flinch when people get close panic when it gets dark, worry when someone looks at me just a bit too long. Worried I’ll be another target; victim of the wrong place, wrong time. Having too much faith that everyone is good.
“In my life, I have given a fuck about many people and many things. I have also not given a fuck about many people and many things. And like the road not taken, it was the fucks not given that made all the difference.”
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
“My recommendation: don’t be special; don’t be unique. Redefine your metrics in mundane and broad ways. Choose to measure yourself not as a rising star or an undiscovered genius. Choose to measure yourself not as some horrible victim or dismal failure. Instead, measure yourself by more mundane identities: a student, a partner, a friend, a creator.
The narrower and rarer the identity you choose for yourself, the more everything will seem to threaten you. For that reason, define yourself in the simplest and most ordinary ways possible.This often means giving up some grandiose ideas about yourself: that you’re uniquely intelligent, or spectacularly talented, or intimidatingly attractive, or especially victimized in ways other people could never imagine. This means giving up your sense of entitlement and your belief that you’re somehow owed something by this world.”
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
The narrower and rarer the identity you choose for yourself, the more everything will seem to threaten you. For that reason, define yourself in the simplest and most ordinary ways possible.This often means giving up some grandiose ideas about yourself: that you’re uniquely intelligent, or spectacularly talented, or intimidatingly attractive, or especially victimized in ways other people could never imagine. This means giving up your sense of entitlement and your belief that you’re somehow owed something by this world.”
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
“Remember,too,that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start,and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they "arrive". The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at some moment of crisis,through which they are introduced to their "other selves".”
― Think and Grow Rich
― Think and Grow Rich
“Because here’s the thing that’s wrong with all of the “How to Be Happy” shit that’s been shared eight million times on Facebook in the past few years—here’s what nobody realizes about all of this crap: The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. This is a total mind-fuck. So I’ll give you a minute to unpretzel your brain and maybe read that again: Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a positive experience. It’s what the philosopher Alan Watts used to refer to as “the backwards law”—the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. The”
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. (p.9)”
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
― The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
Alëna’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Alëna’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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