaurant shall we go to?” gets nothing. Instead try saying, “Let’s go to McDonald’s” and see how others object and go on to offer other ideas.

The Bad Option

The Coin Toss: If you’re unsure about any life decision — like “Should I read this book or that book next?” or “Should I leave my job or not?” — do a coin toss. Heads you do X, tails you do Y. You are not actually going to live by the coin’s decision, but you need to make a note of your reaction to whatever outcome came of it. Were you upset at what it landed on? Are you secretly relieved? It’s a good way to elicit your true thoughts on a topic.

The Coin Toss

Cunningham’s Law is a curious psychological phenomenon, and it’s one that can be used to great advantage. From getting detailed responses out of experts on the internet to illuminating some unconscious desire, sometimes feigning idiocy has its perks.

Feigning Idiocy Has Its Perks

‘Tis sometimes the height of wisdom to feign stupidity.

If you want to know something, don't ask a question. Pretend that you know the answer, and wait for people to correct you.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Cunningham’s Law: The Satisfying Benefits Of Feigning Stupidity

<ul><li>Pseudologia fantastica, aka pathological lying, is when a person lies to a degree that is out of proportion to any clear, objective benefit. </li><li>Pseudologia fantastica serves an ego-driven, internally motivated longing for how someone wishes the world would be and would see them. </li><li>Confronting a pathological liar with their deceptions will likely backfire, as it only tends to stimulate further fabrication and evasion. </li> </ul>

A Psychological Diagnosis About People Who Lie About Everything 

"It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what."—Hugh Laurie

Quote On Lying 

Truth be told, we all lie sometimes. <a href="https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/how-often-do-people-lie/">Ninety percent </a>of our deceptions are white lies told to protect ourselves, to avoid getting into trouble, and to spare someone else’s feelings. For the most part, the lies we tell are motivated by an external reason. They are typically defensive to avoid the consequences of truth-telling—"I swear I have no idea what happened to that plate of cookies.” They may be tactical—“I never received your email” or <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/altruism">altruistic </a>—“You look great in that dress.”

Truth About Lying

Lying may be an integral part of our daily lives, but there is a big difference between “normal” lying and pathological lying, also known as pseudologia fantastica. The term pseudologia fantastica (PF) was first coined by the German physician, Anton Delbrueck, in 1891 to describe the phenomenology of a group of patients who told lies that were obviously extreme and fantastical with a clear departure from reality to the observer, yet perceived by the patients themselves as within the realm of possibility. People with PF lie about everything constantly, eloquently, excessively, and chronically.

Normal Verses Pathological Lying 

These individuals <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brad-Kelln/publication/247501304_A_review_and_case_report_of_pseudologia_fantastica/links/5563672a08ae9963a11eef50/A-review-and-case-report-of-pseudologia-fantastica.pdf">“indulge in a veritable orgy of lying” </a> to serve an ego-driven, internally motivated longing for how they wish the world would be and would see them. For instance, if your neighbor has a dilapidated but cherished old car and asks your opinion about it, you might stretch the truth and say something along the lines of, “I think your car is fabulous.” However, someone with PF would respond, “I have 10 vintage sports cars, all in top condition, at my large, private estate in Monaco.” The person with PF lies to self-aggrandize, not to flatter the neighbor.

Ego-Driven Lying

Moreover, unlike cons who lie for external gain or profit, people with PF tell lies that go above and beyond what would be necessary to pull off a successful swindle. They are out of proportion to any obvious external reward. The lies they tell are “almost always dazzling or fantastical,” and easily roll off their tongue. Sometimes they lie “just because.” Lying is inherently gratifying for them. These are the people who lie about what they ate for lunch.

Out Of Proportion Lying

While there is no current gold-standard definition of pseudologia fantastica, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5442346/">several key characteristics </a>have been identified:<ol><li>They chronically tell lies or untrue stories that are unrelated to, or out of proportion to, any clear, objective benefit.</li><li>Qualitatively, the stories are dramatic, detailed, complicated, colorful, and fantastic.</li></ol>

Key characteristics of pseudologia fantastica

3. The stories typically feature the pseudologue as the hero or victim and seem geared to achieve acceptance, admiration, and sympathy;4. I terms of insight, the pseudologue lies somewhere along a spectrum between conscious deceit and delusion, not always conscious of his motives and seeming at least intermittently to believe his stories yet never to reach the level of conviction that would indicate a loss of reality-testing.

