Everything you do has a consequence.

“Consequence” might make you think of detention, jail, guilt, regret.

But consequence is as simple as cause and effect.

Are you aware that everything you do has a consequence?

The other day, I took a cardboard box down to the bin area of my apartment building. Instead of crushing it, I tossed it into a corner. We always have reasons for doing things like this. No matter what the action is, we can justify it.

The next few trips to the bins, I saw my box still sitting there. I ignored it.

Then, one day, I saw another box next to it. Now there were two.

Someone copied me.

René Girard says we are imitative beings. We watch each other. We look up. We show off. We mirror. We are born and then we start to watch other people. 

Instead of eating the healthiest food or wearing the most appropriate clothes, we copy the habits and style of others, often making our lives more difficult.

We resemble our parents not just because of genetics, but because we watched, listened, and learned from them – a lot.

But even if you don’t have a family to care for or a company to run, you still can’t separate yourself from others.

No matter how unique, reclusive, or separate we feel, a microscope proves there’s no barrier or border containing us.

We can feel deeply responsible for what we have influence over. 

I listened to a podcast about a guy who went into a depression because of the troubles his son was facing. Because of something stupid the son did, the father blamed himself and slid into a depression for three years.

This is a natural.

So what do we do?

We could drive ourselves crazy over making sure we only have a positive influence on our surroundings. 

But we can’t really know all the ways we will ‘effect’ others. It’s impossible. The variables are too complex.¹ Just like you’ll never really know what is ‘effecting’ you.

Take out the recycling, or don’t. But once in a while, I hope a small sign reminds you—somewhere, someone is watching.

Originally published on Substack

1. Matt Dillahunty, Extended Dialogue on Veganism, Youtube ↩︎

On average I record 5-7 notes to myself per day. Topics range from dreams to creativity to philosophy and everything in between. The majority are only one or two sentences that I think are worth saving. Many are too personal to be of any use to share publicly. I’ve included are about 26 quotes too, and a few notes may be paraphrased and unattributed. Here are 189 of my favorite.

