IF YOU'RE SUFFERING TERRIBLY,
THERE'S TWO OPTIONS IN FRONT OF YOU IN SOME SENSE.
ONE IS YOU'RE SUFFERING TERRIBLY
AND IT'S UNJUST AND YOU'RE SUFFERING TERRIBLY
CUZ THE COSMOS ITSELF
IS FLAWED IN ITS FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE.
THE OTHER POSSIBILITY IS YOU'RE SUFFERING
AT LEAST IN PART BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT EVERYTHING YOU COULD BE,
AND THAT'S A TERRIBLE BURDEN TO TAKE ONTO YOURSELF
CUZ IT'S A BURDEN OF YOUR OWN SUFFERING.
BUT IT'S ALSO UNBELIEVABLY HOPEFUL.
IF THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME
THERE'S HOPE BECAUSE I MIGHT BE ABLE TO FIX IT.
BUT IF THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE STRUCTURE
OF EXISTENCE, SO I'M FAINTED TO SUFFERING THIS WAY
THEN EVERYTHING'S DESPAIRED.
YEAH, WELL, IT'S A TRICKY BUSINESS
WHEN MY DAUGHTER WAS YOUNG AND SHE WAS REALLY ILL
I TOLD HER
DON'T YOU USE YOUR ILLNESS AS AN EXCUSE
EVER
BECAUSE YOU'LL CONFUSE YOURSELF
THEN YOU WON'T KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO
YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A HARD TIME DOING THINGS
BUT IF YOU USE YOUR ILLNESS AS AN EXCUSE
IF YOU CORRUPT YOURSELF MORALLY
WHICH YOU HAVE IN SOME SENSE
EVERY RIGHT TO DO BECAUSE OF THE DEPTH OF YOUR SUFFERING
AND WHICH WOULD BE PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE
UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES
IT WILL DO NOTHING AT ALL
BUT MAKE THE SITUATION FAR WORSE
SO STOP FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF
OVER WHAT CHALLENGES ARE THROWN AT YOU.
THIS IS A PART OF THE PROCESS.
IT IS PART OF THE JOURNEY.
HOW WILL YOU EVER GROW
IF YOU NEVER HAVE ANY PRESSURE?
YOU SHOULD BE THANKING THE UNIVERSE
FOR PUTTING YOU THROUGH THIS
BECAUSE THESE PROBLEMS YOU'RE HAVING?
THESE ARE THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITIES
TO GET STRONGER
WHEN YOU'RE COMMITTED
WHEN YOU'RE INVESTED
WHEN YOU'RE ALL IN
YOU CAN'T THROW IN THE TOWEL.
YOU CAN'T JUST WALK AWAY.
THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO HAPPINESS
AND THAT IS TO CEASE WORRYING ABOUT THE THINGS
WHICH ARE BEYOND THE POWER OF OUR WILL.
IF YOU WERE DISTRESSED BY ANYTHING EXTERNAL,
THE PAIN IS NOT DUE TO THE THING ITSELF,
BUT TO YOUR ESTIMATE OF IT;
AND THIS YOU HAVE THE POWER TO REVOKE AT ANY MOMENT.
THE GREATEST OBSTACLE TO LIVING IS EXPECTANCY,
WHICH HANGS UPON TOMORROW AND LOSES TODAY.
YOU ARE ARRANGING WHAT LIES IN FORTUNES CONTROL,
AND ABANDONING WHAT LIES IN YOURS.
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
TO WHAT GOAL ARE YOU STRAINING?
THE WHOLE FUTURE LIES IN UNCERTAINTY: LY.
LIVE IMMEDIATELY.
MEN ARE DISTURBED NOT BY THINGS,
BUT BY THE VIEWS WHICH THEY TAKE OF THINGS.
THUS DEATH IS NOTHING TERRIBLE,
ELSE IT WOULD HAVE APPEARED SO TO SOCRATES.
BUT THE TERROR CONSISTS IN OUR NOTION OF DEATH.
THAT IT IS TERRIBLE.
WHEN, THEREFORE,
WE ARE HINDERED,
OR DISTURBED,
OR GRIEVED
LET US NEVER IMPUTE IT TO OTHERS,
BUT TO OURSELVES;
THAT IS, TO OUR OWN VIEWS.
IT IS THE ACTION OF AN UNINSTRUCTED PERSON
TO REPROACH OTHERS FOR HIS OWN MISFORTUNES;
OF ONE ENTERING UPON INSTRUCTION,
TO REPROACH HIMSELF;
AND OF ONE PERFECTLY INSTRUCTED,
TO APPROACH NEITHER OTHERS OR HIMSELF.
