Cultivate a shrine

Finally, I’d realized that our apartment didn’t have to reveal any deep truths. I expressed myself in other ways; it was enough that my apartment was a pleasant, comfortable place to live (and had miles of bookshelves).

Bob Dylan’s odd, brilliant memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, in which he wrote about his wife: “The one thing about her that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She’s always had her own built-in happiness.”

I spent more time reading the Metropolitan section of the New York Times and the Greater New York section of the Wall Street Journal.

The Eight Splendid Truths First To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. Second One of the best ways to make myself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy myself. Third The days are long, but the years are short. Fourth

By “shrine,” I didn’t mean a niche with candles, flowers, and a statue, but rather, Eleanor-like, an area that enshrined my passions, interests, and values. A shrine is arranged with care. It entices people to particular activities and moods. It’s a sign of dedication.

my Sixth Splendid Truth: The only person I can change is myself. What could I do to change my habits

First was the engagement that came with use.

As William James observed, “Between what a man calls me and what he simply calls mine the line is difficult to draw. We feel and act about certain things that are ours very much as we feel and act about ourselves.”