Living Love Quotes

Quotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please, including on your own website, blog, social media page or forum debate posts.

Where Monsters Come From

Every monster was a man first.

~ Edward Albee (1928-03-12 age:90) Tiny Alice

Recalling Happiness

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

~ Dante Alighieri (1265 1321-09-14 age:56)

Love Virus

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

~ Maya Angelou (1928-04-04 2014-05-28 age:86)

We Create the Future

One of the biggest flaws in the common conception of the future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create.

~ Michael Anissimov (1985 age:32)

The Prime Directive

Abandon all hope of a better past.

~ Anonymous

Anger Leads To A Wish To Suffer

The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return; hatred wishes its object not to exist.

~ Aristotle (384 BC 322 BC age:62)

Unconditional Law of Love

You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.

~ Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-02-21 1973-09-29 age:66)

Acceptance Is an Old Idea

Accept the things to which fate binds you and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

Anger Does More Harm Than the Triggering Event

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

Be Here Now

Confine yourself to the present.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

In Future, You will Still Have Tools

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

Loss in Just a Change

Loss is nothing else but change and change is Nature’s delight.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

No Pretences

Be content to seem what you really are.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

The Privilege to Live

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

River Of Time

Time is a sort of river of passing events and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place and this too will be swept away.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

Self-Worth Inconsistency

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

Like What You Do

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

~ James Matthew Barrie (1860-05-09 1937-06-19 age:77)

Appreciate What You Have

Happiness is appreciating what you already have.

~ Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar

Exercise is an Anti-Depressant

Exercise is like taking an anti-depressant; not-exercising is like taking a depressant.

~ Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar

Importance of Being Loved

We’re nothing if we’re not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing in life, really. And I think we are all striving for it in different ways. I also believe very, very strongly that everybody is the hero/heroine of his/her own life. I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we’ve all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters.

~ Maeve Binchy (1940-05-28 2012-07-30 age:72)

Signs of Collapse

When a man feels that he cannot leave his work, it is a sure sign of an impending collapse.

~ Louis Brandeis (1856-11-13 1941-10-05 age:84)

You Can Never Have It All

Don’t fool yourself that you are going to have it all. You are not. Psychologically, having it all is not even a valid concept. The marvelous thing about human beings is that we are perpetually reaching for the stars. The more we have, the more we want. And for this reason, we never have it all.

~ Joyce Brothers (1927-10-20 2013-05-13 age:85)

Failed Marriage

We tend to look on a divorce as a failed marriage, but we can look on it as a successful marriage than ran out its time.

~ BTU (Bentall, Taylor and Ulrich)

Buddha’s Eternal Law

Hatred can never cease by hatred.
Hatred can only cease by love.
This is an eternal law.

~ Gautama Buddha (563 BC 483 BC age:80)

The Vow of the Bodhisattvas

The deluding passions are inexhaustible. I vow to extinguish them all.

The number of beings is endless. I vow to save them all.

The Truth cannot be told. I vow to explain it.

The Way which cannot be followed is unattainable. I vow to attain it.

~ Gautama Buddha (563 BC 483 BC age:80)

Life is Like…

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

~ Samuel Butler (1835-12-04 1902-06-18 age:66)

Loved and Lost

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

~ Samuel Butler (1835-12-04 1902-06-18 age:66)

What Animals Know that People Do Not

All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

~ Samuel Butler (1835-12-04 1902-06-18 age:66)

Falling In Love To Fast

I fall in love too easily, I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard, for love to ever last
My heart should be well schooled, ’cause I’ve been fooled in the past
And still I fall in love too easily, I fall in love too fast

~ Sammy Cahn (1913-06-18 1993-01-15 age:79)

Heartbreak Musings

If he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he must not be a good man. But if he isn’t good, then why does it hurt so much to lose him?

~ Orson Scott Card (1951-08-24 age:66), Enchantment

Hurdling Futility

Like running the hurdles. Work so hard, jump over every one, fast, high enough but no higher because you can’t afford to hang in the air. And then, when the race is over, you’re dripping with sweat, either they beat you or you beat them… and then a couple of guys come out and move the hurdles out of the way. Turns out they were nothing. All that work to jump over them, but now they’re gone.

~ Orson Scott Card (1951-08-24 age:66), Enchantment,

A metaphor for the way we create addictions, just by pretending, for the time being, something is very important. Frantically trying to satisfy an addiction fans it. Or as Tony Robbins spins it, Action precedes motivation.

Understanding Generates Love

I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe and not love them the way they love themselves.

~ Orson Scott Card (1951-08-24 age:66), Ender’s Game

Emily Carr’s Monkey

What a splendid time Woo must have had.

~ Emily Carr (1871-12-13 1945-03-02 age:73) BC painter, when Woo, her pet monkey, got loose in the basement painting the walls with tar using her best brushes, throwing eggs everywhere and smashing jars of jam.

Tree of Sorrows

On the Day of Judgment, each person will be allowed to hang one’s unhappiness and sufferings on a branch of the great Tree of Sorrows. After all have found a limb from which their miseries may dangle, they may all walk slowly around the tree. Each person is to search for a set of sufferings that he or she would prefer to those he or she has hung on the tree.

In the end, each one freely chooses to reclaim his or her own assortment of sorrows rather than those of another. Each person leaves the Tree of Sorrows wiser that when he or she arrived.

~ Friar Brian Cavanaugh Third Order Franciscan  The Sower’s Seeds: One Hundred and Twenty Inspiring Stories for Preaching, Teaching and Public Speaking

Crackerjack Philosophy

In each day is hidden a gift, a prize, in amongst the junk.

~ Chris Chandler

Success

Succeess consists in going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90)

Do What You Fear

The death of fear is in doing what you fear to do.

~ Sequichie Comingdeer

Parenting Advice

Hold ’em. Hold ’em. Hold ’em.

~ Jeff Corey (1914-08-10 2002-08-16 age:88) (advice on parenting)

Flash Of A Firefly

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

~ Crowfoot Blackfoot warrior

Empathy

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.

~ Roger Ebert (1942-06-18 2013-04-04 age:70)

Limits of Knowledge

A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.

~ Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-09-26 1965-01-04 age:76)

At a Different Angle

Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows and there is his tragedy.

~ Havelock Ellis (1859-02-02 1939-07-08 age:80).

Dream Reality

Dreams are real while they last; can we say more of life?

~ Havelock Ellis (1859-02-02 1939-07-08 age:80).

Generation of Hate

When love is suppressed hate takes its place.

~ Havelock Ellis (1859-02-02 1939-07-08 age:80).

Jealousy the Love-Slayer

Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive.

~ Havelock Ellis (1859-02-02 1939-07-08 age:80).

Finish Each Day

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-05-25 1882-04-27 age:78)

Start Now to Change the World

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, slowly changing the world.

~ Ann Frank (1929-06-12 1945 age:16)

Limitations of Reason

You can’t reason yourself back into cheerfulness any more than you can reason yourself into an extra six inches in height.

~ Stephen Fry (1957-08-24 age:60)

Flowers In Reach

Happiness is the art of making a bouquet of those flowers within reach.

~ Robert Goddard (1954-11-13 age:63) British novelist

Definition of Wisdom

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-08-28 1832-03-22 age:82)

How To Keep A Secret

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-08-28 1832-03-22 age:82)

Kindly Words

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-08-28 1832-03-22 age:82)

A compliment delivered via a third party is ten times sweeter.

If Only

The saddest words in the English language are if only.

~ Barbara Green (1920-01-17 1994-03-22 age:74) (my Mom)

The World Is Unfair

The world is not fair. If you persist in presuming it is, you will create a lot of unnecessary misery for yourself.

~ Fred Green (1913-07-12 1992-04-10 age:78) my Dad

Buddhist View

For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
to dispel the misery of the world.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Identity vs Action

Don’t become a Buddhist. The world doesn’t need Buddhist. Do practice Compassion. The world needs more compassion.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama, quoted in  The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals and How to Change the World

Learning Tolerance

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Mind Control

May I examine my mind in all actions and as soon as a negative state occurs, since it endangers myself and others, may I firmly face and avert it.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

On Kindness

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Practice Compassion

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

The Purpose of Life

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Brain Shaping

The mind takes the shape of whatever it rests upon — or more exactly, the brain takes the shape of whatever the mind rests upon.

~ Dr. Rick Hansen

The neuropsychologist, not to be confused with man-in-motion Rick Hansen or the politician Rick Hansen.

