When someone speaks negatively about you, you usually feel that you need to retaliate. Every time you react, you create certain neural-pathways in your brain. The more you react, the more you strengthen those same pathways, while weakening others.

Overtime you build the habit of always reacting in a particular way whenever someone is negative toward you. These habitual reactions then lead you into more anger, fear, and hatred. Your need to punish whoever is causing you suffering, so you can find some sense of relief, only makes you suffer more.

In Zen Buddhism, when you walk, you are walking. When you sit, you are sitting. When you are going to the bathroom, you are going to the bathroom. Whatever you are doing — whether you’re sweeping the floor, listening to a song on the radio, or biting into an apple — you are fully aware of what is happening. You are caring for each moment like you’re cradling a baby in your arms. When you’re fully engaged in your life, you’re not separate from what is outside of yourself. …

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Even if you disagree with Peter Singer’s conclusions, his argument, if taken seriously, will make you question a few things about your own life:

1.) How much am I actually doing to prevent the suffering of the world?

2.) If I have the means to prevent the suffering of others, but I am choosing to eat out at a fancy restaurant every week instead of helping a baby who is dying of malnutrition, am I truly being moral?

3.) Am I doing all that I can to help others, or am I only doing a fraction of…

Epictetus (50–135 CE) was born as a slave in Hierapolis, Phrygia. After Emperor Nero’s death, he eventually gained his freedom and taught Stoic philosophy in Rome for close to 25 years. Emperor Domitian, who feared the dissenting influence of philosophers, banished Epictetus from his home. He traveled to Nicopolis in the northwest of Greece and developed his own school, teaching in exile until his death. His ideas impacted historical figures such as Emperor Hadrian and Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Although Epictetus never wrote down his teachings, his disciple Arrian, who was a famous historian, recorded what he had said.

Epictetus’s main…

“The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts. They alter patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.”

Marshal McLuhan

Our nervous systems are plastic. We are always in the process of forming new neural connections while losing old ones. In the microscopic spaces in between our neurons — whenever we perform a task, experience an event, or think a thought — chemical reactions “register and record experiences in neural pathways.” (Carr, Nicholas)

Certain sets of neurons in our brains are activated. They join together and exchange neurotransmitters with each other. When our experiences…

With every breath, we can return to life as it unfolds. We can be aware of our emotions and thoughts and bodies and minds. We can gently smile to where we are.

When we wake up, when we sip our tea, when we drive to work, when we shower, when we eat, we can be fully here.

We offer our presence to each moment. Time is a precious gift that we shouldn’t waste with regrets about the past and anxieties for the future.

Sometimes we’re so used to our habits of compulsive thinking that we are unaware of anything else…