Key characteristics of pseudologia fantastica (Continued

Most people are mortified and ashamed when their lies are exposed but not those with PF. When confronted with their <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/deception">deception </a>, people with PF are typically unfazed. They don’t break out in hives or lose sleep or sweat. Rather, they double down, sometimes providing further elaborate details to explain the lies.

Confronting Deception

That said, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, they will—reluctantly —relinquish their tall tales. This stands in contrast to people with a delusional disorder who cling to their fixed false beliefs no matter what. PF often overlaps with borderline, antisocial, and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/narcissism">narcissistic </a><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/personality-disorders">personality disorders </a>, but not always. Sometimes they are stand-alone liars.

Delusional Lying

Confronting the person with their deceptions will likely backfire. As tempting as it is to take a prosecutorial approach and attempt to extract a mea culpa from the individual, save your breath. Exposure and questioning tend to stimulate further fabrication and evasion.

There is no cure for pseudologia fantastica

In a clinical setting, there is evidence that showing disinterest in the tales but maintaining interest in the person may help reduce the <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/motivation">motivation </a>to lie. While there is no guarantee of successful treatment, I think we can all agree that these people belong in a therapist’s office and not in political office.

Lie Motivation 

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A Psychological Diagnosis for People Who Lie About Everything

"The easiest way for us to gain happiness is to learn how to want the things we already have."-William B. Irv

Author Quote 

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5617966-a-guide-to-the-good-life">A Guide To The Good Life </a> is a roadmap for aspiring Stoics, revealing why this ancient philosophy is useful today, what Stoicism is truly about, and showing you how to cultivate its powerful principles in your own life.

A Guide To The Good Life - Book Summary

This is how I’ve been trying to live my life for the past two years, and I’ve never been happier. To the contrary, I just seem to get happier over time, because the more I learn, implement and embrace Stoic qualities in my life, the less adversity affects me. Since adopting a more Stoic mindset, I feel much less distracted, I can always make room for the truly important things in life, I almost never get angry, especially not at things outside of my control, and I’m incredibly grateful for every single day I get to spend here on this beautiful earth.

Book Overview

Ironically, though it’s not aimed towards getting rich at all, I do think a Stoic mindset is a cause of worldly success in many cases, such as <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-obstacle-is-the-way-summary/">Ryan Holiday </a>, <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/crush-it-summary/">Gary Vaynerchuk </a> or <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-4-hour-workweek-summary/">Tim Ferriss </a>, all of whom have admittedly adopted this mentality.

<ol><li>The two primary values of Stoicism are virtue and tranquility. </li><li>Learn to want what you already have. </li><li>Immediately accept things that are outside of your control and focus on what you can do. </li> </ol>Ready to step up and start practicing Stoicism? Let’s go, I’m super excited to share this with you!

Top 3 Book Lessons

There are two central themes in Stoicism, values which all Stoics strive to integrate into their lives as much as possible. Those two goals are:<ol><li>Virtue. </li><li>Tranquility. </li></ol>Chances are you don’t really know what these mean, or if you do, you think of the wrong thing.For example, virtue might be defined as “having high moral standards” and therefore make you think only monks, priests and Mother Theresa are good examples of virtuous people. But virtue in a Stoic sense is more about living a life that’s aligned with your own set of values

Lesson 1: Virtue and tranquility are the highest values

Synonyms of the word are goodness, honesty, righteousness, dignity, integrity, trustworthiness, decency and merit, for example, which all rely on you doing what you say and saying what you do. In the same vein tranquility is not about napping a lot or being lazy. Tranquility is the art of ridding yourself of negative emotions . A tranquil person shows great <a href="http://niklasgoeke.com/increase-willpower">self-control </a> and won’t let her emotions dominate her intellect, for example by staying calm in a traffic jam, because she knows getting angry at traffic is useless.

One of the worst, yet most common vicious cycle we get stuck in, especially in the Western world, is <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-code-of-the-extraordinary-mind-summary/">the hedonic treadmill </a>. Scientifically known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill">hedonic adaptation </a>, this is a system in which we chase material possessions, only to attain them, quickly get used to and bored by them, to reset and chase the next item.

