This reminds me of the book "The Power of Now", which try to combine teachings of many religions, and basically says that you gotta "feel your presence now, without thinking" to fully connect yourself with the world. The author even mentions Descartes' famous quote.

Yes, read "Meditation for dummies" and "The power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. There's also a book called "The mindfulness approach to attention deficit" or something like that which you might wanna check out. Also, /r/meditation :)

I really enjoyed 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle. If you have not read it yet, the book starts with Eckhart's "I" and "myself" realization... very powerful stuff imo.

It's in audio book format too.

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenmen...

See a Doctor. There are drugs for that. I also found "The Tao of Pooh" and "The Power of Now" to be exceptionally helpful books.

Great point. There must be another level of authenticity and transparency I missed.

Thanks for the book recommendation! I loved The Power of Now.

Ram Das has such great lectures. I have yet to read his books. I am reading The Power of Now and I wonder how different it is to Be Here Now.

You pretty much summarised “the power of now” by Eckhart Tolle.

Still recovering. Slowly. To those, who seeking for help, I can recommend a very good read: "The Power of Now", by Eckhart Tolle.

I can even recommend it even if you never experienced burnouts, PA's.

Really interesting and I've had some eye opening experiences with this.

May I ask, do you still play with ideas/how the universe works etc? Do you miss that at all?

Also, have you read "The power of now"?

The Power of Now is at the top, for me.

I'll also mention Vagabonding by Rolf Potts -- a great book that's as much about travel as about life.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
Promoting “breathing” without thinking and not taking your thoughts too seriously has got me through a lot of emotional turmoil and “life situations”.
Incredible even 5 years later.

I felt the same way for a long time. It's like trying to train a cat to sit and stay.

You might want to check out the book, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. The free Headspace meditations are also a good lightweight introduction IMO.

It was Eckhart Tolle who wanted to be able to just sit motionless on a park bench and still enjoy life. In turn that spurred him to write The Power of Now. While new-agey, it actually employs some techniques that are very similar to those used within cognitive therapy.

Reading The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle), A New Earth (Eckhart Tolle), and Radical Honesty (Brad Blanton). I am now at peace and happy all of the time. I could spout off about technical stuff, but none of that has paid off as much as the mindset these books gave me.

Two books that aren't mentioned, surprisingly, are:

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz

In my humble opinion, these two books alone, have the ability to change one's life.

Books like The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Man’s Search for Meaning, and The Power of Now have profoundly changed how I react to life’s difficulties. If books don’t work for you, fine, but not everyone shares your worldview.

Thanks for the martial arts idea.

I greatly prefer The Power of Now over his other books. IMO he does not practice what he preaches as much as he used to, and that influences his writing in small ways. Just my unenlightened opinion, though.

My criterion is 'influential on me', they may not necessarily be the greatest works of literature.

Mastery - Robert Greene

The Talent Code - Daniel Coyle

Peak - Anders Ericsson

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine

The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning - Peter C. Brown

Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art - Stephen Nachmanovitch

Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari

His simple technique of watching the body actually helps greatly with depression.

"The Power of Now" book has all the wisdom needed.

I recommend you read, or if speech is your thing, get the audio book of The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle.

It's basically written to help people "solve" this problem that you describe.

Another book that is far less articulate, but still worth a read, is F*ck It, by John C. Parkin.

You can experiment with this very easily for yourself by asking yourself what problems you have right this moment. It turns out you never have problems when you have the time to ask yourself that question. The book The Power of Now is well worth reading. Most importantly, Tolle doesn't ask you to "believe" or have faith in what he says, just that you try it. And it works :)

>3) As cliche as it is, 'The Power of Now' is a great source to return to in times of personal and professional woes.

I tried reading The Power of Now but sometimes I felt it became really mumbo jumbo with all the spirituality. Would you advise me to just power through it?

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The Fountainhead

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is scientifically proven to work. Basically any CBT book on amazon on the subject, look for best sellers, read reviews - $3.99 plus $1.99 shipping is your cost. Another book, The Power of Now I personally recommend. Everything else you need is in the KJV.

"The Four Agreements" has forever changed the way I view my actions and the actions around me.

