Living with a sense of purpose in life

Conclusion:

A sense of purpose in life also gives you this considerable advantage:

"People with a sense of purpose in life have a lower risk of death and cardiovascular disease."

The conclusions come from over 136,000 people who took part in 10 different studies.

Participants in the studies were mostly from the US and Japan.


The US studies asked people:

• how useful they felt to others,
• about their sense of purpose, and
• the meaning they got out of life.

The Japanese studies asked people about ‘ikigai’ or whether their life was worth living.
The participants, whose average age was 67, were tracked for around 7 years.

During that time almost 20,000 died.
 
But, amongst those with a strong sense of purpose or high ‘ikigai’, the risk of death was one-fifth lower.

Despite the link between sense of purpose and health being so intuitive, scientists are not sure of the mechanism.

Sense of purpose is likely to improve health by strengthening the body against stress.

It is also likely to be linked to healthier behaviours.

Dr. Alan Rozanski, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Of note, having a strong sense of life purpose has long been postulated to be an important dimension of life, providing people with a sense of vitality motivation and resilience.

Nevertheless, the medical implications of living with a high or low sense of life purpose have only recently caught the attention of investigators.

The current findings are important because they may open up new potential interventions for helping people to promote their health and sense of well-being.”

This research on links between sense of purpose in life and longevity is getting stronger all the time:

• “A 2009 study of 1,238 elderly people found that those with a sense of purpose lived longer.
• A 2010 study of 900 older adults found that those with a greater sense of purpose were much less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
• Survey data often links a sense of purpose in life with increased happiness.

No matter what your age, then, it’s worth thinking about what gives your life meaning.”



Read More:

Find out what kinds of things people say give their lives meaning.

Here’s an exercise for increasing meaningfulness

And a study finding that feeling you belong increases the sense of meaning.

The study was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine (Cohen et al., 2015).




A sense of purpose in life
Link: http://www.spring.org.uk/2015/12/here-is-why-a-sense-of-purpose-in-life-is-important-for-health

The Science and Practice of Happiness Across the Lifespan

Uploaded on Jul 1, 2011

Is happiness a skill? Modern neuroscientific research and the wisdom of ancient contemplative traditions converge in suggesting that happiness is the product of skills that can be enhanced through training and such training exemplifies how transforming the mind can change the brain. 

Kent Berridge, Richie Davidson, and Daniel Gilbert speak at the Aspen Ideas Festival

.

• Music

  • "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" by Dick Hyman (iTunes • eMusic)

• Category

  • Science & Technology

• License

  • Standard YouTube License

Link: https://youtu.be/MDTi2_PHiiM

Earl Nightingale provides inspiration

 This is a transcript...

The Strangest Secret

 

Transcribed from The Strangest Secret audio program by Earl Nightingale

Some years ago, the late Nobel prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor, what’s wrong with men today?” The great doctor was silent a moment, and then he said, “Men simply don’t think!”

It’s about this that I want to talk with you. We live today in a golden age. This is an era that humanity has looked forward to, dreamed of, and worked toward for thousands of years. We live in the richest era that ever existed on the face of the earth … a land of abundant opportunity for everyone.

However, if you take 100 individuals who start even at the age of 25, do you have any idea what will happen to those men and women by the time they’re 65? These 100 people believe they’re going to be successful. They are eager toward life, there is a certain sparkle in their eye, an erectness to their carriage, and life seems like a pretty interesting adventure to them.

But by the time they’re 65, only one will be rich, four will be financially independent, five will still be working, and 54 will be broke and depending on others for life’s necessities.

Only five out of 100 make the grade! Why do so many fail? What has happened to the sparkle that was there when they were 25? What has become of the dreams, the hopes, the plans … and why is there such a large disparity between what these people intended to do and what they actually accomplished?

THE DEFINITION OF SUCCESS

First, we have to define success and here is the best definition I’ve ever been able to find:

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

A success is the school teacher who is teaching because that’s what he or she wants to do. A success is the entrepreneur who start his own company because that was his dream and that’s what he wanted to do. A success is the salesperson who wants to become the best salesperson in his or her company and sets forth on the pursuit of that goal.

