Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. Life is tough. Good people get hurt. Suffering is pervasive. Notice little bits of everyday goodness that make existence tolerable, even justifiable. Watch the girl splash into a puddle. Enjoy a good coffee. Pet a cat when you run into it

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12 Rules for Life Jordan Peterson

argues that modern secularism and reliance on science has left a void in answers to important existential questions: What is the point of living? Why do bad things happen to good people? What am I supposed to do to make myself happier? Why does life have so much suffering? Without a clear guiding structure, you might feel directionless. You may be prone to nihilism (“there’s no point to anything

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Stand up straight with your shoulders back. There is a part of your brain that is constantly monitoring signals to figure out your position in society. Fix your posture to get others to treat you better, which will make you feel better and stand tall, thus kicking off a virtuous cycle.

Jordan Peterson

Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. Many people are better at filling prescriptions for their dogs than themselves. Similarly, you may self-sabotage yourself daily – by not taking care of your health, not keeping promises you make to yourself.

Nietzsche: “He whose life has a why can

Make friends with people who want the best for you. Surround yourself with people who support you and genuinely want to see you succeed. You will push each other to greater heights; each person’s life improves as the others’ improve. They won’t tolerate your cynicism, they will punish you when you mistreat yourself

David Heath

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. With mass media, it’s easy to think of yourself as miserably outclassed. Drill deeply into your discontent and understand what you want, and why. Define your goals. Transform your goals into something achievable today.

David Heath

Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. Children test boundaries of behavior to learn the rules. As a parent, your purpose is to serve as a proxy for society. You must teach the child what is acceptable, and what isn’t. Children who receive no/incorrect feedback don't learn boundaries

David Heath

Put your house in order. It’s easy to blame the outside world, a group of people, or a specific person for your misfortunes. But before you do this, question – have you taken full advantage of every opportunity available to you? Are you doing anything you know is wrong? Stop it today.

David Heath

Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient. Doing good (preventing evil from happening, alleviating unnecessary suffering) provides your life with meaning. Meaning defeats existential angst; it gratifies your short-term impulses to achieve long-term goals; it makes your life worth living.

David Heath

Tell the truth. You may lie to others to get what you want; you may lie to yourself to feel better. But deep down you know it’s inconsistent with your beliefs, and you feel unsettled. You must develop your personal truth, and then act only in ways that are consistent with your personal truth.

David Heath

Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t. As a listener, you are helping the other person think. The most effective listening technique: summarize the person’s message. This forces you to genuinely understand what is being said; it distills the moral of the story, perhaps clarifying

David Heath

Be precise with your speech. Anxiety usually comes from the unknown. You don’t know what the problem is, or something vague seems really scary. Specificity turns chaos into a thing you can deal with.Why don’t you treat every other problem in your life with the same clarity? Be precise. What is wrong, exactly?

David Heath

Leave children alone when they are skateboarding. Modern parenting has gotten overprotective. Let kids alone when they push against authority, toughen up, and do seemingly dangerous things. They need it to grow.

David Heath

“He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.”

Nietzsche

Transform your goals into something achievable today. If it’s not within your control, look somewhere else. Let every day end a little better than it started. If you do this correctly, you’ll be unconcerned with other people, because you have plenty to do yourself.

David Heath

Act only in ways that your internal voice does not object to. Like a drop of sewage in a lake of champagne, a lie spoils all the truth it touches.

David Heath

But there is no scientific code of ethics to inherit the stabilizing role of religion. In the absence of clear rules and a moral compass, people are prone to nihilism, existential angst, misery, and indulging their instincts.

David Heath

Take responsibility for your own life.

David Heath

Walk the line between order and chaos, where life is stable enough but also unpredictable enough to provoke growth.

David Heath

The classic hero must give up something to be reborn and meet a great challenge.

David Heath

Acknowledge that life is suffering. Your goal is to make progress to avoid suffering.

