Martha Beck Quotes
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My point is that perceptual bias can affect nut jobs and scientists alike. If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind.
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The way we can allow ourselves to do what we need to, no matter what others may say or do, is to choose love and defy fear.
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I feel about aging the way William Saroyan said he felt about death: Everybody has to do it, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case.
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I always felt that it was my job to try to help other people get it and deal with it.
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Indecision may come from an instinctive hunch that there's more you need to know - which means it's time to learn everything you can about the pros and cons of each option. You can continue on this track, however, only as long as you're unearthing genuinely new information.
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Cheerfully fessing up to our failures turns crazy mind off, humility and compassion on. I learned this in a karate dojo that had a strange tradition. Everyone there loved recounting failure stories, and after an evening of smacking one another, we'd sit and have a beer while the students swapped tales of martial arts disaster.
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I'm not saying we have power over everything in our lives - if that were true, my hair would look so, so different - but I am saying that there's no circumstance in which we are completely powerless.
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At times in my life, I have been utterly lonely. At other times, I've had disgusting infectious diseases. Try admitting these things in our culture.
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Ten bajillion product ads notwithstanding, your looks are another thing that's basically genetic.
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To make an activity joyful, keep adding things until the activity as a whole becomes more appealing than repulsing.
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We virtually never feel our age, but thinking that we should can lead to disaster.
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For the vast majority of world history, human life - both culture and biology - was shaped by scarcity. Food, clothing, shelter, tools, and pretty much everything else had to be farmed or fabricated, at a very high cost in time and energy.
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Do whatever it takes to convey your essential self.
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You get social pressure from your parents, who teach you to pay attention to certain things and not to others. You get it in school.
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When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. But if you can avoid avoidance - if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises - then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe.
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Self-improvement books, friends, and polite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing, and solving our real problems.
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Tiny steps will get you to your goal months and months sooner. A little is better than a lot.
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The way we do anything is the way we do everything.
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I've never understood why some people hesitate before diving into unfamiliar tasks or activities. I couldn't imagine wanting more instructions about anything.
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Getting bogged down in old stories stops the flow of learning by censoring our perceptions, making us functionally deaf and blind to new information. Once the replay button gets pushed, we no longer form new ideas or conclusions - the old ones are so cozy.
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Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury.
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Friends, there are many areas in which I need encouragement, but worrying is not one of them. I worry the way Renee Fleming sings high Cs: Effortlessly. Loudly. At length.
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To really boost your sense of self-efficacy, think of ways you could modify your usual tasks to suit your personal style.
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Every day brings new choices.