What do you know that others think is untrue?
A few days ago I read a fascinating cover story in Fast Company magazine on Peter Thiel. Peter is a billionaire investor who co-founded PayPal, which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Since then he was one of the early investors in Facebook; he later invested in LinkedIn, Spotify, SpaceX and Airbnb. He obviously has a knack for determining what makes a successful company. So when I found out he had written a book, Zero to One, I ordered it immediately and read it in one day. I learned a lot about what it takes to grow [...]
I’m Confused And Need Your Help
It’s really simple: if you stop giving meaning to events, your upsets and suffering will virtually disappear. I’ve explained how and why in great detail on many occasions. Here’s my confusion: Once someone understands this, why doesn’t he or she make it a priority to learn how to automatically dissolve the meaning he or she gives events and stop suffering? What keeps people from stopping their suffering once they realize it is not inevitable? Maybe it’s procrastination. Maybe some people are afraid of being responsible for their experience of life. Maybe there are some beliefs in the way. The thing [...]
I spoke at TEDx: How to stop suffering
For the past couple of months my main focus has been preparing a TEDx talk that I delivered in Hoboken, NJ last Friday, June 28. TEDx is the local version of the TED talks that are given annually in Long Beach, CA and that feature some of the most interesting people in the world, talking about “ideas worth spreading.” You can find hundreds of incredible TED talks, each a maximum of 18 minutes, at http://ted.com. So it was a real honor to be invited to present at a TEDx event. I talked about suffering—how suffering is the result of the [...]
"Negative" emotions are not necessary
My post several months ago, How To Live In A State of Bliss produced many more comments than usual. Many of you disagreed with my statements that it is possible to never have negative emotions if you dissolve the meaning you give the events that produce the emotion. I’d like to respond to some of your comments as I think a lot of people think that it is important to feel ALL our feelings, even the unpleasant ones, and that it is impossible to take action if we don’t have emotional responses to events. The negative is not necessary [...]
Why we have negative emotions … and what to do about them
For many years I had asked myself the questions: What is the real source of our negative emotions? Why do so many things cause fear in our lives that aren’t inherently scary? And why do some people experience negative emotions while other people don’t in similar situations? About eight years ago I wrote a paper for myself on the source of negative emotions. Today’s post is a summary of that paper. I think you’ll find some fascinating material here and I’m excited to get your responses and start a conversation. ***** What is an emotion? An emotion is the experiential, [...]
