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.

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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

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

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

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

When you're going into an employment environment that looks pretty scary, it is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility and your sense of community.

Henry Rollins

Me and my brothers started a musical group early on, and we were playing in places where we really weren't supposed to be.

Maceo Parker

General relativity predicts that time ends inside black holes because the gravitational collapse squeezes matter to infinite density.

Lee Smolin

Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies.

Erich Fromm

I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.

Rumi

I think of the prisoners on 'Orange Is the New Black,' a lot of times, as uplifting.

Samira Wiley

I was not going to balance the budgets on the backs of communities.

Dannel Malloy

Do whatever you want to persevere, work for your own things, and do not depend on anyone to be your provider. That way, in the future, you will be all right regardless of the circumstances.

Dascha Polanco

Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other.

Samuel Johnson

Life is so impermanent that it's not about somebody else or things around me, it's about knowing you are completely alone in this world and being content inside.

K. D. Lang

Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.

Roy T. Bennett

One of the odd things about being a writer is that you never reach a point of certainty, a point of mastery where you can say, 'Right. Now I understand how this is done.'

Jenny Offill

I've arrived at the place if I'm not taking a career risk, I'm not happy. If I'm scared, then I know I'm being challenged.

Jim Carrey

I literally integrated the small town of Libertyville, Illinois. I was the first person of color to reside within its borders.

Tom Morello

Fear is a sneaky thief, stealing away precious moments of your life.

Elizabeth Lesser

The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.

Rumi

Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually.

Jimi Hendrix

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism pursued to a certain point bring men back to common sense.

George Berkeley

Do not share your inventions with many; share them only with the few who understand and love the sciences.

Filippo Brunelleschi

My running style was kind of just head-on, because I couldn't dance.

Earl Campbell

For me as a person, friendships are incredibly important to me, but in writing, they can distract me.

Aimee Bender

We have one of the highest interest rates in the world, and we owe more money per capita than any other country. All we need is a nail hole in the bottom of the boat and we're sunk.

Pauline Hanson

The light, that lies In woman's eyes, Has been my heart's undoing.

Thomas More

Psychics can never be 100 percent. I think that would be scary to be 100 percent.

Sylvia Browne