Action seems to follow feeling; but really action and feeling go together, and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. We cannot instantly change our emotions by just “making up our minds to” – but we can change our actions. The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if your cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.

Recommended reading: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

Do not unwittingly transform clock time into psychological time. For example, if you made a mistake in the past and learn from it now, you are using clock time. On the other hand, if you dwell on it mentally, and self-criticism, remorse, or guilt come up, then you are making the mistake into ‘me’ and ‘mine’: You make it part of your sense of self, and it has become psychological time, which is always linked to a false sense of identity. Nonforgiveness necessarily implies a heavy burden of psychological time. If you set yourself a goal and work toward it, you are using clock time. You are aware of where you want to go, but you honor and give your fullest attention to the step that you are taking at this moment. If you then become excessively focused on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfillment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honored. It becomes reduced to a mere stepping stone to the future, with no intrinsic value. Clock time then turns into psychological time. Your life’s journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to ‘make it’. You no longer see or smell the flowers by the wayside either, nor are you aware of the beauty and the miracle of life that unfolds all around you when you are not present in the Now.

Recommended reading: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.

In general, if we carefully examine any given situation in a very unbiased and honest way, we will realize that to a large extent we are also responsible for the unfolding of events.

Recommended reading: The Art of Happiness: A handbook for living.

Patience is a mind that is able to accept, fully and happily, whatever occurs. It is much more than just gritting your teeth and putting up with things. Being patient means to welcome wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than what they are.

Recommended reading: How to Solve Our Human Problems: The Four Noble Truths.

The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want to Be.”

Recommended reading: When Everything Changes, Change Everything: In a Time of Turmoil, a Pathway to Peace.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Recommend reading: Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment.

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

Suggested reading: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Suggested reading: The Story of My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

Suggested reading: A Short Guide to a Happy Life.

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently. Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.

Suggested reading: The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.