YOUR KINDLE NOTES FOR:

How To Live Life

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228 Highlights

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What would you free yourself from if you knew you wouldn’t have to pay any price?

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Free from doubt, negative outcomes or shame; free from caring at all.

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such introspection can be thrilling but also harrowing.

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we can expect to balk a bit at going deep.

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This is not a bad thing,” I told myself, “and it’s not a good thing. It’s just a thing that is.”

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using acceptance as a tool,

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That’s what we’re after here, using acceptance as a very simple tool: I see me, and it’s all okay.

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Just to be clear, acceptance doesn’t mean surrender. To accept means to process information with emotional
neutrality.
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To accept means to process information with emotional neutrality.

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How wonderful to be free from the feeling of this really sucks. You can be. It’s a choice you get to make.
Simply seek to acquire the habit of saying, and thinking, “I accept.”

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Simply seek to acquire the habit of saying, and thinking, “I accept.”

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try to push past these feelings with acceptance; acknowledge your reaction, then move on.

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We’ve established our respective credentials for co-investigating how to live life, and we already have some new
approaches for that.

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I’m certain about uncertainty. No one’s moving me off of that. So if you’re looking for answers or absolutes,
they will largely not be found around here.

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a new idea right now? Here it comes: Dismiss right and wrong.

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Dismiss right and wrong.

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Say of everything, “What can I make out of this?”

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Here again we find emotional neutrality;

Discovery happens when you ask and answer some questions. Got any questions you’d like to ask yourself? Just
ask. Just answer. Explore. Don’t judge.

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Our goofy enthusiasm is the engine that drives our dreams.

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Here’s what to do: Don’t care. Let your unfounded enthusiasm drive your bus even as you acknowledge that it
is, or might be, unfounded.

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Understand your hope as your fuel, in and of itself, without any connection to future events. This is expectation
properly used as a tool.

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That’s true for any change you might make. Make it; and don’t care.

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What do you think would be easier to do if you really didn’t care about the outcome?

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The mere act of trying to make stuff happen makes abundant stuff happen.

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You change. You grow. You meet some goals.

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Eventually, unfounded enthusiasm turns into founded enthusiasm,

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Support your dreams with goofy enthusiasm.

The second step is believing they will

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Detaching from outcome – not caring if you fail – is what makes the outcome possible.

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And now I can reveal my super-secret strategy for making people feel good about you: Make them feel good
about themselves.

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my super-secret strategy for making people feel good about you: Make them feel good about themselves.

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The next three people you meet, make it your goal to make them feel good about themselves.

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make it your goal to make them feel good about themselves.

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don’t propose this as an exercise in seduction, though it is very seductive.

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People end up looking at you and thinking, wow, that’s a person who makes me feel good about myself. That’s
someone I want to be with.

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Because I was trying to solve a puzzle with incomplete information.

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I can intentionally place myself in situations of incomplete information, just for fun.

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Same for you. Know what you do that you like so that you can do it more.
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Know what you do that you like so that you can do it more.

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Pick something you like and drill into why.

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And it starts where we start: with a list.

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It’s hard to look at our negative side. It’s especially hard to look at stuff we fear we’re stuck with

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To get past this process block, just attack the problem in two parts. First, assess the situation. Second, address
the situation.

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Problems: You have to see them to solve them.

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Taken together, they tell me that personal liberation is a focus of my thinking. Taken together, what do your
answers tell you about you? That you’re into family? Work? Fame? Money? Recreation? Competition? Higher
consciousness? Highs?

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When in doubt, always act in a manner that is beyond reproach.

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I often find myself caught between what I want and what I think I can get away with.

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Guided by always act in a manner that is beyond reproach, I move not so much toward morality as toward
safety: a place where I can trust my choices more.
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I move not so much toward morality as toward safety:

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place where I can trust

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my choices more. This helps me keep my innate sneakiness at bay.

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You don’t think I have innate sneakiness? Oh, man, innate sneakiness is my (very clumsily stated) middle name.
Note that I can reveal this to you. I can reveal unpleasant truths about myself and not die.

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You can reveal unpleasant truths about yourself and not die. Try that. Tell yourself an unpleasant truth about
yourself.