A success is anyone who is realizing a worthy predetermined ideal, because that’s what he or she decided to do … deliberately. But only one out of 20 does that! The rest are “failures.”

Rollo May, the distinguished psychiatrist, wrote a wonderful book called Man’s Search for Himself, and in this book he says: “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice … it is conformity.” And there you have the reason for so many failures. Conformity and people acting like everyone else, without knowing why or where they are going.

We learn to read by the time we’re seven. We learn to make a living by the time we’re 30. Often by that time we’re not only making a living, we’re supporting a family. And yet by the time we’re 65, we haven’t learned how to become financially independent in the richest land that has ever been known. Why? We conform! Most of us are acting like the wrong percentage group and the 95 who don’t succeed.

GOALS

Have you ever wondered why so many people work so hard and honestly without ever achieving anything in particular, and why others don’t seem to work hard, yet seem to get everything? They seem to have the “magic touch.” You’ve heard people say, “Everything he touches turns to gold.” Have you ever noticed that a person who becomes successful tends to continue to become more successful? And, on the other hand, have you noticed how someone who’s a failure tends to continue to fail?

The difference is goals. 

People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going. It’s that simple. 

Failures, on the other hand, believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances … by things that happen to them … by exterior forces.
Think of a ship with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take and it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get there.

Now let’s take another ship and just like the first and only let’s not put a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let’s give it no aiming point, no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go. I think you’ll agree that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach and a derelict. It can’t go anyplace because it has no destination and no guidance.

It’s the same with a human being. However, the human race is fixed, not to prevent the strong from winning, but to prevent the weak from losing. Society today can be likened to a convoy in time of war. The entire society is slowed down to protect its weakest link, just as the naval convoy has to go at the speed that will permit its slowest vessel to remain in formation.

That’s why it’s so easy to make a living today. It takes no particular brains or talent to make a living and support a family today. We have a plateau of so-called “security.” So, to succeed, all we must do is decide how high above this plateau we want to aim.

Throughout history, the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things. It is only on this one point that they are in complete and unanimous agreement and the key to success and the key to failure is this:

WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT

This is The Strangest Secret! Now, why do I say it’s strange, and why do I call it a secret? Actually, it isn’t a secret at all. It was first promulgated by some of the earliest wise men, and it appears again and again throughout the Bible. But very few people have learned it or understand it. That’s why it’s strange, and why for some equally strange reason it virtually remains a secret.

Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor, said: “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”

Disraeli said this: “Everything comes if a man will only wait … a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment.”

William James said: “We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and it will become infallibly real by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterize belief.” 

He continues, ” … only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.”

My old friend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale put it this way: “If you think in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms, you will achieve positive results.” 

George Bernard Shaw said: “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

Well, it’s pretty apparent, isn’t it?   We become what we think about. 

A person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that’s what he’s thinking about. 

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn’t know where he’s going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry will thereby create a life of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing … he becomes nothing.

AS YE SOW, SO SHALL YE REAP

The human mind is much like a farmer’s land. The land gives the farmer a choice. He may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn’t care what is planted. It’s up to the farmer to make the decision. 

The mind, like the land, will return what you plant, but it doesn’t care what you plant. If the farmer plants too seeds and one a seed of corn, the other nightshade, a deadly poison, waters and takes care of the land, what will happen?

Remember, the land doesn’t care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants and one corn, one poison as it’s written in the Bible, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn’t care what we plant … success … or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal … or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety, and so on. But what we plant it must return to us.

The problem is that our mind comes as standard equipment at birth. It’s free. And things that are given to us for nothing, we place little value on. Things that we pay money for, we value.

The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. 

Everything that’s really worthwhile in life came to us free and our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country. All these priceless possessions are free.

