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Quote by Benjamin P. Hardy

“From the late 1800s to the late 1900s... science suggested that human beings are the direct byproduct of their own past. [...] Research now shows that a person’s past does not drive or dictate their actions and behaviors. Rather, we are pulled forward by our future. [...] From this view, [...] all human-action is goal-driven [or purpose-driven], even if the goal of the behavior isn’t consciously considered by the individual. [...] There is always a why for everything someone does. That why is their reason or goal for what they’re doing. [...] While [...] purpose may not [always] be conscious or inspiring, [a person's reason behind their behavior] still exists. Even if the goal is simply immediate gratification or escape, [as in the case of wasting time] on social media.”

Quote by Benjamin P. Hardy

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Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation

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Benjamin P. Hardy

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“I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.”

“...That's exactly it, my dear friend,'' the future rector had once told him regarding Existentialism, when he was already doing postgraduate work in psychology to achieve his doctorate, ''for this is nothing but a noögenic neuroses due to which such people end up feeling as if they were lost in space and time.'' ''That which the Greek Stoics used to call agnoia, isn't it, or the spiritual ignorance of Man,'' the future professor had answered while they were in the university canteen having a coffee together. ''Correct. In fact, noögenic neuroses do not emerge from conflicts between drives and instincts but rather from spiritual and existential problems...”

“Passivity manifests in complaining and blaming because these behaviors are both self-focused and correlate to feelings of helplessness. These people are likely to make frequent complaints with the accompanying message that no one will do anything about them and make demands to mobilize feelings of guilt and responsibility in those around them. Their pain is, they tell you, the result of someone or something else outside of themselves (e.g., “You make me sad”; “All this noise makes me feel anxious”). This is not to say that a correlation does not exist, but a complete lack of ownership over one’s emotional state points to a mood disorder because, quite logically, if how we feel is directly determined by an external cause, then we, too, would become anxious and ultimately depressed.”

“The domestication of plants in the Neolithic Revolution with the move from hunting and gathering to farming led to large-scale cultivation of various plants and hence greater potential availability of plant toxins than could have been present in the wild.”