Self-Help

Alan Watts Best 69 Quotes

Posted on by in Lifestyle, Motivation, Self-Help, Successful People and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Alan Watts has had a huge impact in my life and perspective. I hope these quotes bring you the same.

I’ll begin with what I believe to be some of Alan’s best quotes in a “Top 10” Section. You will also find the top 10 quotes throughout the different sections.

The succeeding sections are:

-Zen Ideas
-Meaning of Life/Self-Discovery
-Having Faith/Trusting Life/Letting Go
-Our Limiting Languages
-Living in the present
-Perspective
-Self-Improvement

Top 10

#1

“Life as it is should be enough of a reason to laugh. It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful, it is so wonderful. It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic joke.”

#2

“And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words… As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.”

#3

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”

#4

“We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.”

#5

“So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.”

#6

“The only Zen you’ll find on mountain tops is the Zen you bring up there with you.”

#7

“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you’ll spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing thing you don’t like doing, which is stupid.”

#8

“Faith in life, in other people, and in oneself, is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time.”

#9

“Hospitals should be arranged in such a way as to make being sick an interesting experience. One learns a great deal sometimes from being sick.”

#10

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”

Ken Thompson. Alan Watts Quote. coacht.blog

69 Quotes Below

Zen Ideas

#1

“I had a discussion with a great master in Japan… and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, ‘That’s a waste of time. If you really understand Zen… you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because… the sound of the rain needs no translation’.”

2) “The only Zen you’ll find on mountain tops is the Zen you bring up there with you.”

3) “The enlightened fool is the one who sees the ego trips of society and can still find joy and laughter in its midst. The fool is often the enlightened one, the one with crazy wisdom, with laughter and jokes as their weapon, they cut through mundane conformity and bring to light the latent child like bliss bubbling just beneath the surface of all seriousness.  The fool possesses a wisdom that is out of reach of the conformist. A playful attitude in touch with enormous amounts of creativity.”

4) “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

5) “A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.”

6) “Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.”

7) “Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.”

8) “He who thinks that God is not comprehended, by him God is comprehended; but he who thinks that God is comprehended knows him not. God is unknown to those who know him, and is known to those who do not know him at all.”

9) “Life as it is should be enough of a reason to laugh. It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful, it is so wonderful. It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic joke.”

10) “To travel is to be alive, but to get somewhere is to be dead, for as our own proverb says, ‘To travel well is better than to arrive.’”

11) “We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.”

Meaning of Life/Self-Discovery

#12

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

13) “It’s better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.”

14) “This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”

15) “If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you’ll spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing thing you don’t like doing, which is stupid.”

16) “And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words… As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.”

17) “What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.” 

18) “There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied.”

19) “What the devil is the point on surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.”

20) “What I am really saying is that you don’t need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.”

Having Faith/Trusting Life/Letting Go

#21

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”

22) “And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.”

23) “But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.” 

24) “Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them. Faith in life, in other people, and in oneself, is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time.” 

25) “…Man’s un-happiness is rooted in the feeling of anxiety which attends his sense of being an isolated individual or ego, separate from ‘life’ or ‘reality’ as a whole. On the other hand, happiness – a sense of harmony, completion, and wholeness – comes with the realization that the feeling of isolation is an illusion.”

26) “You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate ‘you’ to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real ‘you’ is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For ‘you’ is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.”

27) “In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.”

28) “If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.”

29) “If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot even trust your mistrust of yourself – so that without this underlying trust in the whole system of nature you are simply paralyzed.”

30) “When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.”

Our Limiting Languages

#31

“We realize–often quite suddenly–that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn’t define us, it has no center.”

32) “Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.”

33) “We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”

34) “The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. On the other hand, the more we are forced to admit that we actually live in the real world, the more we feel ignorant, uncertain, and insecure about everything.”

35) “When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or identity assumed for the convenience of social communication.”

36) “It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description.”

37) “The Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word ‘water’ is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism.”

38) “But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.”

Living in the Present

#39

“No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”

40) “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

41) “We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.”