1. “Let a life be so full of humility as to be prostrate at the feet of a baby”
2. Think of the nicest thing you’ve done recently. Now imagine you won’t do anything better than that for the next 6 months. In other words, lower your expectations.
3. “Thinking isn’t knowing.” – Cape Fear
4. Nothing is in your control, and you can do whatever you want.
5. A bad mood is only bad if it’s unpredictable.
6. Memory is described as being “broadly distributed.” Nowhere specific and everywhere at once.
7. When we don’t believe in someone’s experience, it sucks out all our curiosity. Openness gives you curiosity.
8. The maximum speed (while doing something properly) feels a bit slower than you think. We tend to override our bodies and speed things up, but we end up doing it really badly.
9. Meddling with life is like trying to cross a road when there’s a steady stream of cars.
10. Basic pounding beats are the only kind of music the left hemisphere understands.
11. “We may find movies convincing precisly because we ourselves break up time and reality much as a movie camera does.” – Oliver Sacks
12. Hope = Feeling lonely for the future
13. There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance. – Socrates
14. Sometimes people will say “oh it’s so quiet”. This is usually when they are in a park at midday and they are relaxed and maybe they expected it to be noisier but I think it’s more about how they are feeling. When people get to their apartment after work they might say “it’s so quiet” but in a negative way.
15. When you feel stressed about doing something in the future, this is based on past things you didn’t like. Your mind is trying to avoid feeling like that way again, so it wants to avoid or to manipulate things to protect you.
16. A to-do list doesn’t need to say how something gets done. Maybe someone else does the task. Maybe several tasks get completed together. Maybe completing one task makes the rest of the list redundant.
17. We think about creativity like a sudden flash of insight. But why not think about it more like something constantly metabolizing. Basic creativity rate: How many things to you make or produce per day?
18. It’s not what you do, it’s the fact that you do anything at all. By applying any sort of action you have committed to working toward something. 
19. Suffering seems inextricably linked with learning.
20. The thought “when is interesting stuff going to happen?” is coming from a place that is unable to know what interesting is.
21. You don’t need to believe a belief.
22. The old man doesn’t bother with goals anymore. He just does something, in an uncomplicated way. It doesn’t make sense to him to make something more complicated than it needs to be. He doesn’t try to do the washing up ‘effortlessly, or joyously’, he simply washes up. When he lies down at the end of the day, his mind is calm and quiet.
23. Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? – Epictetus
24. The holy man has spoken to god. The atheist knows we have one life on earth- eg. He had seen death in a battlefield or maybe his own near death. So a deep “knowing” or truth is what they share. It’s like extreme belief starts looking like extreme non-belief. The importance of belief is cancelled out. Both these people “know” things about reality.
25. Worry is preposterous; we don’t know enough to worry. – Terrence McKenna
26. A man’s (Or Ken, in the movie Barbie) hunger to be understood is one of the strongest in his whole character. A nod of approval, a talisman, even a word—these are the heart and soul of meaning to him.” – Robert Johnson
27. Unconsciousness breeds in the comfortable and familiar.
28. Everything about you is inherited.
29. If your life is relatively easy, the main problem you have is figuring out how to be grateful.
30. If you think of the future as probabilities, it’s pretty easy to ‘predict’ what at least the next few days are like. It’s possible that I fly to Russia tomorrow, but it’s much more probable that I go to work.
31. It’s appropriate to fundamentally outgrow pride as an emotion… I think pride may be appropriate for childhood…but at a certain point I just think it becomes embarrassing. – Sam Harris.
32. Discipline gets confused with abstinence. How about ‘going the right length and no further?’
33. Content is less important than communication. “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” – Frank Lutz
34. Can you imagine consciously thinking all the negative thoughts you do?
35. I’m sitting in a Vietnamese restaurant, staring out the window at a busy road. A bus rolls past slowly, with a huge advertisement ‘wrapped’ around it. I realize this advertisement has entered into the restaurant for a seconds, and entered into my attention. That’s what ads are doing all the time. Entering into our attentions.
36. When your mind has been screaming and crying for something and finally gets it – it goes quiet for a bit. But it’s not a nice, peaceful quiet. It’s delusional. It’s like when you give a very rude child what they’ve been asking for. They chortle and pretend there never was any issue.
