9151. To value
something, we must reject what is not that something;
9152. We are defined by what we choose to reject. If we reject nothing (perhaps in fear of being rejected by something ourselves), we essentially have no identity at all;
9153. Honesty is a natural human craving, but part of having honesty in our lives is becoming comfortable with saying and hearing the word “no;”
9154. Romantic love is kind of like cocaine. It’s frighteningly similar to cocaine. It stimulates the exact same parts of the brain as cocaine. It get you high and makes you feel good for a while, but also creates as many problems as it solves as does cocaine;
9155. There are healthy forms of love and unhealthy forms of love. Unhealthy love is based on 2 people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other. They’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on 2 people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support;
9156. The difference between a healthy and an unhealthy relationship comes down to 2 things: 1) how well each person in the relationship accepts responsibility; and 2) the willingness of each person to both reject and be rejected by their partner;
9157. Anywhere there is an unhealthy or toxic relationship, there will be a poor and porous sense of responsibility on both sides and there will be an inability to give and/or receive rejection;
9158. Wherever there is a healthy and loving relationship, there will be clear boundaries between the 2 people and their values and there will be an open avenue of giving and receiving rejection when necessary;
9159. People in a healthy relationship with strong boundaries will take responsibility for their own values and problems and not take responsibility for their partner’s values and problems;
9160. What do poor boundaries look like? “You can’t go out with your friends without me. You know how jealous I get. You have to stay home with me.” “My coworkers are idiots; they always make me late to meetings because I have to tell them how to do their jobs.” “I can’t believe you made me feel so stupid in front of my own sister. Never disagree with me in front of her again!” “I’d love to take that job in Milwaukee, but my mother would never forgive me for moving so far away.” “I can date you, but can you not tell my friend Cindy? She gets really insecure when I have a boyfriend and she doesn’t.”
9161. When you have murky areas of responsibility for your emotions and actions (i.e., areas where it’s unclear who is responsible for what, whose fault is what, why you’re doing what you’re doing), you never develop strong values for yourself. You only value becomes making your partner happy. Or your only value becomes your partner making you happy;
9162. People can’t solve your problems for you. They shouldn’t try because that won’t make you happy. You can’t solve other people’s problems for them either because that likewise won’t make them happy;
9163. The mark of an unhealthy relationship is 2 people who try to solve each other’s problems in order to feel good about themselves;
9164. A healthy relationship is when 2 people solve their own problems in order to feel good about each other;
9165. The setting of proper boundaries doesn’t mean you can’t help or support your partner or be helped and supported yourself. You both should support each other, but only because you choose to support and be supported not because you feel obligated or entitled;
9166. Entitled people who blame others for their own emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they constantly paint themselves as victims eventually someone will come along and save them and they will receive the love they’ve always wanted;
9167. Entitled people who take the blame for other people’s emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they “fix” their partner and save her/him, they will receive the love and appreciation they’ve always wanted;
9168. The victim creates more and more problems to solve not because additional real problem exist, but because it gets her/him the attention and affection s/he craves. The saver solves and solves not because s/he actually cares about the problems, but because s/he believes s/he must fix others’ problems in order to deserve attention and affection for herself/himself;
9169. Victims and savers both use each other to achieve emotional highs. It’s like an addiction they fulfill in one another. When presented with emotionally healthy people to date, they usually feel bored or lack “chemistry” with them. They pass on emotionally healthy, secure individuals because the secure partner’s solid boundaries don’t feel “exciting” enough to stimulate the constant highs necessary in the entitled person;
9170. If you make a sacrifice for someone you care about, it needs to be because you want to not because you feel obligated or because you fear the consequences of not doing so. If your partner is going to make a sacrifice for you, it needs to be because s/he genuinely want to not because you’ve manipulated the sacrifice through anger or guilt;
9171. Acts of love are valid only if they’re performed without conditions or expectations;
9172. It can be difficult for people to recognize the difference between doing something out of obligation and doing it voluntarily. So here’ the litmus test: Ask yourself, “If I refused how would the relationship change?” Similarly ask, “If my partner refused something I wanted, how would the relationship change?”