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Every time you reframe the question, you invite new answers, usually more precise ones, but in any case always
different – and always beneficial in terms of simply articulating yourself to yourself.

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Open and maintain a moderated dialogue with yourself.

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Ask yourself questions, answer them honestly, and keep an eye on the underlying assumptions that guide you.

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act in service of their self-image at the expense of their self-interest.

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When they filter reality, there’s no question which filter they use: With comic characters, it’s all ego, all the time.
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to figure out who, really, is the boss of our brains.

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Now you tell me, what did I want: to write the text, hear the song, or play the game?

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The healthy mind starts by acknowledging that it’s not of one mind.

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Inner conflict – conflicting

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desires generated by conflicting orientations – is bound to be our norm.

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These subsets of ourselves are not to be avoided or averted, but teased out, strand by strand, and understood and
embraced.

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One such strand is action controlled by intention, something we might call an instruction set or how-to program.

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Alongside our how-to programs are memories. Some of these are available on demand but others await hidden
triggers.

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We can think of our mental resources like Russian nesting dolls, with memories packed inside programs, and
feelings packed within memories.

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Name your feelings. Articulate them. Move past vague nostalgia

to the vividly descriptive. This is yet another strategy you can use to know yourself well.

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So here’s the feelings part of our brain: a rowdy region where emotions crowd around, maybe uninvited.

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here’s the feelings part of our brain: a rowdy region where emotions crowd around, maybe uninvited.

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At this point I’m thinking that my brain has no boss at all.

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What feelings come to you unbidden? Where and when and how are you when this happens?

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have feelings that I can control and feelings that I can’t.

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conflicted and slightly pissed off because I can’t do both.

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At this point confusion sets in. I need a sorting system, some way to organize and identify all the metaphorical
voices in my head.

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I need a sorting system, some way to organize and identify all the metaphorical voices in my head. Maybe a
tighter metaphor will help. “If my brain were a royal court,”

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Maybe a tighter metaphor

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“If my brain were a royal court,” I ask myself, “what courtiers, attendants or advisors might I expect to find?”
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That’s a rational, self-interested voice, but is it the boss of the brain? I’m not prepared to say yes yet.

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What other courtiers can you name?

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Do you have a shadow minister, insidious, with a defeatist agenda? Mine always asks, “Weren’t you supposed to
be rich and famous by now?”

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a shadow minister, insidious, with a defeatist agenda? Mine always asks, “Weren’t you supposed to be rich and
famous by now?”

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rogue minister is the voice that keeps our habits happening.

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Is there magic in your mind? Do creative gifts come to you unbidden? That’s the wizard of your royal court.

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Can you think of ways that your courtiers might conspire against your best interest?

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Who is the boss of the brain? The boss of the brain is the voice that makes the choice.

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The boss of the brain is the voice that makes the choice.

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When specific parts of us make choices, those parts take charge.

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What we seek is a healthy boss, a boss who acts in our best interest.
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Decision-making, then, can be thought of not as choosing an action but choosing who chooses.

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I let my ministers talk. I listen attentively to what they have to say.

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They may be loud, those voices, but they don’t have the last word, not one of them.

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The boss of the brain – the “me” that I’ve been looking for – is the voice that listens to all voices, and then acts
in my best interest.

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Do you wish that some of your voices were silent? Man, who doesn’t? For me it’s the money one.

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not a good thing, not bad thing, just a thing that

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Let all your voices be heard, even the ones you don’t feel good about. Even the ones that scare you.

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Scary voices scare us less once we realize that they’re just voices. They’re part of who we are, but they don’t
define who we are.

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we see the simple utility of a strategy in service of a goal. My goal is to act in my best interest.

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the simple utility of a strategy in service of a goal.

My goal is to act in my best interest. My strategy is to empower the part of me which serves that goal. My tactics
include concretely considering all points of view, even the difficult ones.

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but rather, “My, look at that interesting ugly.”

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A healthy brain has many points of view; many competing “voices.”

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The voice that makes choices is the boss of the brain.

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Explore difficult issues with acceptance. Take action in best interest.

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It can be hard to take action in best interest. We may lack clarity and we may lack motivation.

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We may yet lack courage. That’s okay.

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At this point it’s enough just to establish the goal and move toward it. The growth is in growing, not in having
grown.