37. If you can happily swim against the waves they will reward you when you turn around and swim with them.
38. Every problem is a shoelace that can be pulled straight.
39. Hunger is not that unpleasant if you don’t feel additional emotions like anger. Same with a hangover. It’s not dissimilar to feeling tired, yet it’s usually coupled with a lot of guilt and self-loathing or thoughts like “I feel so bad.”
40. All your choices are yours. Justifying something yourself is ultimately a waste of energy. Make the best decision you can, with the choices you are aware of being available to you. Take responsibility for it. Move on.
41. Happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig. – Einstein 
42. I certainly do not pursue personal happiness. I just want to be understood. People shouldn’t pay attention to me as a person. – Rudolph Steiner
43. Don’t take credit for the result because we never know what the result will be.
44. Real progress or change in yourself always comes as a surprise. You are supposed to notice that you have stopped or started doing something.
45. Telling someone that “next time you are angry, make sure you aren’t going to say something that will hurt somones feelings”… Is like saying, the “next time you drink half a bottle of Jim Beam, make sure to ask yourself if you are making a good decision.”
46. The better you are at dealing with your anger, the more responsibility you should have over it. It’s like a Cadet misfiring a gun vs a Navy Seal.
47. I feel physically better after getting heatstroke and cycling 170km than a weekend of drinking.
48. At a basic level, a haircut tells other people that you care about society, like they do.
49. Can you be compassionate to a light switch?
50. There’s a monkey and a toucan. The monkey discovers he has magic powers and can grant unlimited wishes. The toucan goes to the monkey and explains that he wants a scratch on his back. But the monkey is so excited with his powers, he doesn’t properly listen. Again and again, the monkey creates all sorts of treasures and inventions for the toucan. Finally the toucan says, ‘enough!’ The monkey is shocked. ‘You mean to say you don’t want any of these things? One by one he lists out all his creations, and one by one the toucan shakes his head indigantly. One by one, they disappear, puff! Finally, it’s just the monkey and the toucan, sitting together quietly. The monkey, finally listening to the toucan, says oh, you want a scratch on the back, I can do that myself! I wish you had told me that in the first place!
51. Good and evil both increase at compound interest. – C.S Lewis
52. What strengths have been passed down your family line? These could be things like speed, jokes, memory.
53. Thinking is usually unhappy.
54. There’s intention and then there’s will. So quitting smoking requires an intention (I don’t want to smoke anymore) and will (not putting a cigarette in your mouth). If you’ve done it before, you can stop it. 
55. The only point of being at ease is to more easily put others at ease.
56. Relaxation is what exists when tension is gone.
57. You will only realize how strong the tug toward sugar is if you’ve ever tried to resist it.
58. Your body wants to be used and feel good. I don’t think it’s interested in living forever. The strength and health of our bodies are means to an end, not ends in themselves.
59. ‘Survivalists’ believes defending a basement is better than dying honorably.
60. The saddest, most hateful, shameful, despicable thing you’ve done in your life so far is probably funny to someone else.
61. Music can emphasize or trivialize feelings we already have. We can experience awe and joy at the sight of a grand canyon, only for dramatic music to make the whole thing feel corny. Or a film score can make you cry real tears.
62. The point of competing is to see what happens when you are ‘trying’ your hardest you can.
63. A person who is cruel to a defenseless animal will undoubtedly be cruel to defenseless people.
64. Everyone is thinking stuff all the time. Everyone thinks while in a particular place – A bed, a park bench, a waiting room. How many thoughts have happened in the back of a 5 year old uber car? How about a 1000 year old Greek orthodox church? How do they differ?
65. A friend at work was complaining how ‘low energy’ she has become. She had seen several different kinds of doctors, alternative health.. and complained about a number of negative factors in her life. She feared her energy had gone forever. I bump into her at the end of the day I saw her showing someone around a social gathering, and she was smiling and brimming with renewed focus and excitement. Where had that energy come from?
66. Most of the time when you fumble, miss a stitch, tick the wrong box etc, you are simply not looking at what you doing. 
67. To demand that people take personal responsibility for their behavior is extremely difficult.
68. Instant physical boost – Stop exercising for a little bit. Instant mental boost – stop eating for a little bit.
