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"Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness."
- Ayn Rand (via sorakeem)(Source: larmoyante, via sorakeem)
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"Realize you can be happy this moment for no reason. Otherwise, you eternally depend on conditions for happiness. Unconscious of this moment, you remain a victim of circumstances."
- Arthur D. Saftlas (via sorakeem)(Source: larmoyante, via sorakeem)
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High Resolution(via LA LA LOVELY)
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"People who can say of a book, ‘this changed my life’ truly understand the meaning of happiness. Reading that sparks inner revolution is desperately needed to escape drowning in the rapidly advancing information society. Reading is more than intellectual ornamentation; it is a battle for the establishment for the self, a ceaseless challenge that keeps us young and vigorous."
- Daisaku Ikeda -
High Resolution -
Things are looking up
If you find yourself a bit blue, follow this suggestion from Alex Ostrowski’s business cards:
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"A key message of many of the new approaches in psychology and spiritual practice is the importance of learning to appreciate and generate feelings of joy through experience ‘in the moment’. How many of us really stop and look at the beauty of the sky and its ever-changing patterns or the beauty of flowers or trees in the park or spend time really exploring the tastes, smells and feel of things? How many of us actually experience joy in our ability to see or to hear or focus on the pleasure of seeing and hearing, knowing that there are some people who have been robbed of these senses? Our hurry-hurry lives narrow down into tunnels of greyness with just the odd glimpse or impression of wonders. But if you think about it, you are a consciousness passing through time. We only exist in this moment. We do not yet exist in the moment to come and we no longer exist in the moment just gone; only in this one right now do we truly exist. Yet our ‘new minds’ can be so distracted that we don’t fully exist here either."
-Paul Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind
(found via THIS IS NAIVE)
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"I have decided to be happy because it’s good for my health."
-Voltaire (via absea)
THIS.THIS.THIS.THIS.THIS.
(via whiskeysoaked)
Sometimes you just have to give in.
(Source: spacesamidlove, via whiskeysoaked)
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(Source: leilockheart, via nickelcobalt)
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Memorandum, or a brick wall of text that will be read by no one.
- I just finished watching Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere. It was an entrancing sort of poem about a man who feels nothing despite the hedonism and celebrity that surrounds him. He seems to be a passenger in his own life, drifting in and out. The only thing that is somewhat constant is his partial custody of his daughter. Both are aware of the fact that neither is a large part of each other’s life (what a cluster of syntax. apologies), yet it is this awareness that encourages a warm affection between them. It’s not a movie for lovers of plot, but if you’re watching a Sofia Coppola movie, you would know that. I thought it was a sweet film.
- Picked up Bertrand Russell’s Conquest of Happiness again, in which he delineates the contributors of unhappiness and proposes the remedies to prevent emotional devastation and promote a more positive comportment.
His explanation of persecution mania, in particular, is fascinating. Persecution mania (hereafter PM) is “always rooted in a too exaggerated conception of our own merits”. Think. Perhaps this reminds you of someone you know? There is the philanthropist (“always doing good to people against their will, and is amazed and horrified they display no gratitude.”) and the inventor (“who has never been able to get any one to examine the merits of his invention”), to name a few of the PM archetypes.
Par for the course, Russell suggest four general maxims:
I thought them to be wise and well-thought out. Often I forget that much of my anxiety is of my own creation and these maxims are simplistic, straight-forward reminders that life is very much a large, red, WWII propaganda poster, “Keep Calm and Carry On”, what have you.
1. Remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
2. Don’t over estimate your own merits.
3. Don’t expect others to take as much interest in you as you do your self.
4. Don’t imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any desire to persecute you.
Anyways, I recommend Russell’s book. - I’d really like to say hello to my new followers. I’m quite flattered by and grateful for your delusion. I hope that you will enjoy my posts, and I promise that the personal drivel (such as this) will be minimal.
- My addiction to cherry Dr. Pepper knows no bounds as I have consumed two cans and have no intention of stopping.
Favorite Things
Twenty-something.
Atlanta.
Hedonist.
The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views of my employers. No one should be held responsible for my stupid thoughts.
