It’s a Secret of Adulthood: If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn’t selfish.
It’s a Secret of Adulthood: The biggest waste of time is to do well something that we need not do at all.
It’s easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.
Another reason not to say critical things about other people: spontaneous trait transference. Studies show that because of this psychological phenomenon, people unintentionally transfer to me the trai...
It’s hard to do even simple things well, and most things aren’t simple. As
I’ve learned to resist my inclination to meet an expectation unthinkingly, and to ask, Why am I meeting this expectation, anyway?
I’ve noticed that some people are serial goal setters, rather than habit formers.
When we distract ourselves, we purposefully redirect our thoughts, and by doing so, we change our experience. Distraction can help us resist temptation, minimize stress, feel refreshed, and tolerate p...
We all must pay, but we can choose that for which we pay.
We need to have intimate, enduring bonds; we need to be able to confide; we need to feel that we belong; we need to be able to get support, and just as important for happiness, to give support. We nee...
How a couple fights matters more than how much they fight.
To achieve greater clarity in my actions, I often invoke a bright-line rule, a useful concept from law. A bright-line rule is a clearly defined rule or standard that eliminates any need for interpreta...
Any beginning is a time of special power for habit creation, and at certain times we experience a clean slate, in which circumstances change in a way that makes a fresh start possible—if we’re alert f...
At the heart of this home is my family; where my family is, is home. If I lived by myself, home would be the place peopled with reminders of everyone I loved. My home is a place of unconditional belon...
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed eve...
The fact is, while some habits are almost unbreakable, some habits remain fragile, even after years. We must guard against anything that might weaken a valuable habit. Every added link in the chain st...
Gertrude Stein remarked, Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.
How about this, I suggested. Instead of feeling that you’ve blown the day and thinking, ‘I’ll get back on track tomorrow,’ try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoo...
I was surprised to learn from my research, however, that the well-known notion of anger catharsis is poppycock. There’s no evidence for the belief that letting off steam is healthy or constructive. In...
In an interview in the Paris Review, novelist and Rebel John Gardner made an observation that I’ve never forgotten: Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay.
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