But the things that cost us money are actually very cheap and can be replaced at any time. A good man can be completely wiped out and make another fortune. He can do that several times. Even if our home burns down, we can rebuild it. But the things we got for nothing, we can never replace.

Our mind can do any kind of job we assign to it, but generally speaking, we use it for little jobs instead of big ones. 

So decide now. What is it you want? Plant your goal in your mind. It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make in your entire life.

Do you want to excel at your particular job? Do you want to go places in your company … in your community? Do you want to get rich?

All you have got to do is plant that seed in your mind, care for it, work steadily toward your goal, and it will become a reality.

It not only will, there’s no way that it cannot. You see, that’s a law and like the laws of Sir Isaac Newton, the laws of gravity. If you get on top of a building and jump off, you’ll always go down and you’ll never go up.

And it’s the same with all the other laws of nature. They always work. They’re inflexible. 

Think about your goal in a relaxed, positive way. 

Picture yourself in your mind’s eye as having already achieved this goal. 

See yourself doing the things you will be doing when you have reached your goal.

Every one of us is the sum total of our own thoughts. 

We are where we are because that’s exactly where we really want or feel we deserve to be and whether we’ll admit that or not. 

Each of us must live off the fruit of our thoughts in the future, because what you think today and tomorrow and next month and next year and will mold your life and determine your future. You’re guided by your mind.

I remember one time I was driving through e a s t e r n Arizona and I saw one of those giant earth-moving machines roaring along the road with what looked like 30 tons of dirt in it and a tremendous, incredible machine and and there was a little man perched way up on top with the wheel in his hands, guiding it.

As I drove along I was struck by the similarity of that machine to the human mind. 

Just suppose you’re sitting at the controls of such a vast source of energy. 

Are you going to sit back and fold your arms and let it run itself into a ditch?

Or are you going to keep both hands firmly on the wheel and control and direct this power to a specific, worthwhile purpose? 

It’s up to you. You’re in the driver’s seat. 

You see, the very law that gives us success is a double-edged sword. 

We must control our thinking. 

The same rule that can lead people to lives of success, wealth, happiness, and all the things they ever dreamed of and that very same law can lead them into the gutter. 

It’s all in how they use it … for good or for bad. 

That is The Strangest Secret!

Do what the experts since the dawn of recorded history have told us to do:
pay the price, by becoming the person you want to become. 

It’s not nearly as difficult as living unsuccessfully.

The moment you decide on a goal to work toward, you’re immediately a successful person and you are then in that rare group of people who know where they’re going. 

Out of every hundred people, you belong to the top five. 

Don’t concern yourself too much with how you are going to achieve your goal.

 Leave that completely to a power greater than yourself. 

All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord, and at the right time.

Start today. You have nothing to lose and but you have your whole life to win.


30-DAY ACTION IDEAS FOR PUTTING THE STRANGEST SECRET TO WORK FOR YOU:

For the next 30-days follow each of these steps every day until you have achieved your goal.

1. Write on a card what it is you want more that anything else. It may be more money. Perhaps you’d like to double your income or make a specific amount of money. It may be a beautiful home. It may be success at your job. It may be a particular position in life. It could be a more harmonious family.

Write down on your card specifically what it is you want. Make sure it’s a single goal and clearly defined. You needn’t show it to anyone, but carry it with you so that you can look at it several times a day. 

Think about it in a cheerful, relaxed, positive way each morning when you get up, and immediately you have something to work for and something to get out of bed for, something to live for.

Look at it every chance you get during the day and just before going to bed at night. 

As you look at it, remember that you must become what you think about, and since you’re thinking about your goal, you realize that soon it will be yours. In fact, it’s really yours the moment you write it down and begin to think about it.

2. Stop thinking about what it is you fear. 

Each time a fearful or negative thought comes into your mind, replace it with a mental picture of your positive and worthwhile goal. 

And there will come a time when you’ll feel like giving up. It’s easier for a human being to think negatively than positively. That’s why only five percent are successful! You must begin now to place yourself in that group.

