“The drive for trading up, wanting the new and improved, may fuel humanity’s progress, but it also creates a lot of dissatisfaction and anxiety.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 84)
“I have no feeling of an afterlife at all. As a matter of fact, I hope not. I can’t imagine anything going on forever. I miss Walter and I wish I could meet him in another life, but I know I won’t. Actually, it’s rather soothing. It is all going to end; I don’t see anything wrong with that.” ~ John Sorensen, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 83)
“In life one’s parter is often boring or mundane, but in memory he never is.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 81)
“Bad relationships may be more harmful than good relationships are beneficial.” ~ Laura Carstensen, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 68)
“How to be happy? Here was a start. Accept whatever kindnesses people offer you, and repay with what you can. Let a friend buy you lunch, then do her a solid in return. You’ll benefit from the favors you receive, but even more from the ones you perform. Don’t begrudge the people who need you; thank them for letting you help them. Give up the obsession with self-reliance; it’s a myth, anyway. None of these comes naturally to me, and even as I write them now, they seem too pat. But in Helen and Howie I saw them in action, again and again, and here is what I saw: they worked. They weren’t genius; they were wisdom.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 62)
“In a relationship, sometimes taking—allowing the other person to do something for you, rather than insisting on doing it yourself—is also a kind of giving. The same applies in friendships or business relationships. True generosity includes enabling others to be generous.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 60)
“I often feel that death is not the enemy of life, but its friend, for it is the knowledge that our years are limited which makes them so precious.” ~ Rabbi Joshua L. Leibman, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 46)
“A starting point for wisdom at any age might be to accept that you’re going to die—really accept it—and to feel more contented by the limits, not less. Modern medicine encourages us to consider death a test we can win or lose, something presided over by experts in white coats. But the elders offered a wiser perspective. None of us will get out of here alive, so we might as well live while we can.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 45)
“We become what our environment encourages us to be.” ~ Laura L. Carstensen, Stanford Center on Longevity, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 35)
“Everything is moving into the future, but the future doesn’t exist. It’s what we create. Our responsibility for the present moment, that’s morality. The future of humanity or the family or whatever depends on what you do this moment. If you want the next moment where everything will be better, then you’d better do this moment right.” ~ Jonas Mekas, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 32)
“Happiness to me is what’s happening now. Not the next world; it’s not the dance you’re going to tonight. If you’re not happy at the present time, then you’re not happy. Some people say, I get that new fur coat for the winter, or get myself a new automobile, I’ll be happy then. But you don’t know what’s going to happen by that time. Right now are you happy? Like me. I have health problems, but it’s been going on a long time, so it’s secondary.” ~ Fred Jones, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 29)
“Old age is the last thing we’ll ever do, and it might teach us about how to live now.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 23)
“People with much less enjoy great lives.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 19)
“You must determine where you have been in your life, so that you can know where you are now. If you don’t know where you are, precisely, then you could be anywhere. Anywhere is too many places to be, and some of those places are very bad. You must determine where you have been in your life, because otherwise you can’t get to where you’re going. You can’t get from point A to point B unless you are already at point A, and if you’re just ‘anywhere’ the chances you are at point A are very small indeed.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 282)
“Be careful with what you tell yourself and others about what you have done, what you are doing, and where you are going. Search for the correct words. Organize those words into correct sentences, and those sentences into the correct paragraphs. The past can be redeemed, when reduced by precise language to its essence. The present can flow by without robbing the future if its realities are spoken out clearly. With careful thought and language, the singular, stellar destiny that justifies existence can be extracted from the multitude of murky and unpleasant futures that are far more likely to manifest themselves of their own accord.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 281)
“When things fall apart, and chaos re-emerges, we can give structure to it, and re-establish order, through our speech. If we speak carefully and precisely, we can sort things out, and put them in their proper place, and set a new goal, and navigate to it—often communally, if we negotiate; if we reach consensus. If we speak carelessly and imprecisely, however, things remain vague. The destination remains unproclaimed. The fog of uncertainty does not lift, and there is no negotiating through the world.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 278)
“No one finds a match so perfect that the need for continued attention and work vanishes (and, besides, if you found the perfect person, he or she would run away from ever-so-imperfect you in justifiable horror). In truth, what you need—what you deserve, after all—is someone exactly as imperfect as you.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 273)
“People organize their brains with conversation. If they don’t have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves. The input of the community is required for the integrity of the individual psyche. To put it another way: It takes a village to organize a mind.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 250)
“You remember the past not so that it is ‘accurately recorded,’ to say it again, but so that you are prepared for the future.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 247)
“The people I listen to need to talk, because that’s how people think. People need to think. Otherwise they wander blindly into pits. When people think, they simulate the world, and plan how to act in it. If they do a good job of simulating, they can figure out what stupid things they shouldn’t do. Then they can not do them. Then they don’t have to suffer the consequences. That’s the purpose of thinking.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 240)