69. It’s a great skill to say unexpected things.
70. How to be open minded: Don’t accept or reject anything. Just test the validity of it.
71. “He who plants a tree knowing that he will never sit under its shade, has at least begun to understand the meaning of life.” – Tagore
72. It’s only once we have scaled and reached the summit of an obstacle, can we behold it.
73. Everything man has made, he first had to think about it.
74. Think of song lyrics as images. What’s important is what emotions are those images soaked in.
75. Immortalists are questioning the ‘rules of life’. They want to push the human body way, way past what is considered possible. But what if the limitations of earth are the point? Maybe the whole point is to live as good as you can within the rules of life. Gravity, Entropy, Speed of Light. If one of these things was removed, the universe wouldn’t work.
76. Notice the order you do things. When you get dressed, what item do you put on first. Socks? Left or right?
77. There’s how many choices you have and then there’s how many choices you think are available to you. 
78. When you do something fun, like go to a party, or surf a wave, consider of all the people in the world who are daydreaming about what you are doing. For every wave caught, or juicy hamburger eaten, how many more imaginary waves and hamburgers are out there?
79. When people get together and work together and learn from each other its almost inevitable they will get to their goal.
80. Stress tires the body more than any physical effort.
81. Our personality can’t help but make its mark on everything we do. There’s your signature (which is meant to be unique), but how you move your hand, the pen you choose etc.
82. People like to hear opinions because it shows where you stand.
83. Working in a quiet area of airport maximises productivty by like 3000%.
84. Don’t slam the door.
85. If life seems to be giving you very rough, simplistic lessons, maybe that’s a sign that you’re not absorbing them.
86. Conspiracy theories have two main characteristics: they explain everything by reference to a single factor, and they can never be disproven.
87. We are extremely habitual. Pick a different spot to chain up your bike. Eat something different for breakfast. Take a different route to work..
88. There are two ways to think about any event, situation etc. One from self-interest, and one from compassion. They are not compatible.
89. If left to its own devices, the body doesn’t want to move quicker than it has to. A wild animal would be extremely confused and alarmed if you ever tried to ‘rush’ it.
90. Intellect vs intuition. The intellect keeps track of time, makes sure to leave early, worries about running out of time, checks the wristwatch, intuition knows how much time it has left.
91. Kids love watching returned library books go down conveyer belt.
92. Can you literally not do it, or is it just a matter of comfort? More often than not, it’s about comfort. If you find something difficult, that’s great, because it means you are able to do it.
93. “Behaviour is organized around beliefs. As long as you can fit behaviour into someone’s belief system, you can get him to do anything, or stop him from doing anything. – John Grinder
94. “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.” – Schopenhauer 
95. It’s easier to have deep thoughts when we formally ask ourselves a question.
96. A great artist sees the world around him as a painting and transcribes it carefully to a canvas.
97. “I think it’s the pursuit that screws up happiness. If we drop the pursuit, it’s right here.” – James Hillman
98. In order for a fight to happen, at least one person needs to take it personally. 
99. When people are under stress, tell them what to do instead of what not to do. Tell someone to stay calm, rather than ‘don’t’ panic.
100. Extracting the unfamiliar, kills life.
101. Even after a nuclear holocaust there would still be dew drops on blades of grass.
102. The way you deal with things in your dream is how you really are.
103. Photography is about capturing beauty that is already there.
104. Meaning is not something we make up, it’s something we find. – Iain McGhilchrist
105. Guilt is like the plot of a bad movie. Hard to take seriously.
106. A simple problem requires a simple solution.
107. We tend to shrug off the fact that our perception of the world is always changing. Look at a streetlight at night, and see how the light blurs and smears across your whole field of vision. If that happened during the day you’d call an ambulance, but we tend to not really notice it.
108. When you catch a thought that you’ve had before like “I need to start saving money”, admit to yourself that this is the probably the millionth time you’ve had this thought. Imagine fireworks and explosions like you’ve just won the price is right. Congratulations, you’ve thought this thing 1 MILLION times!
109. We get into trouble when we believe we don’t have choices.
110. All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. – Blaise Pascal
111. Any absolute (eg. It’s impossible to work with this guy) should be questioned.