David Heath

Typical overprotective adults avoid discussing suffering with their children, with the hope that it will protect them from it.

David Heath

If we lived properly, we would be resistant to the pains of existence and to the enticing lures of empty ideologies promising safety.

David Heath

The neurotransmitter serotonin is thought to be the internal mediator of social status. If you feel (or are) dominant in status, more serotonin circulates in your bloodstream. [Frat leaders have higher serotonin levels than members] Serotonin also seems to improve pro-social behavior and reduces aggression.

David Heath

The ability to respond with aggression and violence decreases the probability that actual aggression will become necessary.

David Heath

Peterson notes that PTSD in war comes not from horrific things happening to them, but as a result of witnessing their own violent behavior. This never saw their capacity for oppression and bullying, and now see history’s terrible perpetrators

David Heath

I always thought I should be treated like a star.

Madonna Ciccone

May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.

Rainer Maria Rilke

We can no longer expect an Intelligence Community that is mostly male and mostly white to be able to monitor and infiltrate suspicious organizations or terrorist groups.

Jane Harman

I'm probably not going to get married unless I live with somebody for 10 or 20 years. But these people (Romeo and Juliet) took a chance and they did it. We don't have the balls that Romeo did.

Leonardo DiCaprio

In my case, I belong to a group of aspiring and practicing biographers in Boston. We meet once a month for a coupla hours. It's become my lifeline - forgive the pun.

Nigel Hamilton

I've always been interested in what happens in the studio.

Bruce Nauman

The Bay Area definitely knows the pain of competing for, and retaining, top talent. Offering interesting perks has become a necessity, not a nice-to-have.

Paige Craig

Many Scandinavian writers who had made their name in literary fiction felt they wanted to have a go at the crime novel to show they could compete with the best. If Salman Rushdie had been Norwegian, he would definitely have written at least one thriller.

Jo Nesbo

Education is important because, first of all, people need to know that discrimination still exists. It is still real in the workplace, and we should not take that for granted.

Alexis Herman

I'm an extreme libertarian, but I realize we're in a democracy, and in a democracy, people can have views of all stripes, and there's no reason to argue about it.

Eugene Fama

Cultural variety is always worth striving for, but must never precede the declaration of human rights.

Bjorn Ulvaeus

Everybody is nicer to me when I'm in yellow.

Cam

Muslim' is not a political party. 'Muslim' is not a single culture. Muslims go to war with each other. There are more Muslims in India, Russia and China than in most Muslim-majority nations. 'Muslim' is not a homogenous entity.

Maajid Nawaz

The first African-American leader was Dr. Martin Luther King.

Bobby Seale

I have made so many mistakes, and such really stupid ones, I would start blubbing away if I could remember even half of them. But do not dwell on cock-ups, I say. You don't learn by your mistakes - at least I don't - so best to blunder on making fresh ones.

Charles Saatchi

If you want to see me cry, just come to a photo shoot.

Fiona Apple

A good bell is heard from far a bad one still further.

Finnish Proverbs

Especially in the last 10 years, the writing on animated shows has jumped by leaps and bounds.

Will Friedle

Any abuse of animals is the same as abuse of men, women, or children.

Alison Goldfrapp

I was brought up in a flat in North London - virtually the last building in London, because north of us was countryside all the way to the coast, and south of us was non-stop London for 20 miles.

Jim Crace

I read everything, but generally more fact than fiction - especially autobiographies and biographies. I've read 'Long Walk to Freedom' by Nelson Mandela at least twice on holiday. Every time, I'm totally awed by his vision, strength and forgiveness. I feel honoured to have got to know him and his wonderful wife Graca over the years.

Richard Branson

It's a remarkable exercise to sit and look at your own work over the years.

Vera Wang

I think people make way too much of ratings.

Walter Cronkite

Our pop scene is among the best in the world because there are 300 languages spoken on the streets of London, compared with 200 in New York. Our diversity is our strength.

Charles Hazlewood