<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984">1984 </a>is the story of a man questioning the system that keeps his futuristic but dystopian society afloat and the chaos that quickly ensues once he gives in to his natural curiosity and desire to be free.

1984 - Book Summary 

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."-George Orwell

Author Quote

“The best books are those that tell you what you know already,” Winston Smith concludes as he finally leafs through the pages of a forbidden book he’d been dying to get his hands on. In that sense, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984">1984 </a>  by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell">George Orwell </a>is indeed a great book: Most of us know the word “totalitarian” indicates something bad, but only after reading a dystopian classic like this will we truly understand what an absolute government might look like in practice.

Book Overview 

Orwell had been an Imperial policeman in Burma (modern-day Myanmar) and fought in the Spanish Civil War. He later worked as a journalist during World War II. As such, he had seen the terrifying impact of <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-authoritarian-moment-summary/">governments with complete control </a>both first- and second-hand in Spain, Russia, and Germany.

Published in 1949, 1984 was his warning to Western nations not to succumb to then-popular communist ideas. Despite leaning more left than right himself, Orwell feared <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-road-to-serfdom-summary/">unquestioned socialism </a>would, ultimately, escalate into a government practicing systematic oppression — and could do so within the next 35 years.

The book has since become an often-quoted literary classic, taught in classrooms around the world. It is routinely praised for its important themes, strong symbolism, and, in some cases, accurate vision.

<ol><li>The most powerful way to either control or empower humans is language. </li><li>Freedom is the ability to say what’s true, to say what you think, and to make your own choices. </li><li>Totalitarian governments succeed when they turn off our individuality via gaslighting. </li> </ol>

Top 3 Book Lessons 

The book is structured into three parts, and in the first, we get to know the protagonist Winston Smith. At nearly 40 years old and in bad physical shape, Winston is somewhat of an anti-hero. He works in the Ministry of Truth in London, which is part of Oceania, one of three large <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstate">superstates </a>, who are constantly at war with one another.

Lesson 1: Language is the defining

Winston’s job at the record department is to, ironically, falsify historic records. The goal is to erase everything that contradicts or makes “the Party,” the governing political power, look bad. Originals are burned in giant furnaces, and every newspaper article gets rewritten every time the Party decides a new reality is in order.

One of Winston’s colleagues works on the Party’s latest edition of the “Newspeak” dictionary. Newspeak is a language devised specifically to eliminate rebellious thinking at the root. Think about it: If you didn’t have the vocabulary to express an idea, wouldn’t that also make you less likely to think of that idea in the first place?

For example, if the word “freedom” was erased from the English language, would Americans still understand it <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/on-liberty-summary/">the way it was meant in the Constitution? </a>In the book, the word “free” still exists, but by means of deleting many other words associated with it, future “Newspeakers” would only be able to use it “in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice.'” Political or intellectual freedom “no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.”

The <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/through-the-language-glass-summary/">form of language </a>shapes how we can express ourselves, and how we can express ourselves shapes how and what we think. Therefore, language may be the single-most important way to either empower or enslave humans. This concept is called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity">linguistic relativity </a>. It’s a little overstated, but in a way, “if you have no means of saying it, you can’t think it.”

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” Winston notes at one point. Cherish your words, and be mindful of them.

Besides altering language and falsifying history, the Party also controls its citizens via more direct means. For one, everyone could be a spy, and children regularly report their parents to “the Thought Police,” a sort of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo">Gestapo </a>which makes inconvenient people vanish at a moment’s notice. Another theme in the book is <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/permanent-record-summary/">using technology to practice mass surveillance </a>. Every home has a “telescreen,” a monitor that’s both recording and broadcasting at all times, and there are cameras and microphones everywhere.

Lesson 2: Freedom means being able to say what’s true

In a society like that, rebellion starts with little acts, such as Winston writing into a diary in a corner of his apartment that’s hidden from the screen. In the second part of the book, however, he takes his disobedience to the next level by starting an affair with Julia, a coworker.

