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8901.  Don’t allow others to control relationships.  Consciously or not people look to pull others to the level where they are most comfortable.  While this can be a positive, often times it’s not, as it takes the form of gossip, criticism, doubt and negativity.  Emotionally strong people realize that sometimes they have to let people go;

8902.  Don’t waste energy on things you can’t control.  Fred Smith once said, “You must understand the difference between a fact of life and a problem.  A fact of life is something you can’t control or fix.  A problem is something you can fix;”

8903.  Don’t make the same mistakes.  John C. Maxwell has often said, “Experience teaches nothing, but evaluated experience teaches everything.”  It’s okay to make mistakes, but it’s not okay to repeat them.  Emotionally strong folks learn from their mistakes by reflecting on them, learning from them and taking a better course of action;

8904.  Don’t ride the emotional roller coaster.  Because no one’s immune to emotional highs and lows, we have to learn to level them out.  Maxwell talks about practicing the 24-hour rule: No matter what happens, give yourself 24 hours to process your response to an event good or bad.  After those 24 hours, put it behind you and take action on something else;

8905.  Understand, appreciate and grow through struggles.  Life is never going to be all sunshine and rainbows; the sooner we accept that fact of life, the sooner we can boost our emotional capacities.  And the sooner we learn to look at struggles, challenges and setbacks as opportunities to make us stronger, better, healthier, more robust and more resilient mentally and emotionally the better off we’ll be;

8906.  Apparently, you can be transferred on chat (and not just the telephone) too;

8907.  “Commitment” is doing things when you don’t know how to do it;

8908.  It’s (actually) pretty easy to make fried rice;

8909.  Pepperoni fried rice is (actually) pretty good;

8910.  Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal;

8911.  Being an outward conduit of love, kindness and selfless service to others as well as being a willing and grateful recipient of love, kindness and selfless service from others is what completes the circuit of abundance in life;

8912.  When someone gives and gives and gives without being in a place to also receive it doesn’t end up giving that person abundance.  That person just gets depleted.  Equally when person just takes and takes and takes without being in a place to also give back that person doesn’t feel abundance either.  That is also depleting;

8913.  You can ask your Google Nest Mini to play white noise/calming sounds (on a timer);

8914.  Apple cider/juice makes a good tea sweetener/flavoring;

8915.  In order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are;

8916.  Forgiveness does not necessarily mean forgetting.  You can’t erase the past and you can’t change (or control) the person who hurt you.  Forgiveness does mean (that you are) letting go of the anger, pain and negativity that you’re harboring;

8917.  The past is the past.  Whatever happened, happened in the past.  The only place it still exists in the present is in your mind.  In other words, it’s not still happening, but it causes problems when you replay it in your mind over and over.  Instead of reliving it, focus on the present and the joy in your life now.  When your thoughts stray to the past, recognize it and bring them back to the present;

8918.  Most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply;

8919.  I am the creator of time.  I make time for what matters and accept that I can’t do everything;

8920.  Dipping/dunking a(n) chocolate sandwich cookie/Hydrox/Oreo in (hot) coffee is tasty;

8921.  True wealth is businesses and assets that can earn while you sleep;

8922.  (A scoop of) ice cream in (hot) coffee is tasty;

8923.  Difficulties are meant to rouse not discourage.  The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict;

8924.  It’s pretty easy to make sticky rice (with mango);

8925.  (I think it’s sad that) in a society where we’re so “connected,” we’re the least connected with ourselves.  There are so many ways where we can distract ourselves that stop us from actually feeling our emotions.  There’s alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, sex (i.e., dating apps, masturbation & pornography), social media, television (i.e., movies, sports & TV shows) and video games and they’re all more easily accessible than ever;

8926.  How you treat yourself is how the world will treat you;

8927.  The paradox of emotional release: Allow the feelings to be, let them release if they want to release, but, at the same time, to not require that they go anywhere;

8928.  Be willing to feel your emotions and acknowledge them for as long as they need to be felt and acknowledged.  If you can, allow that to happen without trying to hurry it along;