Lesson 2: Learn to want what you already have

One of the worst, yet most common vicious cycle we get stuck in, especially in the Western world, is <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-code-of-the-extraordinary-mind-summary/">the hedonic treadmill </a>. Scientifically known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill">hedonic adaptation </a>, this is a system in which we chase material possessions, only to attain them, quickly get used to and bored by them, to reset and chase the next item.A tranquil and virtuous person knows she must break out of this cycle: learning to want the things we already have and appreciating the things in our life . The more you want what you have, <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/peak-how-great-companies-get-their-mojo-from-maslow-summary/">as compared to having what you want </a>, the happier you’ll be.

A tranquil and virtuous person knows she must break out of this cycle and Stoics have one major way of doing so: learning to want the things we already have and appreciating the things in our life . The more you want what you have, <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/peak-how-great-companies-get-their-mojo-from-maslow-summary/">as compared to having what you want </a>, the happier you’ll be.

A very simple exercise you can use to achieve this is negative visualization: Imagine the things and people you take for granted and interact with the most would suddenly vanish and be gone forever . This’ll make you feel bad for a second, because the thought of loss is painful, but at the same time it’ll give you an instant surge of appreciation and show you how lucky you are to still have them in your life.

I found <a href="https://business.facebook.com/4minutebooks/photos/a.393208664109121.88997.393201444109843/545511002212219/?type=3&theater">a quote </a>a few years ago that perfectly sums this up: Imagine you only woke up this morning with only the things you said ‘thank you’ for yesterday – would you have everything you need?

The biggest step towards becoming more tranquil you can take is changing your attitude towards the things you can’t control. This takes two steps: <ol><li>Realizing when something is outside of your control right when it happens . </li><li>Not distracting yourself with worrying about it for even a second . </li> </ol>

Lesson 3: Be okay with the things

This takes a lot of practice, but once you have it down, it changes everything. It not only makes you happier, it also stops you from wasting time with waiting. For example, when I send an email pitch to someone, I forget it the second I send it, because from that moment on, it’s out of my control. Likewise I never worry about the weather or politics.

And for those things that are somewhat in your control, but not entirely, you can internalize the goal. For example, of course you want to get good grades or win when you enter a competition, but other people have a say in this too. So instead of focusing on getting an A or <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-psychology-of-winning-summary/">winning </a>, focus on delivering your best performance.

This will not only actually make you perform better, but you also won’t feel crushed if you don’t achieve your goal – because it wasn’t entirely up to you to reach it.

I can’t say enough good things about Stoicism. It’s definitely part of the 20% of the changes I’ve made in my life that account for 80% of my increase in happiness. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5617966-a-guide-to-the-good-life">A Guide To The Good Life </a> is a great introductory book to the topic and covers everything you need to know in layman’s terms. 100% recommended! Good follow-up reads are <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/meditations-summary/">Meditations </a> and <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/breakfast-with-socrates-summary/">Breakfast With Socrates </a> .

A Guide To The Good Life Book Review

The 21 year old, who’s in a rush to finish his business degree so he can earn as much money as possible and start living “the good life”, the 43 year old who’s still bitter about having to give up her tennis career, and anyone who curses when they’re stuck in a traffic jam.

Who would I recommend the A Guide To The Good Life to?

This A Guide To The Good Life summary explains the goal of Stoicism, how to learn to want what you have & why giving up control makes you happier.

A Guide To The Good Life Summary

The important moments in life are these, when you have just lost. You are laying on the ground, fighting against life itself. Either you lose the fight and get broken. Or you emerge victorious and are stronger than ever before.

When you just lost

Read this when you are broken after a loss

productivity

Productivity

Inspiring Quote

"The only way to learn is to live.'-Matt Haig

Op<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52578297-the-midnight-library">The Midnight Library </a>tells the story of Nora, a depressed woman in her 30s, who, on the day she decides to die, finds herself in a library full of lives she could have lived, where she discovers there’s a lot more to life, even her current one, than she had ever imagined.

The Midnight Library - Book 

What if, instead of having to live your one life one day at a time, you could sample every life you could possibly have? Would you be happier? Would you find “the one?” The life in which everything fits? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Haig">Matt Haig </a>‘s million-copy bestseller, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52578297-the-midnight-library">The Midnight Library </a>, asks these big questions.

