The School of Life Dictionary

¶ Akrasia A central problem of our minds is that

The desire for fame has its roots in the experience of neglect and injury. No one would want to be famous who hadn’t also, somewhere in the past, been made to feel insignificant.

we know so much in theory about how we should behave, but engage so little with our knowledge in our day-to-day conduct.

we can be consoled by a bitter truth: we have no better options, for the conditions of existence are intrinsically rather than accidentally frustrating.

In the end, it is not darkness that dooms us, but the wrong sort of hope.

Serenity therefore begins with pessimism. We must learn to disappoint ourselves at leisure before the world ever has a chance to slap us by surprise at a time of its own choosing.

To overcome addiction, we need to lose our fear of our minds. We need a collective sense of safety around confronting loss, humiliation, sexual desire and sadness.

Secondly, many jobs are relatively meaningless because it’s very possible, in the current economy, to generate profits from selling people things that don’t fundamentally contribute to well-being, but prey instead on their appetites and lack of self-command.

The problem with the modern world is that it does not stop lending us extremely high expectations. We are constantly invited to dream.