8929.  Try not to judge or blame others for whatever it is that has been triggered in you.  Feel the feeling, express the feeling, but don’t dive into the “meaning.”  We love to ascribe meaning to things, but, in this kind of situation, that doesn’t do us any favors/good;

8930.  Diving into the story, running the story around and around and thinking about apportioning blame, shame or guilt that just locks the energy in place.  It’s the opposite of letting go;

8931.  Forgiveness can be hard, but ultimately it frees the forgiver the most.  So that’s why it’s worth it;

8932.  Twix ice cream bars are pretty tasty.  I like them better than Milky Way or Snickers ice cream bars;

8933.  (Quick, one-minute) oatmeal (made) with white chocolate baking chips/morsels is pretty tasty;

8934.  More is lost by indecision than wrong decision.  Indecision is the thief of opportunity.  It will steal you blind;

8935.  Toxic positivity is avoidance;

8936.  When we minimize emotions, whether they are ours or not, we deprive the person of the ability to feel his/her emotions honestly and safely;

8937.  By trying to focus on only the lighter/positive and not giving space to the darker/negative emotions we feel, we make it harder on ourselves and our loved ones to heal and grow;

8938.  Harboring darker/negative emotions for long periods and not dealing with them worsens our health by causing extra stress;

8939.  When you force yourself to continually be happy or to adopt an excessive “positive vibes” mentality, you are communicating to other people that they should not have difficult emotions around you;

8940.  Albert Einstein said, “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself;”

8941.  According to John C. Maxwell, people who fail to get beyond themselves are usually selfish, insecure or both;

8942.  The world doesn’t owe you a living and you are not indispensable;

8943.  Gandhi put it best when he said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems;”

8944.  Growing beyond yourself starts with discovering your purpose, clarifying your priorities and getting passionate about life.  The fastest way to get better is to hang out with better people;

8945.  According to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘what are we doing for others?’”

8946.  Life really takes off when we invest ourselves and our resources in others;

8947.  If you want to surround yourself with great people, you need to work at becoming a great person;

8948.  Since we attract the people most like ourselves, take an honest inventory of the people surrounding you (right) now;

8949.  6 ways to get beyond yourself (according to John Maxwell): 1.  Quit taking yourself so seriously; 2.  Quit thinking that the world owes you a living; 3.  Quit believing you are indispensable; 4.  Start seeing through other people’s eyes; 5.  Start placing value on others; and 6.  Start understanding your purpose on earth;

8950.  If you really want to make an impact and move forward on your journey to significance, you have to go beyond yourself; you have to step outside yourself;

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8851.  Accepting responsibility for our problems is the first step to solving them;

8852.  A lot of people hesitate to take responsibility for their problems because they believe that to be responsible for your problems is to also be at fault for your problems;

8853.  There are problems that we aren’t at fault for yet we are still responsible for them;

8854.  Fault results from choices that have already been made.  Responsibility results from the choices you’re currently making every second of every day;

8855.  There’s a difference between blaming someone else for your situation and that person actually being responsible for your situation.  Nobody else is ever responsible for your situation, but you.  Many people may be to blame for your unhappiness, but nobody is ever responsible for your unhappiness, but you.  This is because you always get to choose how you see things, how you react to things, how you value things.  You always get to choose the metric by which to measure your experiences;

8856.  Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new beginning;

8857.  Crying after sex . . . check;

8858.  “Pesci” means “fishes” in Italian . . . so Joe Pesci is really “Joe Fishes;”

8859.  Apparently, restaurants don’t like it when you’re drinking your cocktails to-go on a bench in front of their building;

8860.  Action isn’t everything, but without it nothing will ever change/improve;

8861.  We all get dealt cards.  Some of us get better cards than others.  And while it’s easy to get hung up on our cards and feel we got screwed over, the real game lies in the choices we make with those cards, the risks we decide to take and the consequences we choose to live with.  People who consistently make the best choices in the situations they’re given are the ones who eventually come out ahead in poker just as in life.  And it’s not necessarily the people with the best cards;