At first, Winston thinks Julia is a spy, but when she gives him a love note, the two begin meeting in secret, sleeping together, and commiserating about how much they hate the Party. There is, however, one key difference between them: Julia has no interest in overthrowing the Party. “If you keep the small rules you can break the big ones,” she observes, and as long as she can do what she wants right under the Party’s nose, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-courage-to-be-happy-summary/">she is happy </a>.

Winston, however, more desperately wishes for a better future — not that he could do much to bring one about. Julia’s definition of freedom begins and ends with her choices, whereas Winston thinks freedom also means being able to think and say what is true and what you truly believe. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows,” he writes into his diary. “To die hating them,” the Party, that is, “that was freedom.”

If a government allows its citizens limited means to form an identity and actualize themselves, its people still isn’t free. Freedom includes permission to speak both facts and lies, to say what you think irrespective of whether it is right or wrong, and without these freedoms, all the others mean significantly less.

In 2020, just as the pandemic came into full force, Julio Vincent Gambuto told us to “<a href="https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0">prepare for the ultimate gaslighting </a>.” “Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we ‘open back up’ and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal.” Of course, normal had disappeared, Gambuto warned. The future would — and probably should — look very different, but if we let greedy, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/brandwashed-summary/">marketing-savvy corporations </a> steamroll us yet again, we’d gain nothing from the great pause we had been given.

Lesson 3: A totalitarian state wins when it can gaslight

In this case, the evil Gambuto referred to was consumerism, but gaslighting, <a href="https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/255554">defined as </a>“manipulating someone using psychological methods into questioning their own sanity or powers of reasoning,” is also what totalitarian governments use to bend citizens to their will.

Just before, in the last part of the book, the inevitable happens — Winston and Julia get caught by the Thought Police — Winston concludes that “sanity is not statistical.” What he means is that “there is truth and there is untruth, and if you cling to the truth even against the whole world, you are not mad.” If your government can make you think you’re mad, however, it just might get you to give up the truth in favor of a lie that’s more convenient for them. This is how totalitarian governments win: They get you to reject not just the truth but any kind of <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/think-again-summary/">individual thinking </a>whatsoever.

After their capture, Winston and Julia are separated, and both are tortured into not just compliance but becoming mindless Party drones like everyone else. As it turns out, Winston’s coworker O’Brien, whom he thought to be a fellow secret rebel, is actually a high-level Inner Party member, eager to brainwash him into loyalty to the Party.

Having had little individuality to begin with due to the short material leash the state kept him on, Winston is now forced to give up his last shred of self thanks to months of physical and psychological abuse. O’Brien doesn’t just get him to lie about basic reality, such as claiming he holds up five fingers when he’s only holding up four, but also to pretend Oceania has always been at war with the same enemy when, in fact, telescreens frequently announce differing warring factions.

The ultimate gaslighting, however, happens when he makes Winston doubt reality altogether and, as such, the importance of thinking for himself: “If he THINKS he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see him do it, then the thing happens,” Winston muses. “It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination. What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.”

This is Winston’s final admission of defeat. After all, if the Party can rewrite history as it sees fit, it can dictate “whatever happens in all minds” and, therefore, what “truly happens.” When he returns to the real world, he is happy to drink the same gin he has always been drinking, sit at the same bar he’s always been sitting in, and no longer cares about expressing himself in any way whatsoever. Not with Julia. Nor in a diary. Not even through rebellious thoughts.

Deep down, he still knows the state propaganda is nothing but lies, but from now on, he’s happy to go along with it, no longer strong enough to resist.

When other people gaslight us, it’s annoying and sad. When our governments do it, it’s dangerous, an immediate sign to take a stand and cling to the truth with all we’ve got. Always think twice about what your government does and says. <a href="https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/character/big-brother/">Big Brother </a>is watching.

Besides the fact that it is well-structured, relatively easy to understand, and successfully relies on a few strong characters to drive its points home, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961427-1984">1984 </a> has held up incredibly well over time, and not just because of its predictive powers. If you read the book today, you’ll hardly feel transported to a different century. While Winston isn’t exactly carrying around a smartphone, the book’s everyday backdrop still feels technologically close enough to today to make it easy to immerse yourself in its world.