Book Overview 

The book follows Nora Seed, a British woman in her mid-30s, who is deeply depressed. One night, she decides to commit suicide, but the overdose of sleeping pills sends her into a library between life and death. As time stands still, Nora gets to sample countless lives she could have lived, and by the end of it, one thing is clear: Nora wants to live .

<ol><li>You could live a million lives and still not be satisfied. </li><li>Your “best” life may still not be the right one for you to go through. </li><li>Life won’t always give you an explanation, so just go on living. </li> </ol>

Top 3 Book Less

In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10573626/">an episode </a>of The Sandman , Robert “Hob” Gadling strikes a deal with Dream and Death: In exchange for sharing his experience once a century, he won’t die. Some centuries Hob lives like a pauper, in others he lives like a king. No matter whether he’s super rich or just lost his wife and child, however, Hob asks for 100 more years at each meeting. 600 years later, his conclusion is clear: “<a href="https://nik.art/i-could-do-this-forever/">I could do this forever. </a>”

Lesson 1: Human Nature And Being Dissatisfied 

Whereas Hob is driven by <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/a-curious-mind-summary/">curiosity </a>and a lust for life, Nora finds something wrong with every life she tries. In the married pub-owner life with her ex Dan, he cheats on her and drinks too much. Had she moved to Australia, her best friend would have died. If swimmer-Nora had become an Olympic gold medalist, she’d still be depressed, and if her cat hadn’t died early last night, it would have died three hours later.

With each disappointment, Nora returns to the library, and so, albeit for different reasons, she and Hob learn the same lesson: You could live a million lives, and yet, you would still not be satisfied — because striving for progress is just <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-laws-of-human-nature-summary/">human nature </a>.

While this drives civilization, as individuals, we are also happiest when we feel we’re evolving, and to evolve, we need to make a change . That’s why, even if we lived a thousand years, there’d always be things we still feel we need to do.

Don’t strive for a perpetual state of perfection. It doesn’t exist. Learn to be okay with never being completely satisfied, and make the most of this trait rather than regret it.

After she has tried being a glaciologist, being a rockstar, and owning a vineyard, Nora finally finds a life that seems to fit like a glove. She is married to her hot neighbor Ash, who’s a surgeon. They have a daughter and a dog. The couple lives in Cambridge, and Nora is a philosophy professor. In other words, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-gifts-of-imperfection-summary/">everything is perfect </a>.

Lesson 2: Perception Of Your "Best" Life

For weeks, Nora stays in this life, thinking this might be the one, but eventually, she realizes she must leave it behind. For one, Nora hasn’t earned this life. She wants it, but unless she can achieve it through her own actions, she’ll never fully enjoy it. For another, the perfection of Nora’s life came at the expense of who she left behind. A boy she originally gave piano lessons to, for example, ends up being a criminal because Nora never opened the door to being a musician for him.

Usually, we imagine our “best” lives as devoid of sacrifice. Everything is supposed to be easy. But what if that easiness hurts people we care about? Wouldn’t we rather make some compromises and thus see them happy too?

Your best life will only feel as good as you feel you actually deserve it — and to deserve it, ironically, you’ll likely have to make some painful sacrifices . Ultimately “best” is not about achievement. It’s about <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-nicomachean-ethics/">making choices we are proud of </a>— and whatever that life ends up looking like, even if it’s far from perfect, we’ll be happy that we’re in it.

As the Midnight Library collapses, Nora realizes: <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-last-lecture-summary/">A life full of problems can still be good </a>, and even a good life might be full of problems. She manages to throw up her sleeping pills and get help. The next day, she reconciles with her estranged brother and passes on her lesson: “You don’t have to understand life,” Nora tells him. “You just have to live it.”

Lesson 3: Understanding Life Verses Living Life

On her social media, she writes: “We only need to be one person. We only need to feel one existence. We don’t have to do everything in order to be everything, because <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/finite-and-infinite-games-summary/">we are already infinite </a>. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.”

“We can’t tell if any of those other versions [of us] would have been better or worse,” Nora writes. But we can tell that our actual lives are happening right in front of us, “and that is the happening we have to focus on.”

