Gems of Wisdom

Over the past few days I've been collecting little pearls of insightful things that I've found or that people have told me. A couple of them are from Psychology Today, which, while I think they sometimes have insightful advice, are more pop-psi than real-psi. I felt them worthy enough to share.

Happiness, then, is the confidence that pain and disappointment can be tolerated, that love will prove stronger than aggression. It is release from the attachment to pleasant feelings, and faith in the capacity of awareness to guide us through the inevitable insults to our own narcissism. It is the realization that we do not have to be so self-obsessed, that within our own minds lies the capacity for a kind of acceptance we had only dreamed of. This happiness rarely comes without effort to train [the] mind.

How to Move On: With difficulty. The loss of a relationship is never easy to endure. Rejection is always a blow to our deepest sense of self. Most people use all available means for coping. They talk to friends, let out the pain in tears or in writing. Both help you gain perspective on what was right and what wrong about the relationship, so you can avoid the same mistakes in the future. Resilient people also do things that nourish a positive sense of self. They get extra exercise. Or throw themselves into an absorbing project. Remember, all intimate relationships are practice runs until all the pieces fall into place. View your recent relationship as a rehearsal opportunity for the real thing.

My dearest ex-prof Lou has said a couple good things too:

You need to work out whether dating (or what kind of dating etc) works for you. I can't say you would be bad off with a b/f in grad school; but I have seen for myself, that grad school is, or can be, a really challenging experience. A lot of people drop out, for all kinds of good reasons. So if you want to make it through grad school, you want to arrange everything in life into two piles (a) the things that will help you get through (b) the things that won't. Then make the A pile as big as you can, and the B pile as small as you can. A supportive and sturdy b/f or g/f can definitely go in the A pile. But (alas) a flaky mindfucker is surely in the B pile. I did not have a g/f in grad school, but I had a woman I was insanely in love with, who did not give in proportion to what I gave (I thought) - and so her presence in my life was really in the B pile, completely. But I only worked this out about 95% the way through my PhD. The last 100 yards of the mountain were the hardest part to climb, when I realized I had climbed all that way, and she would not be my prize awaiting me at the top. So it goes. I have no shortage of stupidity in my past. There are scads of attractive men around you, I have no doubt, but you want to be really really selective, when you are before or in grad school. A lot of men cannot really STAND the idea of a woman who is (a) brighter (b) more successful (c) more independent than a man. These are the ones to avoid, regardless of how luscious they look...

And this one:

The main thing I hope you hold fast to, in your heart, is your own sense of worth. So many people (often women) think they are worth less than they really are, and consequently accept b.s. that no decent soul should have to put up with. You are worthy of a good man, and good men are out there, but you have to say 'no' to all the dubious ones... ("My Former Students Do Not Coddle The Weak." ---ex-Klingon Montana Tech Instructor)