101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

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When you consider doing something that you truly love and are invested in, you are going to feel an influx of fear and pain, mostly because it will involve being vulnerable. Bad feelings should not always be interpreted as deterrents. They are also indicators that you are doing something frightening and worthwhile. Not wanting to do something would make you feel indifferent about it. Fear = interest. You assume that when it comes to following your gut instincts, happiness is good and fear and pain are bad.

Self-help books and I have a strange relationship. I didn't pay detailed attention to this book except for while I was reading I kept saying Oh ok, yea I see, that is me, I definitely need to incorporate this list into my daily habit. For instance: "Think about your friends who you can talk to...", "Think about the joy in spending a little bit of money on yourself and knowing you deserve it...", "Dream about how you'll live the way you want to live if you could (this is proven to be unhealthy by the way - unrealistic expectations are a breading ground for disillusionment)" Think about how you have this, this and this. I don't have this, this and this. Wiest writes that: “Each generation has a kind of ‘monoculture’, a type of ruling pattern or belief system that people unconsciously accept as the ‘truth’… The objectivity required to see the effects of today’s monoculture is very difficult to develop. Once you have so deeply accepted an idea as “true”, it no longer registers as “cultural” or “subjective”… The foundations of any given monoculture tend to surround what we should be living by… Do you think creating your best life is a matter of deciding what you want and then going after it, but in reality, you are psychologically incapable of predicting what will make you happy… You extrapolate from the present moment because you believe that success is somewhere in you . “arrive”, so he is constantly trying to take a snapshot of his life and see if he can still be happy… he convinces himself that any given moment is representative of his life as a whole. People who are socially intelligent think and behave in a way that spans beyond what’s culturally acceptable at any given moment in time. They function in such a way that they are able to communicate with others and leave them feeling at ease without sacrificing who they are and what they want to say. This, of course, is the basis of connection, the thing on which our brains are wired to desire, and on which we personally thrive. Also, it’s better to spend money on books written by specialists or someone with experience. The author was 24 when she published this book. She also has no training in psychology or anything close to it.I am not sure about "defines you" part. I think both successes and failures play a role in the way you think and the way you act. They don’t assume that the way they think and feel about a situation is the way it is in reality, nor how it will turn out in the end. You convince yourself that any given moment is representative of your life as a whole. Because we’re wired to believe that success is somewhere we get to—when goals are accomplished and things are completed—we’re constantly measuring our present moments by how finished they are, how good the story sounds, how someone else would judge the elevator speech. We find ourselves thinking: Is this all there is? because we forget that everything is transitory, and no one single instance can summarize the whole. There is nowhere to arrive to. The only thing you’re rushing toward is death. Accomplishing goals is not success. How much you expand in the process is.

