Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen.
Remember that stress doesn't come from what's going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what's going on in your life.
A hero has faced it all: he need not be undefeated, but he must be undaunted.
We all enjoy pushing ourselves to accomplish our objectives. But we don't need stress to get there.
The truth is that stress doesn't come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about these circumstances.
We need to distinguish between stress and stimulation. Having deadlines, setting goals, and pushing yourself to perform at capacity are stimulating. Stress is when you're anxious, upset, or frustrated, which dramatically reduce your ability to perform.
If you're successful and stressed out, you're succeeding in spite of your stress, not because of it.
Negative thoughts stick around because we believe them, not because we want them or choose them.
The less you think counterfactually, the less you experience stress. Stress, in this light, isn't a bad thing. It's simply a warning system telling you that your mind has lost touch with what's real.
The more you worry, the more you throw off the delicate balance of hormones required for health.
Statism – the subordination of the individual to the state - leads inevitably to the most hideous oppression.
Look closer at the stress in your own life and you can identify that negative emotions are always built on counterfactual statements.
You might think that shifting your thoughts is as easy as setting your mind to it. But stressful thoughts aren't held in place through choice or will power. They're held in place through perceived truth value.
Some people are so used to experiencing stress that they don't remember what life was like without it.
People often say that stress is a motivator. What we're referring to when we say this is really better described as stimulation and engagement.
Stress is the negative whirlwind of emotions that gets imposed on top of our stimulation and engagement.
Even in this secular country, the threat posed by religious fundamentalists is never very far away. Every major religious text exhorts the same principles - that of unyielding obedience to a supernatural being, and renunciation of the intellect and personal aspirations.
It's time we learned the truth about stress. It's time we identified the thoughts that actually create our stress and learned to dismantle them one by one.
Throughout history, independent minds have carried mankind forward. Whether they identified how to make fire or manufacture tools, develop rational philosophy or create man-glorifying art, pioneer scientific knowledge or invent the electric light, independent thinkers have created the goods on which human life and prosperity depend.
Stress is not the spice of life any more than arsenic is. And without it, you won't feel bored.
Here is the tragedy of theology in its distilled essence: The employment of high-powered human intellect, of genius, of profoundly rigorous logical deduction—studying nothing. In the Middle Ages, the great minds capable of transforming the world did not study the world; and so, for most of a millennium, as human beings screamed in agony—decaying from starvation, eaten by leprosy and plague, dying in droves in their twenties—the men of the mind, who could have provided their earthly salvation, abandoned them for otherworldly fantasies.
Many argue that Christianity is "different" from other religions - that it is primarily about love of one's fellow man. The Crusades, The Inquisition, Calvin's Geneva all prove that this is not the case. These events were pre-eminently about obedience to authority.
Stress is never a given. There are people who get divorced amicably. There are people who pack up and move with no emotional toll. There is no stressor 'out there' in the world. We experience stress - or we don't - depending on what we believe.
The elusive truth is that there is nothing stress-producing in the physical world. Things simply are. Molecules move. Light and sound appear.
... statism systematically violates the rights of individuals and is, therefore, immoral. Because it suppresses the mind and violates men's rights, it thereby causes abysmal poverty and is utterly impractical.
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