9173. People with strong boundaries are not afraid of a temper tantrum, an argument or getting hurt. People with weak boundaries are terrified of those things and will constantly mold their own behavior to fit the highs and lows of their relational emotional roller coaster;
9174. People with strong boundaries understand that it’s unreasonable to expect 2 people to accommodate each other 100 percent and fulfill every need the other has;
9175. People with strong boundaries understand that they may hurt someone’s feelings sometimes, but ultimately they can’t determine how other people feel;
9176. People with strong boundaries understand that a healthy relationship is not about controlling one another’s emotions, but rather about each partner supporting the other in their individual growth and in solving their own problems;
9177. It’s not about caring about everything your partner cares about; it’s about caring about your partner regardless of what s/he cares about;
9178. Without conflict, there can be no trust. Conflict exists to show us who is there for us unconditionally and who is just there for the benefits. No one trusts a “yes”-person;
9179. For a relationship to be healthy both people must be willing and able to both say “no” and hear “no;”
9180. Without that negation, without that occasional rejection, boundaries break down and one person’s problems and values come to dominate the other’s. Conflict is not only normal then; it’s absolutely necessary for the maintenance of a healthy relationship. If 2 people who are close are not able to hash out their differences openly and vocally then the relationship is based on manipulation and misrepresentation and it will slowly become toxic;
9181. When we’re overloaded with opportunities and options, we suffer from what psychologists refer to as the paradox of choice. Basically, the more options we’re given, the less satisfied we become with whatever we choose because we’re aware of all the other options we’re potentially forfeiting;
9182. While investing deeply in one person, one place, one job or one activity might deny us the breadth of experience we’d like, pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the opportunity to experience rewards of depth of experience;
9183. There are some experiences that you can have only when you’ve lived in the same place for 5 years, when you’ve been with the same person for over a decade or when you’ve been working on the same skill or craft for half your lifetime;
9184. The older you get, the more experienced you get, the less significantly each new experience affects you;
9185. Commitment gives you freedom because you’re no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous;
9186. Commitment gives you freedom because it hones your attention and focus directing them toward what is most efficient at making you healthy and happy;
9187. Commitment makes decision-making easier and removes any fear of missing out; knowing that what you already have is good enough, why would you ever stress about chasing more again?
9188. Commitment allows you to focus intently on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would;
9189. The rejection of alternatives liberates us (e.g., rejection of what does not align with our most important values, with our chosen metrics, rejection of the constant pursuit of breadth without depth);
9190. Breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you’re young. You have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in, but depth is where the gold is buried. You have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That’s true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle and in everything;
9191. Getting a bruise on your chest because your girlfriend bit you (too hard) . . . check;
9192. You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions;
9193. Popeyes’s spicy chicken sandwich is better than their regular chicken sandwich. . . . I might like it more than Chick-fil-A’s chicken sandwich . . . sacrilege;
9194. If there really is no reason to do anything then there is also no reason to not do anything; that in the face of the inevitability of death, there is no reason to ever give in to one’s fear, embarrassment or shame since it’s all just a bunch of nothing anyway; and by spending the majority of your short life avoiding what was painful and uncomfortable you have essentially been avoiding being alive;
9195. Death scares us and, because it scares us, we avoid thinking, talking and sometimes even acknowledging it even when it’s happening to someone close to us;
9196. In a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life’s meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary and all metrics and values suddenly zero;
9197. In order to compensate for our fear of the inevitable loss of our physical self, we try to construct a conceptual self that will live forever. This is why people try so hard to put their names on buildings, statues and on the spines of books;
9198. I’ve spent $156.35 on a (woman’s) purse( . . . that is after the 50% off discount);
9199. Smoked paprika is great on devilled eggs;
9200. Our immortality projects are our values. They are the barometers of meaning and worth in our lives and when our values fail so do we psychologically speaking;