Never Getting Enough

You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.

~ Eric Hoffer (1902-07-25 1983-05-21 age:80)

Love Is Never Lost

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.

~ Washington Irving (1783-04-03 1859-11-28 age:76)

Sacred Tears

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief… and unspeakable love.

~ Washington Irving (1783-04-03 1859-11-28 age:76)

On Celebrity

I’m just like anyone. I cut and I bleed. And I embarrass easily.

~ Michael Jackson (1958-08-29 2009-06-25 age:50)

Clinging To The Past

People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to because otherwise their youth goes with you. It’s very selfish, but it’s understandable.

~ Mick Jagger (1943-07-26 age:74)

Change Your Disposition

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.

~ Samuel Johnson (1709-09-18 1784-12-13 age:75)

I Release the Past

I release the past
And allow the healing power of love
Into my life.

~ Jai Michael Josefs song I Release the Past

We Are Whole and Complete

There is nothing to need, hide from or fear. We are whole and complete, right now and right here.

~ Jai Michael Josefs song Open Up Your Vision

Sing After a Storm

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?

~ Rose Kennedy (1890-07-22 1995-01-22 age:104)

Time Heals Some Wounds

It has been said, time heals all wounds I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

~ Rose Kennedy (1890-07-22 1995-01-22 age:104)

Accept Yourself

When you accept yourself completely you do not have to maintain a phony front, drive yourself to achieve or feel insecure if people tune-into you and what you are doing.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

Definition of Happiness

Happiness is experienced when your life gives you what you are willing to accept.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

Double Your Consciousness

Expand your love, your consciousness and your loving compassion by experiencing everything that everyone does or says as though you yourself had done it.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Eighth Pathway

I feel with loving compassion the problems of others without getting caught up emotionally in their predicaments that are offering them messages they need for their growth.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Eleventh Pathway

I am constantly aware of which of the Seven Centres of Consciousness I am using and I feel my energy, perceptiveness, love and inner peace growing as I open all of the centres of consciousness.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

Everything Is a Gift

Everything is a gift of the universe — even joy, anger, jealously, frustration, or separateness. Everything is perfect either for our growth or our enjoyment.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Fifth Pathway

I take full responsibility here and now for everything I experience, for it is my own programming that creates my actions and also influences the reactions of people around me.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The First Pathway

I am freeing myself from security, sensation and power addictions that make me try to forcefully control situations in my life and thus destroy my serenity and keeps me from loving myself and others.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Fourth Pathway

I always remember that I have everything I need to enjoy my here and now — unless I am letting my consciousness be dominated by demands and expectations based on the dead past or the imagined future.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

How to Waste What You Do Have

To be upset over what you don’t have… is to waste what you do have.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Law of Higher Consciousness

Love everyone unconditionally, including yourself.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

A Loving Person Lives In a Loving World

A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Ninth Pathway

I act freely when I am tuned in, centred and loving, but if possible, I avoid acting when I am emotionally upset and depriving myself of the wisdom that flows from love and expanded consciousness.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Second Pathway

I am discovering how my consciousness dominating addictions create my illusory version of the changing world of people and situations around me.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Seventh Pathway

I open myself genuinely to all people by being willing to fully communicate my deepest feelings, since hiding in any degree keep me stuck in my illusion of separateness from other people.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Sixth Pathway

I accept myself completely here and now and consciously experience everything I feel, think, say and do (including my emotion backed addictions) as a necessary part of my growth into higher consciousness.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

Taking Offense

You add suffering to the world just as much when you take offense as when you give offense.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Tenth Pathway

I am continually calming the restless scanning of my rational mind in order to perceive the finer energies that enable me to unitively merge with everything around me.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Third Pathway

I welcome the opportunity (even if painful) that my minute to minute experience offers me to become aware of the addictions I must reprogram to be liberated from my robot-like emotional patterns.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

The Twelfth Pathway

I am perceiving everyone, including myself, as an awakening being who is here to claim his or her birthright to the higher consciousness planes of unconditional love and oneness.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

You Already Have All That You Need

How soon will you realise, that the only thing you don’t have is the direct experience that there’s nothing you need that you don’t have?

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

You Win Some, You Lose Some

No one that ever lived has ever had enough power, prestige, or knowledge to overcome the basic condition of all life — you win some and you lose some.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

Your Teacher

Everyone and everything around you is your teacher.

~ Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-01-19 1995-12-20 age:74)

Hate Injures the Hater

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

~ Coretta Scott King (1927-04-27 2006-01-30 age:78)

Segregation Is Always Wrong

Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.

~ Coretta Scott King (1927-04-27 2006-01-30 age:78)

The Struggle For Freedom Is Never-Ending

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.

~ Coretta Scott King (1927-04-27 2006-01-30 age:78)

Your Duty To Oppose Bigotry

I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.

~ Coretta Scott King (1927-04-27 2006-01-30 age:78)

Letting Go Of The Past

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.

~ Jack Kornfeld (1945-07-16 age:72)

Attributing Perfection

The cruelest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection.

~ David Herbert Lawrence (1885-09-11 1930-03-02 age:44)

Feeling Sorry For Oneself

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

~ David Herbert Lawrence (1885-09-11 1930-03-02 age:44)

Nourishing a Flower

The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.

~ David Herbert Lawrence (1885-09-11 1930-03-02 age:44)

The Youthful Delusion

I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth’s follies — thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us.

~ David Herbert Lawrence (1885-09-11 1930-03-02 age:44)

Definition of Cosmic Love

Cosmic Love is absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not.

~ Dr. John Cunningham Lilly (1915-01-06 2001-09-30 age:86)

What Determines Happiness

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56)

Feeling Fortunate

If you think you have it tough, read history books.

~ Bill Maher (1956-01-20 age:62)

Counting the Ways to be Unhappy

It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both.

~ Guy de Maupassant (1850-08-05 1893-07-06 age:42)

Before the Internet

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

~ Herman Melville (1819-08-01 1891-09-28 age:72)

Happiness Is An Inside Job

I think it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one’s self.

~ Arthur Miller (1915-10-17 2005-02-10 age:89)

Multiple Personalities

Look, we’re all the same; a man is a fourteen-room house — in the bedroom he’s asleep with his intelligent wife, in the living-room he’s rolling around with some bare ass girl, in the library he’s paying his taxes, in the yard he’s raising tomatoes and in the cellar he’s making a bomb to blow it all up.

~ Arthur Miller (1915-10-17 2005-02-10 age:89)

Creating Your Story

Life is very fleeting. It’s important to be gentle and optimistic. We look behind and think what we’ve done in this life has been good. It was simple; it was modest. Everyone creates their own story and moves on. That’s it. I don’t feel particularly important. What we create is not important. We’re very insignificant.

~ Oscar Niemeyer (1907-12-15 2012-12-05 age:104) architect of the city of Brasilia

Fear of Loneliness

I’m the most gregarious of men and love good company, but never less alone when alone.

~ Peter O’Toole (1932-08-02 2013-12-14 age:81)

What Survives the Grave

What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.

~ Albert Pike (1809-12-29 1891-04-02 age:81)

The Abundance Puzzle

If poverty is having less than you want, what is abundance?

Answer: Abundance is wanting less than you have.

So instead of constantly striving to increase what you have, try decreasing what you want. Let go of all those endless desires that can never be satisfied — all those desires that lead people into debt and despair.

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

Beautiful People

Somewhere in the Universe, somewhere,
There are some really beautiful people.
They are not like us.
They will never fight or go to war.
They are not like us.
If you want their life, they will give it.
They will never take yours.
They are not like us.
So where are these really beautiful people?
They are us, a long time away.

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

Common Sense

If your happiness requires a thousand conditions,
you are a thousand conditions away from happiness.
If you accept yourself just as you are.
If you accept others just as they are.
If you accept life just as it is.
Then the door to happiness is open wide.

And you can still try to change what can be changed.

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

Consciousness Growth

Consciousness growth and technological advancement
need to go hand in hand together.
And be warned unless this happens
we shall forever see an escalating expansion
of our already plentiful killing fields.
Our skills in this area are already quite astonishing.
So let’s face it, the forever could present a problem.

So let’s change the world.

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

It Couldn’t be Simpler

The world you live in you can bless,
By loving more and demanding less.