“Act as though it were impossible to fail,” as Dorothea Brande said. No matter what your goal, if you’ve kept your goal before you every day, you’ll wonder and marvel at this new life you’ve found.


3. Your success will always be measured by the quality and quantity of service you render. 

Most people will tell you that they want to make money, without understanding this law. The only people who make money work in a mint. The rest of us must earn money. This is what causes those who keep looking for something for nothing, or a free ride, to fail in life. 

Success is not the result of making money; earning money is the result of success and and success is in direct proportion to our service.

Most people have this law backwards. It’s like the man who stands in front of the stove and says to it: “Give me heat and then I’ll add the wood.” 

How many men and women do you know, or do you suppose there are today, who take the same attitude toward life? There are millions.

We’ve got to put the fuel in before we can expect heat. 

Likewise, we’ve got to be of service first before we can expect money. 

Don’t concern yourself with the money. Be of service … build … work … dream … create! Do this and you’ll find there is no limit to the prosperity and abundance that will come to you.

Don’t start your test until you’ve made up your mind to stick with it. If you should fail during your first 30 days and by that I mean suddenly find yourself overwhelmed by negative thoughts and simply start over again from that point and go 30 more days.

Gradually, your new habit will form, until you find yourself one of that wonderful minority to whom virtually nothing is impossible.

Above all … don’t worry! Worry brings fear, and fear is crippling. 

The only thing that can cause you to worry during your test is trying to do it all yourself. 

Know that all you have to do is hold your goal before you; everything else will take care of itself.

Take this 30-day test, then repeat it … then repeat it again. Each time it will become more a part of you until you’ll wonder how you could have ever have lived any other way.

Live this new way and the floodgates of abundance will open and pour over you more riches than you may have dreamed existed. Money? Yes, lots of it. 

But what’s more important, you’ll have peace … you’ll be in that wonderful minority who lead calm, cheerful, successful lives.



Learn more about Earl Nightingale and his many timeless books and audio programs.
The Strangest Secret

The Strangest Secret Article by: Earl Nightingale


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Learn more about Earl Nightingale and his many timeless books and audio programs.

The Strangest Secret - Advantedge Article By Earl Nightingale

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The Strangest Secret Earl Nightingale Conant 1950's Origional FULL 31:35 Min.
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Earl Nightingale Conant The Strangest Secret 1956 1950's

Success Quotes

 


The universe is change; life is what thinking makes of it. 
– Marcus Aurelius


We cannot change the past, but we can reshape the future. Young people have the opportunity to create a happier, better future. - Dalai Lama

 
It takes more than just a good looking body. You’ve got to have the heart and soul to go with it. – Epictetus




When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
– Sherlock Holmes


 
The universe is change; life is what thinking makes of it. 
– Marcus Aurelius
 

Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything. - anon.

 
"Formula for success: Rise early, work hard, strike oil."
John Paul Getty


"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."
Dale Carnegie

 
"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
Thomas Edison

 
"Men are born to succeed, not fail."
Henry David Thoreau


" The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it."
anon.


"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."
Nelson Mandela


 
"One secret of success in life is for a man to be
ready for his opportunity when it comes."
Benjamin Disraeli

 
Four things for success: work and pray, think and believe. 
Norman Vincent Peale
  

Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking. Bernard M. Baruch

 
Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want. Bernard M. Baruch

 
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dream, and endeavors to live the life which he had imagines, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. 
Henry David Thoreau

 
Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other. Erma Bombeck

 
Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. Dale Carnegie

 
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. Albert Einstein

 
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. Theodore Roosevelt

 
The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work. Mark Twain

 
I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.
Walt Disney

 
Success depends upon previous preparation,
and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
Confucius

 
The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business,
and success only a subsequent consideration.
Confucius

 
As a general rule the most successful man in life is
the man who has the best information.
Benjamin Disraeli

 
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
Benjamin Disraeli


Through perseverance many people win success out of what
seemed destined to be certain failure.
Benjamin Disraeli
 


"One fails forward toward success."
Charles F. Kettering

 
"No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist."
J. P. Getty
 
  


I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. 
Henry David Thoreau
 
  


“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” -Albert Einstein

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so life is amply long for the one who orders it properly.”
-Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

(Source of the quote above)

 

“Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don't aim at success -- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run -- in the long-run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”

 -Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

finding Meaning

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.” – Viktor E. Frankl

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow | Video on TED.com

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has contributed pioneering work to our understanding of happiness, creativity, human fulfillment and the notion of "flow" -- a state of heightened focus and immersion in activities such as art, play and work.