8862.  Sometimes what we see when looking at others depends on the window through which we are looking;

8863.  You don’t really need someone to complete you.  You only need someone to accept you completely;

8864.  (The original) Merriweather Post Pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry;

8865.  Rice and hoisin sauce is (pretty) tasty;

8866.  Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt;

8867.  Putting pears in oatmeal is a good combination;

8868.  Because of the amygdala, we pay 10 times more attention to negative news than to positive news.  And, for that reason, every news source is putting out 10 times more negative stories than positive ones.  It’s purely a matter of marketing to capture our attentions for more advertising revenue;

8869.  The average American adult spends nearly 6 hours each day watching TV – about 30% of our waking hours.  Yet few pause to consider how this massive input impacts our outlook;

8870.  A study of 180 undergraduate students found that anxiety and total mood disturbance increased after watching a 15-minute news segment.  Those levels remained elevated unless students explicitly engaged in relaxation exercises following the viewing period;

8871.  A 2017 study by the American Psychological Association found that over half of Americans feel news consumption causes them stress that leads to sleep deprivation and increased anxiety;

8872.  What you let into your mind influences your thoughts, conversations and feelings, which can drive fear and anxiety for many.  These emotional states are associated with increased levels of cortisol also commonly known as the “stress hormone,” which often causes inflammation and reduces the immune system’s efficacy;

8873.  A woman can get a hickey on her breast. . . . Who knew?

8874.  Breast hickey . . . check;

8875.  If money is your hope for independence you will never have it.  The only real security that a person can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability;

8876.  You are already choosing in every moment of every day what you care about so change is as simple as choosing to care about something else;

8877.  People think happiness is a destination and not a choice.  People think love is something that just happens and not something that you work for.  People think being “cool” has to be practiced and learned from others rather than be invented for yourself;

8878.  Each individual gets to decide what is “enough” and that love can be whatever you let it be;

8879.  What goes on when you sleep: 1.  Your brain recharges; 2.  Your body releases important hormones; and 3.  Your cells repair themselves;

8880.  You need different amounts of sleep depending on your age: 1.  Newborns (0-3 months): 14-17 hours; 2.  Infants (4-11 months): 12-15 hours; 3.  Toddlers (1-2 years): 11-14 hours; 4.  Preschoolers (3-5): 10-13 hours; 5.  School-age children (6-13): 9-11 hours; 6.  Teenagers (14-17): 8-10 hours; 7.  Younger adults (18-25): 7-9 hours; 8.  Adults (26-64): 7-9 hours; and 9.  Older adults (65+): Sleep range is 7-8 hours;

8881.  Men have dreams about other men 70% of the time, but women dream about women and men equally;

8882.  We can only dream about faces we’ve already seen whether we actively remember them or not;

8883.  Parasomnia is a type of sleep disorder that makes you do unnatural movements despite being asleep such as sleep driving, writing bad checks, murder, child molestation and rape;

8884.  12% of people dream only in black and white a number that used to be higher prior to the advent of color televisions;

8885.  Dreaming is normal.  People who do not dream generally have personality disorders;

8886.  Sleep positions may determine your personality: 1.  Fetal (41%) – Gruff initially, but have warm and open hearts; 2.  Log (15%) – Social butterflies; 3.  The Yearner (13%) – Perceived as open, but truly suspicious; 4.  Soldier/Corpse (8%) – Reserved; 5.  Freefall (7%) – Fun and fantastic at parties; and 6.  Starfish (5%) – Excellent listeners;

8887.  1 in 4 married couples sleep in separate beds;

8888.  British soldiers were the first to develop a method of staying up 36 hours without sleep.  When fatigued, they put on special visors that emulated the brightness of a sunrise and it woke them up;

8889.  Koalas are the longest-sleeping mammals (at 22 hours/day) while giraffes which sleep only 1.9 hours a day (in 5- to 10-minute increments) are the shortest-sleeping;