"The Power of Now" is a great book about spiritual enlightenment. It opens up your mind to a different way of thought related to no stress, no pain, no anxiety, no past, no future, etc...

"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle and "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe (applicable to men mostly) contain lifetime lessons on mind and body management. "Principles" is very useful for mental models and just critical thinking (or, rather, structured self-doubting).

My first exposure to this concept was in Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now". I look forward to reading Watt as well to gain further insight, thanks for sharing.

Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) offers kind of a spiritual framework that has this notion as a core component, in case anyone is looking for a "guided" way to try this approach. I think it is well worth investigating.

Jordan Peterson’s lectures on Genesis are pretty great. I only listened to the first few but they are very powerful.

Are you looking primarily for Christianity or spirituality in general?

Braving the Wilderness (I haven’t finished this one)

For addiction: Breathing Underwater

New Seeds of Contemplation

By reputation: any CS Lewis, Bertrand Russel, and more contemporary is David Bentley Hart

Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch

The Four Agreements

Basically that’s what I’m see in my kindle at the moment that is relevant.

edit:
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is incredible
I hear the Bhagavad Gita is great
Start Where You Are by Pemma Chodron is great

One of the books that really allowed me to think differently and sometimes overpower my train of thought is called "The Power of Now". The rhetoric can be super flowery at times (especially in the beginning), but the point he tries to get across was incredibly novel to me and there's strategies in there to help you control your brain and use it more as a tool.

I often think that salmon has it better than us humans. The salmon is focused on doing what it's doing at the moment, and doesn't have the time or capacity to build a sense of 'self' that they are proud or ashamed of, that colors their actions and gives them pain in the moment because it wasn't what they wanted or thought it would be. They just want to get up stream.

Interesting, as I've been doing Vipassana meditation off and on for the past ten years and only really started feeling that I was getting somewhere in the last year. One thing that helped a lot is that I read the book "The Power of Now."

Try meditation. I do it though not as regularly as I should, but it helps to calm you down. You start to notice more around you, mainly because you stop analyzing everything to the 'T'.

Read "The Power of Now" for a better (and lengthier) version of what I just said.

And yeah, try and take it easy... :D

My top priority books:

    Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers

    Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny

    Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan

    Design Patterns - Gang of Four

    Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler

    Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley

    Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler

    The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt

    CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl

    Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers

    Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman, Bert Bates

    Code Complete - Steve McConnell

    Peopleware - Tim Lister, Tom DeMarco

    Clean Code - Robert C. Martin

    The Clean Coder - Robert C. Martin

    Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin

    Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

    Functional Design Patterns for Express.js - Jonathan Lee Martin

    The Surrender Experiment - Michael A. Singer

The best books I've ever read:

    Principles - Ray Dalio

    The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

    The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker

    Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

    Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin

    Influence - Robert B. Cialdini

    The Startup Way - Eric Ries

    The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

    12 Rules for Life - Jordan B. Peterson

    Measure What Matters - John Doerr, Larry Page

    The Fish That Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen

    The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber

    The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh

    Management - Peter F. Drucker

    Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows

    Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

I second that. Eby's good and so is meditation.

If you really get into meditation, consider reading the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. The religious elements don't make sense to me but he understands what mediation does for the mind.

If you're into meditation, I would also definitely check out Eckhart Tolle's book, The Power of Now, mentioned in this article. Besides a lot of religious elements, Tolle has some real insights into how the brain really works that you may find very useful.

Trying to overcome a thought or feeling is like struggling in quicksand. You only give it more power and it will suck you in.

Here's what I suggest you do instead. Every time that feeling comes up, say "yeah sure, I'm a fraud" and keep on working. Keep on shipping. Try it. Actions always speak louder than words anyway.

One more thing. It's the best advice I can give you. Go listen to The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, or read the teachings of Buddha. You are thinking too much and creating suffering for yourself. These books will help you stop.

I often hear people boasting about their "speed reading" skills and then I ask them what sort of books they read, turns out speed reading and having "good retention rate" is easy if you're reading crap. I could also speed read Clive Cussler, Stephen King, and JK Rowling.

