The degree to which we judge others, and would make them pay for their shortcomings, is inseparable from the false belief that our nature is somehow different, superior to those seen through the eyes of our disdain.

Guy Finely explains that looking for the approval of others and trying to live up to their expectations are the seeds of a cultural trap. Learn to do what's right in spite of what the world says, and you will flower into a truly profitable human being.

It is our fear of being alone and in doubt, of wanting to feel certain that what we are doing is right, that compels us to seek the approval of others.

The rush to judge what we see as some character flaw in another human being is the speed at which the false self races to hide from itself a similar imperfection.

As we see more and more how each one of our own attempts to make ourselves feel complete leaves us feeling empty and searching again, we gain the power to refuse to be misled.

We put tremendous amounts of energy into developing and carrying out plans for protecting ourselves psychologically from a world we perceive as a hostile place. Thus, we justify our actions to ward off the possible criticism of others. We fawn before people we see as more powerful than we are. We tell ourselves that we are superior to those we see as less powerful than ourselves. So, instead o...

Any time we pretend to be something we're not, we do so out of fear that without that "persona" to protect us -- to make that impression we want -- we won't get what we want. This whole way of thinking is secret self-sabotage. It sinks us in our personal and business relationships as surely as a torpedo wrecks the ship it strikes. Learning how to stop this self-sinking is our focus here. The...

You must learn to stop thinking in terms of beginnings and endings, successes and failures, and begin to treat everything in your life as a learning experience instead of a proving one.

The mind has a natural longing to explore itself and to understand its own possibilities. But this same mind will look at people that it sees at being better than itself, and it will say that there is no point to exploring any further since it will not be possible to match what others have achieved. The mind that decides that there is no point has succeeded only in hurting itself. As our mind...

We are always measuring ourselves in an attempt to confirm to ourselves that our lives have value. It is a fact that no creation is more or less valuable than anything else that is created. Is the tree more valuable than the ground from out of which it grows? No, in fact it is impossible to separate the tree from the ground. In one respect, all things are created equal, which means that all th...

Ultimately, all of our searching in life is for what we believe will release us from something that presently restricts us. If a man or woman is genuinely earnest, he or she will go down a countless number of different roads in order to find freedom. But you can't set out to find something without you being the one who is going to find it, which means that for each different pursuit, you assum...

The only creatures that we know of that feel psychological fear are human beings. Psychological fear is impossible without negative imagination. We all live with a certain kind of fear that we consistently feed only because we presently lack proper understanding. There is absolutely no value to any form of psychological measurement. There is value to practical measurement. If you are going to...