by Mark Manson
* If pursuing the positive is negative, then pursuing the negative generates the positive. The pain you pursue in the gym results in better all-around health and energy. The failures in the business are what lead to a better understanding of what's necessary to be successful. Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others, The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your relationships. Suffering through your fear and Anicietes is what allows you to build courage and perseverance.
* One of those realizations was this: that life itself is a form of suffering. The rich suffer because of their riches. The poor suffer because of their poverty. People without a family suffer because they have no family. People with a family suffer because of their family. People who pursue worldly pleasures suffer because of their worldly pleasures. People who abstain from worldly pleasures suffer because of their abstention.
* We are wired to become dissatisfied with whatever we have and satisfied by only what we do not have.
* People deny and blame others for their problems for the simple reason that it's easy and feels good, while solving problems is hard and often feels bad.
* The problem is that the pervasiveness of technology and marketing is screwing up a lot of people's expectations for themselves. The inundation of the exceptional makes people feel worse about themselves makes them feel that they need to be more extreme, more radical and more self-assured to get noticed or even matter.
* Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems.
* When we learn something new, we don't go from wrong to right. Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. And when we learn something additional, we go from slightly less wrong to slightly less wrong than that, and then to even less wrong than that, and so on. we are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection.
*Brother of sisters assumes that he knows what’s best for his
sister and that she can’t make major life decisions for herself; he assumes
that he has the right and responsibility to make decisions for her; he is
certain that he’s right and everyone also must be wrong.
*If you make a sacrifice for someone you care about, it needs
to be because you want to, not because you feel obligated or because you fear
the consequences of not doing so, if your partner is going to make a sacrifice
for you, it needs to because he or she genuinely wants to, not because you’ve
manipulated the sacrifice through anger or guilt. Acts of love are valid only
if they’re performed without conditions or expectations.
*Without conflict, there can be no trust. Conflict exists to
show us who is there for us unconditionally and who is just there for the
benefits. No one trusts a yes-mam. If Disappointment Panda were here, he’d tell
you that the pain in our relationship is necessary to cement our trust in each
other and produce greater intimacy.
*Trust is the most important
ingredient in any relationship, for the simple reason that without trust, the
relationship doesn’t actually mean anything. A person could tell you that she Love
you, wants to be with you, would give up everything for you, but if you don’t
trust her, you get no benefit for those statements. You don’t feel love until
you trust that the love being expressed toward you comes without any special
condition or baggage attached to it. This is what’s so destructions about cheating.
It's not about the sex. It’s about the trust that has been destroyed as a
result of the sex. Without trust, the relationship can no longer function. So
it’s either rebuild the trust or say your goodbyes.
*If people cheat, it's because
something other than the relationship is more important to them. It may be
power over others, it may be validation through sex. It may be giving in their
own impulses. Whatever it is, it's clear that the cheater’s values are not
aligned in a way to support a healthy relationship. And if the cheater doesn’t
admit this or come to terms with it, if he just gives the old “I don’t know
what I was thinking; I was stressed out and drunk and she was there” response,
then he lacks the serious self-awareness necessary to solve any relationship
problems.