8890.  When dolphins sleep, only half of their brains shut down.  The other halves stay awake to help with breathing cycles;

8891.  You’ll die from sleep deprivation before starvation.  It takes 2 weeks to starve, but 10 days without sleep can kill you;

8892.  Blind people can still see images in dreams;

8893.  Within 5 minutes of waking, 50% of your dream is forgotten, and, within 10 minutes, 90% is gone;

8894.  1 out of 50 teenagers still wet their beds;

8895.  You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight;

8896.  Forgiveness isn’t something you do for the other person, it’s a gift you give to yourself;

8897.  Forgiveness has its own pace and its own grace.  It’s a process and that process may look different for everyone, but it doesn’t start until you’re willing;

8898.  No matter how materially wealthy or otherwise lucky you may be a blackened heart taints everything;

8899.  Proactively deal with emotions.  We should never become victims of our emotions.  That’s not to say that we should suppress them.  We just need to be consciously aware of them and avoid reacting emotionally;

8900.  Don’t waste time with self-pity.  We can be our own worst enemies especially when we drown ourselves in the negative light of the worst-case scenario we tend to paint for ourselves.  Although it can be tempting to exaggerate our circumstances, face reality, take action, practice gratitude, serve others and get outside of yourself;

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8801.  Being “average” has become the new standard of failure;

8802.  When a culture’s standard of success is to “be extraordinary,” it then becomes better to be at the extreme low end of the bell curve than to be in the middle because at least there you’re still special and deserve attention;

8803.  A lot of people are afraid to accept mediocrity because they believe that if they accept it, they’ll never achieve anything, never improve and that their life won’t matter;

8804.  The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so not because they believe they’re exceptional.  They become amazing because they’re obsessed with improvement.  And that obsession with improvement stems from an unerring belief that they are in fact not that great at all.  It’s anti-entitlement;

8805.  People who become great at something become great because they understand that they’re not already great.  They are mediocre.  They are average.  And that they could be so much better;

8806.  Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things;

8807.  The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy and that’s okay;

8808.  Owning your mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish without judgment or lofty expectations;

8809.  Limitations, failings, losses and setbacks are temporary.  Pain and uncertainty pass.  Time heals, but don’t watch time fly by;

8810.  Our values determine the nature of our problems and the nature of our problems determines the quality of our lives;

8811.  If what we value is unhelpful, if what we consider success/failure is poorly chosen then everything based upon those values, the thoughts, the emotions, the day-to-day feelings, will all be out of whack.  Everything we think and feel about a situation ultimately comes back to how valuable we perceive it to be;

8812.  What is objectively true about your situation is not as important as how you come to see the situation, how you choose to measure it and value it;

8813.  Problems may be inevitable, but the meaning of each problem is not;

8814.  We get to control what our problems mean based on how we choose to think about them the standard by which we choose to measure them;

8815.  The question is not whether we evaluate ourselves against others; rather the question is by what standard do we measure ourselves;

8816.  Our values determine the metrics by which we measure ourselves and everyone else;

8817.  If you want to change how you see your problems, you have to change what you value and/or how you measure failure/success;

8818.  Pleasure is great, but it’s a horrible value to prioritize your life around;

8819.  Pleasure is a false god.  Research shows that people who focus their energy on superficial pleasures end up more anxious, more emotionally unstable and more depressed.  Pleasure is the most superficial form of life satisfaction and, therefore, the easiest to obtain and the easiest to lose;

8820.  Pleasure while necessary in life (in certain does) isn’t by itself sufficient;

8821.  Pleasure is not the cause of happiness; rather it is the effect.  If you get the other stuff right (the other values and metrics) then pleasure will naturally occur as a by-product;

8822.  Research shows that once one is able to provide for basic physical needs (food, shelter and so on), the correlation between happiness and worldly success quickly approaches zero;

8823.  The other issue with overvaluing material success is the danger of prioritizing it over other values such as honesty, nonviolence and compassion;