EVERY DAY,
FEED YOUR MIND
WITH WORDS THAT YOU WRITE AND
WORDS THAT YOU HEAR
AND WORDS THAT YOU SPEAK TO YOURSELF.
FEED YOUR FAITH
AND YOUR DOUBTS
WILL STARVED TO DEATH
EVERYDAY, IT'S A SELLING JOB ON YOU
SAY TO YOURSELF,
IT'S POSSIBLE.
I CAN DO THIS, I CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
NO MATTER HOW BAD IT IS OR HOW BAD IT GETS,
I'M GOING TO MAKE IT.
EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE TO POINT TO
SAY TO YOURSELF, IT'S POSSIBLE.
THERE'S NOTHING AS POWERFUL
AS A MADE UP MIND.
IF YOU ARE GOING THROUGH SOME STUFF RIGHT NOW,
LISTEN TO ME.
TROUBLE DOES NOT LAST ALWAYS
JUDGE NOT ACCORDING TO APPEARANCES
AND SAY TO YOURSELF,
I'M GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS.
I'M NOT GOING TO ALLOW THIS
TO GET THE BEST OF ME.
If you really want to escape the things that harass you,
what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future,
not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have,
which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.
The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.
A wise man is content with his lot,
whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.
Not only do you have to move from point A to B
in life, but point A is often a very difficult place to be
because we're fragile and bounded
and mortal and limited and because we know that.
And so one of the implications
of that as many great religious traditions are at pains to
illustrate or demonstrate or proclaim,
is that life is essentially suffering.
And I believe that to be a fundamental truth, but.
But perhaps not the most fundamental truth,
because I think the most fundamental truth is that despite the
fact that life is suffering, people can transcend that.
And partly the way they transcend
that is by pursuing things of value.
And so that if there is no value
proposition at hand, then you have no meaning
to justify the difficult conditions of your life.
And that's brutally difficult for people.
Nietzche said, he who has a why can bear any how.
And you see, and, and I've certainly seen this as a clinical
practitioner, that people who have no purpose in their life
are embittered by the difficulties of their life.
And they become first bitter and then
resentful, and then revengeful, and then cruel, and
there's plenty of places to go past cruel.
That's just where you start if you're really on a downhill path.
Most change
starts with the simple process of something outside of us altering something inside of us.
If you begin the inward journey
and start to change your inner world of thoughts and feelings,
it should create an improved state of well-being.
If you keep repeating the process in meditation, then in time,
epigenetic changes should begin to alter your outer presentation—
—and you become your own placebo.
You know, your personality creates your personal reality.
That's it.
And your personality is made of how you think,
how you act, and how you feel.
So if you keep thinking the same way, you keep
acting the same way, you keep feeling the same way,
everything stays the same in your life because nothing
Changes in your life until you change, right?
So turns out, if you keep thinking the same way,
making the same choices, doing the same things,
creating the same experiences, and feeling the same emotions, or
responding to your life in the exact same way,
you keep doing that, your biology tends to get more rigid.
we fire and wire the same circuits
We hardwire our brain and they,
and only takes a small stimulation or a small thought our response
to someone or something, and like a sequence of
thoughts, it's, it just turns on automatically.
So, Your biology, your neurochemistry,
your neuro hormones, your genes, everything
stays the same because you're the same.
So crisis and trauma is always the thing that gets a
person to really start looking at, how do I really change?
Right?
So, so we want to tell people, let's not wait for that.
Let's, let's learn and change in a,
a state of growth and inspiration.
So, So if you keep doing those same things
over and over again, the middle life period,
we, we become very, very programmable.
So in order for us to change, we have
to become conscious of how we think.
We have to become really aware of how we
behave, what our habits are, even how we speak.
Now, this is a tough one.
We have to
Really look at the emotions that we live by every
single day and and say, wow, this, this actually could
be unworthiness, so this could actually be guilt.
But if you're too busy with your cell phone and
your social media and you're too busy with your
kids and running around and your environment
can distract you from these feelings, so
My interest is to get people to retreat from their lives,
right, just for five, seven days and, and remove the
constant stimulation in their external environment that
reminds them of who they think they are as a personality
to separate themselves from the people they know and the places
they go and the things they do at the exact same time, and
then fill their brain with knowledge and information, and
then remind them that they're actually creating their life.
So if your personality creates your personal reality,
and that means then if in order for you to change your
personal reality, you gotta change your personality.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing,
in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.
We should not, like sheep,
follow the herd of creatures in front of us,
making our way where others go, not where we ought to go.
Self-improvement is a kind of evolution;
where the mind acquires a taste for things that are noble and divine,
it gradually rises to the contemplation of the supreme Good,
and becomes at last a living emblem of wisdom, a masterpiece of art.
Do not be satisfied with the petty things of life;
aim at something great and noble,
and your life will become a shining example to others.