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

Making a Difference

We are now living in appallingly violent times,
that retribution and justice are powerless to reform.
But we still fight wars to bring peace, even though we see that violence against violence equals mayhem.
We fail to realise that there is a beautiful part of the soul in all human beings that has the art of saintly alchemy.

Through this alchemy bitterness is converted to kindness, insults into pardon, vengeance into forgiveness,
and the passions of hatred are transformed into love.
How? By loving those who hate.
By forgiving those who seek vengeance,
and by pardoning those who harm you.

With practice this alchemy becomes so easy and habitual, that while onlookers may not even notice,
they cannot help but respond.
It’s all founded on the power of love.
What a truly beautiful way to bring
peace and oneness to this tragic world of ours.

Go on, give it a try, I dare you!

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

Our Growth

We can only become as great
as the adversities which face us,
or as small as the luxuries
that surround us.
But there needs to be
a balance between the two.
Too much of the former
and we can be overcome.
Too much of the latter and we cannot grow.

Its obvious really.

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

What a World!

What a world this would be,
If we loved unconditionally.
Peace on earth for evermore,
No need to fight or go to war.

~ Andrew Pirrie (1935-04-25 age:83)

Love Creates Poets

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

~ Plato (428 BC 348 BC age:80)

Having Fun is OK

I have never been convinced there’s anything inherently wrong in having fun.

~ George Plimpton (1927-03-18 2003-09-27 age:76)

Unconditional Love

No matter what you say or what you do
I know my love will see me through
And I just go on lovin’ you.
Yes I do.
I just go on lovin’ you.

~ Summer Raven chorus to song I Just Go On Living You

Addiction to Speed

Modern humans have an extreme addiction to speed. They will pay a huge premium for a tiny bit of extra speed. What is going on? Humans are highly addicted to being somewhere else, (a sort of grass must be greener syndrome), coupled with an addiction to spend as little time as possible traveling there. However, our speeds were quite limited. We never learned to equate speed with the danger of falling off a cliff.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Addiction Strength

I have little attraction to pain killers or alcohol. For me, it is food and people. People with drug and alcohol addiction tell me the attraction is much stronger than the attraction to people or food. Since I can’t even keep might weight where I want it, I really have no right to condemn anyone who can’t resist pills or booze.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Addiction to Youth

One of my strongest addictions involves young, extremely good looking actors like Sebastian Spence, Roger Cross, Christopher Reeve, Clint Eastwood, Lauren Bacall, Jack Noseworthy, Brad Pitt, Yannick Bisson, Alan Ritchson (Aquaman), Daniel Gillies, Peter O’Toole and Michael York. Even when time is kind, it still destroys their breath-taking perfection. I can’t help but think that there should be some exception. They should not have to age like normal people. At least we have film so their astounding beauty is not lost.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

After Death Expressions Of Affection are Pointless

Most people never express how much they love someone until that someone dies. Where’s the use in that?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Aging Addictions

One of the more difficult aging addictions on getting on top of the frustration at knowing you will never again be considered a potential sexual partner among the young and beautiful.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

A Aha

One of the big aha moments of your life is realising you have complete freedom to choose what you pay attention to.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

All Eggs In One Basket

When you are younger, you spend most of your time trying to find a partner, keeping a partner or doing something that will help you with those goals. Unfortunately, you ignore everything else that could bring you satisfaction. It is a form of gambling — putting all your eggs in one basket.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Alternative To Being Dumped

If you are crying the blues because your partner abruptly dumped you, you need to talk to someone whose ex hung around to torment them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Analgesic for Emotional Pain

The traditional analgesic for emotional pain is writing about it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Addictions

Mammals have security, sensation and power addictions, but mostly about the here and now. You don’t see males getting discouraged when females reject them in the mating game. Some mourn dead offspring or relatives. They don’t have the equivalents of some of my big non-here-and-now addictions: disappointment at growing old, worry about global warming, anger about wars on the other side of the planet, worry about species going extinct…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Appreciating Mini-Pleasures

Seriously, the secret of being happy is not persuading the world to give you more of what you want. It is learning to pay attention to and deeply appreciate microscopic pleasures that were already around you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

In the 1980s I went on a drive with Ken. He was like a little child noticing everything. He got such a charge out of a blue line of paint on a boat.

Appreciation Exercise

Science has discovered that if you write down five things you enjoyed at the end of each day, your happiness increases over time. I don’t mean groveling before or thanking some deity for the events, just recalling and appreciating them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attractiveness

The main thing that attracts others to you is your willingness to love everyone. The main thing that drives people away is your need for others to love you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Avoiding Creating New Addictions

It is deadly to ask yourself If I could have anything I wanted, what would I pick? This just sets up an unquenchable longing. Ask instead, Of all the possible things I could do right now, which should I pick?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Avoiding Escalation

If your partner makes a sharp remark, or criticise you, your first reaction can be to send a zinger back. However, this does not work. It just escalates the conflict.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bad News Overload

When we lived in caves, the only bad news we were aware of was the misfortunes of about 20 people in our band. Today, we are aware of the worst misfortunes of about 7.601 billion people, however, are not evolved to handle this bad news overload.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bad News Overwhelm

Mankind evolved in groups of no more than 150. Individuals never received more than 150 people’s worth of bad news a day. Today, we hear the worst news from 7.601 billion people. No wonder we are so often overwhelmed!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Be the One You Want To Be

If you want to love yourself, you can make it easy by doing those things you admire in others and avoid doing those things you dislike in others. Be the sort of person you tend to like.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Biggie

In 1975 my lover suddenly flipped overnight from 100% positive to 100% negative toward me. His appearance and voice changed so drastically I did not recognise him. He wanted no further contact. He was not willing to explain what had happened to him on a trip to San Francisco. All he said was, Some day we will have to write a book about this. It will be something like Rosemary’s Baby. He has rebuffed every attempt on my part since to get him to elaborate on what happened. I have gone over the sparse but tantalising clues tens of thousands of times trying to piece together an explanation. I made the error of thinking he owed me an explanation. An ex owes you nothing in explanation. I created more suffering from this addictive demand than everything else in my life put together. It is like reading a mystery novel to discover the last page has been ripped out and my ex has the only other copy it existence of the book. I have constructed a plausible explanation. That will simply have to do. I presume that chapter in his life was too painful and he cannot not stand to revisit it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Bright Side of Death

Are you afraid to die? Look on the bright side. You will never again have to deal with an SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) owner trashing the planet again, or a rich bastard who will sacrifice the lives of others for a few dollars, or religious con men who steal the life savings of little old ladies, or arms dealers who bribe politicians to host endless war or…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Caring Too Much

The problems with caring too much include:

• Getting so angry, you exhaust yourself and do nothing about the problem.
• Getting so angry you bully others and put them off your cause.
• Getting so angry you become incoherent.
• Getting so angry you overstate your case and lose credibility.
• Feeling so rotten, you avoid thinking about the subject. This makes it very difficult to take action on it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cause of Suicide

Nearly every suicide was caused by an addictive snarl.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Centres of Consciousness Technique

Post-rehearsal is a technique for dealing with a painful event that you keep going back to in your mind, like a sore tooth. Replay the event using each the seven centres of consciousness higher than the one you used originally. For example, you might replay a scene when your ex suddenly dumped you like this: Cornucopia: Now we are splitting, my ex-will be happier. I really did not want to trap them in a relationship in which they were miserable. Now we are splitting, I will be free to interact more with other interesting people. Had we stayed together, we could have got into a dull rut for the rest of our lives. I was getting so focused on my partner, I had effectively shut out the rest of the world. This will force me to fully partake in the world. It would be really selfish of me to hog my partner for a lifetime. It is only fair that other people should get a chance to be in relationship with them too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Changing the World

I have an ambitious list of large scale changes I am trying to make in the world including:

• Have fewer babies to take the ecological pressure off the environment.
• Stop emitting greenhouse gases.
• Get on with clean energy.
• Stop claiming the bible is literally true.
• Israel withdraw its occupation of Palestine, the USA withdraw its occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.
• Stop imposing biblical superstitions on non-Christians.
• Stop persecuting gays, blacks, women, Muslims.
• Stop interfering with other people’s end-of-life decisions, marijuana use and contraception.
• Stop exploiting people in the third world.
• Stop polluting the air, water and soil.
• Reserve substantial pristine habitat for other species.
• Put Monsanto out of business.
• Reduce the power of corporations.
• Reduce military spending to that needed for defence.
• Convince the USA to provide health care for all its citizens whether they can afford to pay or not.
• Truth in labeling laws.

