This human experience can be confusing. As we try to figure out where we fit in, something changes, and we are left looking for a new equation that will lead to our success, acceptance, and happiness. But we spend time choosing and creating narrow attachments and expectations for the outcomes. If something doesn’t work out just like we think it should, that is bad, and we choose to be unhappy. When I let go of how I think the world should be and accept it, I can also find the good in each moment.
Suffering
Life is going to bring its share of challenges. No person will live for an extended period, having everything go just perfectly. If they did, there would be no opportunity for personal growth or self-development. You would be stagnant, just as you were. It w, and it is like continually being a child with no developing maturity. Suffering comes from the thought that what is happening in your life is not as you think it should be. Something is wrong and needs to be fixed. This can result from any challenge which shakes your reality.
It can be a relatively minor thing, like an annoying co-worker, to a big something like a loved one’s death. The idea you need to fix things because they are wrong will lead you to fear, worry, insecurity, resentment, criticism of others, criticism of yourself, tensions, stress, and all things which lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
What if you didn’t do that?
The alternative is to open your mind and develop a broader vision of life and the things it brings your way. Perhaps the experience you are having, no matter how unsavory or harmful, is precisely what is best for you now. You don’t have to like it, but not wanting something won’t make it go away. Dealing with the present moment will allow you to become better.
Living in the present moment, not worrying about what the future will be, or regretting the past, will allow you to make choices that honor the present and see where true fulfillment comes from. It isn’t attached to the events swirling around your life. A “good thing” here makes you happy. A “bad thing” makes you unhappy. Realizing they are all just things to which you give meaning through your mental conditioning, expectations, and attachments.
Your Power
This doesn’t mean you accept someone treating you poorly; when this occurs, you don’t take it personally as an indictment of your value and see it as a clear issue of the person mistreating you. A loved one’s death is a sad occasion, but feeling bad won’t bring anyone back to life; the reality of the situation is what it is. How you deal with it, move on from it, and see your gratitude for the departed person’s influence on your life will allow you to grow and develop your power despite the loss.
Shift of Perspective
It is not an easy shift, moving your perspective from one of the ego-defined expectations to source-centered acceptance. If a life of fulfillment is your ultimate goal, then some movement in this direction is warranted. It will allow you to not drift to and from happiness to sadness based on the things occurring outside of you. Living like this gives all the power to those things. Never knowing from moment to moment if you will have the rug pulled out from underneath you or not.
Learning to see events as things outside of you and not letting them define your happiness is a rare power. Not identifying with our conditioned expectations, we can approach all situations with an open mind and heart. This will bring on feelings of acceptance, well-being, and ease about the events of your life. They are things that happen, not defining points of your character. In this understanding and practice, one will probably realize that life is, in fact, OK, just as it is. What if our most feared moments are just opportunities to grow?
It was pointed out to me today there is a slight misconception about my perspective of life. I write about my philosophy, which is one of self-improvement. Some seem to miss life is full of challenges that cause suffering in my experience virtually every day. In the past, I had fewer tools in my toolbox to deal with them, but I have dedicated myself over the past ten years to become better at handling these learning moments and being able to have a more productive and enjoyable life. To be clear, I am not happy all the time. In fact, over the past year, I would suggest there was a lot more “unhappy” in my emotional vault. But the hope is that I am not stuck with the suffering. I can overcome it, learn a lesson, and become a better person because of it. You can make conscious choices, which will allow you to find meaning in life and even enjoy the process if you open your mind to them. These are the processes I am writing about, not a “pie in the sky” ode to unconditional happiness. Here is what I have learned.
I am Responsible
Every person in the world makes a thousand decisions during each day we live. We decide everything from which clothes to wear to treating a rude person we stand in line next to at the bank. My life is no different. I make many decisions and try to make them with honesty and integrity at each moment. I don’t always make the best choices. Sometimes I eat things I shouldn’t. Sometimes I say the wrong something at the wrong time. There are even days I run a red light if nobody is around. But the one thing I always am is responsible for my choices in every way.
If I am not reaching my body weight goals because I choose to eat things not healthy for me, it is because of my poor decision. I can’t blame the food or the time of day I felt weak. Or the fact that I was feeling down because something negative occurred. No, I alone am responsible for the choices and have to accept the consequences. It is my responsibility, even if my favorites don’t bring the most desirable results. Sadness, regret, worry, anger, and other negative emotions are a part of life. But I think many don’t read here that it is your most important choice of how you choose to deal with them. You can allow them to make you bitter and angry, or you can want to learn, develop, and become a better person. I hope that the better person is the result of my suffering.
