Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Tomasz Jedrowski

Quote by Tomasz Jedrowski

Work

Swimming in the Dark

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Tomasz Jedrowski

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Tomasz Jedrowski. more

You May Also Like

“Let’s take a look at how modern life goes. Mostly, it’s frenetic and at a pace that’s not conducive to reflective thought./ It’s all too fast for our human dimensions, as David Malouf put it. We don’t have time to adjust, to work out our priorities, and to reflect on whether what we’re doing when we’re running around madly is actually meaningful to us.. While we are meant to have more time (all those time-saving devices were meant to deliver just this, no?), we have less space. We are “on” 24/7. Every gap is filled. Even waiting at bus stops. We don’t leave work and unwind and stare into space for a bit, enjoying the sound of the birds, the soft dusk sunlight on fellow passenger’s faces. Nope, we must prune our social feeds./ Technology freed us up . . .to imprison us further. It’s created the imperative to go faster, to take on more ideas, and to juggle more. There are no excuses for not coming up with an answer, and immediately. Not when there’s Google./ But what if we need more time to know and to feel if it’s the right answer?”

WorryAnxietyModern Life
Book:First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety
Create image

“But self-mastery triumphs in this Modern Life of ours. So if we haven’t found happiness or calm or balance amidst it all - if we don’t cope - it’s because we’ve not tried hard enough. Because Modern Life dictates there’s an answer out there . . .you just have to try harder to find it and master it. Of course it doesn’t exist. So we are set up to fail. I feel for younger people. I think they’re hit particularly hard by this doomed imperative. Many sociologists peg increased anxiety among teens and young adults to this phenomenon. The standard solution is to consume - food, possessions, partners, gurus. If our self-worth is suffering, we’re told to buy a new moisturizer. Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, writes, “We have so much fucking stuff and so many opportunities that we don’t even know what to give a fuck about anymore.” Shia once again: “Today we’re told to do more stuff that has no purpose, which makes anxious.” Again, I think young people feel this acutely. And here’s the dirty clincher: All of it drives us outward, away from our true selves and fro our yearning to know ourselves better. Plus, it drives us away from each other. Lack of community and belonging is cited by Dr. Jean Twenge, a social psychologist at San Diego State University and author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - And More Miserable Than Ever Before, as the primary driver of anxiety today. I’d include extensive quotes from Dr. Twenge, but I think the book title says it all. Then (big sigh), when we do find it all too much, Modern Life slaps us with a “disorder” or disease diagnosis.”

WorryAnxietyModern LifeMeasuring Up
Book:First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety
Create image

“Talking to a child about future health issues is also not the correct course. First of all, it can scare the child and make her have excessive worry about herself. Unfortunately, we hear parents tell their children that they will get diabetes or have heart problems if they don’t lose weight. Secondly, the concept of future heart problems is too abstract, even for an adult, let alone a child. Worry about future health issues does not have the power to motivate behavior change. Feeling physically better in the moment has far more impact.”

HeartWorryFoodHealthFutureParentingHealth Problems
Book:Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works
Create image