The therapist Bruce Tift argues that much of life’s suffering stems from the struggle to avoid “consciously participat[ing] in what it’s like to feel claustrophobic, imprisoned, powerless, and constrained by reality.” We desperately wish that human existence weren’t the limiting, uncertain, imperfect, and emotionally distressing experience that it is. So we try to devise psychological escape routes from the truth.

I was suddenly struck by the thought that none of this was ever going to work. I was never going to find the time management technique that would get me to the state of finally having my life in working order, nor the limitless reserves of self-discipline that such methods always seemed to require.

my therapist described depression as “anger at the world turned inward onto the self”

What other people think about you is not your burden to carry.