They don’t withhold their feelings or try to temper them so much as to render them almost gone. They do, however, have the capacity to withhold their emotional response until they are in an environment wherein it would be appropriate to express how they are feeling. They don’t suppress it; they manage iteffectively. It’s easy to identify the monoculture of Germany in the 1930s or America in 1776. It’s clear what people at those times, in those places, accepted to be good and true even when in reality, that was certainly not always the case. Here are some good summary quotes on the 'nutshell' of this essay here: "The objectivity required to see the effects of present monoculture is very difficult to develop. Once you have so deeply accepted an idea as “truth” it doesn’t register as “cultural” or “subjective” anymore." I like the term "knowing-doing gap". Having experienced it in abundance, I often wonder why I can learn so much about what to do and never really do even a fraction of it. Needs a lot of reflection but this chapter covers it beautifully.Other essays seemed more appropriate for a self-help therapy session book that may or may not apply to the reader. Some of the essays were fascinating and some were a struggle to finish reading. One of the 101 essays is titled: “101 Essays That Will Change Your Mind”, i.e. the exact same title as the book, which rather begs the question of what the other 100 essays will add. You believe that creating your best life is a matter of deciding what you want and then going after it, but in reality, you are psychologically incapable ¹ of being able to predict what will make you happy. Your brain can only perceive what it’s known, so when you choose what you want for the future, you’re actually just recreating a solution or an ideal of the past. When things don’t work out the way you want them to, you think you’ve failed only because you didn’t re-create something you perceived as desirable. In reality, you likely created something better, but foreign, and your brain misinterpreted it as bad because of that. (Moral of the story: Living in the moment isn’t a lofty ideal reserved for the Zen and enlightened; it’s the only way to live a life that isn’t infiltrated with illusions. It’s the only thing your brain can actuallycomprehend.) we’re wired to believe that success is somewhere we get to—when goals are accomplished, and things are completed." There is truth to everything written in the book (For example, I really enjoyed the point made about everyone having different opinions and perspectives in essay 5. But it feels slightly ironic as some essays in the book seem to show you the one ‘true’ way of staying motivated or even feeling.), however (in *my* opinion) it reads as overly simplistic, western, and privileged. This book may not resonate with you if you suffer some mental health issues (especially essay 32). As well as most of the “signs you’re doing better than you think you are” are simply about money and free time. It reads like someone’s very well-written and meticulously edited diary.

The fastest way to sound unintelligent is to say, This idea is wrong. (That idea may be wrong for you, but it exists because it is right to someone else.) Intelligent people say, I don’t personally understand this idea or agree with it. To speak definitively about any one person or idea is to be blind to the multitude of perspectives that exist on it. It is the definition of closed-minded and short-sightedness. There’s a reason Homo sapiens still exist today and the others didn’t continue to evolve: a prefrontal cortex, which we can infer from skeletal structures. Essentially, we had the ability to think more complexly, thus were able to organize, cultivate, teach, practice, habituate and pass down a world suited for our survival. Because of our capacity to imagine, we were able to build Earth as it is today out of virtually nothing. Ask me in this moment one single anecdote from the list and I can't remember a thing. This is exactly what happens to me when I read life altering, too good, lets get you better and more happy books. In the moment I'm all vested and right after I forget all that i've "learned". Quite a lot of questions to think about. But I think some of my friends figured out the answers for them. Me? I am still thinking. I also want to say before diving in deeper that I do believe this book was written with good intentions. I know there will be people out there who read this and it will help them and it will resonate with them. I’m happy for those people. I just wasn’t one of them. I applaud the amount of work and effort that went into this book and by no means mean to shed a negative light on the author. I think the author’s thoughts are authentic. I genuinely enjoyed some parts of the book. (But I got somewhat annoyed when I realized it won’t be 101 essays, but (mostly) of various lists. Please deliver on your promises next time.)An untamed mind is a minefield. With no regulation, focus, base or self-control, anything can persuade you into thinking you want something that you don’t actually. I want to go out for drinks tonight, not prepare for that presentation tomorrow seems valid in the short-term, but in the long-term is disastrous. Going out for drinks one night probably isn’t worth bombing a super important meeting. Learning to craft routine is the equivalent of learning to let your conscious choices about what your day will be about guide you, letting all the other, temporary crap fall to thewayside.

What your big objective is. If you don’t know what you generally want to do with your precious, limited time here, you’re not going to do much of anything at all. Accomplishing goals is not a success. How much you expand in the process is." - I tend to disagree. I think both are successes but for different reasons.

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Either way, it’s inevitable that you expand. That you’re left knowing that much more about love and what it can do, and the pain that only a hole in your heart and space in your bed and emptiness in the next chair over can bring. Whether or not that hole will ever again include the person who made it that way…I don’t know. Whether or not anybody else can match the outline of someone who was so deeply impressed in you…I don’t know that, either. Have you ever felt joy for more than a few minutes? What about anger? No? How about tension, depression, and sadness? Those have lasted longer, haven't they? Weeks and months and years at a time, right?