Sublime

Contrivances, ideals, ambitions, and self-propitiations are no longer necessary, since it is now possible to live spontaneously without trying to be spontaneous. Indeed, there is no alternative, since it is now seen that there never was any self to bring the self under its control.

ACT research we discovered that our efforts will be more effective if we learn to keep bringing our minds back to the present and our ability to choose in every moment how we will act.

if someone asked me, “Why should I practice Stoicism?” my answer would not invoke the name of Zeus (or God) and would not talk about the function that humans were designed to fulfill. Instead, I would talk about our evolutionary past; about how, because of this past, we are evolutionarily programmed to want certain things and to experience certain

Following another set of arguments, I turned to older models of religious and cultural expression that focused on alternative models of the self in relation to the transcendent beyond the exclusive community.

Living in accordance with our values is often ironically undermined by our pursuit of goals. Our problem-solving minds direct our attention, and our behavior, too narrowly toward achieving goals.