I love Philosophy and classic literature and I've yet to meet anyone that's managed to speed read Proust's "In Search of Lost Time", and then tell give me a detailed description of the plot, themes, artistic merit, and so on. Similarly with books like Ulysses. There's no possible way to speed read that book because it's so rich with allusions, references to religion, art, mythology, and philosophy. If you tried to "speed read" it, you would be missing half the point of reading it in the first place.

Reading great books isn't about numbers, you don't get rewarded for how many classics you read in a year. Reading great books is about slowly absorbing all the riches inside, something that just cannot happen if you're rushing. I've read The Brothers Karamazov and The Magic Mountain 4 or 5 times and each time I learn something new and gain a deeper understanding of psychology and life. I find it more rewarding to read and re-read the classics slowly, writing notes, using a critical guide (or book of companion essays), than smashing through as many crappy novels or modern popular non-fiction books (The Power of Now of any of Malcom Gladwells books are typical fodder for todays readers).

I found the book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle helpful in controlling or getting rid of harmful inner dialog.

Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" talks about the process and how your mind (amygdala, really) will try to distract you from that mission.

If you want to learn about quieting the part of the mind that won't turn off, read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

If you want to learn about overcoming "resistance," read Steven Pressfield, e.g. The War of Art .

The OP touches on both ideas but I don't see how it connects them. It also contains some all-too-commonly unexamined subtext. Is Richard Branson really the "best version" of all of us? Is an appetite for risk the only thing necessary to start and operate many large businesses, or don't you also need to cultivate an interest and aptitude for business, management, and people over the course of your life?

The Selfish Gene. Picturing myself purely as a machine for propagating my genes was quite the perspective shift.

+1 for Man’s Search For Meaning.

Lord of the Flies. Amazing that this is assigned reading in middle school (or high school).

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Really drove home the importance of paying attention to language and framing.

Moby Dick. I’m amazed at myself for reading this on my own in high school. There’s something about that era of sea travel that speaks to my soul.

6 Pillars Of Self-Esteem. This was a HN recommendation. I’ve been doing the sentence completion exercises for about 6 months, and it’s been astounding to palpably feel my self-awareness increase.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Discusses the underlying group dynamics that influence the progress of science.

A Fire Upon The Deep. Just an amazing work of sci-fi exploring the internal logic of radically different forms of intelligence.

The Sane Society. It’s liberating to reflect on some of the crazy things that capitalism pressures us to do.

The Power Of Now. I think I might have some more issues if I re-read it, but it undoubtedly had a huge impact on me and made me introspect deeply and finally “get” meditation.

> I find the program a bit cultish

I have shared in meetings that I sometimes think AA/NA is a cult. Everyone understood. And over time I've come to see the importance of the word "Anonymous", which is found in the name (obviously) but also in the traditions, and means exactly this: that everyone is equal within the group. There is no "great leader", nobody that is "right", nobody that is "wrong". It is about sharing one's experience -- the things one has done, the actions one has taken -- which speak for themselves.

> and don't agree that telling people they are helpless is the right way to help them

The actual word is "powerless", not "helpless". And this powerlessness describes:

- the addict's inability to stop despite earnest and sincere desire.

- the inability, once clean for a short time, to keep from returning to drug use

Before I started attending 12-step, I had read the Bible, Marcus Aurelius, Tao Te Ching, various self-help books, The Power of Now, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and on and on and on. I had within me all the beliefs and understanding needed to live in a good way, in accordance with my principles. In short, to live with dignity. And yet I could not live according to my own principles. This wasn't just about drug use...it was about being patient, kind, tolerant, loving, helpful. I think that's the root of the powerlessness talked about in AA/NA. What I've found is that, with the belief in a higher power, I'm able to go to bed with a sense of dignity most days.

The Power of Now book by Eckhart Tolle was a real mindset shift for me that I will always be thankful for. The essence being that we live with ourselves, our egoic mind. When you practice the discipline of not letting your egoic mind take control, it gives space for seeing yourself and others with a different mind.