112. Before you try and fix your job, try putting way, way more energy into fixing what you do outside of work. If you only have 1 hour of free time, put every spare second into that hour.
113. What makes a country ‘healthy’? Certainly some countries seem healthier than others. If you visit a ‘sick’ country, you can return home and feel grateful. Or you could stay there and make it healthier. Likewise, you can move to a healthy country, and be happy. 
114. Do you hold your coffee cup responsible when it burns you?
115. Every time you get lost in some train of thought, your posture will change according to that train of thought – Brad Warner
116. If you don’t like the guy, don’t vote for him. Why do you need to hate or kill him?
117. When you visit a city you used to live in, if you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself walking around inside a memory.
118. Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. – Georgia O’Keefe
119. A city multiplies and intensifies your state of mind. Feeling lonely? The city will provide a hundred happy couples. Feeling angry? The city will provide a hundred enemies.
120. There’s putting things off… and then there’s lying to yourself.
121. It’s always helpful to ask yourself “What can I do to make this go well?”
122. “How is it far…if you can think of it.” – Confucius 
123. Criticism is usually veiled hatred.
124. Overcoming an addiction doesn’t mean you abstain forever, it means you can pick up a cigarette, smoke it, and know you don’t want it anymore.
125. Gen Z look, talk and act different than my generation, but… they have the same genetics. So it’s the same sexual urges or urges for power, simply expressed differently.
126. Culture, at any one moment is a feeling. The content is always new and changing. If you don’t look at American culture for a year, it would only take a few days to get a grip on the feeling.
127. Caffeine burrows you down onto specific tasks and gives a pleasure in “doing little tasks” . 
128. To process information quickly, we tend to filter it into categories and impressions based on what we already know.
129. It’s all just a matter of view. Maybe very confident people perceive others as overly young and in-experienced. Maybe natural leaders perceive others as lacking vision or direction.
130. “Have a little fun. Make a little money. Do a little good.” – Alan Miller 
131. You can have beliefs about changing beliefs, like “I don’t think long term change is possible”
132. When you send a message to someone, it takes up a little bit of their time to process it and then perhaps they have to do something. Always remember it costs them some time and energy.
133. For big questions in life like who should I marry? What job should I do? We almost never have enough data to answer them. That’s why we need intuition as well.
134. Most people don’t hate the hunchback. We imagine a person with disability lives a life of shame, but maybe they are actually experiencing a lot of genuine kindness and concern from everyone they come across.
135. “I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.”
136. How to draw: “He just explained that he looked at what he was going to draw, and then imagined it on the page. He did this a few times until he could see the figure vividly and clearly on the page. Then he would simply follow the lines he imagined on the page until he could replicate what he saw on the outside.” – Richard Bandler
137. “A sensitive and honest-minded man, if he’s concerned about evil and injustice in the world, will naturally begin his campaign against them by eliminating them at their nearest source: his own person. This task will take his entire life.” – Fernando Pessoa
138. When you wake up groggy at some random time, what did you expect? What did you intend exactly when you went to sleep?
139. Go for a run with the intention of not stopping (Pick a distance for you where this is a reasonable goal). Go for a run. Notice how many times you stop. That’s how much interference is going on – from your nervous system, your thoughts… 
140. The most simple thing a cold does is take away some of your control. When you feel high and mighty the tiniest things can bring you back to earth: Sweat, a cold, a zit on your nose, losing your keys.
141. The most painful task is the task that proves that your ego doesn’t know much.
142. Discipline is simply anything other than stuff that naturally falls on you.
143. Speaking in an engaging way is simply not allowing someone to lose interest in what you are saying.
144. There are two terrible things that can happen to you. You can get what you want or not get what you want. – Schopenhaur
145. A swim can burn 500 calories. A shower can burn about 5. One is almost no exertion, one takes a lot of exertion. But you feel better after both. So, there’s something about water brushing over our body that just feels good.
146. Good leaders can identify who would like to contribute but might not be ready to say so.
147. Sport calms the war instinct of a society.