Why you should listen to him:

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. A leading researcher in positive psychology, he has devoted his life to studying what makes people truly happy: "When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." He is the architect of the notion of "flow" -- the creative moment when a person is completely involved in an activity for its own sake.

Csikszentmihalyi teaches psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University, focusing on human strengths such as optimism, motivation and responsibility. He's the director the the Quality of Life Research Center there. He has written numerous books and papers about the search for joy and fulfillment.

"A man obsessed by happiness."

Richard Flaste, New York Times Read more about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the TED Blog »

Quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

• “You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel part of something larger.” — on experiencing ‘flow’ Watch this talk »
  

More TEDQuotes…

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the Web

• Research: Quality of Life Research Center
• Homepage: Claremont Graduate University
• Interview: Wired 4.09
• Game: A videogame based on Flow
• Wikipedia: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow | Video on TED.com


Link:  http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

Zorba the Greek

“Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek


“Let your youth have free reign, it won't come again, so be bold and no repenting.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek


“When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 
“You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 
“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the longer the tether of our slavery?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek



“Once more there sounded within me the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 

“the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 

“Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’
Which of us was right, boss?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek


“I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 
“When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags—without desires—shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I—free, fearless, and blissful—retire to the forest? When? When, oh when?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 
 

“Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my travels and my dreams. Very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggles.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

 “Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind's supreme model.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco





“Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, The Rock Garden



“My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness, is a simple, frugal heart.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“The canary began to sing again. The sun had struck it, and its throat and tiny breast had filled with song. Francis gazed at it for a long time, not speaking, his mouth hanging half opened, his eyes dimmed with tears.
"The canary is like man's soul," he whispered finally. "It sees bars round it, but instead if despairing, it sings. It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo: one day its song shall break the bars.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis

Rick Hanson - - Hardwiring Happiness

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and  New York Times best-selling author.

- Hardwiring Happiness,

- Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, and

-  Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time.

 and Mother Nurture.


Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and an Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.

An authority on self-directed neuroplasticity, Dr. Hanson’s work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, FoxBusiness, Consumer Reports Health,  U.S. News and World Report, and O Magazine.

He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin, and his weekly e-newsletter – Just One Thing – has over 90,000 subscribers, and

- also appears on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites.

He has several audio programs with Sounds True, and his first book was Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships.

A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, Dr. Hanson is a trustee of Saybrook University. He also served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center for nine years, and was President of the Board of FamilyWorks, a community agency.

He began meditating in 1974, trained in several traditions, and leads a weekly meditation gathering in San Rafael, CA. 


For more information about Rick, please go to www.RickHanson.net

Bringing back a Wandering Attention - William James

 William James was interested in mindfulness and attention:  



 “The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui [master of himself] if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”




William James, Psychology: Briefer Course, p. 424 (Harper Torchbooks, 1961)

Practice Patience for Patience is the beginning of Mindfulness

Patience is the companion of wisdom. 

-- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. 

-- Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924)

 

 

 

 

 

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent. 

- Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

 

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind. 

-- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew. 

-- Saint Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622)

 

 

 

 

Patience is the best remedy for every trouble. 

- Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC), Rudens

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. 

- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

 

 

 

A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience! 

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, sc. 1

 

 

 

A very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience

-William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Coriolanus, Act II, sc. 1

 

 

 

Had it pleas'd heaven to try me with affliction... I should have found in some place of my soul a drop of patience. 