8824.  When people measure themselves not by their behavior, but by the status symbols they’re able to collect then not only are they shallow, but they’re probably assholes as well;

8825.  People who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes.  They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and empathize with others.  They close themselves off to new and important information;

8826.  Denying negative emotions leads to experiencing deeper and more prolonged negative emotions and to emotional dysfunction;

8827.  Constant positivity is a form of avoidance and not a valid solution to life’s problems;

8828.  The trick with negative emotions is to: 1.  Express them in a socially acceptable and healthy manner; and 2.  Express them in a way that aligns with your values;

8829.  When we force ourselves to stay positive at all times we deny the existence of our life’s problems.  And, when we deny our problems, we rob ourselves of the chance to solve them and generate happiness.  Problems add a sense of meaning and importance to our life.  Thus, to duck our problems is to lead a meaningless (even if supposedly pleasant) existence;

8830.  Some of the greatest moments of one’s life are not pleasant, not successful, not known and not positive;

8831.  Nail down some good values and metrics and pleasure and success will naturally emerge as a result.  These things are side effects of good values.  By themselves, they are empty highs;

8832.  Good values are: 1.  Reality-based; 2.  Socially constructive; and 3.  Immediate and controllable;

8833.  Bad values are: 1.  Superstitious; 2.  Socially destructive; and 3.  Not immediate or controllable;

8834.  People who are terrified of what others think about them are actually terrified of all the shitty things they think about themselves being reflected back at them;

8835.  Some examples of good, healthy values: honesty, innovation, vulnerability, standing up for oneself, standing up for others, self-respect, curiosity, charity, humility and creativity;

8836.  Some examples of bad, unhealthy values: dominance through manipulation or violence, indiscriminate sex, feeling good all of the time, always being the center of attention, not being alone, being liked by everybody and being rich for the sake of being rich;

8837.  You’ll notice that good, healthy values are achieved internally;

8838.  Bad values are generally reliant on external events;

8839.  Values are about prioritization.  What are the values that you prioritize above everything else and that, therefore, influence your decision-making more than anything else?

8840.  When we have poor values, that is poor standards we set for ourselves and others, we are essentially caring about the things that don’t matter, things that in fact make our lives worse;

8841.  When we choose better values, we are able to divert our cares to something better, toward things that matter, things that improve the state of our well-being and that generate happiness, pleasure and success as side effects;

8842.  “Self-improvement” is really about prioritizing better values and choosing better things to care about.  Because when you care better, you get better problems.  And, when you get better problems, you get a better life;

8843.  Often the only difference between a problem being painful or being powerful is a sense that we chose it and that we are responsible for it;

8844.  If you’re miserable in your current situation chances are it’s because you feel like some part of it is outside your control and that there’s a problem you have no ability to solve a problem that was somehow thrust upon you without your choosing;

8845.  When we feel that we’re choosing our problems we feel empowered.  When we feel that our problems are being forced upon us against our will we feel victimized and miserable;

8846.  There is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerges.  This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives no matter the external circumstances;

8847.  We don’t always control what happens to us, but we always control how we interpret what happens to us as well as how we respond;

8848.  Whether we consciously recognize it or not we are always responsible for our experiences.  Choosing not to consciously interpret events in our lives is still an interpretation of the events of our lives.  Choosing to not respond to the events in our lives is still a response to the events in our lives.  Whether we like it or not we are always taking an active role in what’s occurring to and within us.  We are always interpreting the meaning of every moment and every occurrence.  We are always choosing the values by which we live and the metrics by which we measure everything that happens to us.  Often the same event can be good or bad depending on the metric we choose to use.  We are always choosing whether we recognize it or not;

8849.  In reality, there is no such thing as not caring.  It’s impossible.  We must all care about something.  To not care about anything is still caring about something;

8850.  With great responsibility comes great power.  The more we choose to accept responsibility in our lives the more power we will exercise over our lives;

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8751.  Like physical pain our psychological pain is an indication of something out of equilibrium some limitation that has been exceeded;