42) “Indeed, one of the highest pleasures is to be more or less unconscious of one’s own existence, to be absorbed in interesting sights, sounds, places, and people. Conversely, one of the greatest pains is to be self-conscious, to feel unabsorbed and cut off from the community and the surrounding world.”

43) “Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world.”

Perspective

#44

“Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.”

45) “How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.”

46) “To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.”

47) “So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.”

48) “What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.”

49) “Hospitals should be arranged in such a way as to make being sick an interesting experience. One learns a great deal sometimes from being sick.”

50) “Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.”

51) “We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.”

52) “I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth. It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed. But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune; neither is it the laughter of one who has won a victory. It is, rather, the laughter of one who; after having painfully searched for something for a long time, finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.”

53) “The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually ‘grasp’ reality.”

54) “In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.”

55) “It must be obvious… that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.”

56) “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”

57) “Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”

58) “Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may as well burst out in laughter.”

59) “Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery — the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets — is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.”

60) “The state of ambiguity – that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you’re living through right now – is enlightenment itself.”

61) “I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination.”

62) “You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”

Self-Improvement

#63

“You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.”

64) “Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”

65) “Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” (On the Mind)

66) “Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves – mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.”

67) “One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.”

68) “Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”

69) “So if humor can heal, relax, unite people, undo the ego and entertain all at the same time that sounds enlightening enough for me.”

Finding Joy Now

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My focus shifts from one task to another as my thoughts wander and I drift further and further away from the present moment. 

This has happened to me many times and I’m sure will happen again in the future, but I have learned a few methods to finding and feeling joy in this moment right now.

Of course some people will say that to attain joy you need to exercise, eat healthy, don’t smoke, save money for retirement — to Do these things _________… and don’t do these things __________… Then you will be happy. And that’s just not true.

You either feel joy now or you don’t. It’s not something you will forever maintain once you accomplish this thing or that thing. It’s something to be had in this moment and to keep with you deep down as you journey through life. Even through the hard times that life brings to us all you will be able to remind yourself of the genuine joy you have. 

Joy comes from a multitude of actions and it’s unique to everyone. One big source of joy comes from loving what you do.

This is difficult in societies that tell us to live for the future – to disregard your happiness for 30-40 years and then you can be happy in retirement. It’s a lie and it has made many CEO’s wealthy.

I do believe in hard work and I believe in doing what you need to do to provide for yourself and your family, but in this internet age it is possible to find joy today while working toward financial freedom and other long-term goals.

Once you accept some inalienable truths you can experience a deep joy. Things such as: 

– Tomorrow isn’t promised.
– One day you are going to leave this planet forever (Memento Mori).
– This moment might be all you have.

Of course there are more inalienable truths, but these are a few that inspire me to find joy today, tomorrow, and throughout all the ups and downs of life.

Below are some exercises that have helped me and can help you. Each person is unique and will find joy in different ways so use what works for you.

-Remind yourself of a happy memory. Dwell in that memory for at least one minute.

-Remind yourself that the best times of your life haven’t happened yet. They are on their way.

-Think of someone you look up to as a role model. Remind yourself why you look up to them.

-Think of 3 accomplishments you are proud of that you have achieved in the past.

-Write down 3 things you enjoy doing – Can be anything – a sport, hanging out with people, going to a certain place, any hobby you have or would like to have.

-Try affirmations. Tell yourself “I am happy now. I am loved. I love life.”

-Think about what you would like to do if you didn’t have to worry about money. Remind yourself that it is possible to attain this in time. Don’t forget it.

-Observe your surroundings without thinking about them. Just see everything without labeling them for a few moments.

-Stargaze.

-Read something new.

-Surround yourself with a few objects that make you feel good.

–Text Call someone you love.

Your joy is to be experienced today. Of course you won’t feel joy in every moment of your life, no one does, but you can take action toward living a more joyful life. 

Achieve Goals with Focus

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My to-do list grows bigger and I start taking less action…

Am I the only one who gets distracted with all the “to-dos” and end up not getting anything done?