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Othello, Act IV, sc. 2

 

 

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees? 

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Othello, Act II, sc. 3

 

 

How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees. 

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

 

 

I do oppose my patience to his fury, and am arm'd to suffer with a quietness of spirit, the very tyranny and rage of his. 

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, sc. 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience is sottish, and impatience does become a dog that's mad

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV, sc. 15

 

 

Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod.

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Henry V, Act II, sc. 1

 

 

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. 

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act III, sc. 4

 

 

Patience, my lord. Why, 'tis the soul of peace.
Of all the virtues 'tis near'st kin to heaven.
It makes men look like gods; the best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breath'd.
- Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton
The Honest Whore Part One, act V scene II

 

 
Patience is the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms: and he, that will venture out without this to make him sail even and steady will certainly make shipwreck, and drown himself; first, in the cares and sorrows of this world; and, then, in perdition.
- Ezekiel Hopkins,  Death disarmed of it Sting Of Patience under Afflictions.

 

 
Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, refrains the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom; Patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age.
- Bishop Horne, Discourses on Several Subjects and Occasions Patience Portrayed

Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim.
Have patience and endure; this unhappiness will one day be beneficial.
- Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), III. 11. 7.


Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.
Persevere and preserve yourselves for better circumstances.
Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I. 207.

Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.
Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), V. 710.



Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.
- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims (1682) no. 234.




Font plus que force ni que rage.
By time and toil we sever
What strength and rage could never.
Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, II. 11.



Rule by patience, Laughing Water!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Part X. Hiawatha's Wooing.


Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, Stanza 9.


All things come round to him who will but wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn, The Student's Tale, Part I.


Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
James Russell Lowell, Columbus, line 241.


Sua quisque exempla debet æquo animo pati.
Every one ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct.
Phaedrus, Fables, I. 26. 12.


La patience est amère, mais son fruit est doux.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


Nihil tam acerbum est in quo non æquus animus solatium inveniat.
There is nothing so disagreeable, that a patient mind can not find some solace for it.
Seneca, De Animi Tranquilitate, X.


Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia.
Patience, when too often outraged, is converted into madness.
-- Syrus, Maxims. 289.



La patience est l'art d'espérer.
Patience is the art of hoping.
-- Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Réflexions, CCLI.




It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience.
- Horace Bushnell, p. 443.


Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear;
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
- George Croly, p. 444.



Patience! why, it is the soul of peace; of all the virtues it is nearest kin to heaven; it makes men look like gods. The best of men that ever wore earth about Him was a Sufferer,— a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed.
- Thomas Decker, p. 443.



Patience is enduring love; experience is perfecting love; and hope is exulting love.
- Alexander Dickson, p. 442.



It is easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.
- George Eliot, p. 443.



Patience is the ballast of the soul that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms.
- Bishop Hopkins, p. 442.



Dispose thyself to patience rather than to comfort, and to the bearing of the cross rather than to gladness.
- Thomas à Kempis, p. 442.



The holier one is, the more forbearing and loving he is; the more tender and patient and anxious to help others in every way. Think how forbearing and loving Christ is when we do wrong; and there we are to be like Him.
- Arthur Henry Kenney, p. 444.



Therefore, let us be patient, patient; and let God our Father teach His own lesson, His own way. Let us try to learn it well and quickly; but do not let us fancy that He will ring the school-bell, and send us to play before our lesson is learnt.
- Charles Kingsley, p. 443.



Be patient, my friends; time rolls rapidly away; our longing has its end. The hour will strike, who knows how soon?— when the maternal lap of everlasting Love shall be opened to us, and the full peace of God breathe around us from the palmy summits of Eden.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher, p. 613.



When I am about my work, sometimes called unexpectedly and suddenly from one thing to another, I whisper in my heart, " Lord, help me to be patient, help me to remember, and help me to be faithful. Lord, enable me to do all for Christ's sake, and to go forward, leaning on the bosom of His infinite grace."
-- Mary Lyon, p. 444.


