The world exists, you have an opportunity to draw breath and participate, and you dare to indulge in self-pity?
William Ferraiolo • Meditations on Self-Discipline and Failure: Stoic Exercise for Mental Fitness
The right thing to do when you are in moments of suffering is to stand erect in the suffering. Wait. See what it has to teach you. Understand that your suffering is a task that, if handled correctly, with the help of others, will lead to enlargement, not diminishment.
David Brooks • The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
In my mind, pity isn’t even analogous to compassion. Pity is just the paternalistic cousin of contempt. It allows us to see others as “those less fortunate than ourselves” (a term I loathe). Pity keeps the other person at a distance and me in a rarified state of satisfaction.... Compassion, on the other hand, draws us close.
Compassion Not Pity
Far too many creative people have been taught to distrust pleasure and to put their faith in struggle alone. Too many artists still believe that anguish is the only truly authentic emotional experience. They could have picked up this dark idea anywhere; it’s a commonly held belief here in the Western world, what with our weighty emotional heritage
... See moreElizabeth Gilbert • Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
If I were to listen to stories about “that bad person” or “poor me,” and sympathize with your plight by saying things like, “That must have been tough,” or “It’s not your fault at all,” it is true that you might get some temporary solace. And you might even have a sense of satisfaction that it was good to get counseling, or good to consult this per
... See moreFumitake Koga • The Courage to Be Happy: Discover the Power of Positive Psychology and Choose Happiness Every Day
There is a way, with moderate moral imagination and considerable countercultural courage, to subvert this tendency without turning away from the reality and magnitude of suffering that we do live with — a way to esteem in attention and admiration not the unluckiness of what has happened to us but the luckiness that, despite it, we have become the p... See more
Maria Popova • The Good Luck of Your Bad Luck: Marcus Aurelius on the Stoic Strategy for Weathering Life’s Waves and Turning Suffering into Strength
The problem with our world is that it does not stop emphasizing that success, calm, happiness and fulfilment could, somehow, one day be ours. And in this way it never ceases to torture us. As with optimists, pessimists would like things to go well. But by recognizing that many things can – and probably will – go wrong, the pessimist is adroitly pla
... See moreAlain De Botton • The School of Life: An Emotional Education
If you suffer, the fault resides within you, and so too does the solution: You need to learn how to think, feel, and act differently