Guard your children’s free time – from you.
We are happy when we are growing.
There is a preppy wabi-sabi to soft, faded khakis and cotton shirts, but it’s not nice to be surrounded by things that are worn out or stained or used up.
The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It’s more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit.
The desire to start something at the “right” time is usually just a justification for delay. In almost every case, the best time to start is now.
We won’t make ourselves more creative and productive by copying other people’s habits, even the habits of geniuses; we must know our own nature, and what habits serve us best.
In the chaos of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters, and I can use my habits to make sure that my life reflects my values.
How we schedule our days is how we spend our lives.
There’s a great satisfaction in knowing that we’ve made good use of our days, that we’ve lived up to our expectations of ourselves.
I should pursue only those habits that would make me feel freer and stronger.
Life is too short to save your good china or your good lingerie or your good ANYTHING for later because truly, later may never come.
Happy people generally are more forgiving, helpful, and charitable, have better self-control, and are more tolerant of frustration than unhappy people, while unhappy people are more often withdrawn, defensive, antagonistic, and self-absorbed. Oscar Wilde observed, “One is not always happy when one is good; but one is always good when one is happy.
There is no love; there are only proofs of love.” Whatever love I might feel in my heart, others will see only my actions.
The most important step is the first step. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don’t get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing.
Research – and my own experience – suggests that the less we indulge in something, the less we want it. When we believe that a craving will remain unsatisfied, it may diminish; cravings are more provoked by possibility than by denial.
I have an idea of who I wish I were, and that obscures my understanding of who I actually am.
I should make one healthy choice, and then stop choosing.
When we do stumble, it’s important not to judge ourselves harshly. Although some people assume that strong feelings of guilt or shame act as safeguards to help people stick to good habits, the opposite is true. People who feel less guilt and who show compassion toward themselves in the face of failure are better able to regain self-control, while people who feel deeply guilty and full of self-blame struggle more.
With habits, we don’t make decisions, we don’t use self-control, we just do the thing we want ourselves to do – or that we don’t want to do.
It’s a Secret of Adulthood: I can’t make people change, but when I change, others may change; and when others change, I may change.