     > To be honest I always thought that these kind of books
     > (i.e personal growth / motivational) were BS 

I feel I've had a huge amount in my life out of self-help books, on a real variety of subjects. There's a lot of obvious bullshit out there (like The Secret), but also plenty of gold. Scanning through my notes, and in no particular order, I have extensive notes from (and thus enjoyed):

* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

* Beyond Chocolate

* Driven From Within (Michael Jordan biography)

* Get Altitude

* How To Make Friends and Influence People

* Iron John (Robert Bly)

* Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)

* Never Eat Lunch Alone

* Psychocybernetics

* Pulling Your Own Strings

* Ready For Anything (same author as GTD)

* The Dip

* Ten Days to Self Discipline

* The Power of Now

* Personal Power (Tony Robbins)

* Warrior King Magician Lover

Some were easier reads than others, and I suspect I am unusual in that I have a pretty rigorous system for making sure I regularly review my notes, and implement exercises and ideas in the books, but I feel I'd be a very different person for the worse without the value these books have added to my life.

  * Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo. Powerful anti-war story.
  * Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts. Shaped my views on hard work and travel.
  * 1984, by George Orwell. Brilliant and terrifying.
  * The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. Overcoming mental pain through consciousness. 
  * Planetwalker, by John Francis. Inspired me to walk and put myself into things more.
  * Pure enjoyment: Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson), Ready Player One (Ernest Cline), Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons), Red Rising trilogy (Pierce Brown).

Honorable mention: The Water Knife (Paolo Bacigalupi).

Success in work does not make one happy, or at least in the long run does not do so.

It has been discussed in great detail in book The Power of Now if I remember correctly, that there are two types of happiness, pleasure and joy.

Pleasure is short-term and results usually from external events. Winning a lottery, having a party, making your first million, and etc, these will bring great pleasure to you. However, pleasure fades away fast, and you will not feel any difference after some time, no matter a day, week, or a month. The life goes on, and you still have all other things to make you stressed and feel miserable. This is why people say money cannot make one happy.

Joy is, on the contrary a skill that can be learnt. It is an attitude to be content with your current state, and be just a little bit above that "neutral" mood, no matter in what adversity. With this skill, you would not worry about if you would succeed in your job, because it is irrelevant to your happiness.

Both The Power of Now and Stoicism stuff like A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy can give you some hints on how to live a joyful life.

Good talk. I have found that spending a little time meditating certainly slows you down. Furthermore, you tend to start "seeing" more and analyzing less. I have found taking long walks (no ipod, no speed walking), taking a long hot shower, lowering the lights, lighting some candles, and just listening to a great jazz album on my headphones works just as well.

I certainly was the kind of person who was IM'ing while coding, twittering while on the phone, surfing HN while watching TV, a person who always had an agenda while having an agenda.

These days, I don't feel (so) guilty sitting at a coffee shop at the brink of dawn with a nice cup of coffee watching the sun rise. Or walking by myself in the woods. Or sitting by my window on a rainy day listening to the pitter-patter of rain.

This talk will certainly give you an insight, and I recommend reading Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now". Its a quick read and will certainly open your eyes to just slowing down.

Update - Edited for grammatical errors

I recently found out that my schizophrenic mom committed suicide. This was the end of a childhood that was filled with abandonment, neglect, and abuse.

I recently started meditating and read "The Power of Now". I think without those two things I would be completely lost. It's still hard but I can feel myself getting stronger in the face of all this.

Much of what is on our list isn't really important. And I have personally identified Time as my #1 enemy in my quality of life.

There are a few resources that provide a different perspective. One I would suggest is The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. As thinking, analytical people, we should (grudingly?) realize that there truly is nothing other than this moment. And this moment usually doesn't care about your time on a foam roller... unless it does, in which case you get on the foam roller.

I think there's a problem for highly creative or mentally busy folks. We see so many possibilities, and perhaps we excel as many things we try. That brings a feeling of unrealized possibility that nags on us. We could be a good this, or that, or whatever. In some cases it might matter to the world if we accomplished it (assuming that ultimately even matters). But quite often, perhaps, the unrealized potential may not be worth much. So the worry about the time we should be spending to realize that potential can be dropped.

