How To Live -27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion - Derek Sivers - Prepare For The Worst- 12 Insights

All of your life is nothing more than training your mind how to think. It's a tall order that only you can do.

Your mind is the only thing you have control over. You cannot control things that happen in the world so give up trying. This is how to live.

What you put in you'll get out.

What you think and believe is how you will act.

How you act is based on how you feel about what you think.

What you see manifest in the world is based on what you do but the jumping off point always begins in your mind.

You have so much clutter in your unconscious mind that you aren't even aware of.

There are feelings of guilt, shame, fear, anger, and unworthiness that haven't bubbled up yet. Even if they have, you do one of two things.

1. You shove them back down and refuse to acknowledge the unconscious programming.

2. You show up like a victim and blame your lot in life on something or someone in the world.

This is the state of the human condition. No one escapes these mountains.

You either do the work, meaning you rewire your brain, or you suffer. This is the universal law.

Luxury makes you soft, weak, and harder to satisfy.

You're happy when you're lounging in your penthouse and lost sitting on a park bench.

I pity those who cannot enjoy anything but the best, especially when what they believe is the best isn't even close.

Do you realize that's what you do all day long? You vividly imagine the best or worst-case scenarios and the Universe always says "yes."

If the pandemic taught you nothing else, it revealed to you just how much you are uncomfortable with being uncomfortable in small ways.

You are uncomfortable being indoors with your wife and kids for an extended period of time.

You are uncomfortable with cutting back on some of the luxuries you're used to.

You are uncomfortable having your packages from Amazon delayed by a few days.

You are uncomfortable with not being able to gather in large crowds.

You are uncomfortable adapting your business to a new marketplace.

Have you ever heard of the term "death cleaning?"

In Swedish, the exercise is döstädning -- a combination of the word “dö” (which means death) and “standing” (which means cleaning). “Death cleaning is not about dusting or mopping up; it is about a permanent form of organization that makes your everyday life run more smoothly,”

Let me sum it up for you. Stop accumulating so much stuff so that when you die you leave it to the survivors to clean up and sort through. None of your cherished belongings will fit into a coffin anyway.

No blaming.

No finger-pointing.

It's what you're thinking and believing that is giving everything the label of good or bad.

If you can find one reason (and you can) that you are better off because this situation occurred, you can find two. If you can find two reasons, you can find ten. That should be enough to get you back on the right track.

Win the lottery?

Lose a million dollars?

Get famous?

Go blind in an accident?

A parent transitions?

From the top of the mountain to the bottom of the ocean?

Go to jail?

Accused of wrongdoing of which you're innocent?

Roe vs Wade is overturned?

It doesn't matter because it doesn't change the reality of who you are.

Detach from the situation before you and be OK no matter what happens. This is how to live.

Emotions can be tamed like you would a dog.

I can't jump inside your body and change how you feel nor can anyone else so guess who that leaves?

You are in control.
If you don't grab hold of the steering wheel of your emotions you will have a wreck.

Shallow happy is trying to conquer the world.

Deep happy is conquering yourself.