Even though I take action on these every day, I very rarely see any progress. The key to keeping up the pressure without getting discouraged is to see my goal as to take action, not necessarily to succeed. It may take hundreds of years of steady pressure from people like me and from more skillful persuaders for the inertia to be overcome. The outcome depends on how much effort those opposing me do. I just want to make sure I have done more than my fair share of the work.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Clinging To The Ideal

When we were in high school we learned how the government is supposed to work. When we grew up we learned about he reality, how corporations and rich individuals buy politicians to give them special privilege at the expense of others, that people vote for the most mindless of reasons, that politicians rarely tell the truth… If you cling to your idealised view and see the government as temporarily deviant from it, you will create all kinds of suffering for yourself. It is best to accept the government as it is, to consider that as normal and work to shift it more toward your liking.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cognitive Illusions

Just as your unconscious visual processing wetware can be fooled by optical illusions, so can other unconscious processing in your brain be fooled by cognitive illusions. Serious illusions include paranoia (that you are so important the entire universe is dedicating itself to making your life miserable), imagining a voice in your head is a deity that must be obeyed and a delusion that you have the power to fly. A common less serious illusion is believing that if other people are behaving in an unusual way it must be something ,you did. Statistically, most of the time, it will not be you. In summary, it is not always about you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Compassion

One of the most memorable acts of kindness of my life occurred in 1978-06 in St. Mary Kentucky at the Ken Keyes Road To Happiness workshop. I was still in considerable distress over my lover leaving suddenly three years before. My partner for an exercise was a young woman named Aisha. She listened intently as I told about the trouble I was having. We broke for lunch, but she did not go. She knew I still needed to say more. She continued to listen intently and compassionately.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Complaining

Whenever you find yourself in a snarl complaining about every not-quite-right feature of your life, think for a moment how easily so many things could just as easily have been much worse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Consider Changing Goals

If you are driving yourself nuts, failing time after time to achieve something, consider attempting something else. Then the original goal won’t seem so life and death and perhaps you can take another crack at it later without so much drama interfering.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Consuming Treadmill

The fundamental problem in the first world is that advertisers have convinced us to seek happiness in more stuff instead of in relationships. In chasing stuff, people become isolated and hence seek still more stuff to fill the void. In consuming stuff, people destroy the earth that sustains them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Coping with Nausea

If you are sick, the pain, nausea and other symptoms will rise and fall away in waves. The trick is to revel in times when you feel least awful, rather than only paying attention to your body when you feel the worst.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cosmic Perspective

To get a bit of a cosmic perspective, watch documentaries about stars, galaxies and the Hubble Telescope.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Creating a Good Day

It is a lot easier to stitch together a great day from a good meal, a snatch of music, a walk and a video or book than it is with a new lover, a new job or new home.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Creating Misery

You can always find something highly attractive that you don’t have. If you focus your attention on it, you can turn quite reasonable years into miserable ones.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dealing With the Death of Earth

Watching your planet go to hell in a hand basket can be distressing. What you are doing is like fretting over the fate of a single raindrop. Have a look at some photos of the universe.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dealing With Environmental Collapse

One way to avoid being overwhelmed with the probability that humanity will fail to protect the environment sufficiently for civilisation to persist, is to look upon it the way you look upon your personal mortality. You do the best you can in the time you’ve got.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dealing with Futility

There are a class of addictions I find extremely difficult to deal with. I look around and see people destroying the environment, starting wars, overpopulating, bashing gays, polluting the air and water, using economic advantage to impoverish others, doing nothing to help hunger and disease… I explain to them what I want them to do and they ignore me. I had one big success in my life, getting gay lib going in BC in the 1970s, but nothing since even though that has been the main focus of my life. I have to remind myself that even the richest people, even the most famous actors, even the most powerful politicians, even the most dedicated suicide terrorists are not that much more successful than I am at persuading people to behave as they want. Oceans can be created, but it takes the combined efforts of trillions of drops. Every effort is both insignificant and necessary. I must trust that Gandhi knew what he was taking about when he said, Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dealing With I’m Not Good Enough Addictions

One of the most reliable ways to make yourself miserable is to say to yourself I’m not good enough.. If you catch yourself doing this, ask yourself What is it I am not good enough to do? win a Nobel prize, marry Brad Pitt… Then ask yourself What percentage of the 7.601 billion people on earth are good enough to do this? Perhaps you have unrealistically high expectations often imposed on you by an overly optimistic parent.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dealing With Lack of Love

For most people, the universe will never give you has much love as you need. You have no choice but to top it up by loving yourself.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Definition of Forgiveness

Forgiveness does not mean conceding what the offender did was ok. It simply means you resolve to stop brooding about it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Definition of Maturity

Maturity is mostly deciding that most of the things you used to get upset about don’t really matter after all.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Definition of Old Age

Old age is the stage of life where you reminisce about your life’s most embarrassing moments.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defying Despair

There is nothing like despair to make your life unbearable. The trick to dealing with it is to force yourself to take some token opposition to whatever it is in the universe you find so overwhelming. Often that very act of defiance will give you some more energy for some more acts of defiance, in a virtual circle. I find so often the universe behaves as if I had some key rôle in fomenting major changes. The illusion is created when thousands of other despairing people also make a token gesture. Integrated together these insignificant gestures become a tsunami.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Degenerating English

I’m glad I will not be around in another 100 years. I don’t think my ears could bear listening to what English will have degenerated into by then.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Delusting Technique

If you find yourself going crazy wanting something you can’t have, think of all the reasons why the thing you want is disgusting, dangerous or repulsive.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deprivation as Happiness Tool

If you spend a Canadian winter without heat and without sufficient food, ever after you can create pleasure just by eating dinner and stretching out on the couch in a warm room.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deterring Suicide

To commit suicide, you need two things:

1. Unshakeable faith that you can predict what will happen for the rest of your life.
2. Ability to concentrate for long periods of time on the negative aspects of existence.

It seems to me then, you don’t have to cheer suicidally depressed people up, just shake them of their delusion that they can accurately predict the future and interrupt their brooding.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dictator of the Universe

The desire that everyone pay attention to you, or that everyone agree with you is very close to the desire to be dictator of the universe with the power to control everyone’s actions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Distraction

A technique for temporary relief of an addiction is distraction. Simply think about something else you crave.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Do The Right Thing

When I was in my early twenties, I launched three gay lib projects. I figured I had less than one in a million chance they would make any noticeable difference. After all, when I started, everyone, even my family, my friends and the gay people were opposed to me. I did them just because it felt better to put up some resistance than give up. They succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams. I thought, ending hunger, world nuclear disarmament, stopping resource wars, saving the environment etc. should be a piece of cake in comparison. This turned out not to be so. I have found it difficult managing the frustration, anger and despair. I need to recreate my original detachment to results to be effective. Gandhi put it this way: It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Don’t Be So Clumsy

When someone drops a glass and you tell them they should not be so clumsy, how much extra time will there be until they drop another? It is worth it?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Don’t Take an Angry Evaluation As Accurate

43 years ago my lover, overnight, changed from affectionate as a puppy to refusing to talk to me ever again. He told me that I was such a horrible person I should never get involved with anyone else again. I thought to myself, He knows me better than anyone so he must be right. I mistakenly believed something impossible had happened and the event required some profound, maybe even supernatural explanation. I still feel wounded by the experience. Intellectually, I feel so frustrated by my own silliness, but my heart refuses to let it go. For example, I continually brace myself, preparing to be abandoned without notice. But at least now I know that is just the way life is. This sort of thing happens to people every day. Lovers meet someone more attractive and they leave suddenly, dumping and exaggerating resentments, partly to help ease their guilt about leaving. I had changed and my lover did not like the new me, including losing 20.41 kg (45 lbs) pounds (from hefty to skinny), my withdrawal from the center stage spotlight of the gay lib movement and untreated manic-depression. He hid his distress from me, until he could hide it no longer. In retrospect, there were signs, but at the time, the ambush seemed to come totally out of the blue.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Early Warning You Will Soon Be Dumped

If you notice your lover suddenly dumping friends without any apparent reason or explanation, it is only a matter of time till he does the same to you. If you let it get to you, it will be the most painful experience of your life.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Embarrassment at Rejection