1984 - Book Review

All in all, this is an outstanding book with several important, cautionary messages, some of which we should heed today. What happens if news blogs change their headlines after publication? <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/an-ugly-truth-summary/">What role does misinformation play in elections? </a>Can our smartphones listen to us while we sleep? All of these are questions Winston Smith would ask were he alive in our world today. Reading his story will help us answer them.

While I would recommend this book to anyone, you’ll find it an especially great read if you’re concerned about freedom and <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-sovereign-individual-summary/">sovereignty </a>. For more context on its publication and Orwell’s ideas, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four">check out Wikipedia </a>. You can also dive into <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/1984-quotes/">our list of the best and most important quotes from the book </a>. Final fun fact: It is one of <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/jordan-peterson-books/#8_1984_by_George_Orwell_1949">the top 15 books recommended by Jordan Peterson </a>.

The 17-year-old climate activist who’s not happy with how their government is handling global warming, the 55-year-old who thinks their government will surely take care of them in retirement, and anyone who’s suspicious of technology’s long-term impact on our mental and societal health.

Who would I recommend our 1984 to?

Here's our summary of 1984, the dystopian novel and literary classic by George Orwell. Discover the plot and 3 valuable lessons.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

philosophy

Philosophy

sciencefiction

Science Fiction

books

Books

politics

Politics

1984 Summary

There has been considerable research on how body language, particularly <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190108-why-meeting-anothers-gaze-is-so-powerful">those coming from eye contact </a>, affects our behavior. It's actually quite astounding just how powerful eye contact can be.  Eye contact is so important that science has actually been studying it for many years and they continue to find out more about just how powerful it is. The eyes can give away so much and when we make eye contact with someone, it can have an impact on how we view that person.

We can even make assumptions about someone's personality, or even what they could be thinking based on the way that they make eye contact with us. Here are 5 interesting results:

Staring directly into someone’s eyes causes an arousal reaction. How that arousal is interpreted, however, depends on the parties involved and the circumstances. Being stared at by a stranger who appears large or ominous can be seen as a threat and elicit a fear response. This is common in social animals. A direct stare from a human to a dog or an ape can be interpreted as a threat from the large (and strange) human.

1. If someone is sexually attracted to you

Eye contact has also been found to be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887618508000972">somewhat linked to social anxiety </a>. However, the gaze of a <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/200937082/are-your-astrology-signs-sexually-compatible">potential sexual partner </a>causes arousal that can be interpreted positively — as a sexual invitation or a clear sign of interest.

Psychologist Paul Ekman has distinguished between <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thriving101/201001/what-science-has-say-about-genuine-vs-fake-smiles">smiles that represent genuine happiness </a> (“Duchenne” smiles), and fake smiles that might be used to feign happiness, or cover some other emotion. The key to <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/2018310955/4-biggest-communication-mistakes-we-make-when-reading-body-language">telling a fake smile from a real one </a>is in the eyes. When <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/love/how-to-make-a-girl-smile">forming real smiles, </a>the eyes narrow and create lines, or “crow’s feet,” at the outer corners.

2. If a smile is real or not

When we are interested in something or someone, our pupils will dilate. Some <a href="https://health.howstuffworks.com/relationships/love/love-make-pupils-dilate.htm">research has even found </a>that men rate a woman who has larger pupils as more attractive than women with fuller irises.

3. If someone is interested in you

Research on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-attraction-doctor/201503/loving-eye-contact-how-mutual-staring-can-create-passion">love and attraction has found </a>that a mutual gaze — <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/2018314040/how-get-high-through-eye-contact-according-study">staring into each other’s eyes </a>— is a good predictor of two individuals being “in love.” Eye contact could be a very important part of dating. The research discovered that even those who <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/love/4-secrets-happiest-married-couples-know">were already a couple </a>found that when they continued to <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/experts/teresa-maples/how-eye-contact-improves-marriage">have eye contact with their partner </a>, they had a greater affection and feeling of passionate love between them.

