“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusions. By thoughts, I mean specifically, chatter in the skull.
Plus, whether you're fixating on the past or catastrophizing about the future, thought patterns that are more destructive than constructive can take a toll on both your mental health and physical health. "Studies show that ruminating on stressful events can, over time, lead to anxiety and depression," warns Dr. Fowler.
“Not forcing” is Alan's translation of the Taoist idea of Wu Wei, which is usually translated as “not doing”, or “doing nothing”, however Alan's translation is much better for martial application. In martial arts, like Tai Chi, it is forcing things that is bad.
“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusions. By thoughts, I mean specifically, chatter in the skull. Perpetual and compulsive repetition of words, of reckoning and calculating.
His essential message, and the whole point and joy of human life, as he shared in the preface to his autobiography In My Own Way, was to “integrate the spiritual with the material”. He believed that this could only be done by carving “your own way”, by “accepting your own karma”, and by “following your own weird.”
Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.
In 2 Corinthians 10:5, the apostle Paul writes: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” It's by taking every one of your thoughts captive that you can fight off overthinking and find peace of mind.
No, overthinking isn't a recognized mental health condition, but it can be a symptom of depression or anxiety. Overthinking is commonly associated with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), says Duke. GAD is characterized by the tendency to worry excessively about several things.
Stress, anxiety, perfectionism, and negative thought patterns can all contribute to overthinking. If you'd like to gain control over overthinking, you might start by practicing mindfulness, challenging negative thoughts, engaging in self-care, practicing positive self-talk, and spending time with friends and family.
2. “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” —Martin Luther King, Jr. Don't miss these patience quotes that will remind you that all good things take time.
In philosophy, egoism is the theory that one's self is, or should be, the motivation and the goal of one's own action. Egoism has two variants, descriptive or normative. The descriptive (or positive) variant conceives egoism as a factual description of human affairs.
He said, "I am a vegetarian because cows scream louder than carrots." Alan Wilson Watts was a British-born philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.
Zen is short for Zen Buddhism. It is sometimes called a religion and sometimes called a philosophy. Choose whichever term you prefer; it simply doesn't matter.
For Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others. They do not belong to particular persons any more than the sun, moon and stars. Complement Become What You Are, which is indispensable in its entirety, with Watts on death and how to live with presence.
Watts writes: The hallucination of separateness prevents one from seeing that to cherish the ego is to cherish misery. We do not realize that our so-called love and concern for the individual is simply the other face of our own fear of death or rejection.
It seems that if I am afraid, then I am “stuck” with fear. But in fact I am chained to the fear only so long as I am trying to get away from it. On the other hand, when I do not try to get away I discover that there is nothing “stuck” or fixed about the reality of the moment.