I also wrote down a lot of Mark Manson’s writing into my notes because I knew I would need it in the near future. And I would like to thank him for answering quite a lot of fears of mine with such a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth. Goals are limited in the amount of happiness they can provide in our lives because they are finite. Once you achieve the goal, it can no longer provide happiness because the finish line has been crossed. Paradoxically, then, by choosing processes as your focus, you can increase your overall, lifelong happiness by focusing on the process and not the goal. Processes never end, which means happiness can continue indefinitely. It is the act of choosing your values and living by them that makes you great, not any outcome or accomplishment. Most of Manson's observations make me roll my eyes, or at times, laugh out loud. How did we survive as a society without Mark Manson?

This is why this subject, like other social "sciences", tends to become politicised. I felt James was biting his tongue at times not to talk more about how various mental illnesses, that result from early childhood mistreatment, were the result of our modern individualist, consumer-obsessed, superficial, etc. society. It's capitalism's fault, like everything else. The use of “charged language” and a harsh approach to the reader might be acceptable to a certain extent. In some areas, the author crosses the boundary and reaches the bullying territory, especially how he looks at victimhood. Să nu-ți faci probleme pentru evenimentele care se petrec oricum, indiferent că vrei sau nu vrei. Nu poți controla totul. Unele lucruri (cele mai multe) nu sînt în puterea ta, altele (foarte puține) sînt. De pildă, modul de a judeca lucrurile care nu sînt în puterea ta. Sigur, Epictet și Seneca au spus asta cu mult timp în urmă, dar nu strică s-o repeți. Repetitio mater studiorum est... Better believe in Online-Dating, because the famous University of Stanford has shown proof that it works.The examples and studies cited in this book have convinced me that for the most part we are basically what? Our parents! This is a really disappointing revelation, but it has allowed me to better understand some aspects of myself and become a much better observer of my own behaviour. That’s really the main point of this book. Everything else is just a cover for this idea. The title of the book is completely misleading. James is really pissed off that some people have been claiming that our personalities are influenced by our genes/brain chemistry/biology. He’s a child development psychologist by training, and he doesn’t have much respect or patience for psychiatrists, let alone biologists and cognitive scientists. I’m glad he didn’t name any names and didn’t take on anyone in particular, as he’s no match in intellect and knowledge for the likes of Pinker and Dawkins and Dennett.

The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. ” I'm a Buddhist, and would like to consider myself at least somewhat familiar with Buddhism. As the enlightenment is accepted to be related to letting go of the worldly pleasures according to Buddhism, Manson takes this as an example to justify his opinions. Then, he goes and creates a line, which he thinks is from where the letting-go should be applied to. It's not that the content are false, but everything's completely taken out of the original context, and I'm failing to see how any of this is supposed to be 'helpful'. One could certainly empathize with everything stated here, and agree to most of it, but that's pretty much it: I couldn't find the self-help part (if there was any). If the book's intention was to make one immune (or resistant) to the difficulties the society put in one's way (as the name implies), at least for me, it failed spectacularly. After the first few chapters, it often felt like the author contradicting himself with what followed. I will say that the first half of the book completely captivated me, I think the phrase I used was that it was "blowing my mind." The second half however tends to fall into some repetition, with the main theme of the book (nuture over nature) being hammered home, seemingly with every other sentence. Because of this it became a bit harder to read, but as an overall experience, especially with the interesting character studies (Prince Charles, Woody Allen, etc) I would recommend it. The climb to the top is a never-ending upward spiral with new problems always surfacing and new processes that you must fall in love with. You are never allowed to stop climbing because the entire point is to love the climb. If you ever stop loving the climb, the results will never come.

You can’t merely be in love with the result. Everybody loves the result. You have to love the process. Nu fugi de suferințe! Viața înseamnă să-ți asumi suferința. Suferința face parte din viață. Cît trăiești, suferi, dar dacă suferi, asta înseamnă foarte precis că ești încă viu :) And, no, I don't care if that offends all the middle class helicopter moms and their special snowflakes. All of the meaning in our life is shaped by our innate desire to never truly die. Our physical bodies will die, but we cling to the idea that we can live on through religion, politics, sports, art, and technological innovation. Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations: Be happier. Be healthier. Be the best, better than the rest. Be smarter, faster, richer, sexier, more popular, more productive, more envied, and more admired. Be perfect and amazing and crap out twelve-karat-gold nuggets before breakfast each morning while kissing your selfie-ready spouse and two and a half kids goodbye. Then fly your helicopter to your wonderfully fulfilling job, where you spend your days doing incredibly meaningful work that’s likely to save the planet one day.

There is a distinction between what the title implies and what Manson intends. Manson is essentially inviting us to only care about what’s important and let the rest take care of itself. This is sort of an anti-hero self-help book, something you should read (or hear) if you feel the world weighing up a little bit too much. It just unburdens you of some stuff. No real groundbreaking philosophy, just a couple of useful hints and insights on how to take things more lightly, when taking them seriously is hurting you. Problems are inevitable, but what they mean is flexible. We get to control what our problems mean to us based on how we choose to think about them and how we choose to measure them. The way we measure success influences how we view the problems we face. And that's okay. She only texts me when she wants or needs something and, while we love and respect each other - we just aren't all THAT. One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” -Sigmund FreudThe only way to be comfortable with death is to understand and see yourself as something bigger than yourself, to contribute to some much larger entity. How do you write a tons of books? Write “200 crappy words per day” and you’ll find motivation often flows out of you. At the end of each chapter the book gives you an 'emotional audit' and poses questions for you to ask yourself and/or someone who was around when you were a young child. Some of these I found somewhat insightful to ponder over, whereas others seemed like common sense that many people would have considered already. Learning how to focus and prioritize your thoughts effectively based on finely honed personal values is perhaps the greatest and most important struggle in life. What is KAYAK's "flexible dates" feature and why should I care when looking for a flight from Taipei City to Fukuoka?