The meaning of life is to give life meaning. Viktor Frankl What keeps a human being going? The purest answer to this question is perhaps to be found in the worst of places. Austrian psychiatrist, philosopher, and author Viktor Frankl spent three years in four different concentration camps. He was at the mercy of sadistic […]
Read MoreCategory: Philosophy
The Less You Want, The More You Have
Imagine that we need one million dollars to be happy. If that’s the case, then as long as we don’t reach this amount, we’re unhappy. If we look at humanity’s poverty and its small percentage of millionaires, we can conclude that happiness is scarce if it requires seven figures in a bank account. Now, let’s […]
Read More
Don’t Feel Harmed, And You Haven’t Been
Marcus Aurelius pointed out that regardless of the severity of circumstances, there’s always a choice in how we judge them. “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been,” he stated. Marcus’ instruction sounds easy, but it’s difficult to apply if we don’t understand what causes us to feel […]
Read More
What If The World Is Actually a Prison?
What if this world is actually one giant prison? When the 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer observed the amount of pain that we experience during our lifetimes, he concluded that it’s not happiness and pleasure we’re after, but a reduction of the ongoing suffering that’s an inherent part of existence. When we compare this world to […]
Read More
We Don’t Need to Seek Love. We Just Have to Stop Resisting It
The 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī also known as Mevlana, or simply as Rumi, observed that all phenomena of nature are bound together by love. Love is what keeps planets orbiting their stars, stars encircling the centers of their galaxies, and electrons revolving around the nucleus of an atom. Love is the force that […]
Read More
Let It Go, Ride the Wind
The ancient Taoist text Zhuangzi describes Lieh Tzu as the sage who rode the wind with an admirable indifference to external things, and thus, in his lightness he was free from all desires to pursue the things that supposedly make us happy. Lieh Yokuo, also known as Lieh Tzu or Master Lie, is attributed as […]
Read More
Miyamoto Musashi | The Path of the Warrior
At the age of fifteen, Miyamoto Musashi went on ‘musha shugyō’, which means ‘warrior’s pilgrimage’. During this time of his life, he traveled the land practicing his skills independently and engaged in a series of duels. After he received ronin status, he encountered the most challenging opponent he ever faced – Sasaki Kojiro – and […]
Read More
The Backwards Law
What if we’d try not to think of a pink elephant. This probably won’t work. Because as soon as the pink elephant appears in our minds, it’s impossible to get rid of it by consciously not thinking about it. And the more we try to get rid of it, the more it persists. The elephant […]
Read More
How to Fight Smart (Sun Tzu)
The Chinese military general and strategist Sun Tzu, who lived around 2,500 years ago, argued that the ability to wage war is of vital importance to the state. According to him, it’s a matter of life and death, and cannot be neglected. In his manual The Art of War, Sun Tzu states that the superior […]
Read More
The Future Is Not Real. Still, We’re Worried Sick About It
In a letter to his dear friend Lucilius, Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote: “There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” Chronic worriers tend to be more occupied by the future than by present circumstances. During the day, and even […]
Read More