When you get old, sometimes you lie awake at night remembering your life and cringing at the things you did. One of the things I do is recall times I came on to someone who was not interested. I feel dreadfully embarrassed. Yet if I think about the many times people came on to me whom I was not interested in, even when they would not take no for an answer, I was not that seriously inconvenienced. Sometimes, it was even flattering.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Emulate Trees

A tree in a forest concerns itself only with survival and reproduction. It is blind to whether other trees have lusher foliage.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The End Of the World

When you despair about man destroying the planet and himself, consider these two things:

• The earth will repair itself within about 10,000,000 years. This seems eternity to us, but it is an eyeblink in evolutionary time. Earth has recovered from similar catastrophes many times before and recovered life in completely new forms.
• Scientists estimate there are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. It takes light 100,000 years to cross it. There are 125 billion such galaxies. We have visited none of them. From a cosmic perspective, lamenting the extinction of man is a bit like lamenting the loss of a population of paramecia in a drop of water. That surely is not all the life there is.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Enduring Torture

You might say living love is a set of techniques for enduring the torture of daily life.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Entitlement

Nothing can spoil your fun faster than a sense of entitlement. Every good thing that happens to you, you will perceive as hum drum or inadequate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Exaggerated Expectations

Besides man, only elephants and cetacea mourn their dead for long periods of time. Every day about 275,000 people die. Only a tiny fraction of them attract attention outside their immediate families. It works pretty much the way a herd of wildebeest that take no notice when one of them is taken by a pride of lions. Yet many people imagine they are supposed to be known and honored throughout humanity and if they are not they have done something seriously wrong.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excessive Goal Setting

Let us say that you make your life goal to be the richest person on earth, head of the U.N., the most famous movie star of all time, the person to win the most Olympic medals ever etc. Let’s say you fail. If you hold this demand addictively, you will suffer every day of your life, beating yourself up either because you have not yet met your goal or because it is obvious you never will. Let’s say you succeed. To do that you must be more obsessed that anyone else on earth. In other words, even if you win, you will be in some sense mentally ill and miserable. You will have bypassed all the other pleasures of life. Further, you will almost certainly have cheated, or done ethically questionable things in pursuit of your goal and will feel guilt for that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuses For Putting Your Life On Hold

Everybody has an excuse for giving up and putting their life on hold — childhood sexual/physical abuse, an unusual sexual attraction, addiction to food, alcohol or some drug, below average appearance, a failed love affair… Whining and blaming gets you nowhere. Demanding perfection or nothing gets you nowhere. Just do what you reasonably can each day to make things better. It adds up.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Expecting Recovery

I think I am reasonably accommodated to my own aging because it crept up on me, but the aging of my high school friends, the aging of movie stars and musicians still shocks me. It is as though they were struck down overnight. I keep expecting them to recover.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Experience Too Is a Dream

When you dream, your brain manufactures nearly all the detail. Most people presume that when they are awake, all the detail is perceived reality. I suspect much of it is manufactured too, especially comfort, the emotional tones in others’ voices, what is significant and emotions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Focus

There are two basic approaches to life:

1. Look for excuses why you should treat people kindly. Study their motives so that you can understand why they did what they did.
2. Look for excuses to be cruel to people. Scan the bible for excuses for bigotry and other evil. Collect slights from your enemies and ignore what your team did to trigger them.

Choosing approach (2) is its own punishment.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Foiling Manipulators

Manipulative people study their victims’ addictions. They alternatively trigger and satisfy addictions to prod their victims to behave as they want. If you are free of addictions, such people have no place to get a grip on you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Fundamental Duty of Parents

As mammals, the duty of your parents was to raise you until you were old enough to look after yourself. If you reached adulthood alive, they succeeded. The rest is up to you, including clearing up any traumas from your early years.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Futility of Complaining

Young people often complain they don’t get enough love or respect, as if complaining would somehow encourage others to give it to them. Oddly, they are extremely reluctant to do what it takes to earn that love and respect. What is it they must do? It’s obvious. Just watch the people who receive and abundance of love and respect.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Future Dread

Most people would consider it intolerable to be locked in a cage with duck tape over their eyes. Yet some people look forward to it with great eagerness — young actresses who land a bit part on Criminal Minds. This shows the actual situation is not the real problem, but the dread of what might come next. Many addictions work this way. If you can focus on just the unpleasantness in the here and now, you discover it is not all that bad and you can handle it with aplomb.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Future Pain

When you are feeling miserable scan your body for physical and emotional pain. It is really unbearable? Probably not. Further, guaranteed it will change within 24 hours. The trick is not to try to deal with all potential future pain now.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Gandhian Blackmail

All that incredibly painful heartache you feel, you create yourself as a futile Gandhian blackmail on the person who rejected you. Just because you are the one causing the pain does not mean it is trivial to stop doing it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Generic Advice

There was once a guru holding court, giving advice to devotees. A skeptic came to him and said, What a phony you are! You gave some advice to a devotee, then gave the exact opposite to the next! The guru replied, If you were blind, walking down a path about to fall off the edge to the right, I would call out Go left If you were about to fall off the edge to the left, I would say Go right. The problem is, people who write books try to give generic advice suitable for everyone, but the way the universe is constructed, the people for whom the advice least applies are the ones most likely to take it as gospel.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Global Projects

When you tackle global problems, it is common to feel overwhelmed by the intractability of the problem. You need to measure your progress by what you managed to do to help, not by what result you noticed in the global condition. Yours is only a tiny fraction of the necessary effort. Trust that other people all over the planet are looking after the rest of the work.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Goal

Imagine a future where you have reprogrammed all your major addictions. How would your life be different?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Googling Aging

If you are besotted by youth and beauty, Google images for some elderly film stars. Follow them how they looked over their entire span of years and notice how short a period the bloom lasts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Grievance Collecting

Some people collect grievances the way others collect stamps. They take the out from time to time to admire and cherish them. They reminisce over them and rehearse what they wish they had said at the time. This is one of the most efficient ways of creating misery for yourself.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Haia

The closest person to a saint I ever met was Haia Burke. I met him circa 1973. He had a fringe of curly hair surrounding a bald dome. He tended to wear monkish white robes. He described himself as a gay, aging acid-fried hippie who was a member of some reasonably famous psychedelic music group. No matter how dismissive or rude people were to him, he simply did not notice. He treated everyone as if he were some sweet-natured child showering them with tiny gifts. He won people over eventually through sheer exhaustion.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hazards of Reflection

Reflecting back on your life can stir up intense embarrassment and regret entirely absent at the time.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Help Yourself

You may have noticed how quotations pop up at random all over my website, aimed at explaining the Living Love philosophy. You are welcome to use any or all of the quotations in my quotation collection in a similar way on your own website. To get your point across these days, you have to shrink it to a sound bite.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hope Is Overrated

Hope is an overrated emotion. Most of the time it means putting your life on hold waiting for better conditions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How To Fall Out Of Love

People talk themselves out of love by reciting a catechism of things they don’t like about their partners. To counter, each day they could remember a new reason they are glad their partner came into their life.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How To Get Depressed

One of the fastest ways to get depressed is to ask yourself a question like Why did X get to have a handsome partner and I didn’t.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How To Get Depressed

One of the quickest ways to get depressed is to review all the people in your life whom you were attracted to but who had no interest back.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Happiness Also Creates Suffering

For me the sharpest pain is remembrance of past happiness, so even happiness can be a source of suffering.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Others Treat You

The world you live in depends on how you behave. If your are hostile and cruel, the world will reflect that back to you. If you are helpful, you will live in a helpful universe. This is not some deep mystical teaching. It happens simply because people tend to behave the way the people around them behave.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How To Turn Your Life Around

Your life turns around dramatically (becoming mellower) the day you decide to blame yourself (or more precisely your programming) instead of other people for how you feel.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hugs

Even when it feels awkward, keep giving your partner hugs. It hard to stay angry or build resentments at someone who hugs you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The I-Am Lie

You are constantly changing. Even your skeleton regenerates itself 14 times over your life. It is a lie to say I am. What you mean is, Right now, I feel —

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ice-Pick Bully

An addiction is like a bullying, but well-meaning friend who keeps goading you with an ice pick in an attempt to motivate you to go after what you say you want, even when you are trying to get to sleep, having sex, going to the bathroom, trying to meet a deadline…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Illogical Addictions

There is no logic to addictions. I find I can get almost as annoyed with Americans for butchering the pronunciation of English as I do for them dropping bombs on kids.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Inner Tyrant

A part of your brain has evolved to become a cruel master. It whips you with negative emotions intending to force you to strive for increased security, sexual opportunity and power over others. Its values are purely Darwinian. It does not care in the least about your welfare or happiness other than as a side effect in promoting your survival, reproduction or dominance. As soon as you accomplish one goal, this Darwinian part of your brain permits you a few moments of relief, before taking up its whip again to drive you to some new goal. If you let that part of your brain control you, you may well accomplish many things, but you will be perpetually driven and miserable. It is an utter delusion that it will let you be happy after you accomplish the current goal. You would never dream of driving anyone else so brutally. It is equally wrong and foolish to treat yourself that way.