We are Not Supposed to Be Anything
The idea we are supposed to be happy all the time is unrealistic for anyone. Some may think we are supposed to feel joy and wonder about our situations, but that isn’t realistic. I have written many times that happiness is a choice, and I believe it is, but that doesn’t mean you walk around with blinders to the weak treatment others send your way or the poor feelings about yourself and the job you lost, or the disappointment you feel. I know there is no “right” way to feel at any moment.
We are not supposed to be happy, joyous, intelligent, winning, sad, disappointed, or angry. All people will, at some point, have to deal with all of these emotions, and they will do to you what you allow them to do. The thing is that how you choose to deal with them is your personal choice, and I have had to do this continually throughout my life. Do I get bitter because someone was dishonest with me? Do I carry a hatred inside for someone who has harmed me? It would be easy to do sometimes, but it wouldn’t represent the kind of person I strive to be. That is why I write about things like the power of forgiveness, how fear affects us, guilt, and dealing with our emotions. Not to discount the negative things we all deal with but to provide a path for hope for something better. It is a choice we all make for ourselves every day. There is nothing you have to be to be healthy. Just be yourself.
Darkness Walks with Light
I have thought of the events the past year has brought over and over again. It amazes me to see the balance of dark and light in my life. If you look at the people who have entered my life, left my life, and just influenced me, there is a positive balance between light, which was enjoyable, and darkness, which, of course, was not. Moments of joy, wonder, understanding, caring, and love found a check from equal moments of pain, disappointment, fear, anger, and disillusionment. It makes you wonder if the light is worth it that maybe we should live in a shady area in between where there are no great things but no horrible things either.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t work without contrast. Darkness provides a method of accomplishment; light never could. My experience with night has driven me to seek harder for the light and accomplish what before would have been impossible. The sun makes you get comfortable, like a beautiful warm blanket. It envelopes you and makes you never change. Change is inevitable and constant, so those things don’t go together. I had to learn to lift the blanket, forget the warmth, and dive into the cold of the darkness. This challenge is not something I write about often because the real lesson isn’t to embrace the difficult but to keep moving forward and maintain a sense of hope for the future. Find dignity in life despite things not being comfortable. The desire is there is more light in your future, and positive choices at this moment might help bring that about.
Being My Best
In the final analysis, I look at the idea that writing about being at peace and understanding that there is happiness in life available all the time is not a weakness or, worse unrealistic. A person can choose to look at their circumstances and see the problems. They can also look at the general state of chaos in the world and feel a sense of despair. But what will all that negativity in the costume of reality bring you? I am not powerful enough a person to solve all of the world’s problems, or even to make anyone else’s life better if they choose not to want that but………. I can make some other choices.
There are small things I can do every day to make my little part of the world better. Make simple choices to treat people with respect, kindness, and caring in day-to-day interactions. To try not to put any difficulty on people that have value to you. I strive to become the best person and succeed in life, equal to my talent and ability. To raise and fall in life and on the journey to my destiny to experience happiness. Joy is a choice I am making, proudly and thoroughly, and I hope that the great people I know have the strength to feel pleasure.
“Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.” ~Ram Dass
“Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.” Arthur Schopenhauer
“Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life. “Horace
“Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons.” Miguel de Unamuno
“Suffering is a corrective to point out a lesson which by other means we have failed to grasp, and never can it be eradicated until that lesson is learnt.” Edward Bach
“It is by suffering that human beings become angels.” Victor Hugo
“Suffering is the positive element in this world. Indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.” Franz Kafka
“It’s at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.” Emil Zatopek
“When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God, forgetting we have just had one. “Mignon McLaughlin
It is difficult to stop your mind from thinking about bad things that might happen. When you look at what you are thinking, much of it is based on untamed, repetitive thoughts and based entirely on fear. If your mind is left to its own devices, continually spitting out random thought patterns with no conscious control from you, worry will most likely be the result. Fear-based thoughts about what might happen tomorrow will take something away from you of value, or that you will add something terrible to your life will dominate you. Unfortunately, this constant stream of negativity is occurring in most people’s minds. Worry will never help you, other than to make your life the most miserable experience it can be for you and all of those around you. But yet we worry on.
Negative thinking can have both short and long-term complications on the quality of your life, from physical issues to psychological problems of paranoia or obsessive-compulsive disorders of all kinds. Fear is the antagonistic force behind this, and a positive attitude and hope are the cure of all of this worry all the time.
