Ask yourself this: why would you want to be intimate with someone who doesn’t appreciate you? Why would you ever settle for such a person? Because she’s hot? Come on, have a little more self-respect. Have some higher standards.
Entitlement closes in upon itself in a kind of narcissistic bubble, distorting anything and everything in such a way as to reinforce itself. People who feel entitled view every occurrence in their life as either an affirmation of, or a threat to, their own greatness.
An obsession and over-investment in emotions fails us for the simple reason that emotions never last.
Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame. Pain.
Often the only difference between a problem being painful or being powerful is a sense that we chose it, and that we are responsible for it. We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond.
Confronting the reality of our own mortality is important because it obliterates all the crappy, fragile, superficial values in life. While most people whittle their days chasing another buck, or a little bit more fame and attention, or a little bit more assurance that they’re right or loved, death confronts all of us with a far more painful and important question: What is your legacy? How.
That’s simply reality: if it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.
And I don’t care how scientific you think you are or how many letters you have after your name, you’re one of us, bucko. You’re a crazy Feeling Brain-piloted meat robot just like the rest of us.
The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.
Certainty is the enemy of growth. Nothing is for certain until it has already happened – and even then, it’s still debatable. That’s why accepting the inevitable imperfections of our values is necessary for any growth to take place. Instead.
What pain do you want in your life?
Because construing everything in life so as to make yourself out to be constantly victimized requires just as much selfishness as the opposite. It takes just as much energy and delusional self-aggrandizing to maintain the belief that one has insurmountable problems as that one has no problems at all.
The only true form of freedom, the only ethical form of freedom, is through self-limitation.
The uncomfortable truth is that the majority of women are going to have high degrees of friction and projection when you meet them. With most of the women you meet, things are simply not going to work no matter what you do or say. This is to be expected. And this is fine. You are going to be incompatible with most of the women in the world and to hold any hopes of being highly compatible with most is an illusion of grandeur and a figment of your own narcissistic tendency.
What you consider ‘friendship’ is really just your constant attempts to impress people.
Psychologists sometimes refer to this concept as the ‘hedonic treadmill’: the idea that we’re always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different.
Ultimately, the most meaningful freedom in your life comes from your commitments, the things in life for which you have chosen to sacrifice.
Evolution rewards the most powerful creatures, and power is determined by the ability to access, harness, and manipulate information effectively.
In the long run, completing a marathon makes us happier than eating a chocolate cake. Raising a child makes us happier than beating a video game. Starting a small business with friends while struggling to make ends meet makes us happier than buying a new computer. These activities are stressful, arduous, and often unpleasant. They also require withstanding problem after problem. Yet they are some of the most meaningful moments and joyous things we’ll ever do.
Responsibility and fault often appear together in our culture. But they’re not the same thing.