We are waiting, Master, waiting,
Wayworn, pressed with toils and strife;
Waiting, hoping, watching, praying,
Till we reach the gates of life.
-- Ray Palmer, p. 613.


Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. If we say sadly to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us not forget " there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!
- John Ruskin, p. 443.


Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul — they lose nothing who gain Christ.
- Samuel Rutherford, p. 444.



The disciples of a patient Saviour should be patient themselves.
- Charles Spurgeon, p. 442.



How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
-- William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act II, scene 3, line 376.


Had it pleas'd heaven
To try me with affliction * * *
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience.
-- William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act IV, scene 2, line 47.


Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act.
- William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c. 1607-08), Act V, scene 1, line 139.


She sat like patience on a monument
Smiling at grief.
- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act II, scene 4, line 117.


He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.
- William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida Act I, scene i.


Patience is the art of hoping.
- Marquis De Vauvenargues, Reflections and Maxims (1746) no. 251.


Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.
Persevere and preserve yourselves for better circumstances.
-- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I. 207.


Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.
Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.
-- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), V. 710.



With strength and patience all his grievous loads are borne,
And from the world's rose-bed he only asks a thorn.
- William R. Alger, Oriental Poetry, Mussud's Praise of the Camel.


I worked with patience which means almost power.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book III, line 205.


And I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Prometheus Bound.



But there are times when patience proves at fault.
- Robert Browning, Paracelsus, scene 3.



There is however a limit, at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
- Edmund Burke, Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation.



Thus with hir fader for a certeyn space
Dwelleth this flour of wyfly pacience,
That neither by hir wordes ne hir face
Biforn the folk, ne eek in her absence,
Ne shewed she that hir was doon offence.
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Clerkes Tale, V, line 13,254.


Patience is sorrow's salve.
- Charles Churchill, Prophecy of Famine, line 363.


Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
- Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming, Part IV, Chapter V.


But the waiting time, my brothers,
Is the hardest time of all.
- Sarah Doudney, Psalms of Life, The Hardest Time of All.


The worst speak something good; if all want sense,
God takes a text, and preacheth patience.
- George Herbert, The Church Porch, Stanza 72.


Durum! sed levius fit patientia
Quicquid corrigere est nefas.
It is hard! But what can not be removed, becomes lighter through patience.
- Horace, Carmina, I. 24. 19.


For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
- Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes, line 352.









Source: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patience

You are the master of your fate and you create your own happiness.

If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?  And if I am only for myself, then what am I?  And if not now, when?
- Hillel the Elder, 1st Century B.C.
 

 It's never the events that happen to us that make us disturbed, but our view of them.
Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.


Happiness and misery depend as much on temperament as on fortune.
- Francois de la Rochefoucauld, 17th Century


Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abe Lincoln


Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
- Leo Tolstoy


 To be in Hell is to drift; to be in Heaven is to steer.
- Geo. B. Shaw


.................

It is not that someone else is preventing you from living happily;
You yourself do not know what you want.  Rather than admit this,    
you pretend that someone is keeping you from excercising your liberty.
Who is this?  It is yourself.
- Thomas Merton, 1961

.................................


I am responsible for the achievement of my desires.
I am responsible for my choices and actions...
I am responsible for my personal happiness.
- Dr. Nathaniel Branden


 .....................................


"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

- Thomas Jefferson

..................................

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.
- Ram Dass

 ...............................

Happiness is something you can work at.  It's a matter of identifying the things you do that get in the way of happiness,  and figuring out what positive activities you can do everyday to augment it.

- David Lykken, U of Minnesota

 .....................................

Depressed people are caught in a  feedback loop in which distorted thoughts cause negative feelings, which then distort feelings further.

You can break the cycle by changing the thoughts.

A big part of cognitive therapy is training clients to catch the thoughts and  distortions and then find alternative and more accurate ways of thinking.


Over many weeks,the client's thoughts become more realistic.  The feedback loop is broken and the client's anxiety or depression abates.



- Jonathan Haidt, Psychologist and Happiness Researcher


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