If what I have said rings true, the big question is, how you do get that Darwinian part of your brain off your back and effectively tackle goals without punishing yourself? There is a practical scientific smorgasbord of techniques for doing so collectively called, to my embarrassment, Living Love.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Insults

You will receive more than enough insults. There is no need to go looking for unintended ones.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Irrational Demands on the Past

If you have an addiction that the past should be different than it was, you are doomed. There is absolutely no chance of getting that demand met. You have no choice but the reprogram the addiction if you want to stop suffering. For example, you may have some slight chance of an ex returning, but no chance of arranging the past so that he or she never left. That boat has sailed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

It Gets Harder and It Get Easier

In my personal experience, as I get older, physical discomfort is much worse than I expected, but emotional pain has dwindled to almost nothing. I terms of overall experience, I am much better off. I don’t know if this is true for everyone, or just for people use the Living Love or similar methods. I feel sorry for young people and all the turmoil and life and death drama of their relationships.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lack Of Companion Choice

At least for the next few minutes, your only possible choice of playmates are the people in the room with you now, even if they are criminals or Republicans. Its them or nothing. You might as well enjoy them while you wait for any actions you attempt to attract more congenial company to bear fruit.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Life on Hold

The fatal error a prisoner can make is to put his life on hold until his sentence ends. Similarly people foolishly put their lives on hold until:

1. They can leave home.
2. They can finish school.
3. They can find a partner.
4. Their children grow up.
5. They can be a millionaire.
6. They can retire.
7. They can die.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Life As Video Game

If you play a video game, you temporarily set aside reality and pretend that some arbitrary task such as killing virtual creatures, corralling gerbils etc. is very important. You derive pleasure from progress on this goal and frustration when you fail. Life is more like a video game than you think. You choose what to consider important. At different times in your life, you will focus on different goals. It can sometimes help when you are feeling frustrated, to sit back and notice that the current goal was not always quite so important to you and that it will most certainly not be quite so important at some time in future. There are many other possible goals, most likely, much more important in the grand scheme of things, than what you are blocked on now. If you must beat yourself up with frustration, make sure you do it for some goal that truly matters. Beware the life game salesmen, trying to sell you on their lame life games, like Greed, Christianity, Vanity, Fame…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Limited Power

When you find yourself despairing at your lack of influence in the universe, recall that even the most powerful man on the planet, the president of the USA, cannot make elections go the way he wants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Literal Subconscious

Beware what questions you ask yourself. Your subconscious could take it is a literal order if you ask yourself I wonder what it feels like to be an alcoholic..

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Living In A Cruel World

Sometimes it seems you have only two choices:

1. Be a turtle and isolate yourself from all the horror of world events as best you can.
2. Expose yourself to what is going on in the world and collapse in a suicidal depression.

There are other possibilities. What if went to a movie and there were no bad guys and nothing bad happened to anyone. You might consider it boring. Have you ever thought how exciting it might be to go back in time and walk shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Martin Luther King? You don’t need such magic. Right here and now you have a smorgasbord of worthy villains to go after:

• Christian bigots.
• Christian con men.
• Environmental vandals.
• Corporate cheats and thieves.
• People who torture, kill and maim.
• Professional liars.
• Bullies of every description.

You don’t have to go after all of them every day. Leave some for others to go after. These are megavillains. You will not defeat them single-handedly. Even with thousands of others dedicated to your cause you won’t defeat them even in a decade. This will take generations, just like defeating slavery did, but you, without needing anyone’s permission, can do a crucial part of the work. And you get to choose what that part is. It is not even more exciting to be part of something so huge and important even if progress is slow?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Living Love’s Gordian Knot

Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot with as sword instead of untangling it. The sword of consciousness growth is what I call the genie process: If you find yourself longing, reformulate the longing as a wish to an all-powerful magic genie. To be granted, the wish must have three characteristics.

1. The wish must be granted right now. So for example you can’t wish to go on a holiday in two weeks, but you could wish for an airplane ticket in your hand right now.
2. A five year old child has to be able tell if the wish were granted. So you can’t wish, for example, that you ex love you, but you can wish that he knock at the door with a bouquet of flowers.
3. The wish has to be the minimal possible wish that would still make you happy do now. If you wish for $1000 when $100 would have done the trick, you don’t get the wish.

This forces you to be more practical. You discover often that your intense longings are too silly hold onto, or that they can be satisfied for now, by something easy to arrange.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Look for the Advantages

It never hurts to look for the advantages of the current situation no matter how distasteful it is.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Losing Kick

People get hooked when they expect a drug or other addiction to feel as exciting as it did the first time. They keep fruitlessly repeating ever higher doses. The easiest way to get unhooked is to notice that satisfying an addiction has hardly any punch any more.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Lure of Imagined Pleasure

An addiction for jelly donuts will never likely take over your life. When you eat a jelly donut, you get a reality check. You remind yourself that donuts are not quite the ambrosia you imagined. However, if you become addicted to sex with some particular extremely good looking person or a forbidden partner you never get that reality check. In your fantasy, you balloon the pleasure you would feel all out of proportion. That hooks you like a fish. A similar effect happens with a drug. You fantasise that the pleasure of the drug will be even better than it was the first time. In actuality, if you took it, the effect would be quite tepid. You are hooked primarily by the imagined pleasure of your imaginary drug. When you drop the fantasy and realistically evaluate the pleasure you would receive from satisfying your addiction, you take away its power. This applies to any addiction that you have almost no chance of satisfying.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lusting for Legacy

We humans have such vaulting ambition that it is not enough we lead successful lives. We also have to make some contribution to humanity so spectacular that posterity will talk of it for centuries after our deaths. Count how many people have ever succeeded in this endeavor. Compute the odds. This demand sets yourself up for bitter disappointment.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Magic Do Overs

Don’t be ashamed of your age. If a magic fairy could make you 23 years old, everything that happened to you prior to 1995 would be erased. Everything that happened in the world from 1995 to 2000 would be effectively missing too since you would have to experience it as a pre-schooler. You would have to go through the indignity of having your every move controlled by someone else. You would be forced to eat food you found disgusting. You would have to learn to walk, read and do arithmetic all over again. You would have to deal with bullies. You would have to deal with the heartache of rejection with the same intensity you took it the first time. You would relive another series of defective relationships before you finally settled into a decent one. But most of all, you would forget everything you have learned that has let you finally take life in stride.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Make a List of Your Problems

It can seem your troubles are endless until you enumerate them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Meeting Expectations

How well the world lives up to your expectations depends mainly on how many expectations you have and how stringent they are.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Meeting Expectations

How well the world lives up to your expectations depends mainly on your expectations.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

My Duty to Complain

I often create frustration when politicians so rarely do what I ask them to. Yet, I would not like a world where one person, even me, had the power to control all the politicians. Once I have written the politicians, publicly posted my opinion or voted, I have done my duty.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

My Great Realisation

It suddenly dawned on me that I treated myself and talked to myself in way far more cruel and contemptuous than I would ever dream of treating another and that I had no more right to torment myself than any other being.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nasty Breakups are Normal

Back in 1975 my lover changed overnight from 100% positive toward me to 100% negative without explanation. He said we should write a book about it someday and that it would read like Rosemary’s Baby but for now he was not saying anything. I pined for decades and fruitlessly tried to get him to elaborate, but ever after, he refused even Christmas cards. If I had a time machine, I would send myself a packet of Jerry Springer and Maury Povich tapes and audio tapes from Living Love workshops where people told their tales of relationship woe. I had no idea back then that nasty, sudden, unexplained breakups were a normal part of the human condition.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Necessity of Vicarious Pleasure

As you age, the pleasures of youth one by one become inaccessible. It imperative that instead of envying those who still have access, you must enjoy those pleasures vicariously through them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Big Deal

It’s just an addiction.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) said to yourself in a no-big-deal way. Recalling this simple phrase yanks me out of most flaps.