Not to belittle the "average guy", but we all probably know the guy that has had the same job for 10 years and who is SO happy to go home most night of the week - and especially to be there Sunday - to watch whatever game on his big TV. He's got the deadly but oh-so-tasty snack that he's blissfully unaware shorten his life with each mini-sausage. He's got a wife who appears to actually like sports and who provides the snacks for him and his buddies (not being sexist; just painting a typical American Dream picture). His big Ford F250 4x4 parked outside is only 1.5 years old. Life is good. If he's really rich and bad-ass, he's got a new Harley in the garage for his every-other-weekend-warrior needs.

Meanwhile, the HN crowd is browsing high achiever Github projects, considering their own many ideas, and feeling like underachievers. And eventually we die, or we set off on the ocean like Jim Gray (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#...) and never return.

| Considering we don't have great definition of consciousness

Yes, you will not be able to "define" consciousness. However, you can point to it, so others can get it. It is on the basis of that discovery of consciousness that we can say it is independent. And yes, modern/western science has it backwards. Consciousness does not depend on the brain or body, these are events in consciousness.

A simple book that can help you get it is The Power of Now by Tolle. Science assumes that consciousness depends on the brain, we often take these assumptions to be facts.

My sales buddy played me this audiobook during a cross country road trip, it’s about the voice in your head, mostly the type of simple advice no one gives but it’s useful to hear spelled out explicitly, worth a listen

The Power of Now by Ekhart Tolle https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Power-of-Now-Audiobook/B002V0...

(The last part of the book gets a bit woo-woo but the earlier bits are useful for sure)

Another audiobook for stress is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

https://www.audible.com/pd/Meditations-Audiobook/B004IBRMZS

You’re afraid because you predict things will worsen, and that’s normal...just remember we only control our own decisions, and that’s all we need to focus on right now

* The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It introduced me to an entire world I didn't know was there before. Straight up Vipassana meditation is better, but it's less accessible, and this book started me on the path. Parts of it cross the woo threshold for me, but the book can fundamentally alter how one sees reality. We are not really how we appear to be. It is possible to greatly attenuate suffering. There is no taking his word for it; you can see it for yourself.

> It's a key skill to learn to be able to let go of the work you have done, stand back and analyse it dispassionately then go back and re-do things.

I wish this principle was adhered to across all industries where we (as individuals) get our 'work' reviewed. If you can't do your best and then be able to let go of it, it causes some serious pent-up anger and demotivation. I find myself slipping into 'brutalist feedback' mode (that I'm used to from creative work), before worrying about offending the recipient.

I'm not sure if this is coincidental, but anecdotally I found that my biggest shift in being able to let my creative work 'go' was after reading The Power of Now[0] and The Chimp Paradox[1], and practicing mindfulness. Fundamentally, I think it's an ego issue as to why it's so hard to take criticism. I'm certainly not saying ego-death is a prerequisite, but instead to learn how to short-circuit your anger away from feedback as a result of taking it too personally.

It is after all, not the work itself, but how it is received that you should be striving towards!

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Now
[1] - https://chimpmanagement.com/the-chimp-paradox/

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

I'd recommend studying The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I tried to read a few books on the topic, and this is the first one that managed to catch my attention. It's straightforward and thorough, and he's very good at explaining things that are very hard to put words to. Mindfulness is the core of the book, meditation (as in exercises) is secondary. I think it's an outstanding introduction to the what and why of mindfulness, and a gentle intro to meditation. The audio book version is quite good to, he's an outstanding speaker, with a distinct voice. Look him up.

Anyone who often feels like the mind is a chaotic stream of thoughts and emotions that one can barely control might find this read quite useful. I wish I had read it twenty years earlier. That said I've met a couple people who couldn't latch onto it, so your mileage may vary.

Let me recommend an audio book for you, "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spirituality/The-Power-of....

I would say yes. You may discover that emotions have their roots in our attachments to things.

For example, decide that a venture or relationship is going to turn out a certain way, and you are beginning to form an attachment to that outcome. And you increase the chances you may be disappointed.

But, let things develop into whatever they will develop into and you are open to and can thus recognize many good things.

And you are more likely to experience things (this is called life) instead of fixating on some future dubious outcome, which probably is the best outcome for you anyway. Because you can't imagine the best outcome.