Sometimes I want to complete so many things that I end up completing nothing or going halfway on a task. This is when I remind myself to do less and Focus.

We are bombarded with numerous options every day of our lives. It can seem nice to have options but often the more options we have the more distracted we become.

So I ask myself, “What is a long-term goal I have and what do I need to do next to achieve it?”

I like this question but sometimes a clear answer doesn’t come to mind when I ask this. This is when Focus comes into play again.

At this point I think about a few things I could do to achieve my long-term goal. I might not be 100% sure about what to do but I choose an action whether it’s to write a blog post, create a video, work on social media, etc.

I follow one course until successful. I do it until it’s complete. And then I ask myself again, “What is a long-term goal I have and what do I need to do next to achieve it?”

What’s a long-term goal you have?

What actions are you taking to achieve it?

How Laughing Can Improve Your Life

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“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

There are so many ways to pronounce the sounds: “ha ha ha.”

Do you say it with emphasis?

If so, where is your emphasis?

If not, well, that’s funny too.

Try it 5-10 times in different ways & tell me you aren’t feeling a little bit better.

It’s actually Science. 

More research is being done in this area but here are a few relative studies and part of their conclusions discussing how even simulated laughter increases positive feelings/endorphins.

—A study on how social laughter releases endorphins in the brain

—A couple studies showing that simulated laughter had positive effects on multiple aspects of health, including heart health. (First study)  (Second study)

A Study on combining simulated laughter and physical activity showed significant improvements in participants mental health, aerobic endurance, and self-efficacy for exercise.

So science shows that simulating laughter and even smiles can induce endorphins & positive feelings.

Guess who else thinks laughing is one of the most beneficial things anyone can do?

Like everyone. Literally. Well not literally, but check it out:

And after the quotes you can find a list of ways to simulate laughter into your life.

Don’t forget to laugh today!  🙂

“Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.”
Dr. Seuss

“As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don’t bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you.”
Joseph Campbell

 “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”
Abraham Lincoln

“Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away.”
Benjamin Franklin

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
Charles Dickens

“I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable.”
Viktor Frankl

“Frame your mind to mirth and merriment
which bars a thousand harms
and lengthens life.”
William Shakespeare

“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”
Mark Twain

“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
Buddha

“Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.”
Horace

“I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.”
Maya Angelou

“There is little success where there is little laughter.”
Andrew Carnegie

“I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, ‘Ain’t that the truth.’”
 Quincy Jones

“Laughter is America’s most important export.”
Walt Disney

“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
Elbert Hubbard

“It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“The size of a man’s understanding can be justly measured by his mirth.”
Samuel Johnson

“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all going to go insane.”
Jimmy Buffett

“The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.”
Wayne Dyer

“A man isn’t poor if he can still laugh.”
Raymond Hitchcock

“You have as much laughter as you have faith.”
Martin Luther

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”
George Bernard Shaw

“And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder

“My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh.”
Jim Carrey

“If you would not be laughed at, be the first to laugh at yourself.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.”
Anthony Burgess

“It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

“If you’re funny, if there’s something that makes you laugh, then every day’s going to be okay.”
Tom Hanks

“We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.”
Agnes Repplier

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
E. E. Cummings

“A person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.” Shirley MacClain

“Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.”
Vaclav Havel

“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”
Voltaire

“He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.”
Koran

“As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it.”
Lao Tsu

“From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
Dr. Seuss

“One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man’s laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.”
Ken Kesey

“To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.”
William Arthur Ward

“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.”
Yiddish Proverb

“A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.”
Irish Proverb

“You must learn to take life less seriously and to laugh.”
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“The greatest prayer you could ever pray is to laugh every day.”
Ramtha

“The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.” Bennett Cerf

“Don’t take yourself too seriously. Know when to laugh at yourself, and find a way to laugh at obstacles that inevitably present themselves.”
Halle Berry

“There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do.”
Amy Poehler

“If you can’t laugh, you won’t make it.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt

“Fame comes and fame goes, but you have to be able to laugh about yourself and to take it with a grain of salt.”
Khloe Kardashian

