updated 12h ago
A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity
Simplicity in our familial relationships must spring from a recognition of the inherent complexity of what we’re trying to do – which is to get on well with someone who has unavoidably damaged us and whose outlook on life can never reasonably align with our own.
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
because parents are a generation older, much of what shaped them stemmed from a world with priorities, values, anxieties and hopes that seem strange – even reprehensible – to their children, but that were, and still are, urgent and real for them.
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
We discover the joys of simple communication when we can accept that what we want is almost never impossible for others to bear; it’s the cover-up that maddens and pains.
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
However, it’s important to understand that our worry about money is – in most countries at this point in history – typically disconnected from any issues of survival. We could keep going on much less than we have – as almost everyone who ever lived has done. What drives us to accumulate is a psychological necessity, not a material one. We are under
... See morefrom A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
Truly ‘good’ materialism leads us to want fewer things and to choose them with care, while bad materialism results in us filling our homes with needless stuff that we have no room for in our hearts. We clutter up our wardrobes, homes and lives because the messages our possessions are sending us aren’t being listened to.
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
Material objects – silent though they are – can be eloquent sources of important psychological messages; they can prompt, encourage, upbraid and generally remind us of our better selves – and by doing so they make a powerful, positive contribution to our lives.
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
‘The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he cannot stay quietly in his room.’
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
If you had the right things, he argued, you wouldn’t need many things.
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago
We don’t need a landed estate to qualify as an aristocrat; what counts is the very sane conviction that ‘what most people think’ isn’t and should never be a reasonable guide to our own lives.
from A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity by The School of Life
Grisha Samus added 5mo ago