4. If you're in love

Everyone assumes that a liar won’t look you in the eye, but <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156615">research on the nonverbal cues </a>associated with deception suggests that a liar engages in more eye contact than a truth-teller. The explanation is that the deceiver goes the extra mile to try to convince you of his or her veracity and so “overdoes” the eye contact in order to appear truthful.

5. If someone is lying

5 Things You Can Learn About Someone Just By Looking Them In The Eye

When You Want To Get To Know Someone, Making Eye Contact And Reading Their Body Language Can Do Wonders. And In This Case, There Are A Few Ways You Can Determine How Someone Feels.

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Religion & Spirituality

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Personal Development

problemsolving

Problem Solving

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Love & Relationships

5 key insights from the new book, The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

We all lie, all the time—including you. Human deception is no different from its animal equivalent of camouflage, spots, and stripes. Charm is our very own version of frilly fins and peacock feathers. Like a stick insect adapted to hide among twigs, the effort to deceive, from camouflage to creative bullshit, is an evolutionary arms race as old as organic life.

1. You’re a natural-born liar.

Trickery is fundamental to interaction, and the instinct to misrepresent objective reality to suit our needs is fundamental to communication. In the evolution of deceit, language only came about quite recently, billions of years after more basic and more effective tools of the con. In fact, humans may have developed language specifically to manipulate each other in new and cleverer ways; it’s just the latest innovation in a billion-year-old chess game.

As Rutgers Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences Robert Trivers put it, “Our most prized possession, language, not only strengthens our ability to lie, but greatly extends its range.” Consider that when you lie with your scent, your pattern, or your petals, you can only lie about what you are, here and now. But lie with words, and you can lie about anything, anyone, anywhere; you can rewrite facts past, present, and future. In other words, human speech allows deceptions to transcend space and time. Dishonesty is truly a feature, not a bug, of our nature.

Jefferson Randolph Smith was a con man who set up the first telegraph office out of Skagway, Alaska. For the price of five dollars, settlers, frontiersmen, and prospectors could send a telegraph message to anyone in the United States. Unsurprisingly, there were lines around the building every day. It was great business—even though the first telegraph wires didn’t actually arrive in Alaska until two years later.

People lined up and paid for over a year to send important messages that went as far as the wall of Smith’s office. So why were people so ready to believe that Smith could send out telegrams just because he said so?

In the absence of evidence, humans tend to believe that whatever we’re presented with is true—be it someone’s name, a random fact, a complex explanation, even something as obvious as the presence of a physical object we see Neurologists refer to this tendency as the “honesty bias,” and it’s how we know almost everything that we know. It’s because of your honesty bias that you don’t automatically wonder if a lamp is a hallucination that only you can see, or suspect that everyone you meet might be lying about their name. If we didn’t lean toward this neurological shortcut, we’d all go insane.

It’s also the single adaptation that has allowed humans to develop speech, literacy, history, science, and civilization itself. You don’t have to discover, confirm, or even understand every fact or idea you learn, because you are biased to just accept them as true and keep climbing. This is the mechanism behind our species’ collective intelligence: To rapidly acquire another’s lifetime of experience or problem-solving for ourselves, all we need to do is ask—and then trust the answer.

So in the long run, we benefit more from the honesty bias than we risk in being overly trusting. Our honesty bias may be exploitable, but it’s also indispensable.

Seeing may be believing, but it really shouldn’t be. Your brain doesn’t actually have the processing power to deal with all of the sensory data available at every second—so, like all gamblers, it cheats. As a result, we often end up seeing what we expect to see.Take shell games; everybody falls for sleight of hand because it exploits several loopholes in perceptual cognition, the ways in which your brain processes and interprets input from your senses. In other words, if you have a normally functioning brain, you literally can’t not fall for it.

3. Lies take advantage of the way we perceive—and construct—reality.

Your visual cortex—the part of the brain that processes electrical signals from the retina and turns them into images in your mind—functions with a 0.1-second delay. So you can’t believe your eyes, because while your eyes may work, your brain is processing everything your eyes pick up about one-tenth of a second behind what’s happening.

