Their system was easy to follow and seductive, with four basic tenets. One, separate the person—the emotion—from the problem; two, don’t get wrapped up in the other side’s position (what they’re asking for) but instead focus on their
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“Sometimes, when people have a low opinion of their own worth—or, perhaps, when they refuse responsibility for their lives—they choose a new acquaintance, of precisely the type who proved troublesome in the past. Such people don’t believe that they deserve any better—so they don’t go looking for it. Or, perhaps, they don’t want the trouble of better. Freud called this a “repetition compulsion.” He thought of it as an unconscious drive to repeat the horrors of the past—sometimes, perhaps, to formulate those horrors more precisely, sometimes to attempt more active mastery and sometimes, perhaps, because no alternatives beckon. People create their worlds with the tools they have directly at hand. Faulty tools produce faulty results. Repeated use of the same faulty tools produces the same faulty results. It is in this manner that those who fail to learn from the past doom themselves to repeat it. It’s partly fate. It’s partly inability. It’s partly … unwillingness to learn? Refusal to learn? Motivated refusal to learn?”
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
“If you remember that something bad happened, and you can figure out why, then you can try to avoid that bad thing happening again. That’s the purpose of memory. It’s not “to remember the past.” It’s to stop the same damn thing from happening over and over.”
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
“Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, “He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.”
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
“And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.”
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
“Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.”
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
― 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Albert Camus
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— last activity Jun 13, 2020 05:02PM
Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a representative of non-metropolitan French literature. His origin in Algeria and his experiences there in the thirties w ...more
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