🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

✍️ My Top Quotes From the Book

• After all, the time you plan to waste is not wasted time.
• Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always an unhealthy escape from reality.
• Dissatisfaction and discomfort dominate our brain’s default state, but we can use them to motivate us instead of defeat us.
• It’s good to know that feeling bad isn’t actually bad; it’s exactly what survival of the fittest intended.
• One of the most pervasive bits of folk psychology is the belief that self-control is limited—that, by the nature of our temperament, we only have so much willpower available to us.
• A good rule of thumb is to talk to yourself the way you might talk to a friend.
• What we fear most is usually what we most need to do.

📒 Summary + Notes

• Highlight color:

discomfort

Most people don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always an unhealthy escape from reality.

How we deal with uncomfortable internal triggers determines whether we pursue healthful acts of traction or self-defeating distractions.

Eons of evolution gave you and me a brain in a near-constant state of discontentment.

Dissatisfaction and discomfort dominate our brain’s default state, but we can use them to motivate us instead of defeat us.

Simply put, the drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behavior, while everything else is a proximate cause.

rumination

Good things are nice, but bad things can kill you, which is why we pay attention to and remember the bad stuff first.

If you’ve ever chewed over something in your mind that you did, or that someone did to you, or over something that you don’t have but wanted, over and over again, seemingly unable to stop thinking about it, you’ve experienced what psychologists call rumination.

It’s good to know that feeling bad isn’t actually bad; it’s exactly what survival of the fittest intended.