In life, you won’t get an explanation for every breakup, let alone a “<a href="https://nik.art/what-if/">what-if </a>” report outlining all your alternate realities. If you focus on the life you have , however, you won’t need either of those things. All we have to do is live one day at a time and trust that, in that one existence, everything that’s needed will be contained.

Enjoy the present, be kind to those around you, and ask for help when you need it. May you never end up at the Midnight Library.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52578297-the-midnight-library">The Midnight Library </a>is a beautiful book with a clever concept, masterfully executed by Matt Haig. It is easy to read, full of great quotes, smart references, and even some poems and lyrics Nora wrote in her other lives. The book draws from many genres and will make you think deeply, not just about the lives you could lead, but also about the one you do . A magnificent thought experiment with a wonderful conclusion.

The Midnight Library Review

The 14-year-old boy who gets bullied in school and feels isolated and alone, the 35-year-old stay-at-home wife who feels she should have accomplished more, and anyone who spends a lot of time thinking about past regrets.

Who would I recommend our The Midnight Library to?

Read our summary of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig to get the plot of this beautiful novel in 4 minutes + 3 valuable life lessons.

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

The Midnight Library Summary

The reputation of the stoics was that they were invulnerable, strong and that they use to suppress their emotions but if that they were so we wouldn’t have found so many references and strategies to deal with anxiety. Here are 10 of them.

Ten Stoic Strategies to deal with Anxiety. 

Don’t focus on the goals that are in the distance, focus on the immediate step that is within our control. Do each thing that is front of you like it’s the only thing that matters or it’s the last thing that you have to do, and it all adds up - “Many mickle makes a muckle”.

1. Focus On the Little Thing

Feel lucky to be alive in this moment. You have been given a gift of the present moment, don’t be cynical or jaded and waste this precious life. Everything might not be ideal but it’s the time that we are alive, and we have any control only in this moment so accept it and be grateful for it.

2. Practice Gratitude.

You don’t need to have an opinion about everything. You can accept things as they are or simply ignore it. Look at life objectively and don’t project your own thoughts and opinion on it.

3. Have No Opinion. 

How much more enjoyable would your days be without the constant dread of stress looming over you? Anxiety was one of the main emotions Stoicism was built to handle. In this video best-selling author Ryan Holiday explores 10 of the best time-tested ways that the Stoics dealt with anxiety. ⚔️ Overwhelmed? You’re not alone. Check out the Daily Stoic Slay Your Stress Course: A 13-day challenge designed to reclaim your life from the negative effects of stress and anxiety. Go to https://dailystoic.com/Stress to sign up. The pages of Marcus Aurelius’s private journal are filled with notes to himself on how to ‘escape anxiety’. Epictetus says the ‘most important task in life’ was determining what we could control and what we couldn’t, in an effort to ease daily anxieties. Seneca’s letters are constant reminders to not suffer before it is necessary. And not just reminders, but practical, actionable steps to overcoming both. 00:00 Intro 01:39 1. Focus On The Little Things 02:29 2. Practice Gratitude 03:21 3. Have No Opinion 03:55 4. Stop Caring About What People Think 04:23 5. Process Your Emotions 05:39 6. Don’t Suffer Imagined Troubles 06:32 7. Choose Not To Be Harmed 07:19 8. Go For A Walk 08:27 9. Keep A Journal 09:05 10. Grab The Right Handle ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🎓 FREE GUIDE to Stoic philosophy: https://dailystoic.com/freeguide 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ Instagram: ​https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/dailystoic Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic #Stoicism​ #DailyStoic​ #RyanHoliday​

How The Stoics Dealt With Anxiety (10 Strategies)

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Inspiring Quote

The Midnight Library Summary

How The Stoics Dealt With Anxiety (10 Strategies)

Comfort Will Ruin Your Life

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It's time to
Read like a Pro.

How to Remove Negative Thoughts?

Anything You Want

Cunningham’s Law: The Satisfying Benefits Of Feigning Stupidity

A Psychological Diagnosis for People Who Lie About Everything

A Guide To The Good Life Summary

Inspiring Quote

The Midnight Library Summary

How The Stoics Dealt With Anxiety (10 Strategies)

Comfort Will Ruin Your Life

21 Really Inspiring Quotes to Lift Your Spirits

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.