“If you can’t laugh at yourself, you don’t deserve to laugh at anybody else.”
Charlie Murphy

“Nothing feels as good to me as laughing incredibly hard.”
Steve Carell

“Life is tough; and if you have the ability to laugh at it, you have the ability to enjoy it.”
Salma Hayek

“Sometimes you almost have to laugh to keep from crying to deal with the pain associated with the hood.”
Gucci Mane

“I surround myself with people who make me laugh.”
Allen Iverson

“I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.”
Audrey Hepburn

“Wit is the key, I think, to anybody’s heart, because who doesn’t like to laugh?”
Julia Roberts

“It’s important to remember that life is a joke, and that outlook grants a lot of perspective, but I don’t think comedy should change and become political due to other things. It should just laugh at that cosmic joke that life is all the time.” John Mulaney

“Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to health.”
Aristotle

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”
Mark Twain

“He that is of a merry heart has a continual feast.”
Proverbs 15:15

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3

“Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.”
Stephen King

“If you become silent after your laughter, one day you will hear God also laughing, you will hear the whole existence laughing — trees and stones and stars with you.”
Osho

“The point is seeing that THIS — the immediate, everyday and present experience — is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe. I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter… “
Alan Watts

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”
Mark Twain

Ways to create and simulate laughter

“When you are totally depressed, you should try giggling. Just make yourself laugh. Force yourself to laugh.”
Yoko Ono

**Smile for 5 minutes

**Surround yourself with positive and fun people

**Count your blessings

**Watch funny videos/Read funny stories & jokes
(Rodney Dangerfield jokes below)

**Schedule time for fun activities

**Bring humor into conversations
(Ask someone “what’s the funniest thing that has ever happened to you?”)

**Go to a laughter yoga class
(I went to a few of these in college and it was awesome!)

*Remember funny things that have happened recently

**Remember fun times from your childhood

**Laugh at yourself.

**Remind self to laugh

**Laugh every day! 🙂

“Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, ‘Children’s Letters to God.’ You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, ‘Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.’”
Maya Angelou

Some quite funny Rodney Dangerfield’s jokes:

“I asked my old man if I could go ice-skating on the lake. He told me, ‘Wait til it gets warmer.’”

“I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.”

“Last Halloween a kid tried to rip my face off. He thought it was a mask. Now it’s different when I open the door the kids hand me candy.”

“My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet.”

“My uncle’s dying wish was to have me sitting on his lap. He was in the electric chair.”

“One night I came home. I figured, let my wife come on. I’ll play it cool. Let her make the first move. She went to Florida.”

“My wife isn’t very bright. The other day she was at the store, and just as she was heading for our car, someone stole it! I said, ‘Did you see the guy that did it?’ She said, ‘No, but I got the license plate.’”

“I tell you, with my doctor, I don’t get no respect. I told him, ‘I’ve swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.’ He told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.”

“I had a lot of pimples too. One day I fell asleep in a library. I woke up and a blind man was reading my face.”

“A travel agent told I could spend 7 nights in HAWAII no days just nights.”

What is something that makes you laugh? 🙂

How to Succeed Through Failure

Posted on by in Lifestyle, Motivation, Self-Help, Success, Successful People and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Vincent Van Gogh, Michael Jordan, Thomas Edison, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, Dr. Seuss, Oprah, Steve Jobs, Elvis Presley, Mark Cuban, and just about every other successful person.

What do all these people have in common?

Failure. Rejections. People doubting them.

But they also had & have perseverance & belief in their vision.

coacht.blog Van Gogh Quote.png

It’s more than a mindset.
It’s a pull.

Life pulls people toward their destiny but few people listen to life.

“Be in the world but not of the world.”

The world tells you to settle. 

Life, the infinite, gives you signs of what you should do—your passions, hobbies, interests, etc.

But the world tells you you can’t do that as a career.
They tell you you’ll fail.

And you will. At first.
But in time you will succeed.

“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.”
C.S. Lewis

• J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was accepted.

• Dr. Suess’s first book was rejected 28 times before it was accepted.

