Quotes of the week

"The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven."

John Milton, Paradise Lost

“The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.”
Antisthenes

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

“I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?”

“It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.”
~ Epictetus

Meditation of the week

What they say might not really be about you.

“People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.”

“The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.”
~ Aesop

Criticism that may be valid should be taken seriously. But negativity directed towards you is often not about you. It’s more about someone else having a bad day, week or year and directing their negative energy at anyone passing by in their life.

This ties back to fundamental #1. So much complaining and negativity that people put out into the world is about how they feel about themselves and their lives. The problem is just that we are often so focused on own lives that we take every negative thing said to us personally. But the world doesn’t revolve around me or you.

So remember those two quotes when someone’s directing negativity towards you.

And more importantly, remember those quotes when you feel the need to lash out towards someone. Ask yourself what the real problem in your life is. And what you can do about it.

Instead of just lashing out and feeding more negativity into your and someone else’s life.

One thing you can pretty sure of is that the more people try to boost their own value and temporary positive feelings by putting someone else down, the worse they feel about themselves and their lives. And that goes for you and me too of course.

From the positivity blog, found right here