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When I see my black holes, I want to blow them up.

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Here in my parallel universe, I can unpack any black hole and explore it in depth.

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Here in this place, I have no obsessive need to achieve or compete or compare. Here in this place, I can relax.
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Does this resolve my issue with envy?

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But I don’t really feel like I’m doing my job if I present just the goal and not the strategies, too

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So I give you useful fiction and parallel universe and consensus reality.

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who likes to admit that they’re wrong, or lacking, or weak?

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We believe we shouldn’t have flaws – flaws are bad, flaws are wrong! So we ignore them or disclaim them.

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We sweep them under the rug, while simultaneously staring off into the middle distance saying, “Rug? What
rug?”

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Why not just subtract pain from the equation? Get neutral with your feelings.

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Tell your monsters that they neither scare you or scare you not; you don’t think in those terms.

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you’ll develop a solid place to stand – outside ego, outside pain

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I barfed my beastly secrets all over everywhere: to readers, reviewers, total strangers, my friends, my wife, you.

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Am I that afraid to just be?

Follow this accept-and-discover circuit and see where it leads.

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figure out what’s bugging you, and cook up any simple, small strategy to make it bug you less.

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to remind myself that it’s okay to just

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Acceptance beats denial like rock beats scissors.

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When you reduce existential reverie to recipes, I think you’re onto something.

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because the more we cherish our lives,

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the more we might grieve to let them go.

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New beers and new books, then, are two unfillable holes in my life.

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We just don’t want death to spoil our mood.

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Our strategy for this is to consider death with the same emotional

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neutrality we used to see our monsters more clearly.

My problem is that I’ve been trying to use a finite thing to fill an infinite hole, and that can’t be done.

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The hole isn’t a hole. It’s a whole. If I say so. Does that cure the bottom ache? No, but it’s the start of a new

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practice:

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the practice of interpreting reality in ways that serve our best interest.

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Interpret reality in ways that serve your best interest. It’s not cheating. It’s not even a useful fiction. It’s just
evaluation,

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Open your mind to the possibility that this one experience you’re in right now can fill you completely and meet
all your needs. This is how you step away from a regret you might otherwise feel.

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If you changed your thinking from “this isn’t fulfilling” to “this totally is” how would that moment look?

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Write a little snapshot of where you see yourself in five years. It’s not that long a time. You’ll be there before
you know it – if you know where it is.

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I’m retired, but that doesn’t mean much, because I’m still writing books and still flying all over the world to
teach.

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Think of such snapshots as a rope you throw into the future and then climb up after.
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do. It’s how I’ll get to Aruba. It’s how you’ll get to your dreams.

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I can use this same approach to address other issues in my life, be they personal, practical, familial, whatever. I
don’t try to solve my problems, per se. I just collect more information about them.

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Start small. Pick a subject you can peck away at in the corners of your time.

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using the yeast of new information to make our lives rise.

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people put demands on our time. Some demands are legitimate, and should be negotiated in good faith and good
spirit. Other demands, though, may mask a hidden agenda;

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For fear of encountering their monsters in this area,

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stunt your growth by sabotaging your time.

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This isn’t nice and it’s not fair, but it does happen, and when it happens it demands action – bold action. You
can’t let others stand between you and the life you want to live. It won’t make you happy and it won’t make
them happy, either.

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it’s hard to take action toward change, especially the kind of change that involves removing

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people from your life. It’s hard to measure that risk versus reward.
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The yardstick I use is a hill.

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People use this logic to leave jobs every day. Leave home. Leave relationships. Leave addictions.

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What hill do you stand on? What mountain do you seek? What

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If the people around you support you in your growth, then all is well.

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It’s okay to share your time with others, but don’t forget who owns it, and don’t neglect to manage it like the
non-renewable resource it is.

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Stand up to emotional bullies

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and demand your time and space to grow.

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So, our goal is to grow and our strategy for growing is to gather information.

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It’s really one of only two states you can be in: Either you know your purpose or you don’t.

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you don’t yet know your purpose, then it’s simple: Your purpose is to find your purpose.

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Now I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you to answer quickly, without thinking, to capture your
unstudied response. What is your purpose?
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My purpose is to teach. It was my purpose long before I knew it.

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One was my awareness that a writer is a teacher.

