Calm
The best way to assess if you are calm is to ask,
“Do I have enough information to freak out? The answer is normally no.
Will freaking out help? The answer is always no.”
Gratitude
Gratitude is “an emotion that reflects your deep appreciation for
- what you value
- what brings meaning to uour life, and
- what makes you feel connected to yourself and others.”
Gratitude is an emotion, but you must practice gratitude to experience its full power.
Methods of practice include journaling, meditation, prayer, art, and gratitude check-ins.
Practicing gratitude leads to a deep capacity for joy.
Foreboding Joy
“Finding joy is the most vulnerable human emotion.”
Foreboding joy is being afraid to allow yourself to experience and feel joy because of your fear of that joy being ruined by an unforeseen disaster.
When you push away joy in this manner, you limit yourself immensely.
Tranquility
“Tranquility is associated with absence of demand and no pressure to do anything.
The four elements of experiencing tranquility
- A sense of getting away
- A feeling of immersion
- Holding attention without effort
- Compatibility with one’s preference
The difference between contentment and tranquility is with contentment you usually have a sense of completing something and with tranquility, “you relish the feeling of doing nothing.”
In other words, dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. “Americans reward the sweat of doing everything ASAP.”1