Your brain also doesn’t have the bandwidth to process everything you see, so it fills in most of what’s around you with what it expects to be around you. It’s only when something changes radically that your brain notices, and loops back around to see what’s going on.

There are other exploitable neurological loopholes as well—for example, there’s the mirroring effect. Mirroring is when specialized cells in your brain called “mirror neurons” cause you to imitate the gesture, posture, or subtle movements of whomever you’re interacting with. Someone smiles, you smile back. Someone looks up suddenly, you look up too. You assume these are conscious choices, but they’re not—and it’s an incredibly effective way to make people look (or not look) at whatever you want.

In 1898, four Denver reporters from different newspapers went to a bar, got really drunk, and made up a story. They all claimed in their separate papers to have met a team of four American engineers on their way to China. The engineers, they said, told them that they’d been hired to destroy the Great Wall at China’s request. Supposedly this was being done as a gesture of goodwill, and as an invitation to foreign trade.

4. What matters is not if something is true, but if it is believed.

It was a multi-person hoax, and unfortunately, other newspapers picked up the story, and it went viral. Within weeks, a major east coast newspaper did an entire special Sunday spread about the fake destruction of the Great Wall, including elaborate illustrations and further exposition about the Chinese government’s historic plan to end their isolationist policy.

Because this was a respected newspaper, the story quickly spread to Europe, then to Asia, and finally to China, where political tempers were already running high. In fact, this fiction allegedly contributed to the Boxer Rebellion, a destabilizing and violent disaster that hastened the decline of the Qing Dynasty.

The point of this story is not that a single fake news story may have radically altered the course of 20th-century Chinese history—though it did—it’s that the Boxer Rebellion occurred just as it would have had the news been real. The cause may have been fictitious, but it had the same effect as its truthful parallel.

Reality, in other words, is circumstantial. In the greater scheme of things, it matters less whether or not a thing is actually true, but rather whether or not it is believed to be so.

If a whole civilization believes certain objects have power or value, and everyone behaves accordingly, then for all intents and purposes, they do possess that value or power. It may be a lie, but a quality counterfeit object still works precisely the same way the real object would—for exactly as long as it is believed to be authentic. And if a thing only needs to be believed in to be effective, then that begs the question: Was there ever anything to value or authority other than belief in the first place?

5. Nothing is entirely real.

The rule of law, the value of diamonds, the existence of the economy—when we all agree to believe certain things, those things become real. Take paper money—it’s just paper, but as long as we all agree to believe in it together, it has value. It takes on the weight of reality.

Why we lie and how we believe are so inextricably intertwined that there can be no faith without fraud, no truth without lies, no civilization without cons. Whether they’re the lies we tell each other, or the subtler and more complicated lies we tell ourselves, deceit and belief are two halves of one whole. One can’t exist without the other, and society can’t function without both.

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit 

Scientist and historian Aja Raden untangles the complex relationship of truth to lie, belief to faith, and deception to propaganda.

history

History

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

Over 264 million suffered from severe depression worldwide in 2020, but with the right mindset and changes, it is possible to overcome it and lead a happy life.

Introduction

The majority of cases of depression are caused by modern-day issues and can be resolved quickly.If the cure for depression was comfort, then 264 million people wouldn't be depressed, right?The cure for depression turns out to be discomfort.People in the past, without access to social media and news, were happier despite not having the comforts we have today. We never adapted to this fast-paced way of living.<a href="https://giovannispezia.com/why-you-cant-be-happy/">Here's Why You Can't Be Happy</a>

The Real Cause of Your Depression

<ol><li>Seek out activities that make you uncomfortable and push your boundaries. <a href="https://giovannispezia.com/diet-exercise-sleep/">Exercise</a> is the number one killer of sadness.</li><li>Understand the power of positive thinking. Practice <a href="https://giovannispezia.com/it/how-to-start-meditating-the-easy-way/">meditation</a> and <a href="https://giovannispezia.com/journaling/">journaling</a> to strengthen the power of your mind.</li><li>Change your perspective. Instead of focusing on what you don’t have, focus on what you do have. Every day, write down three things you’re grateful for in your journal.</li></ol>

Taking Action

Keys to living a happy life:<ul><li>Seeking discomfort</li><li>Understanding the power of positive thinking</li><li>Gratefulness</li></ul>Be sure to take care of yourself and remember that you are not alone in this journey. Reach out for help if you need it.