9152. We are defined by what we choose to reject. If we reject nothing (perhaps in fear of being rejected by something ourselves), we essentially have no identity at all;
9153. Honesty is a natural human craving, but part of having honesty in our lives is becoming comfortable with saying and hearing the word “no;”
9154. Romantic love is kind of like cocaine. It’s frighteningly similar to cocaine. It stimulates the exact same parts of the brain as cocaine. It get you high and makes you feel good for a while, but also creates as many problems as it solves as does cocaine;
9155. There are healthy forms of love and unhealthy forms of love. Unhealthy love is based on 2 people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other. They’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on 2 people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support;
9156. The difference between a healthy and an unhealthy relationship comes down to 2 things: 1) how well each person in the relationship accepts responsibility; and 2) the willingness of each person to both reject and be rejected by their partner;
9157. Anywhere there is an unhealthy or toxic relationship, there will be a poor and porous sense of responsibility on both sides and there will be an inability to give and/or receive rejection;
9158. Wherever there is a healthy and loving relationship, there will be clear boundaries between the 2 people and their values and there will be an open avenue of giving and receiving rejection when necessary;
9159. People in a healthy relationship with strong boundaries will take responsibility for their own values and problems and not take responsibility for their partner’s values and problems;
9160. What do poor boundaries look like? “You can’t go out with your friends without me. You know how jealous I get. You have to stay home with me.” “My coworkers are idiots; they always make me late to meetings because I have to tell them how to do their jobs.” “I can’t believe you made me feel so stupid in front of my own sister. Never disagree with me in front of her again!” “I’d love to take that job in Milwaukee, but my mother would never forgive me for moving so far away.” “I can date you, but can you not tell my friend Cindy? She gets really insecure when I have a boyfriend and she doesn’t.”
9161. When you have murky areas of responsibility for your emotions and actions (i.e., areas where it’s unclear who is responsible for what, whose fault is what, why you’re doing what you’re doing), you never develop strong values for yourself. You only value becomes making your partner happy. Or your only value becomes your partner making you happy;
9162. People can’t solve your problems for you. They shouldn’t try because that won’t make you happy. You can’t solve other people’s problems for them either because that likewise won’t make them happy;
9163. The mark of an unhealthy relationship is 2 people who try to solve each other’s problems in order to feel good about themselves;
9164. A healthy relationship is when 2 people solve their own problems in order to feel good about each other;
9165. The setting of proper boundaries doesn’t mean you can’t help or support your partner or be helped and supported yourself. You both should support each other, but only because you choose to support and be supported not because you feel obligated or entitled;
9166. Entitled people who blame others for their own emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they constantly paint themselves as victims eventually someone will come along and save them and they will receive the love they’ve always wanted;
9167. Entitled people who take the blame for other people’s emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they “fix” their partner and save her/him, they will receive the love and appreciation they’ve always wanted;
9168. The victim creates more and more problems to solve not because additional real problem exist, but because it gets her/him the attention and affection s/he craves. The saver solves and solves not because s/he actually cares about the problems, but because s/he believes s/he must fix others’ problems in order to deserve attention and affection for herself/himself;
9169. Victims and savers both use each other to achieve emotional highs. It’s like an addiction they fulfill in one another. When presented with emotionally healthy people to date, they usually feel bored or lack “chemistry” with them. They pass on emotionally healthy, secure individuals because the secure partner’s solid boundaries don’t feel “exciting” enough to stimulate the constant highs necessary in the entitled person;
9170. If you make a sacrifice for someone you care about, it needs to be because you want to not because you feel obligated or because you fear the consequences of not doing so. If your partner is going to make a sacrifice for you, it needs to be because s/he genuinely want to not because you’ve manipulated the sacrifice through anger or guilt;
9171. Acts of love are valid only if they’re performed without conditions or expectations;
9172. It can be difficult for people to recognize the difference between doing something out of obligation and doing it voluntarily. So here’ the litmus test: Ask yourself, “If I refused how would the relationship change?” Similarly ask, “If my partner refused something I wanted, how would the relationship change?”