I read an interesting article about worry that I want to share with my commentary. I hope it helps you. Dr. Walter Cavert contributed it.
Things We Worry About
– Things that never happen- 40%
Many times our minds can cook up precisely what we are scared of. What if a meteor hits my house?
What if my significant other is cheating on m? What if my children forget to look both ways before crossing the road and are arrested for jaywalking and sent to prison and never receive that baseball scholarship? North Korea may develop a weapon to destroy us.
The list of what-ifs and how comes is as endless as your imagination. You can spend unlimited time worrying about these types of things, but you are wasting a significant portion of your time.
The thing is that these events that are worrying you so much may never and most likely will never happen. I understand that they may happen, but will worry about them stop them even if they do? Will it allow you to protect your loved ones and yourself from these events? The answer is no. Even if they do happen, your worrying about them will not prevent them, and you will have to deal with them anyway.
How to defeat these worries, recognize these thoughts when they arise as things that may never happen. Understand that excessive worry does not lead to control because we can never have complete control over life and the things that will happen, no matter what we do.
Life is never about what happens to you. It is all about how you deal with these things. You can control what thoughts you allow to influence your moods and behaviors. As a famous philosopher once said, “Stuff Happens, deal with it.” That is how it is, and you will be much healthier if you eliminate your worries about things that will never happen.
-Things over and done with that can’t be changed- 30%
So True!
How much time do we spend thinking about our past? Whether it is about choices we have made our choices we didn’t make, people often look back with a healthy sense of fantasy that if they had done something differently, or if they had made a different decision at a critical point in their life, then now life would be so much better.
The danger with these types of thoughts is that they are so addictive and believable. It is comforting to visit thought about our past. They are safe, and whether you admit it or not, you have the ultimate control of how the particular situation you are thinking about actually occurred.
You can only remember snapshots of events anyway because remembering every detail would take the same real-time it took when the event originally happened. So that means your mind is just picking and choosing the parts it wants you to remember.
Almost always idealized. Almost always positive towards you and serving whatever purpose you want your memory to fill. Also, as human beings, our minds will see what we want them to see and remember.
This is emphasized by any five individuals who witness something. If you separate them and look at their memory of that event, you will get five different versions. They will be similar but rarely precisely the same.
As time passes, the more different these stories will become, and that is how our memories work. Then, finally, an event happens, and we immediately let our imaginations run wild about it. The point is that worrying about how things worked out in the past is a waste of time because you can NOT change the past.
It happened, and what you remember about it may not be entirely accurate anyway. The past is gone, and you can’t get it back, make a different decision, or change the way things worked out at all. Those events, good or bad, are gone forever and won’t ever be returning.
It seems to be the only intelligent thing to do is to remember the past as much as is advantageous to us. For example, life is a great teacher, and you learn new things every day of life. You would be a fool not to take those lessons and not make the same mistakes again another time. So any worry, angst, heartbreak, denial, nostalgia, thought about the past is a waste of time because once it’s gone, you can’t change it, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. So accept it, learn from it, and move on because life is continuing, with or without you.
-Needless worries about our health- 12%
This is a difficult one because I think that everyone should be interested in being healthy physically and mentally. But, still, there is a difference between being healthy and worrying about our health needlessly.
To mean needless worrying relates to the previous two worries but specifically about our health. Worrying about every ache and pain is the beginning of some significant injury or illness.
You may, in fact, at some point contract an illness, but worrying about it is probably not going to stop it. You can take great care of yourself for your entire life and drop dead from a heart attack because of a defective aorta.
You can eat right and exercise every day and still contract cancer. The point is not that bad things might happen to your health, but worrying continually about them is only going to shorten your quality of life and make you miserable.
It seems the logical thing to do, is to take care of yourself as best you can and live your life. I don’t think you should stop working out or eating right, but not spend a significant amount of time worrying about what might happen to your health in the future.
What will happen is going to happen. Being in shape will only help you deal with things physically and mentally.
– Petty miscellaneous worries- 10%
These are the things that we worry about that are inconsequential to life. For example, worrying about what someone is saying about you, what they are making up about you, or being well-liked by coworkers, or if your physical appearance is appealing to everyone you meet.
Any of these types of worries are a foolish waste of time. Some people will like you, some are not, some will think you are attractive, and some will not, no matter what you do. You can spend hours worrying about how you look and what others you come in contact with think about you as a person, but do they know you in any natural way? Does their opinion matter? What you feel about yourself is what counts. You know what type of person you are. Are you honest? Do you talk about others? Do you spread rumors? Would you steal?