8752.  Like our physical pain our psychological pain is not necessarily always bad or even undesirable;

8753.  In some cases experiencing emotional or psychological pain can be healthy or necessary;

8754.  Problems never go away they just improve;

8755.  The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one;

8756.  Don’t hope for a life without problems; hope for a life full of good problems;

8757.  Happiness comes from solving problems;

8758.  Happiness is a constant work-in-progress because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress.  The solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems and so on;

8759.  True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving;

8760.  Some people deny that their problems exist in the first place.  And because they deny reality they must constantly delude or distract themselves from reality.  This may make them feel good in the short term, but it leads to a life of insecurity, neuroticism and emotional repression;

8761.  Some choose to believe that there is nothing they can do to solve their problems even when they in fact could.  Victims seek to blame others for their problems or blame outside circumstances.  This may make them feel better in the short term, but it leads to a life of anger, helplessness and despair;

8762.  People deny and blame others for their problems for the simple reason that it’s easy and feels good while solving problems is hard and often feels bad;

8763.  Almost anything can become addictive depending on the motivation behind using it;

8764.  Emotions are simply biological signals designed to nudge you in the direction of beneficial change;

8765.  Negative emotions are a call to action.  When you feel them it’s because you’re supposed to do something;

8766.  Positive emotions are rewards for taking the proper action;

8767.  Apparently, the Chinese symbol for crisis/danger and opportunity are the same;

8768.  Crisis can be seen as crisis . . . or it can be seen as (an) opportunity;

8769.  Substitutes for butter in baking: 1.  Applesauce: You can replace butter in baking recipes with unsweetened applesauce by using half of the amount of applesauce as the amount of butter called for in the recipe.  This works well in sugar cookies, cakes and breads like banana or zucchini bread; 2.  Vegetable oil: You can substitute ¾ cup of vegetable oil for every 1 cup of butter.  This works well in all manner of baking recipes; 3.  Buttermilk: You can substitute ½ cup of buttermilk for every 1 cup of butter.  This works well for all recipes with the exception of pie crust (i.e., it changes the consistency of the dough and makes it crumbly instead of flaky.  No buttermilk on hand?  Just add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar per cup of milk and let stand 5 minutes; 4.  Avocado: You can substitute pureed avocado in equal parts for the amount of butter called for; 5.  Greek yogurt: For a higher protein substitution, use half of the amount of Greek yogurt as the amount of butter.  This works especially well in cakes because it creates a velvety texture; 6.  Pumpkin puree: For every cup of butter called for in a recipe, use ¾ cup of pumpkin (or butternut, Hubbard or other similar squash) puree.  You can also substitute pumpkin puree in equal amount to the quantity of oil in a baking recipe; 7.  Coconut oil: If the recipe calls for a substantial amount of butter, you might notice a flavor difference in the finished product so it is not the best in savory breads, but works fine in cakes, cookies and muffins; 8.  Prune puree: Similar to pumpkin puree, substitute ¾ cup of prune puree (you can use prune baby food) for every cup of butter in a baked item.  This works best for cakes and brownies, but it will darken the color of the finished product adding a reddish-purple tone; 9.  Olive oil: Use ¾ cup of olive oil for every cup of butter called for.  Note that olive oil has a strong flavor and works best in savory items like herb breads or biscuits and would likely hurt the flavor of sweeter items such as cakes, cookies or pie crusts.  It is a tasty substitute for butter in crusts for meat or pot pies ; and 10.  Applesauce & buttermilk: If you are concerned about the integrity of the taste of the dish, use ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce and ¼ cup buttermilk for every cup of butter in a recipe.  It does not work well for pie crust; it changes the texture too much;

8770.  (Putting) peanut butter in ramen (noodles) is pretty good. . . . Who knew?  It makes (kind of) a peanut sauce;