9173. People with strong boundaries are not afraid of a temper tantrum, an argument or getting hurt. People with weak boundaries are terrified of those things and will constantly mold their own behavior to fit the highs and lows of their relational emotional roller coaster;
9174. People with strong boundaries understand that it’s unreasonable to expect 2 people to accommodate each other 100 percent and fulfill every need the other has;
9175. People with strong boundaries understand that they may hurt someone’s feelings sometimes, but ultimately they can’t determine how other people feel;
9176. People with strong boundaries understand that a healthy relationship is not about controlling one another’s emotions, but rather about each partner supporting the other in their individual growth and in solving their own problems;
9177. It’s not about caring about everything your partner cares about; it’s about caring about your partner regardless of what s/he cares about;
9178. Without conflict, there can be no trust. Conflict exists to show us who is there for us unconditionally and who is just there for the benefits. No one trusts a “yes”-person;
9179. For a relationship to be healthy both people must be willing and able to both say “no” and hear “no;”
9180. Without that negation, without that occasional rejection, boundaries break down and one person’s problems and values come to dominate the other’s. Conflict is not only normal then; it’s absolutely necessary for the maintenance of a healthy relationship. If 2 people who are close are not able to hash out their differences openly and vocally then the relationship is based on manipulation and misrepresentation and it will slowly become toxic;
9181. When we’re overloaded with opportunities and options, we suffer from what psychologists refer to as the paradox of choice. Basically, the more options we’re given, the less satisfied we become with whatever we choose because we’re aware of all the other options we’re potentially forfeiting;
9182. While investing deeply in one person, one place, one job or one activity might deny us the breadth of experience we’d like, pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the opportunity to experience rewards of depth of experience;
9183. There are some experiences that you can have only when you’ve lived in the same place for 5 years, when you’ve been with the same person for over a decade or when you’ve been working on the same skill or craft for half your lifetime;
9184. The older you get, the more experienced you get, the less significantly each new experience affects you;
9185. Commitment gives you freedom because you’re no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous;
9186. Commitment gives you freedom because it hones your attention and focus directing them toward what is most efficient at making you healthy and happy;
9187. Commitment makes decision-making easier and removes any fear of missing out; knowing that what you already have is good enough, why would you ever stress about chasing more again?
9188. Commitment allows you to focus intently on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would;
9189. The rejection of alternatives liberates us (e.g., rejection of what does not align with our most important values, with our chosen metrics, rejection of the constant pursuit of breadth without depth);
9190. Breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you’re young. You have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in, but depth is where the gold is buried. You have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That’s true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle and in everything;
9191. Getting a bruise on your chest because your girlfriend bit you (too hard) . . . check;
9192. You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions;
9193. Popeyes’s spicy chicken sandwich is better than their regular chicken sandwich. . . . I might like it more than Chick-fil-A’s chicken sandwich . . . sacrilege;
9194. If there really is no reason to do anything then there is also no reason to not do anything; that in the face of the inevitability of death, there is no reason to ever give in to one’s fear, embarrassment or shame since it’s all just a bunch of nothing anyway; and by spending the majority of your short life avoiding what was painful and uncomfortable you have essentially been avoiding being alive;
9195. Death scares us and, because it scares us, we avoid thinking, talking and sometimes even acknowledging it even when it’s happening to someone close to us;
9196. In a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life’s meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary and all metrics and values suddenly zero;
9197. In order to compensate for our fear of the inevitable loss of our physical self, we try to construct a conceptual self that will live forever. This is why people try so hard to put their names on buildings, statues and on the spines of books;
9198. I’ve spent $156.35 on a (woman’s) purse( . . . that is after the 50% off discount);
9199. Smoked paprika is great on devilled eggs;
9200. Our immortality projects are our values. They are the barometers of meaning and worth in our lives and when our values fail so do we psychologically speaking;
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