Not Enough to Do

Much of being miserable is simply not being busy enough. The default activity of the human mind is to pine for what it does not have.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Offensive and Defensive Living

There are basically two modes to operate your life:

1. Try to influence the world, to make it a better place.
2. Try to defend yourself from onslaughts.

If you can focus on the first way of thinking, you will have a much better time.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

A Painful Addiction

Being so entranced by beauty that you are only sexually attracted to people much better looking than you are is one of the most painful addictions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pat Your Own Back

If you expect others to thank you every time you do a good deed, you will spend your life angry at everyone. Learn to thank yourself.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pay Attention To Just How Good It Feels When You Get What You Want

Think of a powerful addiction that does get satisfied every once in a long while. The next time it is satisfied, study carefully how you feel. Invariably will be no where near as wonderful as you imagined it would be.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pining For Legacy

It is fairly common in your sunset years to fret over the fact that after you die, there will be little left to mark your life. Does it bother you that:

1. The dark energy in the universe will eventually tear it apart atom by atom.
2. The sun will destroy the earth in about 5 billion years.
3. That humans will occupy the earth at most another 1000 years.
4. That a rose bloom lasts at most a few days
5. That a butterfly lives but a single day.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pining for People Who Do Not Exist

When you pine over an ex, you are missing someone who no longer exists. You long for the person they used to be, the one who was younger, kinder and more loving. Partition your addiction in two:

1. Your longing that your ex not have changed.
2. Your longing that your ex still be with you, even as they are now.

You then have two smaller more manageable addictions to deal with. It may also help to realise that wishing for your lover back the way they used to be is literally, utterly impossible. You might as well wish that water flowed up hill.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Plan B

Let’s say you are in a hurry to catch the ferry. You might say to yourself, I absolutely have to catch the 4 PM ferry. This will jack up your anxiety. You have effectively just said to your subconscious There is no alternative to catching the ferry. Existence itself has no way to continue if I fail.. Instead, formulate an interim Plan B in your mind. You can refine it later if you actually need to use it. For example, say to yourself If I miss the ferry I could get a great seafood meal at that restaurant by the ferry then I could read an eBook on my Kobo, then I could sleep in my car and catch the ferry tomorrow morning. I’ll get bawled out, but I’ll survive.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pleasures In Reach

Particularly as you age, you must find your pleasures from those in reach.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Political Addictions

If, for example, you tell yourself that you will not feel happy until your favoured political party wins a majority, you will suffer, even if they eventually win. On the other hand, if you tell yourself you won’t feel happy until you have done five things to help your party win, you have a fighting chance of avoiding suffering altogether.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Procrastination in Unavoidable

Procrastination is inevitable. You will always have far more to do than you have time or energy for. All you can do is prioritise. There is no point in feeling guilty about not getting to the low priority stuff.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Purpose of Pain

When you feel excruciating pain, it is your survival-brain saying don’t you ever dare do that again! Make sure you get the message the first time.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purpose of Pain

When you feel pain, it is your brain goading you to do something right now to help you survive or reproduce. However, most of the time, there is nothing to do and further there is not even anything you possibly could do.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purpose of Philosophy

Practical philosophy finds ways to look at losses so they do not hurt so much.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reality Is A Hallucination

When you dream, sometimes you incorporate room sounds into your dream. Waking consciousness is similar, except that you incorporate much more information from your environment into the dream. Most of your experience is still generated by your imagination. It is an illusion that you are more or less directly experiencing reality. As a consequence, you have much more choice about the emotional tone of your waking dream than you would ever imagine.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reasons for Suicide

If ever I commit suicide, it will most likely be over despair at people who deliberately try to make global warming worse, to trash the environment, to harass gays and to make life as miserable as possible for the poor, especially the Christians who do so many idiotic things just because some ignorant fools once wrote a book that told them to. It is written — if ever there was a lamer excuse for acting like an asshole.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reducing the Pain

I write about my life to gain some perspective, to create emotional distance, all to reduce the pain.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Relative Importance of Money

Even a billionaire would happily sacrifice a billion dollars to save his child from a terminal disease. Which is more important, your money or your kids? Kids are more important, even when they are not at death’s door.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Retreating to Solitude

Did you ever wonder why gurus traditionally live deep in forests, on mountaintops and in caves? Once someone becomes sane, it becomes difficult to live among ordinary people because they are so blinking nuts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge Spirals

Revenge spirals are nature’s way of getting touchy people out of the gene pool.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sand For My Oyster

When politicians or bigots do something I find outrageous, I nearly always write a mini-essay on the topic on comment on some news websites. I tell myself, that without these irritating proddings, I would have nothing articulate to say in opposition to wicked politicians or bigots. They are like the grain of sand, around which I, like an oyster, craft my pearls of wisdom.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Secret of a Long Relationship

The secret to long relationships is incredibly simple: don’t do things you know annoy your partner. Frequently do things you know they like.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sex addictions are particularly difficult to crack because they have three components:

• security

  you want sex as proof your partner will not leave or that people accept you.

• sensations

  you want sex for certain intense sensation. You might not be aware of just how raw and specific this is. Look at what you think about when you have an orgasm.

• power

  you want to prove you are attractive and can get good looking partners.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Self-Cruelty Is Still Cruelty

Often people are far more cruel to themselves than they would ever dream of being to another. Even when directed at yourself, it is still cruelty.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Simple Pleasures

Because we do them so often, we forget how pleasant it is to urinate, drink a glass of cold water or sip a cup of coffee.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Slow Imperceptible Improvement

Living Love is a bit like rock polishing or evolution. You rarely see anything changing, but you can see remarkable results if you compare before and after over a decent period of time.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

So You Think You Had the Worst Parents In the World

As a child, it is easy to convince yourself you have the worst parents in the world. As an adult, watching a few hours of Jerry Springer or Maury Povich will convince you that is far from true. The big mistake is believing traumatic incidents from childhood necessarily cripple you for the rest of your life. Your parents’ job is merely to deliver you alive as a teenager. From then on, it is completely up to you to make your life work, despite the rough start. Think of it like a game. It would be pretty boring without obstacles and challenges.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Stop Plotting Revenge

You have completed the first stage of forgiveness once you stop plotting revenge.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Stop Ruminating

You have completed the third stage of forgiveness once you stop thinking about how you were wronged.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Study as Anaesthetic

The best pain killer I have yet discovered is to closely examine my life looking for patterns.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Study the Pain

If you can study your experience intently enough, all becomes interesting rather than painful.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Suffering Magnifier

We humans evolved over nearly all our history in groups of 1000 or less. Today, because of the Internet and mass communications we are aware of the suffering of all seven billion people on the planet and hundreds of other species as well. We now know about coming catastrophes such as the global warming, the energy crunch, mass extinctions, running out of water, overpopulation, accidental nuclear war, earthquakes, tsunamis, galactic debris crashing into earth… However, we have not evolved a way to recalibrate our sensitivity. No wonder pharmaceutical companies are doing a roaring business in anti-depressants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Sun Blinds you to Everything else

When I was younger, more than anything I wanted a long term relationship. No matter how beautiful my surroundings, it simply did not matter. It was like the sun of that desire outshone everything else. When I got older and that desire waned a bit, it made it more possible to enjoy subtler pleasures.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Taking Pleasure

When you are younger, you take pleasure in getting others to love you. When you are older, you take pleasure in loving others.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Taking Revenge

People imagine that if they take revenge, they will feel better. But psychologists have discovered the opposite is true. Why? The intent of revenge is to make you stop feeling the victim. But when you take revenge, you blow the slight up even bigger, you think about it more. You are even more the victim.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terminal Diagnosis

Being diagnosed with a terminal disease is not nearly difficult to bear as you might imagine. However, I suspect having your child diagnosed with one would be unbearable.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

They Did Not Really Ruin Your Life

You have completed the second stage of forgiveness once you notice the torte has not completely ruined your life.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Tidy Your Mind

You picked up your mental programming about how you decide what to think and do in any given situation haphazardly and unconsciously. Consider tidying your mind. Think about how you want your biocomputer to work and test out the new ideas, then burn the new programming into your unconscious. The Ken Keyes Living Love Methods could be thought of as a school of programming theory.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Time Is Not Money

