Ikigai By Hector Garcia

• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. —Aristotle

• Morita explained the idea of letting go of negative feelings with the following fable: A donkey that is tied to a post by a rope will keep walking around the post in an attempt to free itself, only to become more immobilized and attached to the post. The same thing applies to people with obsessive thinking who become more trapped in their own suffering when they try to escape from their fears and discomfort.

• We’re all going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die.

• Be led by your curiosity, and keep busy by doing things that fill you with meaning and happiness

• Morita likened emotions to the weather: We can’t predict or control them; we can only observe them.

• Getting back to Albert Einstein, “a happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.

• The people who live the longest have two dispositional traits in common: a positive attitude and a high degree of emotional awareness. In other words, those who face challenges with a positive outlook and are able to manage their emotions are already well on their way toward longevity.

His experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz showed him that “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

You have to accept that the world—like the people who live in it—is imperfect, but that it is still full of opportunities for growth and achievement.

AMAZON LINK