• Stephen King’s first book, Carrie, was rejected by 30 publishers before it was accepted.

• Oprah was told she wasn’t fit to be on television. 

• Steve Jobs was fired from the company that HE CREATED!

• Thomas Edison talks about failing over 10,000 times.

• Walt Disney experienced bankruptcy and a mental breakdown

• Vincent Van Gogh only sold ONE painting during his lifetime…He made over 900 paintings.

They never gave up because their purpose was never about “money.”

They “failed” over, and over, and over again, and again, and again.

Or maybe they just found a lot of ways that didn’t work.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Thomas Edison

“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward.”
Thomas A. Edison

The world laughed at them. And they will laugh at you if you try to attempt anything great, anything outside the “norm.”

Laugh with them. It is funny. And it will be even more funny when you make it, because it’s not about the critics and it’s not even about you. Your life’s work has a deeper purpose. It is life living through you.
It is Love.

As you begin to follow your life’s purpose, and it is hard in the beginning when you are experiencing failures, but the pull toward your purpose will grow within you. Your vision will be tested but your belief in it will grow as you persevere through the difficult times.

“Gold is tested by fire, and human character is tested in the furnace of humiliation.”
Sirach 2:5-7

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”
J.K. Rowling

Don’t fear failure. Fear never trying.

A research study found that one of the top 5 things a person on their deathbeds regrets is never living a life true to themselves.

More inspiring quotes to help you persevere through failure:

“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”
 Janet Fitch

“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. It is good to have a failure while you’re young because it teaches you so much. For one thing it makes you aware that such a thing can happen to anybody, and once you’ve lived through the worst, you’re never quite as vulnerable afterward.”
Walt Disney

“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”
Dale Carnegie

“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.”
George Eliot

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”
Malcolm Forbes

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”
Johnny Cash

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
Napoleon Hill

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
Steve Jobs

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
Michael Jordan

“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.”
Amelia Earhart

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
Robert F. Kennedy

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.”
Henry Ford

“Remember that failure is an event, not a person.”
Zig Ziglar

“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”
Oprah Winfrey

“It is fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
Bill Gates

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill

“Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”
John Wooden

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
Dale Carnegie

“Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing.”
J.K. Rowling

Doubt Breeds REAL Confidence

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“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

Francis Bacon

Have you ever been so confident in something & then ended up wrong?
I have. 

I’ve tried to put together a small table without following the directions & after failing I finally decided to use the directions.

An ignorant confidence does that to us all. Blind faith is easy.

Over the years I have learned that I know nothing for sure. I am confident in that and so I can live confidently, forever learning. Confident in trying something so many times, and failing, until I can do it with complete confidence.

Confidence is a great trait to have in all aspects of life, but HOW you gain that confidence is more important than “confidence” itself.

In a world that praises fake confidence & bravado, why and how can you use doubt to breed REAL confidence?

“The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.”
Malcolm Forbes

Remain humble —You stop learning when you are confident in “knowing it all:”

“Men cease to think when they think they know it all.”
Horace

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Stephen Hawking

Doubt can help you improve.
It’s a sign that there is something to learn, always.

Instead of having blind confidence in whatever it is you’re doing, question it & LEARN.

Do you follow directions when building things like tables for the first time?
I do now. Doubt guides me to follow the directions because I doubt I can build a table without directions if I’ve never done it before.

So why can’t we apply this idea to other aspects of life?

We can.

We can question things & look for answers until we learn what we need to to succeed & grow in that area. 

And no matter what there’s always more to learn!

Doubt allows you to think critically and opens your mind.

“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.” 
Marcus Aurelius

Having doubt will prepare you for anything you anticipate. Soldiers train every day to stay ready for battle, because if they had 100% confidence without training, they would fail. Doubt is a guide for them, as it is with all people.

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”
Robert Hughes

People who doubt are preparing themselves for the future, which is today. (Yesterday the future was today…)

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
René Descartes

Some people don’t want to be wrong in the fear of looking stupid. That is stupidity in itself.

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
Charles Bukowski

“The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it.”
Rajneesh

Ignorance is NOT bliss.

