Cultivate a ‘cheerful pessimism’ or melancholy, which is a wry acceptance that life is often difficult but also beautiful. This mature outlook can lead to greater calm and gratitude by widening your sense of possibility and reducing unrealistic hope.
Shift your life’s focus from ‘happiness’ to ‘fulfillment,’ as fulfillment allows for the inclusion of pain and difficulty, unlike the common perception of happiness. This reorientation helps you lead a life that feels right, even amidst challenges.
Make self-knowledge a primary life adventure, as ignorance of oneself is a root cause of many problems, from choosing the wrong partners and jobs to responding inadequately to situations. Actively seek to understand why you do the things you do to gain command of your own mind.
Recognize that emotions are governed by habits, not just information, so to change behavior, you must construct new habits. This involves creating structures and settings that assist you in honoring your insights, rather than relying solely on willpower or knowledge.
Identify counterproductive adult behaviors that originated as logical coping mechanisms in childhood, such as disassociating or manic cheerfulness. Acknowledge their past utility, then consciously choose to move on from them as they are no longer helpful in your adult life.
View relationships as classrooms and yourself as an educator, learning to teach others about who you are effectively. A good teacher is cheerful, non-defensive, and picks their moments, avoiding vital lessons during crises or with sarcasm.
Expand your understanding of love beyond romance to include tolerance, forgiveness, and empathy, especially towards those who do not appeal to you. This expansive emotion allows you to look beyond mere justice and consider attenuating circumstances, fostering a more tolerant society and personal relationships.
Actively seek solitude to create space for your inner thoughts and feelings to emerge, rather than constantly consuming external information. This practice is vital for self-awareness and living a life aligned with your true self.
Adopt the Stoic practice of ‘premeditatio malorum’ by lying in bed each morning and mentally preparing for the worst possible outcomes of the day. This exercise widens your sense of possibility, fosters calm, and makes you more grateful when things don’t go wrong.
Challenge romantic ideals that promise a perfect soulmate and instead adopt realistic expectations that acknowledge inherent imperfections in both yourself and your partner. This reduces unhappiness and allows for a more accommodating and stable relationship dynamic.
Expect and admit to the inherent difficulties and ‘rain’ involved in any worthwhile task, from writing to parenting. This prevents premature panic and quitting, allowing you to persevere through challenges without concluding that the entire enterprise is failing.
When someone shares something with you, summarize and rephrase what they’ve said to demonstrate that you have truly listened and understood. This technique deepens conversations and makes the other person feel heard and validated.
During calm moments, such as a date night, ask your partner specific questions like ‘What are you angry with me about?’ or ‘What do you want to be forgiven for?’ This allows built-up frustrations and unspoken issues to emerge and be addressed constructively.
As a parent, strive to provide ‘attuned care’ by allowing your child to be the center of their world for periods, seeing things from their perspective, and listening empathetically to their strong emotions. This fosters trust and healthy emotional development.
Spend time with nature, pets, or children to ‘de-centre’ your adult human ego and recalibrate the importance of purposeful life. This connection to something older, grander, or simpler can bring peace by making you feel delightfully insignificant within a wider context.
Learn from how religions function by incorporating repetition, rituals, and sensory engagement into your personal habit formation, regardless of your beliefs. These methods are powerful ‘machines’ for embedding desired behaviors and insights that intellectual understanding alone cannot achieve.
Recognize that self-control is extremely difficult for individuals, so establish personal rituals and systems that embed certain disciplines into your daily life. This helps you make better choices and honor your insights by providing external support.
In relationships, be open about your ‘craziness’ and varied imperfections, rather than striving for an unsustainable ideal of perfection. This honesty fosters a more relaxed and livable connection, allowing others to accommodate your true self.
Shift your goal in social interactions from being perceived as witty to making others feel interesting. By creating space and curiosity for their experiences, you encourage them to explore and articulate their own thoughts and feelings more deeply.
Engage in automatic writing by continuously writing whatever comes to mind for a set period (e.g., two minutes) without stopping or censoring. This exercise helps unspool tightly bound truths and uncover unconscious thoughts and emotions, leading to self-discovery.
Use the two-chair exercise from Gestalt therapy by placing an empty chair in front of you and speaking aloud to someone with whom you have an unspoken conversation. This practice can bring enormous calm and clarity by allowing you to fully express your side of the dialogue.
Write letters to individuals with whom you have unresolved issues or unspoken thoughts, but do not send them. This therapeutic practice allows you to process your emotions and have your say, reducing the pressure on actual interactions.
Acknowledge and embrace the universal human experience of suffering, recognizing that we are all far more silly, hopeful, desperate, sad, and beautiful than we typically admit. This broader sense of what it means to be human can lift your spirits and reduce feelings of loneliness.