Mastering the art of Vulnerability and Increasing our Essential Tolerance for Uncertainty

As we get older it is our short-term memory that fades rather than our long-term memory. Perhaps we have evolved like this so that we are able to tell the younger generation about the stories and experiences that have formed us which may be important to subsequent generations if they are to thrive.

. . . positive outlook is a practice — and one that requires mastering the art of vulnerability and increasing our essential tolerance for uncertainty:

Be careful which stories you expose yourself to.

The trick is to increase your tolerance for vulnerable feelings, rather than avoid them altogether.

. . . being optimistic enough to sow some seeds in the hope that some of them will germinate and grow into flowers.

If we practice detachment from our thoughts we learn to observe them as though we are taking a bird’s eye view of our own thinking. When we do this, we might find that our thinking belongs to an older, and different, story to the one we are now living.


How To Stay Sane: The Art of Revising Your Inner Storytelling
by Maria Popova