The Joy of Opting Out

if it’s amazing to have been granted any being at all – if ‘your whole life is borrowed time’, as Cain realised, watching news reports of the Danforth Avenue shootings – then wouldn’t it make more sense to speak not of having to make such choices, but of getting to make them? From this viewpoint, the situation starts to seem much less regrettable:

every shift in our seat, every bite of food, every pleasant daydream—is designed to avoid pain or seek pleasure. But if we can drop all that, we can, as Sam once said in his speech to the angry, befuddled atheists, learn how to be happy “before anything happens.” This happiness is self-generated, not contingent on exogenous forces; it’s the opposit

Consciously choosing to do one thing at a time has become the ultimate countercultural and revolutionary act.

It is much less painful to offer an immediate, polite ‘no thank you’ than to agree to do something and then later regret it. [By the way, if you find it hard to say ‘no’ to nice people – as I do – try setting up automated ‘canned responses’ for your emails. Having a set text to click saves you having to actually type mean things to friendly people