Edward Hallowell Quotes
-
Eldredge has just said gives a pretty good short description of ADD: You don’t mean to do the things you do do, and you don’t do the things you mean to do.
-
Modern loneliness is an extraverted loneliness, in which the person is surrounded by many people and partakes of much communication but feels unrecognized and more alone and, although connected technically, isolated and even estranged emotionally.
-
The tension of constructing an explanation, from A to B to C to D, apparently so simple a task, irritates many people with ADD. While they can hold the information in mind, they do not have the patience to sequentially put it out. That is too tedious. They would like to dump the information in a heap on the floor all at once and have it be comprehended instantly.
-
The best reason to take your time is that this time is the only time you'll ever have.
-
I would suggest that excellence occurs in direct proportion to necessary suffering, but in inverse proportion to unnecessary suffering or toxic stress. Connection is the best antidote to unnecessary suffering.
-
The enthusiasm that characterizes our time is, unlike current events, hopeful and, like all enthusiasms, playful. The energy that flashes through our electronics has leapt into most of our bloodstreams and brains.
-
One large study 127 sets of identical twins and 111 sets of fraternal twins recently found that in 51 percent of the identical sets both twins had ADD, while only 33 percent of those in the fraternal group shared the ADD diagnosis.
-
Instead of describing ADD as an inability to concentrate, this model presents it as the ability to concentrate on everything. The world always is alive and ripe with sources of interest.
-
Because people develop ADT in an effort to cope with the stresses in their lives, and because the symptoms actually help them in the short term, the symptoms are “sticky” and may solidify into firm habits, even when life slows and becomes less stressful.
-
Happiness is not something that happens to people but something that they make happen.” His research shows that people are happiest in a state he has named “flow.” In a state of flow, you are one with what you are doing. Children know flow well. They call it play. Play is one of the childhood roots of adult happiness. But there are others—four others, to be exact—in the schema I outline in this book.
-
To create worry humans elongate fear with anticipation and memory, expand it in imagination and fuel it with emotion. The uniquely human mental process called worrying depends upon having a brain that can reason, remember, reflect, feel, and imagine. Only humans have a brain big enough to do this simultaneously and do it well.
-
Ashley’s backstory Ashley’s form of ADT, the despair of infinite possibility, is especially common today because, due to electronic communication technology, so much more has become possible than ever before. The great blessing of modern life can also be its curse: you can do so much. The possibilities line up in an endlessly sparkling, flashing, pinging array, perpetually distracting a person like Ashley, creating a particularly modern kind of ADT.
-
Forgiveness takes intelligence, discipline, imagination, and persistence, as well as a special psychological strength, something athletes call mental toughness and warriors call courage.
-
Whether you realize it or not, how you slept last night probably has a bigger impact on your life than what you decide to eat, how much money you make, or where you live. All of those things that add up to what you consider you—your creativity, emotions, health, and ability to quickly learn a new skill or devise a solution to a problem—can be seen as little more than by-products of what happens inside your brain while your head is on a pillow each night. It is part of a world that all of us enter and yet barely understand … Sleep isn’t a break from our lives. It’s the missing third of the puzzle of what it means to be living.
-
When we forgive, the slave we free is ourselves.
-
Creativity, after all, does not happen on schedule or on demand.
-
In many ways the most dangerous aspect of undiagnosed and untreated ADD is the assault to self-esteem that usually occurs.
-
Difficulty getting organized. A major problem for most adults with ADD. Without the structure of school, without parents around to get things organized for him or her, the adult may stagger under the organizational demands of everyday life. The supposed “little things” may mount up to create huge obstacles. For the want of a proverbial nail—a missed appointment, a lost check, a forgotten deadline—their kingdom may be lost.
-
Most adults with ADD are struggling to express a part of themselves that often seems unraveled as they strive to join the thought behind unto the thought before.
-
Humor is a key to a happy life with ADD.
-
Having ADD makes life paradoxical. You can superfocus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally, intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.
-
We live in a paradox: connected electronically but disconnected interpersonally. However, when you recognize the problem, you can take steps to correct it. You can create an emotionally connected environment anywhere if you try hard enough.
-
So don't look over your shoulder or let fear and anxiety rule you. Go for broke. Let passion blaze your trail. Look ahead and pursue the dream that fits who you are as a person and a manager. Learn what you can, but don't get bogged down--in today's world, there's so much to know that learning can actually take the place of action and hold you back. Learn enough, then trust your gut and act. Be bold--or crazy--enough not to hold back. Take advantage of the freedom to be your own person. When the game is over, regardless of the score, you'll revel in what you've done.
-
Russell Barkley similarly describes the primary problem in ADD as a deficit in the motivation system, which makes it impossible to stay on task for any length of time unless there is constant feedback, constant reward.