Time is not money. Unless you are living in poverty, twice is much money will make scarcely any difference to your happiness, but twice as much time to enjoy yourself…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Tips to the Recently Dumped

If you have just been dumped, resist the temptation to listen to songs like Roberta Flack’s Jesse Come Home or Harry Nilsson’s Can’t Live, If Living Is Without You.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Tough. You Have to Enjoy It Anyway

There comes a time in your life when your realise it is all down hill from now on. Your body is wearing out. Your friends are dying. There is less and less sex or maybe nothing at all. Your brain is gradually losing its edge. That’s the way it is. This is the only existence you have. There is no alternative. You must learn to enjoy it anyway.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Transient Beauty

To help weaken your thralldom to youth and beauty, check out recent photos on the Internet of the sexiest actors 20 years ago. That dazzling beauty is a transient gift.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The TV Analogy

Most people watch television by checking what’s on, then picking the show they like best. You might imagine some lunatic who does it by asking himself What would be the ideal show to watch? It should be better than any show I have ever seen previously. Then he bemoans the fact it isn’t on. This is how many people operating their lives.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Two Factors in Consciousness Growth

There are two main factors to consciousness growth:

1. Sharing your secrets and traumas so they no longer have such power over you.
2. Learning not to let things get to you, i.e. reprogramming your addictions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Upside of Depression

Depression is not all bad. Depressed people are more realistic and more empathetic. This makes them better leaders in hard times.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Using Small Stepping Stones to Happiness

The trick lies not in arranging block-buster experiences for yourself, but in thoroughly enjoying tiny pleasures such as the feel of a brush through you hair, the taste of a glass of ice-cold water or the smell of the air on a foggy morning. They stack up.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Value Disorders

Alcohol and drug addictions can be thought of as a value disorder where short term pleasure is valued more highly than avoiding long term pain. Alcohol has almost no appeal for me, yet to alcoholics I have talked to, it is extremely pleasurable. For me, there is almost no temptation. For alcoholics, the temptation is overpowering.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Variable Strength Addictions

Addictions don’t always trigger at the same strength. For example, normally I find commercials featuring Stacy London mildly irritating, but if I am feeling sick, I want to hit her over the head with a shovel.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Waiting

Most people think you have to get everything aligned the way you like it before you are allowed to be happy. However, with training, you can choose to be happy, even before that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Waning Appeal of Romantic Love

As you get older, the drama of romantic love has less and less appeal, much the way the attraction to amusement park rides wanes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wanting to Do What You Can

Contentment is wanting to do the things you can do and not wanting to do the things you can’t.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Warm and Fed Is Enough

When I lived in an uninsulated cabin on Quadra Island surrounded by snow, I did not earn enough money for heat or food. As I sat wrapped in a sleeping bag at my computer, I would fantasise about fireplaces and hot food. I vowed never again would I complain about my circumstances so long as I was warm and fed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What It Means To Want

To want used to mean to lack. Therefore you cannot very well want something you already have. Your mind naturally tends to focus on your wants, not enjoying what you have. Darwinian evolution has made you constantly driven.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Matters

When you look back or your life, only a few things are important. What counts are: What did you contribute? What did you accomplish? What interesting things did you do? What loving times did you have?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What You Contemplate

You are not obligated to spend the majority of your time contemplating the ghastliest aspects of existence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why You Need To Reprogram Now

You had better get on with accepting your situation. Aging means your objective situation will only get worse. Your only hope is reprogramming your mind.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Work On Your Dream Life

One third of your lifetime subjective experience occurs when you are dreaming. It makes sense to do what you can to make that experience as pleasant as possible to have a happy life. Your dream life is quite a bit easier to improve than your waking life. There are no practical limits on it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

You Are Not The Only One

When you feel frustrated at your inability to influence world events, it may help (and then again it may make matters worse) to consider that many famous and powerful people think as you do and are similarly frustrated.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

You Are Not Owed An Explanation

One of the most dangerous ideas you can ever get into your head is that your partner owes you an explanation for leaving.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

You Got the Best Already

If somebody dies, you still have all the life you shared in past just as vividly as if had they not died. What you lost was a potential future, during most of which they would have even more ill than they were at death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Your Mom’s Failing Are Not Your Problem

If your mom is a bitch, that’s her problem. It doesn’t have to ruin your life. Become your own parent or find a surrogate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Zen Master in Sex

Compared with a normal person whose sex addictions run his life, somebody who has upleveled his sex addictions to preferences, looks like a Zen master.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Today Is a Gift

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-10-01 1962-11-07 age:78)

Destroying Joy

Comparison is the thief of joy.

~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-10-27 1919-01-06 age:60)

Emotional Scars Need Not Dictate Our Future

[Emotional] scars remind us where we’ve been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.

~ David Rossi in Criminal Minds played by Joe Mantegna (1947-11-13 age:70)

Contemplating Futility

The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.

~ Bertrand Russell (1872-05-18 1970-02-02 age:97) The Conquest of Happiness

Subsidiary Interests

The man who pursues happiness wisely will aim at the possession of a number of subsidiary interests in addition to those central ones upon which his life is built.

~ Bertrand Russell (1872-05-18 1970-02-02 age:97) The Conquest of Happiness

Thought Reading

If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.

~ Bertrand Russell (1872-05-18 1970-02-02 age:97) The Conquest of Happiness

When to Worry

The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.

~ Bertrand Russell (1872-05-18 1970-02-02 age:97) The Conquest of Happiness

Techniques Work Only If You Use Them

The methods work if you do.

~ Living Love saying

Blaming Your Parents

I think people nowadays do tend to blame their parents for everything.

~ Peter Shaffer (1926-05-15 age:91)

The Illusion of Communication

The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Secrets

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

All Love Is Sweet

All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love and its familiar voice wearies not ever. They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now: but those who feel it most Are happier still.

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-08-04 1822-07-08 age:29)

Source of Hate

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

~ Socrates (469 BC 399 BC age:70)

Seek To Understand

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

~ Baruch Spinoza (1632-11-24 1677-02-21 age:44)

Killer Sadness

A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.

~ John Steinbeck (1902-02-27 1968-12-20 age:66)

Regret For The Unsaid

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

~ Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-06-14 1896-07-01 age:85)

The Danger Of Getting What You Want

The way to screw up somebody’s life is to give them what they want.

~ Patrick Swayze (1952-08-18 2009-09-14 age:57)

Alternatives to Life

You can’t beat life when you consider the alternatives.

~ Stephen Tobolowsky (1951-05-30 age:66)

Tomorrow

The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.

~ Ivan Turgenev (1818-11-09 1883-09-03 age:64)

Anger Is Like Acid

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)

Twain is admonishing you to avoid anger, not action.

Unrealised Troubles

I am an old man and have had many troubles, most of which never happened.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)

Useful Information

All information is good, even when it is bad.

~ Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-10-05 age:59)

What he means is even bad news gives you information you can use to ameliorate a situation. Without any information, you are helpless.

Nihilism = Hedonism

Nihilism is hedonism in disguise. It is the back side of hedonism.

~ Sensei Fredrich Ulrich (1939 age:78)

Poisoning the Golden Rule

If the Ego is hateful, Love your neighbor as yourself becomes a cruel irony.

~ Paul Valery (1871 1945 age:74)

Leonardo Was An Early Living Lover

As you cannot do what you want, Want what you can do.

~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452-04-15 1519-05-02 age:67)

In Praise of Decency

Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it and I think it can be poisonous. I wish people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, Please-a little less love and a little more common decency.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 2007-04-11 age:84)

It Might Have Been

Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, It might have been.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 2007-04-11 age:84)

Love Whoever Is There

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 2007-04-11 age:84) Sirens of Titan

There is no Why

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 2007-04-11 age:84)

Vow of the Kitchen Buddhas

The dirty dishes are inexhaustible.
I vow to wash them all.

~ vow of the kitchen Buddhas

Necessary Resistance

What on earth would a man do with himself, if something did not stand in his way?

~ H. G. Wells (1866-09-21 1946-08-13 age:79)

I Like Men

I only like two kinds of men, domestic and imported.

~ Mae West (1893-08-17 1980-11-22 age:87)

Love in Your Heart

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

~ Oscar Wilde (1854-10-16 1900-11-30 age:46)

Self Love

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

~ Oscar Wilde (1854-10-16 1900-11-30 age:46)

Two Tragedies

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it.

~ Oscar Wilde (1854-10-16 1900-11-30 age:46)

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