J L’s Reviews > I May Be Wrong: And Other Wisdoms From Life as a Forest Monk > Status Update

// It's not important that anyone else knows – you know. And you have to live with yourself all the time. Our actions and our memories are like the bathwater we sit in. It's up to us if it's clean or dirty.

I have a conscience, I remember what I've done and said. Those things constitute my baggage. And I can choose what to pack. //

// When we learn to endure not knowing and not being in control, we gain access to a wiser part of ourselves.

It’s in its nature to be in constant flux.

It's a gift to be able to rest in trust when life becomes uncertain, to be comfortable with not knowing. //

// Don't forget: responsibility — the ability to respond.

You're mindful enough to respond in an open manner. Which is also, as a rule, by default a wiser plan of action. //

"You won't always have what you want, but you'll always have what you need.”

// Listen, if you don't unquestioningly believe everything you think, if you're completely mindful (and only when you are), if your attention is unfettered, you will discover a fundamental truth. That the universe operates according to this principle:

You will know
what you need to know
when you need to know it //

// Slightly less control. Slightly more trust. Slightly less I need to know everything beforehand. Slightly more take life as it comes. It does all of us a world of good.

Life doesn't have to be lived with constant anxiety about things not turning out the way we want.

We don't have to make ourselves smaller than we are. We have a choice.//

// Right. I was clenching my fist too hard again. I was imagining I knew what the world should look like. And when it didn't conform to my ideas, I seized up. Thoughts with the word should' in them make me small, dull and lonely. //

// at the end of the day, it's the thoughts we have real trouble letting go of that tend to harm us the most. //

// Listening without prejudice or judgement can help us understand ourselves. And that's no small thing. There's something there. //

// They also have a tendency continually to assess and review what I say. My opinions and perspectives are approved to the extent that they confirm and agree with their worldview. There's no magic being made there. Put another way, people like that aren't fun to be around. //