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Get Happy
The sunken cost fallacy doesn’t just apply to material or financial decisions. It applies to relationships, communities, jobs, ideologies, whatever. If you’re really struggling and haven’t been happy for a long time; and you’ve tried all kinds of things to make it work, but you’re not getting anywhere — it may be time to move […]
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My Purpose
This week I had the most authentically spiritual community experience I’ve ever had… and on Zoom no less. I’m going to try to explain it here, but I feel compelled to mention that words are clumsy, silly things that can’t even begin to express experiences such as these. — — — On Wednesday nights I attend a […]
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May This Body Be At Ease
Last night in my little virtual Zen community, we did something called Metta practice. ‘Metta’ is a Pali word that means something like ‘Loving Kindness’ and our meditation is comprised of four phrases: 1. May this body be at ease 2. May this heart be open 3. May this mind be boundless 4. May you […]
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A Tolerance for Life
Not tolerance for other people (that’s a different blog post all together), but tolerance for our own discomfort. For being stuck, waiting for news, feeling uninspired. It’s about those periods in our lives when we don’t know what to do, and we feel like we might go mad because there’s nothing productive we can do […]
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Not About You
Periodically I take long breaks from drinking from the fire hose of social media, and it’s during these times that I realize with great poignancy how little value there is to be found in the constant drumbeat of self-analysis (personal and communal) that has come to dominate public online discourse. As an enthusiastic consumer of […]
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On the Creative Process
Popular opinion is oppressive. That is why the best thinking, art, music, writing and self-expression always happens on the margins of society and/or within spaces away from which ‘just anyone’ is allowed to participate. Some mistake this for elitism. It certainly can be if it’s being done by people who sincerely believe they are inherently […]
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You’re Perfect
The thing about humans is that we’re never satisfied. Oh, we might take a couple minutes after we finish a marathon or get a new job to celebrate and feel good about ourselves — but then, we’re on to the next thing. And the next. There’s always something else we want. Something else that we […]
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Seriously
When I was a little girl, I’d look at the faces of older people and wonder why they grew so serious during long moments of quiet reflection. Why the corners of their mouths turned down, and their brows wrinkled, and their eyes drooped. Some very old people looked downright angry, though I came to understand […]
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They Tyranny of Positivity
While I do think it’s important not to give in to despair, my experience tells me that when it comes to the hard stuff in life — difficult relationships, mental health struggles, money problems, addiction, questions of faith, and political action — the only way out is THROUGH. This means accepting and acknowledging that we’re […]
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Bear Witness
One of the most valuable things we can do for someone else is simply listen and acknowledge their pain. If you are an empathetic person, it’s often harder to do this than to go through trials and tribulations of your own. But failing to do so robs other people of something they need — something everyone desperately […]
amanda quraishi
You can call me Q.
amanda quraishi 