Conclusion

Read the full article <a href="https://giovannispezia.com/overcome-depression/">here</a>.Also, if you're interested in the topics of personal development, mindset, and both physical and mental well-being, consider checking out my content at<ul><li><a href="https://giovannispezia.com/">GiovanniSpezia.com</a></li><li><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/Giovanni_Spezia/">Pinterest</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/GiovaSpezia">Twitter</a></li></ul>Thank you all for your kind support! 🫶

Liked These Ideas? Read the full article!

Depression can be debilitating and leave many feeling hopeless and helpless. However, there is hope. With the right mindset and a few simple changes, it is possible to live a happy life and overcome depression.

With a few simple changes, it is possible to overcome depression. Even though it can leave many feeling hopeless and helpless.

mindfulness

Mindfulness

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Health

mentalhealth

Mental Health

How To Overcome Depression And Live A Happy Life

When describing the events we experience, when making a judgment about something, I mean, when thinking briefly, we may make some thinking mistakes psychologically. Errors of thought cause us to see reality differently and often worse than it is. As thought errors continue, they affect our mental health badly and can cause psychological diseases, especially depression, at the end of the day.

Some Thought Errors and Reasonable Answers

Definition : Something terrible is going to happen. The logical answer to fortune-telling : Bad odds are always present, moreover, for everyone. Imagining possible bad scenarios while they are in the event does not allow them to take precautions. To do this work happens during the preparatory period. In addition, when considering bad possibilities, only the high probability of realization that we can intervene are taken into account. To think more is to disconnect from reality.

FORTUNETELLİNG

Definition : Thinking that people judge and underestimate you even though there is no evidence.The logical answer to mind reading is: If you don't know the other person, he doesn't know you either. Although the rate varies depending on the person, everyone approaches the person they don't know with suspicion, maybe a little fear. Before you even talk, instead of imposing a number of meanings and emotions on them, calmly remember these facts.

MIND READING

1. Even if the person sitting in front of you looks aggressive or very strong, he is a mortal person after all. 2. You want to decide how people will see you, you are intimidated by the possibility that they will see you differently. But you can't determine that. You can determine how you look at yourself, how you look at others. The slightest touch cannot be made to the rest. So you understand, you're playing in the wrong arena, change the arena.

MİND READİNG

Definition : Exaggerating the danger.The logical response to excessive magnification : A person usually exaggerates the problems he has experienced for the first time. He is more afraid because he does not know. The solution to this problem is to get help from someone who has experienced this problem before or is currently experiencing it.

EXCESSIVE MAGNIFICATION

Definition : To interpret the truth according to the feeling felt, I mean to show the feeling felt as evidence and comment on the real world, for example, I am afraid, so I am in danger.Logical answer 1 : When a person gets lost in his own thoughts instead of turning to the environment, the mind makes unlimited tides between the past and the future, and a person remains alien to the reality of the situation in Dec. The feeling felt in such a situation is really disconnected and with an intensity incompatible with everyday life.

EMOTIONAL INFERENCE

Logical answer 2: Emotion is actually not something to care about that much. Emotions are uncontrollable. If an interpretation of the truth is to be made, it is done calmly and seriously. Moreover, if we look at my own life from the past to the present, the truth often reveals the lie of emotions. In conclusion, I can say that, being not feelings, but evidence of the truth, they can hardly even agree with each other.

You criticize yourself and other people using phrases such as "it is necessary, it is necessary". For example, "I shouldn't feel embarrassed and nervous like that. What's wrong with me?"The logical answer is : The sentence of necessity is restrictive and ignores willpower by its very nature. What needs to be done is not done, you choose to do what you think is right to do. There are no obligations in this life, there are only consequences, and you are the one who makes a choice taking into account these consequences. As long as you stand behind the choice you made, act however you want.