Anyway, I'd check out The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Its a bit too religious for my taste but his insights into how this stuff works and mediation are very useful.

Some of you pointed out it's not easy to control/stop the mind, yes, that's very true, especially for some people. To solve that, I suggest to read Ekhart Tolle's The Power Of Now, I think it's the modern book that explains the orignal Zen in a easy-to-understand way.

I used to think/worry/imagine too much about the future, and thus missed every actual moment I was living in, and it made me unhappy. I was living like that since I was very young and until I read the book The Power Of Now. So I highly recommend it.

I may just do the wim hof method sometime in the year. After a crazy 2016 where I let the information flood me, I feel that understanding and appreciation for things was low. My intuition says it might be better to focus on a thing a month or two (depending on how alien the thing is) to get to a place where the mind has adjusted its cache eviction policies and made the new item into L1/L2).

In terms of practical benefits, I still hunt for python idioms on a routine basis. Owning and flipping through a book occasionally comes to mind. Any suggestions? (I am pretty good with multiple years on the language across 2 and 3)

I would like to stop flirting with machine learning and just finish essential chapters from statistical inference and spend time on linear algebra. Then maybe I would try to understand backpropagation for real. Meanwhile, applications must continue to be built and I must learn effective techniques to preprocess data. I would like to do more work in Pandas and Hive.

I've found my notes to be a trustworthy friend. I need to set myself a reward system to inculcate a habit of writing more (daily thoughts, project ideas, blog...) (and on paper)

I would like to fingerpick a few songs I have in mind too.

This would be a good list if I go deep. Could I make space for haskell, clojure, scala? Probably not. Might just read Backus's functional language paper though.

One book to read every month - The Power of Now.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I had pretty much given up on the self help genre but a comment left by a poster on Youtube video led me to the book. Something about the title grabbed me and I read not only The Power of Now but 3 of his other books as well over a 3 week period in December - all of which strongly resonated with me. I live my life - really each present moment - differently because of Tolle's teaching. So my life changing books for 2015 - all by Eckhart Tolle were:

The Power of Now;
Practicing the Power of Now;
Stillness Speaks;
A New Earth

Non-English speaker here, not sure if I can express it correctly and accurately, but I'll try:

Do NOT make friends just for making friends, but start doing something (sports for example) you are interested in and join the group of people with the same interest, everything else will follow.

And you seem to think too much even before you start interacting with other people - yes, introvert people often act like this, but, try to enjoy the moment. Try read The Power Of Now.

If I was in your situation I would start thinking along the following lines.

1. Tell yourself that it is okay to feel uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable feeling that you're not in control, that you're not making enough, that you're going to miss your one shot. This is the first step at reducing the anxiety of it.

2. Start to remove distracting consumptions. Social media, articles, news, etc. Spend time just being with yourself and appreciate the quiet. Put your phone on flight mode at night and charge it in a different room, get enough sleep.

3. Expose yourself to new perspectives. I have found the following audio books to be instrumental is figuring out how to be happier without greed:

a) A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

b) Man's Search for Meaning

c) The Power of Now (I'm only about 1 hour into this one, but it's made me think)

4. Start a new routine to break the habit of your current ways of thinking.

5. Meditate to help you regain control of your reactions - become reaction aware.

6. Don't look for whole solutions, progress happens in tiny steps and just keep exploring new ways to approach how you feel, how you motivate, how you enjoy the today. Sometimes it's the smaller things that have more profound effects.

7. Start measuring your progress in years, derived by small daily improvements.

I appreciate the above advice might not be for everyone, but it's something I'm going down and enjoying it very much. You already reached a fundamental point, to bring out of your subconscious how you really feel. Now you can consciously reprogram how you want to feel. Well done!

In my experience, it's actually very hard to do so. It takes active practice to reinforce a way of thinking that's just not natural. You can check out "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle for suggestions and techniques to quieting your mind. I believe one example for those just starting out is to observe your inner monologues as they happen and simply note them. It has an interesting side effect of stopping your wandering thoughts in it's tracks sometimes. For about 5-6 months I was able to practice "being in the now" and I have to say it really was worth doing and I wish I was better able to stay in that frame of mind for longer. Alas, with most things if you don't practice it then you generally lose it.

