We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Hungarian-American psychologist (1934–2021)
As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.
People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
The solution is to gradually become free of societal rewards and learn how to substitute for them rewards that are under one's own powers. This is not to say that we should abandon every goal endorsed by society; rather, it means that, in addition to or instead of the goals others use to bribe us with, we develop a set of our own.
It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.
Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works.