148. Self-limiting beliefs are everywhere! Stuff like “my brain isn’t working today.” “I won’t be able to swim as fast as you guys.” “I can’t focus when there’s music playing.” Can’t, never, always, are giveaways.
149. Productivity is simply a function of what you’re willing to face directly.
150. If you are relatively healthy, you should have MORE than enough energy to get through the day. By that I mean you should probably have an excess of energy. Therefore, exercise is actually just a really useful way to ‘spend’ excess energy.
151. There’s no one personality framework. There’s probably an infinite amount.
152. Our personality, hang-ups, compulsions, sins are about 1/3 nature, 1/3 nurture, 1/3 free choice. 
153. When we struggle with a problem, a lot of the struggling is due to a certain ‘type’ of solution that is evading us. For example, we feel we don’t have enough information to decide between A or B. But a perfect solution could be you bumping into an old friend who tells you about ‘C’. That solution doesn’t fufill any of the criteria you had set.
154. The best conversation is when the thought to talk about your own interests doesn’t even cross your mind.
155. If one doesn’t honour their word with others, they probably don’t honour it with themselves.
156. Anxiety is the belief that things are really going wrong this time.
157. The most horrible thing in your life has already been experienced – it was the most horrible experience of your life.
158. What if you could visually ‘see’ words and sounds that leave your mouth. I’d imagine that singing would look amazing. And negative comments would look like little barbs.
159. I hear a story about someone’s aunt. She got lost trying to find a cafe, because she refused to use google maps. Some people have a very small mental map of world – limited by their beliefs and stories. That woman didn’t even have a literal map!
160. “Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four” – Neal Stephenson
161. Eyes that are constantly blinking means your thoughts are restless.
162. A jungian view of Hitman (2024). The protagonist is living a meek existence. It’s him and his cats alone. He’s all theory, no practice. He’s comfortable but extremely limited. But then, as an undercover agent, he starts trying on new personas. This unleashes a lot of energy. All that creativity that naturally comes to him was sitting around untapped. This attracts a woman. He wouldn’t have been able to meet her if he didn’t grow out of himself. She attracts him, inspires him, shows him many new sides of life. She’s even dangerous (she kills someone!). But together they are better. He’s more whole. Partnering with her makes him whole.
163. But in the NFL, very few (Quarterbacks) are naturally at peace. And that’s why when I compare him to Patrick Mahomes, I’m comparing him to how Patrick feels at peace… Patrick showed up at peace, and so did Brock. The draft doesn’t understand that thing.
164. A journalist burns out. “Birding” solves his anxiety. But this guy is such a high achiever, he can’t help but become really good at birding. Although he’s healthier than when he was writing about COVID, he can’t recognize his unquenchable drive to achieve and be ‘good’.
165. When people do religious things it seems like our general nature is to give them space, quiet and some respect. Why can’t that be applied to any activity? Jogging around a park, or feeding ducks in a pond?
166. “To be a civilized man,” he said, “you need two qualities: compassion and the ability to block punches – Hemmingway
167. Whenever you return back to reality from the clutches of a bad mood, it can never be on your own terms. Because your own terms were the initial conditions for the mood. There has to be another element. A negotiation, a request, a new insight or perspective.
168. The enneagram is an ancient personality system that essentially divides people into 9 groups from ‘1’ to ‘9’. The ‘3’ is concerned mainly with the image of winning and can lie casually and freely to serve that goal. Most American presidents were ‘3’s’ (Trump, Carter, Kennedy, Reagan etc). Interestingly not George Bush. One could say that America itself is a ‘3’ because it mainly cares about winning.
169. Every time I’ve overcome any ‘problem’ in life, I’ve found I have the ability to overcome a slightly more ‘difficult’ one. It’s painful, equally painful each time. So the saying goes – “It never gets easier, you just go faster.” Eg. At level 2, you can handle level 2 problems. At level 3, you can handle level 3 problems. Therefore, it’s true then that the present moment should always be able to teach you something. Even if you rock up to Spanish class a million times, each time will be a new lesson. You might find yourself thinking ‘oh I’m just doing silly class because I’ve got nothing better to do with my sorry life – I’m no longer learning like I used to.’ And damn, that’s a persuasive thought. That thought.. that exact thought.. thats your exact reality at that moment. That’s what you’ve got to meet.