This question touches deeply on numerous topics, but I would say the foremost areas of concern are your identity/self-image and what you value in life. It sounds ultra cliched, but if you value success solely by income then you are likely doomed to run the hedonic treadmill and will forever unhappily compare yourself to others. American culture does not really have a framework for other modes of living, which is why so many people fall into the 'income comparison trap.'

You can spend months/years/decades delving into this question, but as a starter I would recommend checking out Eckhart Tolle's book, "The Power of Now." I don't recommend many books on spirituality since most of them are full of pseudo-scientific garbage, but PoN is a good one for the practical mindfulness tips it gives.

I would respectfully not recommend that you move to a lower income community just so you can be the top earner; this is merely putting a band-aid on the problem, and from a practical standpoint your neighbors will likely be less able to help you personally/professionally.

"Other ideas are to have men count money before they go out hitting on women, because they are going to be rejected a lot."

That's funny. Same with the giving kids money to count idea. Wouldn't this make people feel more depressed, more in pain in the long run when they realize it's not theirs or some might be like "I can never make that much" etc.

Reading "The power of now" by Eckhart Tolle will totally make you reject these ideas and you will most likely be told to the way out of pain is not with money, rather to be present and accept the now.

The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

One of the most important books in my life has been

The Way of Zen by Alan Watts

(I listened to it as an audiobook). It changed the way I think and feel (or at least how I react to feelings). Other interesting books about philosophy/spirituality are

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

The last one is the least recommended, I'm not sure I got anything out of it, but I read it in in the same period of time as the ones above, so I might have learned something subconsciously.

Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion

The Power of Now

I have this observation as well. Many lifestyle ideologies fall apart like this in practice, I think. The one I’ve found work for me the best is Eckart Tolle’s “The Power of Now.” If you forgive its aloofness and smirkiness, I really do believe finding a sense of joy in doing what you do, even mundane things, can really help your mood and stave off procrastination.

I used to behave like this, would go to bed between 2 and 5, despite not liking the consequences (shortened daylight time, city noise while I slept in, being out of sync with others). I think I've gradually fixed it. Still working on being more regular, but these days I'm able to fall asleep at 10h30. Here's what I think helped me personally:

- learning about mindfulness (useful to stop/slow down the intense flow of thoughts. I recommend reading/listening to The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle)

- 500 mcg of melatonin at the end of dinner. (the chewable ones sold at Trader Joe's work for me) Required read: http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin

During the transition, some days I may have forced myself to get up a little earlier so that I would go to bed earlier, it helped but I avoided doing this too often because it could affect my abilities for days. You want to sleep as much as you need but still go to bed at a reasonable time, not sleep deprive yourself to sleep. Setting your clock is a gradual thing. Maybe you can try to go to bed 15 min earlier every day.

EDIT: I'm not a doctor, and I didn't get help from a doctor for this. Take this advice at your own risk. But if you do get help from a doctor and you're offered a prescription for sleeping pills, please remember there may be healthier alternatives.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I think exercising helped me too. If you're not exercising because you can't find the time, you could - like me - start here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-mi...

It's funny that you say all of this, because I think it's completely true. I've never tried mushrooms, LSD, or any sort of hallucinogen beyond MDMA. MDMA alone changed my life, but what followed was how I utilized that moment of awareness that I experienced. I started meditating, read The Power of Now by Tolle, and having had enough of a philosophical and meditative foundation for understanding what Tolle was saying, I can occasionally enter a realm of understanding far beyond the shallow experiences I had lived in my life up to that point. It's so true when you say that reality is so much bigger than you think, because once you realize the ridiculous amount of depth that goes into every single thing around you (even the room your in contains materials built by dozens of people from across the world - think of how long it takes you to cook breakfast in the morning) then everything in your life begins to take on a sense of perspective.