Doubt is a good thing.

It will lead you to a REAL, humble confidence.

Doubt will keep you learning and growing throughout all of your days.

“Uncertainty also relieves us of our judgment of ourselves. Then we don’t know if we’re lovable or not; we don’t know how attractive we are; we don’t know how successful we could potentially become. The only way to achieve these things is to remain uncertain of them and be open to finding them out through experience. Uncertainty is the root of all progress and all growth. As the old adage goes, the man who believes he knows everything learns nothing. We cannot learn anything without first not knowing something.” 
Mark Manson

“Always be suspicious of those who pretend to know it all, claim their way is the best way and are willing to force their way on the rest of us.”
Walter Williams

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
Socrates

I can agree with Socrates in saying that I also know nothing.

You don’t need to fight doubt. It’s there for a reason.

Allow doubt to prepare you and guide you to real confidence.

The Question IS The Answer

Posted on by in Motivation, Self-Help, Success and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Will this article make you smarter?

Questions. Questions. Questions.

Everyone is looking for answers. No one is looking for questions.

But the answer is within the question.

Research has been done by scientists on the power questions have on human brains.

Questions trigger a reflex in humans know as “instinctive elaboration,” which means when someone asks you a question, the question takes over the brain’s thought process. 

Behavioral scientists Morwitz, Johnson, and Schmittlein did a study on this topic and found that asking people questions about their futures significantly influenced their decisions. This is known as the “mere measurement effect.” The study was done in 1993 with over 40,000 participants by asking them if they were going to purchase a new car within six months. This question increased their purchase rates by 35%.

Similar surveys have been done on the topics of voting, donating blood, exercise frequency, and more. 

Each survey found that all these behaviors can be increased by asking about them!

Your mind is powerful!

Research has found that the more the brain thinks about a certain behavior, the more likely it is that you will do it.

Thinking about something can change your behavior and sensations.

Imagine sipping some warm hot chocolate. 

Can you taste it? 

Can you notice your mind shifted its focus from where it was to the hot chocolate?

Your mind is powerful…

So if you never ask a question, you will never get an answer.

If you ask a negative question like, “why do bad things always happen to me?” You will get an answer, and it will reinforce bad things happening to you.

If you ask a positive question like, “how can I live my best life?” You will get an answer and it will reinforce ideas of how you can live your best life.

Questions are powerful tools you can use to live more of the life you want to live.

Here are some others who strongly agree:

“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”
Alan Watts

“Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”
Tony Robbins

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
Voltaire

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
Eugene Ionesco

“Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

“One of the many qualities that separate self-made billionaires from the rest of us is their ability to ask the right questions.”
Justine Musk

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.”
E. E. Cummings

“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”
W. Edwards Deming

“Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.”
Tennessee Williams

“I think that probably the most important thing about our education was that it taught us to question even those things we thought we knew.”
Thabo Mbeki

“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”
Voltaire

“A wise man’s question contains half the answer.”
Solomon Ibn Gabirol

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
Francis Bacon

7 powerful questions Tony Robbins asks to spark positive emotions are:

—What am I happy about in my life now?

—What am I excited about in my life now?

—What am I proud about in my life now?

—What am I grateful about in my life now?

—What am I enjoying in life right now?

—What am I committed to in my life right now?

—Who do I love? Who loves me?

What are 3 other questions you can think of that by asking yourself them will help you achieve a goal?

In All Things, Use what Works for You

Posted on by in Lifestyle, Motivation, Self-Help, Success, Successful People and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”

Bruce Lee

How often have you been told what to do with your life?

Most people who give you unsolicited advice have good intentions but it doesn’t mean that what has worked for them will work for you.

“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
Paulo Coelho

It’s easy to get lost in all the things you “should do,” as people will tell you, while forgetting about what you actually want to do.

It can be extremely difficult when it seems like everyone else is doing what people say you “should do”, like going to college, but it’s not for everyone.

Here are some people who didn’t go or dropped out of college:

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Turner, Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Ellen DeGeneres, Rachael Ray, Michael Dell, Jack Dorsey, Russell Simmons, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and many others. Find a list of 100 here.