170. A few new staff join the design team. They come from other big tech companies or large corporates like banks or telcom. They are smart but they bring a predictable way of working – honed for years in a pretty specific type of environment. I feel a little disappointed. Employees make up most of the culture. I think, it’s unlikely this person is going to snap our ways of working out of their ruts. Someone from another large company will bring their brainpower of course, but easily sink into a groove again. Ideally you identify people who can both ‘fit in’ and influence positive change.
171. There are some days when the outdoors seems very ‘alive’ and appealing. This might be a day where you wake up early, without an alarm. This is a good day to do exercise. 
172. Ideally we would admit what we really want. But in many cases, we unconsciously do the opposite. We ‘write off’, ignore, or even hate things that we want. If someone believes they are not smart enough to go to college, it might be too painful for them to admit what they want. Instead, they might say ‘I’m not really interested in college.’ 
173. We never know exactly what will cause us the most pain. I spend weeks dealing with a trouble at work, only to feel twice the discomfort when I lock my keys inside my house. Similarly, we never know exactly what will delight us or make us laugh.
174. There’s many ways to work faster, if you’re aware of them. We are slow when we only know one way of working (or doing anything). Don’t care how you look, ask for help, cheat, take a shortcut: these are all ways to go faster.
175. I tend to speak from my gut, meaning I don’t really think carefully before I speak. Some people speak from their head, or their heart. A good nurse intuits words that make a patient feel safe and reassured. A good computer programmer intuits words that are logical. A salesman intuits words that are persuasive or engaging.
176. “People who have a creative side and do not live it out are most disagreeable clients. They make a mountain out of molehill…there is a kind of floating charge of energy in them which is not attached to its right object.” – Marie-Louise von Franz
177. In order to sing or act convincingly, you need to actually believe whatever you are singing or doing. 
178. Some people (Hitler being the most extreme example) are ‘counter-phobic’. It’s a tool, not a personality. When in doubt, they bite whatever is threatening. Their whole life is about rooting out (perceived) dangers. 
179. Why does feeling sad feel so ‘bad’? It might be because we are trying as hard as possible not to feel sad.
180. Anxiety, when it’s slowly starting to increase, can be mistaken for excitement.
181. 9 times out of 10, listening is more helpful than offering advice. Jonathan Shedler, a therapist, agrees: “If there’s one thing we’ve learned in more than a century and a quarter of treating mental and emotional suffering, it’s that giving advice doesn’t help.”
182. Hesitation invariably causes trouble. It spoils ‘good’ acts. It kills our natural spontaneity. So when you find yourself hesitating, it’s worth investigating. What word, feeling, action has caused you to hesitate? 
183. A lot of frustration at work or with personal relationships can be solved by taking some small proactive measure yourself, rather than waiting for the other party to do the thing you want. For example, at work, I wanted co-operation, feedback, engagement from stakeholders. But I didn’t get any until I shared a proposal myself.
184. Don’t be late. Ideally, you never even think about ‘being late’. You just plan so you arrive early enough. So with a bit of planning, prioritizing, one should never really need to ‘rush’. 
185. Places that seem to inherently have a good feeling about them: (Most) Primary schools, Parks, Benches, Places of worship, Sporting fields, Playgrounds, Libraries, Clubs, Small farms, Camps.
186. The only thing that reliably makes people laugh is when I’m not afraid to look bad. 
187. Someone slipped and tore their achilles during a tennis lesson. The mood of the group turned subdued, sad and a little fearful. The coach commented on this atmosphere and I noticed him trying some things to cheer us up. Humour, playfulness, mock aggression seemed to help. It’s a bit like when a speaker asks a bored, sleepy audience to get up and wiggle their arms stupidly for a few minutes. 
188. I’m drifting off to sleep and I feel the strongest sensation that someone is breaking into my house. Every cell in my body tells me that this is real. Yet a small part of me knows that it’s not. So I try to listen to that part, and relax. The sensation, and the associated images die down. What just happened? It’s simple. I experienced fear, yet I didn’t buy into it. I think this is a healthy relationship to have with fear. Since we can’t avoid it, we just need to manage ourselves while in its presence. Okay, I feel scared, but what actually needs to be done?
189. Fitness & mobility test: Jump out of a swimming pool without using your knees.

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