All of these questions and more are totally up to you to answer. And if you don’t like the honest answer you give yourself, you can make a choice to change that. It is never too late, and nobody is set in stone. We are all a victim of our experience, and we can choose to let those things dictate our character or not.
-Real legitimate worries-8%
Now, you should worry about some things, like if you have a place to live and food to eat. Suppose your basic needs are being met for you and your family. However, I still have an issue with the word worry, even in this capacity.
Because being concerned or responsible is not worrying. It is being concerned about the well-being of your family and loved ones and being responsible for them getting what they need. Worrying has never fed a child or ended any trouble. As humans, worry is one of the defense mechanisms that help us deal with the misfortunes that life will inevitably send our way.
This situation leaves 92% of all worry we do as totally useless and unhealthy!
“And this too shall pass.”
Quotes About Worry!
Worry is a misuse of imagination. ~Dan Zadra
If I had my life to live over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones. ~Don Herold
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. ~Mark Twain
Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. ~Author Unknown
Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which will never happen. ~James Russel Lowell
If things go wrong, don’t go with them. ~Roger Babson
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy. ~Leo Buscaglia
Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. ~Benjamin Franklin
If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep. ~Dale Carnegie
I’ve developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time. ~Charlie Brown (Charles Schulz)
Troubles are a lot like people – they grow bigger if you nurse them. ~Author Unknown
If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. ~E. Joseph Cossman
Nerves and butterflies are fine – they’re a physical sign that you’re mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that’s the trick. ~Steve Bull
I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then, whenever doubt, anxiety or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal – and soon they’ll forget my number. ~Edith Armstrong
Nerves provide me with energy. They work for me. It’s when I don’t have them, when I feel at ease, that I get worried. ~Mike Nichols
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief…. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ~Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”
People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross. ~Author Unknown
You can’t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time. ~Pat Schroeder
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927
Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. ~Glenn Turner
People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them. ~George Bernard Shaw, “Family Affection,” Parents and Children, 1914
Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination. ~Christian Nevell Bovee
Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face. ~Nelson DeMille
For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe. ~Author Unknown
We experience moments absolutely free from worry. These brief respites are called panic. ~Cullen Hightower
If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times. ~Dean Smith
It only seems as if you are doing something when you’re worrying. ~Lucy Maud Montgomery
That the birds of worry and care fly over you head, you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, which you can prevent. ~Chinese Proverb
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. ~John Newton
Worry ducks when purpose flies overhead. ~Terri Guillemets
It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge an elephant but can’t a fly. ~Josh Billings
Worry, doubt, fear, and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die. ~Attributed to Douglas MacArthur
Worry is an addiction that interferes with compassion. ~Deng Ming-Dao
You can never worry your way to enlightenment. ~Terri Guillemets
When you suffer an attack of nerves, you’re being attacked by the nervous system. What chance has a man got against a system? ~Russell Hoban
[A]ny concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. ~Corrie Ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook
I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. “Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.” ~E.B. White
There are two days in the week about which and upon which I never worry… Yesterday and Tomorrow. ~Robert Jones Burdette
A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work. ~John Lubbock
As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men’s minds more seriously than what they see. ~Julius Caesar
If worrying were an Olympic sport, you’d get the gold for sure. ~Stephenie Geist
I refuse to be burdened by vague worries. If something wants to worry me, it will have to make itself clear. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
Worry is rust upon the blade. ~Henry Ward Hughes
Anxiety is a deep conscious breath away from dissolving. ~Mike Dolan,www.hawaiianlife.com
Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies; when the soul is oppressed so is the body. ~Martin Luther
I have learned to live each day as it comes and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. ~Dorothy Day
Worry is a complete cycle of inefficient thought revolving around a pivot of fear. ~Author Unknown
Loneliness, insomnia, and change: the fear of these is even worse than the reality. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966
It is not the cares of today, but the considerations of tomorrow, that weigh a man down. ~George MacDonald
Oh, the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are! ~Charles Dickens
Some patients I see are actually draining into their bodies the diseased thoughts of their minds. ~Zacharty Bercovitz
Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From the evil which never arrived. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. ~Mark Twain
I highly recommend worrying. It is much more effective than dieting. ~William Powell
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened. ~Michel de Montaigne
If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you. ~Calvin Coolidge
When one has too great a dread of what is impending, one feels some relief when the trouble has come. ~Joseph Joubert
Some men storm imaginary Alps all their lives, and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist. ~Edgar Watson Howe
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. ~Thomas Jefferson
When I really worry about something, I don’t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don’t go. I’m too worried to go. I don’t want to interrupt my worrying to go. ~J.D. Salinger,Catcher in the Rye
Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained. ~Arthur Somers Roche
We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies. ~Etty Hillesum
There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them. ~Josh Billings
Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be. ~John Dryden
Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. ~William Ralph Inge
There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than injure us, and we suffer more in imagination than in reality. ~Seneca
We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us. ~John Lancaster Spalding
We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives. ~Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail, 1979
A hundred load of worry will not pay an ounce of debt. ~George Herbert
As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey. ~Thomas A. Edison
Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. ~Swedish Proverb
Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three – all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have. ~Edward Everett Hale
Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
by Jonathan Hilton Day 40
When I read this question I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. My answer is neither but not because I have anything against genius or even anything against a simpleton, (whatever that means).