8771.  Knowing is not enough; we must apply.  Being willing is not enough; we must do;

8772.  Negative emotions are a call to action.  When you feel them, it’s because you’re supposed to do something;

8773.  Positive emotions are rewards for taking the proper action;

8774.  Emotions are part of the equation of our lives, but not the entire equation.  Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it is good.  Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad.  Emotions are merely signpost, suggestions that our neurobiology gives us not commandments.  Therefore, we shouldn’t always trust our own emotions;

8775.  Many people are taught to repress their emotions for various personal, social or cultural reasons particularly negative emotions.  Sadly to deny one’s negative emotions is to deny many of the feedback mechanisms that help a person solve problems;

8776.  Decision-making based on emotional intuition without the aid of reason to keep it in line pretty much always sucks;

8777.  A fixation on happiness inevitably amounts to a never-ending pursuit of “something else” . . . a new house, a new relationship, another child, another pay raise.  And despite all of our sweat and strain, we end up feeling eerily similar to how we started: inadequate;

8778.  The “hedonic treadmill” is the idea that we’re always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different;

8779.  Everything comes with an inherent sacrifice.  Whatever makes us feel good will also inevitably make us feel bad.  What we gain is also what we lose.  What creates our positive experiences will define our negative experiences;

8780.  We like the idea that there’s some form of ultimate happiness that can be attained.  We like the idea that we can alleviate all of our suffering permanently.  We like the idea that we can feel fulfilled and satisfied with our lives forever, but we cannot;

8781.  A question that most people never consider is, “What pain do you want in your life?  What are you willing to struggle for?”  Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out;

8782.  Most people want to get the corner office and make a boatload of money, but not many people want to suffer through 60-hour workweeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork and arbitrary corporate hierarchies to escape the confines of an infinite cubicle hell.  Most people want to have great sex and an awesome relationship, but not everyone is willing to go through the tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there.  And so they settle;

8783.  Happiness requires struggle.  It grows from problems.  Joy doesn’t sprout out of the ground like daisies and rainbows.  Real, serious, lifelong fulfillment and meaning have to be earned through the choosing and managing of our struggles;

8784.  What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?”  The relevant question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?”  The path to happiness is a path of shit heaps and shame.  You have to choose something.  You can’t have a pain-free life.  It can’t all be roses and unicorns all of the time.  Pleasure is the easy question;

8785.  Our struggles determine our successes.  Our problems birth our happiness along with slightly better, slightly upgraded problems;

8786.  Elizabeth likes Gillian Welch . . . and John Prine (i.e., singer-songwriters);

8787.  The best tasting Oreo I’ve ever had was the one I ate after coming down from LSD;

8788.  Hot, frozen pizza tastes really good after coming down from LSD;

8789.  Elizabeth likes “The xx” (i.e., English indie pop band);

8790.  Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least;

8791.  Merely feeling good about yourself doesn’t really mean anything unless you have a good reason to feel good about yourself;

8792.  Adversity and failure are actually useful and even necessary for developing strong-minded and successful adults;

8793.  A true and accurate measurement of one’s self-worth is how people feel about the negative aspects of themselves;

8794.  A person who actually has a high self-worth is able to look at the negative parts of her/his character frankly and then acts to improve upon them;

8795.  Entitled people because they are incapable of acknowledging their own problems openly and honestly are incapable of improving their lives in any lasting or meaningful way.  They are left chasing high after high and accumulate greater and greater levels of denial;

8796.  Most people don’t correctly identify as entitlement are those people who perpetually feel as though they’re inferior and unworthy of the world.  Construing everything in life so as to make yourself out to be constantly victimized requires just as much selfishness as the opposite.  It takes just as much energy and delusional self-aggrandizement to maintain the belief that one has insurmountable problems as that one has no problems at all;

8797.  Realization that you and your problems are actually not privileged in their severity or pain is the first and most important step toward solving them;

8798.  If you’re exceptional at one thing, chances are you’re average or below average at most other things;

8799.  To become truly great at something, you have to dedicate a lot of time and energy to it.  Because we all have limited time and energy few of us ever become truly exceptional at more than one thing if anything at all;

8800.  We’re all for the most part pretty average people, but it’s the extremes that get all of the publicity;