“I honestly don’t blame intelligent, rational people for being skeptical. I don’t know that I would believe it either unless I had firsthand experience with it.”— Garrett Jackson, huffingtonpost.com
“Negative emotions don’t just cause negative thoughts, they cause excessively negative thoughts, that reflect a distorted picture of reality. Anxiety causes us to overestimate how dangerous things are, depression makes our situation seem hopeless, and anger makes small slights seem like major attacks…”— Spencer Greenberg, spencergreenberg.com
“Now let me say this for the people in the back: please stop playing the victim to circumstances you’ve created.”— Shireen Aljundi, thoughtcatalog.com
“Here's what people really want from tech: Instagram – chronological timeline Spotify – let us block artists Amazon – don’t create an inescapable surveillance panopticon Facebook – don't end democracy Snap – more filters.”— Tiffany C. Li, twitter.com
“Writing in centuries past, many scientists felt compelled to wax poetic about cosmic mysteries and God's handiwork. Perhaps one should not be surprised at this: most scientists back then, as well as many scientists today, identify themselves as spiritually devout. But a careful reading of older text…”— Neil deGrasse Tyson, haydenplanetarium.org
“The growth in the number of our friends has actually been accompanied with an increase in social isolation, as Sherry Turkle describes. We are more connected, yet more alone.”— Tony Crabbe, qz.com
“People would occasionally come up to me and say: 'I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?' And I would say: 'You have it already. You just can't feel it because your mind is making too much noise.' That answer later grew into the book that you are holding in your hands…”— Eckhart Tolle, amazon.com
“Do you know what your thoughts did last week? They became the things and events of this week. The things you thought would be difficult became difficult; easy became easy; boring became boring; and fun became fun. Where you thought there might be surprises, you were surprised. And where you thought…”— Mike Dooley, tut.com
“To cope with the conflict between hope and reality, our culture should teach us good integration skills, prompting us to accept with a little more grace what is imperfect in ourselves – and then, by extension, in others. We should be gently reminded that no one we can love will ever satisfy us compl…”— Alain de Botton, thebookoflife.org
“It’s a huge psychological achievement to accept other humans in their bewildering mixture of good and bad, capacity to assist us and to frustrate us, kindness and meanness – and to see that, far more than we’re inclined to imagine in our furious or ecstatic moments, most people belong in that slight…”— Alain de Botton, thebookoflife.org
“Human beings have many natural tendencies that need to be vigilantly monitored in the context of modern life. For example, our craving for fat, salt and sugar, which served us well when food was scarce, can lead us astray in an environment in which fat, salt and sugar are all too plentiful and heavi…”— Zeynep Tufekci, nytimes.com
“Self-forgiveness and self-compassion are both related to less procrastination, not more. The study I’ve summarized today suggests that one of the effects of self-compassion may well be to reduce ruminative brooding—those repetitive negative thoughts about the past—and allow us to let go and move for…”— Timothy A Pychyl, psychologytoday.com
“Procrastination is best understood as an emotion-focused coping strategy. We use task avoidance to escape negative emotions associated with a task (e.g., frustration, boredom, stress, anxiety). As colleagues have explained so well before, 'we give in to feel good,' prioritizing the management of ave…”— Timothy A Pychyl, psychologytoday.com
“Conservatives, it turns out, react more strongly to physical threat than liberals do. In fact, their greater concern with physical safety seems to be determined early in life: In one University of California study, the more fear a 4-year-old showed in a laboratory situation, the more conservative hi…”— John Bargh, washingtonpost.com
“If you want to make any permanent change in your life, willpower won’t get you there. Whether you want to get healthier, stop using social media so much, improve your relationships, be happier, write a book, or start a business — willpower won’t help you with any of these things. Personal progress a…”— Benjamin Hardy, medium.com
“According to psychological research, your willpower is like a muscle. It’s a finite resource that depletes with use. As a result, by the end of your strenuous days, your willpower muscles are exhausted and you’re left to your naked and defenseless self — with zero control to stop the night-time munc…”— Benjamin Hardy, medium.com
“What determines your success isn’t 'What do you want to enjoy?' The question is, 'What pain do you want to sustain?' The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experienc…”— Mark Manson, markmanson.net
“I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Ex…”— Omid Safi, onbeing.org
“My message, as an aging Gen X-er to millennials and those coming after them, is: Go get us. Take us down — all those cringing provincials who still think climate change is a hoax, that being transgender is a fad or that “socialism” means purges and re-education camps. Rid the world of all our outmod…”— Tim Kreider, mobile.nytimes.com