I assume the question is designed to make you feel like genius comes with worry and if you are a simpler person you will experience joy. I reject the question as biased and borderline offensive. Here are my thoughts.
Worry is a Choice
First lets look at the word worried. This is always a choice, you don’t have to do this. This question seems to assume that only intelligent people worry and only people with no intellect are happy. This if offensive to me as a human being who strives to find a way to be happy, am I merely a simpleton looking for my natural state or am I a genius doomed to failure?
Worry has never made anyone more successful in anything. No matter how much you work something over in your mind, dread it or want to avoid it, you still can’t stop it from occurring.
Any random, run of the mill genius should realize this, so if you are spending your life as a worried genius then you are, in my opinion only half right. There are choices every day that people of all intellectual levels have to make which directly reflect on the experience they will have. Just like kindness is a choice and what thoughts about life you pay attention to are choices as well. I do not know much but I do know that an intelligent person would be able to choose a better recourse than to waste their time worrying.
Why Judge?
There is a judgment in this question that should be ignored and pointed out. Who am I to differentiate between a genius and a simpleton. Suppose I am a member of the latter
I like these guys. Am I a simpleton? Or just a fan of comedic genius?
group, I assume I would lack the skills to understand the question.
If I were in the former I suppose I would be too worried to function and display my genius appropriately. I guess I don’t know why anyone would ask such a question. These distinctions are all relative anyway to the intellect of others.
I may be a genius to some and a simpleton to others, that distinction has absolutely nothing to do with what type of person I am, or how much I worry or am happy. Not one bit. We spend too much time in life labeling others and placing them in categories to feign some sort of understanding.
I may be a simpleton which means I would be a little slow on the uptake but I know that we are all connected and the more time we spend dividing us the unhappier we are going to be in the end, no matter if we think mighty thoughts or nothing more significant than the batting average of a baseball player.
I have been fortunate to know many great people in my time, and intellectual ability has never been a factor in how I felt about them. It was the kindness, the giving, and the value they provided. I have enjoyed conversations with people all of my life there is no intellectual entrance level of intellect.
The Worst Question in The World
Just reading this question I think makes the world just a little more of a difficult place. I
I can’t bear to listen.
apologize to anyone reading it, because I feel like just considering the labels of genius or simpleton makes us all a bit more narrow-minded.
I hope to embrace all of my fellow human beings, not just some endowed with high levels of intellectual capacity, but all of them. The phrase joyful simpleton is along the lines of ignorance is bliss.
They are designed to demean portions of the population. Who are these simpletons? Where do they live? All of us have parts that are intellectual and others that enjoy the simpler things in life. There is no reason to intellectually slander anyone for this.
Accept all people regardless of their intellectual capabilities, if you think yourself a genius then start hanging around with smarter people.
Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
This human experience can be confusing. As we try to figure out where we fit in, something changes, and we are left looking for a new equation that will lead to our success, acceptance, and happiness. But we spend time choosing and creating narrow attachments and expectations for the outcomes. If something doesn’t work out just like we think it should, that is bad, and we choose to be unhappy. When I let go of how I think the world should be and accept it, I can also find the good in each moment.
would be stagnant, just as you were. It w, and it is like continually being a child with no developing maturity. Suffering comes from the thought that what is happening in your life is not as you think it should be. Something is wrong and needs to be fixed. This can result from any challenge which shakes your reality.
have to like it, but not wanting something won’t make it go away. Dealing with the present moment will allow you to become better.