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Writing is my passion but teaching is my purpose.

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It was almost math to me: passion + purpose = power.

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discoveries gleaned through gathering and using information.

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This is how I have achieved, so to speak, critical mass.

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You don’t know which one piece of information is going to change everything. So you just have to keep looking.

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Remember, if you don’t know your purpose, then looking for purpose is your purpose.

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What do you know about your purpose so far? What steps can you take to know more?

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using the corners of our time to advance our understanding of anything at all. Maybe we have clear purpose;
maybe not yet.

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Each of us is the center of our own universe, and we’re of surprisingly

little interest to the universe next door.

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reminds me not to over-invest in others’ opinions of me, or get hooked on their validation.

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messages that I can anticipate receiving if I just stay open to new ideas.

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Using new information to acquire a clearer understanding of yourself requires just three steps. First, receive
relevant input.

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Second, apply it to yourself. Third, use what you learn.

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company and amity of people who, like you, are alive in their minds.

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The ones who can say what’s an important thing they know?

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asking the same questions, contemplating the same truths.

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To seek a seeker, seek what a seeker seeks.

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How to hook up at museum lectures?

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To better yourself, better your company. To better your company, better yourself.
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just keep doing what you want to be doing anyway: eagerly engaging with the world and investigating any
mystery it presents.

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Is moral behavior a divine imperative or a survival strategy?

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To start the investigation, I’ll use a tool called arbitrary choice.

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So I start by making an arbitrary choice: Happiness is freedom from woe.

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what if I make a different arbitrary choice? What if I say that happiness is living my dreams

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I need a definition of happiness that’s lasting and universal,

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Of course our definitions shift as our circumstances change.

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old joke about the dyslexic agnostic, from, “Does dog exist?” to, “Does God exist?”

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can have a rich spiritual experience right in the midst of my prevalent life.

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Thoreau reminds us that, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

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dynamically engaging ourselves with the question of what makes us happy will, in a material sense, make us
happy.
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The mass of men in their quiet desperation aren’t on our path, nor should they be; their happiness lies elsewhere.

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Not knowing – never really knowing for sure – is part of the package you bought.

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The journey is the destination. The process is the product. The question is the answer.

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All I have to do is advance my ability to understand. Which I will naturally and inevitably do through practice

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“If God created everything, who created God?”

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What I wanted – what I want – is the faith without the leap. I want a simple, logical, practical grounding for my
belief system.

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want a theology that satisfies the smartass in the back of the class waving his hand with malicious intent.

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How disposed are you to replace old programming with new beliefs?

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make decisions, I want to be able to trust them, and by viewing them through the filter of good stewardship, I
find that I can.

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“Is this a good choice?” but rather, “Is this good stewardship?” That’s going to keep me right on track toward
actions that honor, respect and serve, and away from those that do not.
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one might call this a moral compass,

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Is that not where you want to be? Among the like-minded? The like-inspired? The like-ignited?

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It’s clear I’ll have to be like them to attract them.

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at handling our mental constructs. We fear them less because they’re familiar.

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we come to trust our choices because they’re well guided and well informed. That’s how we end up being
thoughtful, compassionate, engaged human beings.

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still think that the most rewarding philosophy one can embrace is home brewed. No one can speak to you in a
voice as manifest and knowing as your own. Speak clearly. Listen closely. That’s the path. That’s the habit of
growth.

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Here are some ideas that will help make them last:

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Keep breaking it down until you find a problem small enough to solve.

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For now just know that all you really need to be is alive in your mind.

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We want to know that we make some kind of difference around here.

Why bother living a good life? Why create? Why seek meaning? Why seek impact? It all ends in death anyhow,

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I’m present in the world with self-awareness and empathy.

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no energy on regret, it blocks progress. Focus on the steps you take next.

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That’s how you get to feel good about yourself:

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by constantly closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

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You rise in ability. You rise in capacity.

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You rise in empathy. You rise in love; in your capacity to give it, accept it, understand it, nurture it, manage it,
and keep it alive in your life. You rise in kindness. You steep yourself in kindness and soak others around you.

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All of us can have a practice of living our lives,

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That’s where real legacy lies: in the way we enrich the lives of those around us.

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All you have to do is keep your heart where everyone can see it.