Remember this quote from Mark Twain whenever you are thinking that you should be doing what others are doing:

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

If you’re struggling in an area where you see others succeeding in, it doesn’t make you dumb, it just tells you that that area is not for you, unless you’re passionate about it. You can learn & master any skill you want through relentless practice.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 
Albert Einstein

A variety of life experiences & hobbies can help you figure out your passion.

Maybe it’s writing, acting, speaking, athletics, designer, teacher, attendant, horse trainer.

But people say, “you can’t do that, no one makes money doing that.”

Except they do…

If there is anyone doing what you would love to do, you can do it too.

You may have to take some side jobs as you focus on getting paid to do what you love, but if you are passionate enough about it, you will find a way.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Steve Jobs

You are unique.

People find the most happiness when they embrace their uniqueness instead of trying to please people & fit in.

Maybe you learn best visually while someone else learns best verbally.
Or aurally, physically, logically, socially, or solitary.

Which way is best? 

There is no “best.” There is only what is best for you.

Find out how you learn best & don’t judge yourself.

I think I learn best visually—I like demonstrations especially when I am able to get involved.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
Benjamin Franklin

There are many crossroads in life, leaving you with multiple choices. The easy path is to follow what others are doing.

A nurse who spent years working in palliative care, taking care of people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, researched and wrote the top five regrets people have on their deathbeds.

The most common regret was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Find the article here.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Use what works for you, not what works for someone else.

Here are 3 more ways to live life you won’t regret

Quotes to help find and follow your bliss

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”
Maya Angelou

“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The people who make it to the top – whether they’re musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos – are addicted to their calling … [they] are the ones who’d be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren’t being paid.”
Quincy Jones

“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?”
Warren Buffet

“I think the foremost quality – there’s no success without it – is really loving what you do. If you love it, you do it well, and there’s no success if you don’t do well what you’re working at.”
Malcolm Forbes

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
Patanjali

“The law of work seems unfair, but nothing can change it; the more enjoyment you get out of your work, the more money you will make.”
Mark Twain

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”
Rumi

“Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it … I have written because it fulfilled me. Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but those things were on the side—I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for the joy, you can do it forever.”
Stephen King

“I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
Steve Jobs

Stop Looking Back & Live Life like you’re Driving

Posted on by in Lifestyle, Motivation, Self-Help, Success and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I was driving on the highway yesterday as I adjusted my rearview mirror to the honking car behind me. I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror for too long and crashed, totaling my car and injuring my body.

This is a metaphor but very real in that it happens to people every day; you look back for too long, dwelling in the pain of the past as it becomes a habit & nearly impossible to look forward.

What happens when you look back for too long?
You crash.

It’s important to look back every now & then so that you can shift lanes & stay cautious without getting in an accident. Caution is important to moving forward, but too much caution will keep you where you are.

Sometimes by looking back you are just stalling. Sitting. Waiting…Waiting for something to happen, but nothing does, because YOU are the driver. YOU decide where you go.

But it can be difficult to look forward when this ruthless world is quick to punish…

…Especially when you find success.

When you find success you’ll find a crowd of cars tailing you, honking at you, craving your attention. They want you to look back. They don’t want you to follow your vision & move forward. They want you to remember all the pot holes you hit on your way.

How are you responding to the world around you?

Everyone & everything wants your attention. 

Are you giving it to them?

Or are you following YOUR vision?

You are the driver of your life. You are empowered.

Keep looking forward and I’ll see you on the highway.

Quotes on not looking back

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
C.S. Lewis

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Albert Einstein

“The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams.”
Oprah Winfrey

“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”
Rick Warren

“If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.”
Steve Jobs

“Never look back unless you are planning on going that way.”
Henry David Thoreau

“If you look back, you’ll soon be going that way.”
Proverb

“We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience.”
George Washington

“Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.”
Steve Maraboli

“I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back.”
David Bowie

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
Mother Theresa

Here are 3 things you can do to live a life you won’t regret living!