The mind is a persecutor who pretends to be the persecuted
Few things stimulate human sympathy as much as the sight of someone being persecuted. We naturally want to do what we can to stop the [...]
To deal with fear, focus not on what if, but on what is
Suppose we hear about an acquaintance getting a heart attack. We may become fearful: “What if I get a heart attack when I am alone [...]
Self-pity makes feel-bad seem feel-good
Suppose we are in physical pain. We will naturally do whatever we can to free ourselves from that pain as soon as possible. While such [...]
Resilience comes when we accept what is unchangeable, but don’t accept that everything is unchangeable
What makes some people resilient and some people weak? It’s primarily their vision when things go wrong. Life is tough. Everyone faces adversities. At such [...]
The night after a quake, the stars still shine in the sky – don’t let the misery of your life blind you to the beauty of life
Suppose a deadly quake has hit a place, leaving it in ruins. If we gaze at all the debris, the sight can be depressing, even [...]
Complaining is no one’s birthright – and it has made no one’s birth right
Some people are chronic complainers. They self-righteously justify their negativity, irritability and disagreeability, “Can’t you see how many things have gone wrong in my life? [...]
Everything in history is not in memory; everything in memory is not in history – intelligence means to know what belongs where, and to keep it there
History and memory are both records of the past. Yet they can differ significantly. Let’s see how. Everything in history is not in memory: Because [...]
See memory not as an exhaustive guide to the past, but as a constructive guide from the past to the future
We usually think of memory as a tool to remember the past. Actually however, the past is too vast to be remembered entirely or accurately. [...]
Accepting our weaknesses takes courage – and so does accepting ourselves with our weaknesses
Life’s battles often expose our weaknesses. Accepting those weaknesses can make us feel unsafe, undermined and unworthy. Recoiling from such threatening feelings, we often try [...]
Worrying about the world’s problems is often an excuse for not working on our own problems
Many people worry constantly about world problems such as climate change or discrimination. While these are serious problems that require dedicated action, we need to [...]
Even if we have a million reasons to be resentful, still resentment remains utterly unhelpful and can be horribly harmful
Life is tough. People let us down. Things go downhill for no apparent reason. We ourselves make a mess of things, often against our better [...]
We can never start in our life unless we start with our life
Suppose we wanted to walk somewhere, but somehow took several wrong turns and ended up far away from our destination. To get there, we will [...]
To keep fighting battles that are already lost is to be lost
Suppose in a cricket match a batsman had a great opportunity to score on a loose delivery, but somehow they missed that opportunity. They would [...]
To put something behind us, we need to put something ahead of us
When some misfortune befalls us, our mind tends to keep replaying that misfortune, making us feel fearful, morose, helpless. Such negativity characterizes the mode of [...]
We don’t know the future, but neither does our mind – its fears don’t forecast the future
Our mind often fills us with fears about the future: “What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong?” Indeed, “What if?” is the [...]
Don’t pack what is back – the past – in your backpack
Suppose we are going trekking with just a backpack. We will carefully decide what all to pack in it. If we fill it with novels [...]
We feel stressed not so much because we are over-worked as because we are over-worried
Stress is rampant in today’s society. Why? One common explanation is over-work. But is over-work the only cause? At least three points suggest otherwise: Nowadays, [...]
Living resentfully is like driving with the brake pressed
Suppose we see someone pressing the brake of their car and also trying to drive the car ahead. We will consider their actions absurd. Sadly, [...]
If you get the thought that you can never resist temptation, treat that thought as a temptation and resist it
Suppose an invading army infiltrates a defending army with a spy. And that spy disheartens the defending soldiers, telling them that their forces are too [...]
Don’t mess every new day with yesterday
Suppose we are driving through an intersection. If at a previous intersection, someone had suddenly cut across us. Their actions might have annoyed us, but [...]
Maturity means to acknowledge that no one is obliged to fulfill our needs
When infants are hungry, they just cry and expect others to come running to fulfill their need. However, when adults are hungry, they aren’t expected [...]