That said, I really want to try mushrooms/acid because I feel like I'm at this midway point, bobbing back and forth between the awareness of meditation and the power of the present and slipping back into old thought habits and anxieties. I feel like a pokemon evolving, flashing between my old form and my new form and my ego keeps wanting to hit B to stop the evolution. :P

Frankly a lot of times "mindfulness" seems backwards. If I'm upset about something happening in the present, absolute focus on the present seems like not really the best approach, and I don't think indulging in thinking about the future or reminiscing about the past are really features you need to beat out of yourself. Also I was talked into reading the Power of Now and it's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read.

While reading the suicide note, and the 2 threads on this, i could not help wondering many many times how much it would have helped Bill had he read the Power of Now. One problem i notice is that people who are stuck in a problem, keep trying the same solution for decades even though its not worked. We need to look at our problem from other angles and be open to new solutions.

A few of my fav:

  A guide to the Good Life by William Irvine

  The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

  The Art of Living by Epictetus

  Meditation by Marcus Aurelius

Although not directly related to Stoicism, there are Stoic lessons in them:

  Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

  The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

  The Fifth Agreement by don Miguel Ruiz

  Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

Check out The Power Of Now audiobook. As soon as you realize you are not living in the present moment, all of a sudden you are living in the present moment. It’s hard while coding. But stepping back even if you have to set a timer every few minutes to fully feel your body could help. Also, getting and staying in the flow state is very similar. That’s a worthy goal to start with. Hope that helps.

The recommendation 'Only live in the now' requires a differentiation between two types of thinking about the past and/or future. One can be involved in thinking about the future in one way, e.g. making concrete plans for achieving goals, remembering important dates - Eckhart Tolle calls this 'clock time'. One can also be occupied in thinking about the future from another perspective - re-enacting stories of guilt and anger from the past; fantasies about success or worries about future failures. Tolle calls this 'psychological time'.

In his book The Power of Now, he writes that we require clock time thinking to actually exist and achieve our goals in life. With clock time, we remain mostly in the present, with our goals and plans presently in our minds while we make logical choices about how to fit all that into the time available to us.

However, psychological time draws our mind away from the only period in time that actually exists: right now. We immerse ourselves into narratives about past guilts or wrongs, and get carried away with the feelings that arise. Or we fantasize about personal narratives of victory, power and wealth. Or wallow in anxious worry about all the horrors that could befall us in the future.

'Only live in the now' means primarily to give up meandering about in psychological time.

Regarding your other points - the past and future technically do not exist. Only the now exists - living only in the past or future would require one to be completely content in living in their own fantasy world.

The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene. The mind boggling science of the very big and very small laced with small doses of humor and philosophy.

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle. I haven't ever read a single other new age book in my life but this one really changed me. I feel consistently happier and more peaceful since reading it more than a year ago. YMMV.

Loneliness and boredom are not real issues. They're issues fabricated by the mind. With presence, they disappear. That's the whole point of his lifestyle: presence. The reason he dislikes money is because money indicates a distaste of the present and an obsession with the future.

I recommend reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now for more information.

This might not be a universal solution, but one interesting book that might help is "The Power of Now" http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Now-Spiritual-Enlightenment/... as it deals with mind's tendency to degrade into negative thoughts to the point where those negative thoughts and emotions are controlling. It's an older title that any library would have.

Try living in the present and not stressing out about the future or past... I recommend you read (or better yet listen to the audio book version) Ekhart Tolle's "The Power of Now". From the Amazon description: "the author describes his transition from despair to self-realization soon after his 29th birthday."

There is a concept in systems theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory) that all systems must move toward equilibrium. There is also a concept that you are a component in any system that affects you. So, the course of action based on this is to change yourself, and the rest of the system must change around you toward equilibrium. This works much better than trying to directly change other people or external situations.

I think a lot of your anger may be frustration at lack of control in your situation. I know others are giving you advice to leave your job, but based on your report, there's no evidence yet that the job itself is the problem.

You have an opportunity to use this as a learning experience and practice different responses to situations. Observe the results. You may find that this is in fact a toxic work environment, but you can't see that clearly until you've mastered the situation. Finally, your anger is something that comes from within you. It isn't part of the situation, and other people didn't put it there. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle provided really useful tools for me in learning to understand and manage my emotions. I highly recommend it in your situation.