THE SENTENCE OF OBLIGATION

Definition : You generalize a single mistake or deficiency to your entire identity. Instead of saying "I made a mistake", you label yourself as a "hopeless case". This is an extreme image of overgeneralization.The logical Answer is: Labeling is a mistake. Labeling can be used when defining behaviors, but it is incomplete because labeling a person means ignoring all the other characteristics of that person.

LABELING

Definition : Instead of identifying the cause of the problem, you choose to blame.Rational Answer: Self-blame is a behavior that makes it difficult to analyze and prepare a plan of action. If there is a bad situation, the wrong done and the cost of this wrong are determined. An action plan is prepared and implemented. If there is no mistake, that is, if the other party's reaction has caused this thought, the importance and principles of border protection are remembered, and if necessary, this situation is reminded to the other person.

BLAMING YOURSELF

We can think clearly when thought errors are eliminated.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

Some Thought Errors 

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55723020-dopamine-nation">Dopamine Nation </a>talks about the importance of living a balanced life in relation to all the pleasure and stimuli we’re surrounded with on a daily basis, such as drugs, devices, porn, gambling facilities, showing us how to avoid becoming dopamine addicts by restricting our access to them.

Dopamine Nation - Book Summary 

"The paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, leads to anhedonia. Which is the inability to enjoy pleasure of any kind."-Anna Lembke

Author Quote 

Compared to our ancestors, we’re living in a world of opulence. On the bright side, constant access to all resources and remarkable amenities creates a world of opportunities. On the other hand, this way of living turns many people into dopamine addicts. You’re likely one of them. After all, who isn’t? With so many temptations being a click away, it’s hard not to fall into the trap of overconsumption.

<a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/how-to-break-up-with-your-phone-summary/">Checking our phone 24/7 </a>, drinking and eating all the unnecessary edibles just for the sake of pleasure, spending valuable time and money gambling, or avoiding human contact in favor of porn, are just a few of the symptoms. So how can one break this vicious cycle? <a href="https://www.annalembke.com/">Anna Lembke </a>‘s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55723020-dopamine-nation">Dopamine Nation </a>  has the answers. By learning how the pain-pleasure reaction works in the brain and how to spot the root cause of your desires, you too can overcome dopamine addiction.

<ol><li>Misery turns humans into pleasure addicts who can’t deal with discomfort. </li><li>Our brains build resistance to dopamine over time, and that’s a bad thing.  </li><li>Ironically, pain can help us tap into our dopamine reserves.  </li> </ol>Let’s discuss them to reveal some interesting insights!

Top 3 Lessons From The Book 

Going through life, there’s plenty of misery and unhappiness we’ll face, just as there are many happy and beautiful moments we’ll witness. However, it seems that we’re not too good when it comes to dealing with pain, so we try to cover it up with small, but effective doses of pleasure. Frankly, everyone has an addiction. If you feel <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/bored-and-brilliant-summary/">bored </a>, chances are you’ll turn to your phone for a quick distraction. When you feel numb or sad, you can always drown that feeling in alcohol or other drugs, just like you can treat anxiety and stress with just a pill.

Lesson 1: Dopamine addiction follows from our desire to stop feeling miserable.

Dopamine is a constantly surrounding temptation, so in order to stop the overindulgence, you’ll have to restrict your access to these stimuli. If you’re on your way to school or work, try not listening to music or to your podcast for a change. Instead, let your thoughts run free and enjoy the present.

If you feel like you’re becoming stressed, just deal with the feeling. Listen to your inner voice and try to find what it is that your mind is trying so hard to cover up. Find your source of distress or misery and cure it.  If you learn to tolerate slight discomforts and deal with your emotions instead of tuning out and reaching for the quickest source of dopamine, you’ll train your brain to become stronger. To become more independent and emotionally aware, you’ll have to go through certain unpleasant moments in life and face them directly.

