The World's Best Book Summaries
What lessons can you learn from death? How is the awareness of the fact that you can die any minute help you experience life more fully? Death is your greatest spiritual teacher. The secret to living a fulfilling and meaningful life lies in the lessons your death has to teach you. And you don’t have to wait until the end of your life to attend to them. You can practice them right now. Here are seven spiritual lessons you can learn from death.
Have you ever noticed that some people seem to get much happier or much more down than others? Do all people feel emotions the same way? How can we work to stay on the happy end of the emotional range? A person’s emotional range is called their affective style. This means that some people have a genetic predisposition toward happiness or sadness and feel different ranges of emotion. When somebody’s emotions tend to fall on the negative side of the range, there are measures they can take to counter them. Keep reading about the emotional range and how to counter
What is the difference between conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption? Why are we happy making less money as long as it’s more than our peers? Inconspicuous consumption is when we spend money for our own benefit, such as on a vacation, while conspicuous consumption is when we buy materialistic things to demonstrate our wealth. Inconspicuous consumption will bring you more long-term happiness that is absolute, rather than relative happiness. Keep reading to learn why we should only be focusing on inconspicuous consumption.
In what areas of your life do you feel especially sensitive and liable to feel pain? How have you inadvertently arranged your life around the desire to avoid it? And most importantly, what can you do to let go of this pain? Many people feel fragmented and deeply unhappy because they’ve built their whole lives on pain avoidance. From childhood, they’ve unconsciously built their thoughts, actions, and beliefs around avoiding their inner pain. Spiritual growth requires you to let go of pain, but for that, you must first embrace it, and only then, work on weeding out its source. In
Do you want to know how to improve your tennis game? What steps can you take to get better? Learning how to improve in tennis is about more than fixing your technical skills. You have to fix your bad habits both physically and mentally to compete at a high level. Read more about how to improve in tennis below.
In what ways are we all hypocrites? What methods do we use to delude ourselves of this truth? It’s easy to point out the hypocrisy of others, but it’s harder to admit that we’re all hypocrites. In The Happiness Hypothesis, it states that we all delude ourselves into thinking that we contribute more than we do and we discredit the contributions of others. Continue reading to learn more about the psychology of hypocrisy.
What are the two selves when you’re playing tennis? Why do you need them to be a good player? The two selves of your tennis game can help you be a great athlete. Self 1 is your ego-mind, which is your own understanding of yourself and your beliefs. Self 2 is the physical self that plays tennis. Read more about the two selves of your tennis game.
What does it mean to check your privilege? And how exactly do you go about doing that? You may have been told to “check your privilege” or have heard someone else being told to do this, perhaps as part of an argument. If you’re told to “check your privilege,” you’re being asked to examine how your belonging to certain social categories (e.g. race, gender, ability) has contributed to your advantageous or privileged position. Here are some things to consider as you check your privilege.
Is it possible to attain unconditional happiness? Do you think you can remain happy in spite of any challenges and misfortunes that life throws your way? According to Michael A. Singer, a spiritual teacher and the founder of the Temple of the Universe meditation center, your happiness shouldn’t be tied to external conditions that you don’t have control over. You can choose to stay happy no matter what. As paradoxical as it may sound, the key to attaining unconditional happiness is to drop resistance to the things that make you unhappy. Here is how you can achieve unconditional happiness, according
What’s the mental game of tennis? Why do you need to improve your mental game to be a great tennis player? If you’re a tennis player, you have to work on both your mental game of tennis as well as your physical game. Both aspects are an important part of your game. Read more about the mental game of tennis below.