Designing the Mind - The Book of Self Mastery: Timeless Quotes About Knowing, Changing, and Mastering Yourself

DESIGNING THE MIND

First published by Designing the Mind 2020

Copyright 2020 by Designing the Mind, LLC. info@designingthemind.org

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

If you would like to take your pursuit of self-mastery to new heights, I write about the practice of psychitecture, or self-directed psychological evolution, which I view as the key to mastering your mind. You can download a free, 50-page guide on psychitecture, which includes:

• An introduction to the basic concepts of psychitecture and psychological algorithms
• A breakdown of 8 psychotechnologies you can start using to reprogram your mind
• 64 incredible book recommendations related to self mastery and psychitecture
• A list of 16 websites, blogs, and podcasts that can aid in self-optimization
• More quotes - for those who just cant get enough of them

Just go todesigningthemind.org/masteryto get your Psychitects Toolkit.

Introduction

Conventional wisdom tells us that in order to be successful in life, we must build lucrative careers, impeccable social media presences, and houses full of expensive toys, smiling children, and appraisal value. Taken all together, its a tall order, bordering on impossible. But there is a larger problem with it. The people who achieve it are often just as unhappy as when they started out. In the process of becoming what cultural prescription wanted them to be, they failed to become what they wanted to be.

But there is an alternate line of thought, one that has been echoed by virtually all of the wisest thinkers who ever lived, along with the researchers studying human well-being today. It suggests we can get off of the so-called hedonic treadmill, and onto what you might call the hedonic escalator. We can strive toward a more resilient, more powerful kind of mastery. Instead of trying to build the perfect life in which to dwell, we can fortify and master the vehicle through which we traverse it. We can live to master ourselves.

In this book, I have put together a collection of quotations and provided short commentary on each one. It is easy to write off for its simplicity, but a book of quotes, when applied, can be a powerful technology for shaping your mind. Reading the words of these legendary thinkers consistently, particularly just before starting your day, can serve as a reminder of your priorities which will color your experience throughout the day. It can weaken the hold of others peoples opinions of you. It can help you to laugh at the setbacks you will inevitably encounter. And it can defend your goals and decisions from the many distractions which seek to undermine them.

There are a few important ways I wanted this compilation to stand out from other quote books. I did not want it to be a careless copy-paste of all the best known quotes on the topic. The topic of self-mastery and the thinkers who have contributed to it have personal significance for me. Self-mastery has served as a North Star for me through challenges and struggles I have faced. Many of these passages come from a collection I started years ago, and have provided me with inspiration, consolation, and meaning throughout my life. I wanted to give them away to anyone else who could find use in them.

The primary contributors to this book are not entrepreneurs and self-help gurus who have achieved mastery in business; they are the philosophers and teachers who specialized in the art of living. If you have an interest in philosophy, you will probably see some classic quotes you recognize, but I have tried to include many that will be new to readers. When possible, I provide longer excerpts to give context and to convey the meaning that was intended by the people who said or wrote them.

You might be surprised by how many celebrated quotes are misattributed or completely made up, and most quote compilations include many of these false quotes. Getting attached to a quote and then realizing it was fake can feel almost like losing a friend or getting scammed, so I have gone to significant lengths to ensure that all quotes in this book are accurately attributed. So feel free to save, share, and meditate on any of the quotes here that resonate with you with the knowledge that they are authentic. I hope you find as much value in them as I have.

To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

- Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

Are you doing enough with your life? Did you get enough done today? Have you optimized every minute of your time for maximum effectiveness? Productivity hacks are everywhere today, and along with them come the assumption that time not spent actively chasing a goal is time wasted. Michel de Montiagne understood what few others seem to - that an inability to enjoy a moment of idleness is weakness. He saw that the abilities to know, manage, and direct ourselves are our fundamental life skills. Living, being, and experiencing, are our ultimate occupations - everything else is secondary.

The answer to the perennial question of what facilitates individual and cultural success might be found in the concept of self-regulation. The benefits of successful self-regulation are great and its costs can be dire. Failures of self-regulation are at the root of many personal and societal ills, such as interpersonal violence, self-defeating behaviors, substance abuse, poor health, underachievement, and obesity. The consequences of failed self-control can therefore create enormous social and economic costs, thus placing a heavy burden on society. In contrast, effective self-regulation allows individuals and cultures to thrive by promoting moral, disciplined, and virtuous behaviors.

- Roy Baumeister, Willpower

We are deeply conditioned to see people through the lens of pure good and evil. We feel justified in punishing criminals because we attribute their behavior to sinister motives. But Roy Baumeister, a leading psychologist studying self-control, has made the case that what we sometimes call evil is rarely a case of malicious intent. More often, harmful behaviors result from a lack of self-regulation skills, and weak willpower muscles. If we could cultivate greater self-control in ourselves and others, many of our individual and societal issues would vanish.

Of all existing things some are in our power, and others are not in our power. In our power are thought, impulse, will to get and will to avoid, and, in a word, everything which is our own doing. Things not in our power include the body, property, reputation, office, and in a word, everything which is not our own doing. Things in our power are by nature free, unhindered, untrammeled; things not in our power are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, dependent on others.

- Epictetus, Enchiridion

Its a concept powerful enough to stick around for millennia, influence modern cognitive therapy, and even make it onto the wooden sign in your aunts sunroom. Take action toward the things you have control over, and dont worry about the things you dont. Epictetus was one of the founders of Stoicism, a philosophy which urged followers not to sweat the small things, and to focus on how we respond to our circumstances over making sure they go exactly the way we want.