Just like a drug addict, we go back to our sources of dopamine every time we need a new dose of pleasure. However, as we consume more of them, our brain starts to get used to the feeling and builds resistance. Thus, more of that source of dopamine is required to maintain the level of pleasure. This process is called <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-brain-that-changes-itself-summary/">neuroadaptation </a>, and it can lead to serious addiction.

Lesson 2: Constantly fulfilling our dopamine cravings leads to neuroadaptation.

One of the major downsides of a dopamine addiction is the pain that comes with it. As we build resistance, we find that we can’t live without dopamine, so we start to have cravings that may look like crankiness, moodiness, anxiety, or even physical imbalances. Moreover, as we consume the things that give us pleasure, we find that they no longer fulfill our needs like they used to. Pleasure isn’t free, as it is followed by pain. However, if we fight the cravings and the rest of the symptoms, our brain starts to go back to its normal state.

The balance between the mind, body, and spirit can be restored, as long as the damage hasn’t occurred for too long and the dopamine source wasn’t too harmful. Pornography or video games are considered harmful, but low-risk activities. Consuming drugs, on the other hand, can be life-threatening.

By now you already know that pleasure is inevitably followed by pain, and that too much of it can cause high levels of damage to our brain and body. However, used the other way around, pain can help us achieve pleasure and increase our dopamine levels. Ironic, isn’t it? Let me break it down for you in a simple explanation!

Lesson 3: Using pain as a dopamine source can promote our well-being.

If you like going to the gym, or you’re a sports person, you know how hard it is to get up and stick to your routine, and even while doing your exercises, how that muscle pain feels like. After all, you’re subjecting your body to a short-term <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-body-keeps-the-score-summary/">traumatic event </a>. However, the benefits that come afterward are tremendous.

Not only does it enhance your dopamine levels, but it also promotes a healthier body in the long run. The same goes for intermittent fasting, cold showers, and many other examples. Subjecting your body to such activities increases its resistance and builds up a stronger natural immune system in time. As such, pain that is followed by pleasure is a healthy, healing option for us, but not so much the other way around.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55723020-dopamine-nation">Dopamine Nation </a>explores how overflowing sources of dopamine can become a burden to carry. Although the constant availability of resources looks like a good thing from the outside, it can lead to serious problems and the avoidance of discomfort in our society. However, by learning to use pain to our advantage and fighting the urge to indulge in the nearest dopamine source, we can become balanced individuals who live healthy, <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/love-warrior-summary/">addiction-free </a>lives.

Dopamine Nation - Book Review

The 30-year-old gambler who wants to fight his addiction, the 35-year-old person who is looking to better themself and create a healthier routine in their life, or the 40-year-old life coach who is looking to learn more about the root causes of misery and how to fight them, so as to deliver better advice to their customers.

Who would I recommend our Dopamine Nation to?

This summary of Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke will show you the harmful effects of dopamine addiction and how to overcome it.

Dopamine Nation Summary

Positive affirmations are some set of words filled with positively. We should practice daily positive affirmation.Here is 20 positive affirmation to build your confidence and live your life fully.

Positive Affirmation

I am confident and I highly value myself.

Confidence

I am growing and learning about new things everyday.

Grow

I believe in myself, my skills and my capabilities.

Skills

I have the power to change myself and I have to be confident about my actions by doing that can change the world.

Power

I am determined and I can do anything I set my mind to.

Determination

I am confident in my ability to solve issues and problems.

Abilities

I grow with every challenge and won't let obstacles stop me. Also I seek discomfort, it helps me to overcome my insecurities

Challenges

I am consistent in my hard work and have the vision to achieve my goals.

Hard Work

Success is a journey and I am on a journey. I have or can easily get everything I need to succeed

Success

I let go limiting beliefs and choose to trust myself.

Trust

There will be a lot of problems but I know I can face every challenge with ease, there is nothing I can't overcome.

Problems

I am creating my dream life every single day

Dreams

It gives me a push and reminds me who am I and what I want in life. 

20 positive affirmations to build your confidence

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