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Many of us assume that we have to do things a certain way: ignore passion in favor of safer bets, act stoic amid inner turmoil, run on an upward trajectory of success and money acquisition at any emotional cost. But these are not rules.

Martha Beck

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Martha Beck
Age: 61
Born: 1962
Born: November 29
Author
Journalist
Sociologist
Provo
Utah
Running
Favors
Amid
Money
Assuming
Turmoil
Certain
Inner
Safer
Many
Rules
Acquisition
Way
Cost
Monday
Bets
Things
Emotional
Favor
Stoic
Passion
Ignore
Trajectory
Success
Assume
Upward

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Though we often see life troughs as the universe's conspiracy to ruin us, they're actually our own true nature inviting us to lay down our weary heads.
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Do whatever work feeds your true self, even if it’s not a safe bet, even if it’s like a crazy risk, even if everyone in your life tells you you’re wrong or bad or crazy.
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You have the freedom to live and let live, to love and let love. Granting yourself that freedom is one of the healthiest, most constructive things you can do for yourself and the people who matter to you.
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Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.
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People who get what they want tend to be the ones who make the effort to know what they want.
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Life is full of tough decisions, and nothing makes them easy. But the worst ones are really your personal koans, and tormenting ambivalence is just the sense of satori rising. Try, trust, try, and trust again, and eventually you'll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding.
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Here is the crux of the matter, the distilled essence, the only thing you need to remember: When considering whether to say yes or no, you must choose the response that feels like freedom. Period.
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External circumstances do not create feeling states. Feeling states create external circumstances.
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Don’t hide love. If you feel it, express it-not to demand that others love you back, but simply to live outwardly the best of what you feel inwardly. The worst that can happen to your heart is not rejection by another person but failure to act on the love you feel.
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Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.
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To make an activity joyful, keep adding things until the activity as a whole becomes more appealing than repulsing.
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You get social pressure from your parents, who teach you to pay attention to certain things and not to others. You get it in school.
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The important thing is to tell yourself a life story in which you, the hero, are primarily a problem solver rather than a helpless victim. This is well within your power, whatever fate might have dealt you.
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Recurrent floods of sadness and anger gradually wash away the rubble of the defunct relationship, leaving only the bits of treasure: the remembered moments of real communion, a new understanding of your own mistakes, a clear picture of the dysfunctions you will never tolerate again.
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Learning to spot narcissists and deal with their destructive behavior can save you the world of hurt that awaits anyone who mistakes the near enemy for a friend.
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Tiny steps will get you to your goal months and months sooner. A little is better than a lot.
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Many people think passion is a fuzzy feeling that makes taking action effortless. In fact, it's the gritty courage and tenacity to forge onward.
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I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.
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To care for someone can mean to adore them, feed them, tend their wounds. But care can also signify sorrow, as in bowed down by cares. Or anxiety, as in Careful! Or investment in an outcome, as in Who cares? The word love has no such range of meaning: It's pure acceptance.
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In the pursuit of Knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Way, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
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