Good stuff I found recently:

We give “value” to all kinds of things, some times in terms of money, and sometimes in terms of usefulness. Yet I think there is another set of values that we overlook at our peril – we value things by what we had to give up to get them.

My mother, until she died, was constantly worrying about what would happen to all her valuable things in the house. After her death we discovered that even though these things may have cost a lot of money, no one wanted them at the auction.

When she had selected and bought those objects, years before, it was with a view to demonstrating how far she’d come in life. She’d risen above her background to live a rather more glamorous life than her school friends. So, of course these things were valuable. She’d given up her home, her native language, and much of her cultural background when she married my father.

No wonder the objects she bought were so “valuable” to her. They were compensating her for all she’d lost.

Anxiety!  It can sprout as fast as mushrooms in a dark room.  It seems to multiply in the closets of our minds.  So why would we associate the word “lazy” with it?

Lazy thinking?  We usually associate speed, racing, activity, hysteria, imbalance, over-functioning, plate-spinning, and other out-of-control activities with anxiety.  But not laziness. Active and highly motivated are the attributes that come to mind in a word association with anxiety.  Those folks who are anxious are immersed in the thought of failure, so like a scared rodent, they speed up the treadmill.

Yet could it be lazy thinking that prevents anxiety sufferers from pushing against the thoughts that seed this emotional terror?

Lazy thought habits fuel our anxiety.  Yes, some have a predisposition to suffer from anxiety more than others.  We know that anxiety can be an affliction.  All humans have some degree of anxiety affliction.  The continuum goes from very little to extreme.

“You are one hundred and ten years old. A time machine has just been invented, and you are selected as one of the first people to use it. The inventor, a scientist from NASA, tells you that you will be transported back to the day when, as it happens, you first read Happier. You, with the wisdom of having lived and experienced life, have fifteen minutes to spend with your younger and less experienced self. What do you say when you meet? What advice do you give yourself?” ~ Tal Ben-Shahar from Happier