#128 Sam Harris on How to Instantly Achieve a Calm State | Impact Theory

We have to be open to having other people point out errors in our thinking ... We have to be continually open to the possibility that we might be wrong and, in fact, we're very likely to be wrong a lot of the time.

When we’re really just connecting with life in a joyful, creative, beautiful way… When you look out the window and it’s the most beautiful sunset ever, and you are just looking at the sunset—you’re fully connected with its beauty, those are all moments where you've lose this sense of self.

The moment you begin practicing mindfulness, which is just learning to pay close attention to the nature of your experience... You’re not adding anything to your experience; you’re just noticing what it’s like to be you moment to moment but in a way that’s not reactive. You’re not grasping at what’s pleasant or pushing what’s unpleasant away.

The default state is one of being attacked and ambushed all the time by your thoughts and by your reactivity and by your being taken in by assumptions & illusions.

Having our beliefs map onto reality, to some degree, is obviously good because if they're not, you're just bumping into hard objects. If your map is completely wrong, you are bound to suffer.

Questions of meaning and a global story to tell yourself about what this is all about are far less important than people think.

I've become a very fickle reader in the sense that I cut my losses very early. The sunk cost fallacy has completely disappeared for me.

The normal range of psychological suffering, not clinical depression, but just feeling like life sucks and you’re a failure… That is a story of telling yourself a story.