The brain is foolish
On Thursday, June 5, 2003, La Vanguardia published an interview on its back page with the psychologist M.ª Jesús Álava Reyes. I’m sharing an excerpt:
Learning
We were taught to walk with encouragement and applause, yet we’ve all internalized the idea that we learn to live through blows. The result is that no one forgets how to walk, and very few know how to live. The keys to not seeing life as a tragedy, but as a present full of opportunities to be seized day by day, can be summed up in a fortunate reflection: let’s not suffer needlessly! If we control our thoughts, we will control our lives. What matters is not what has just happened to us, but what we are thinking. “It isn’t easy,” says the coordinating psychologist of the Children’s School at the CSIC with a smile, “but it is simple. Moreover, learning how to live is the greatest challenge and achievement of the human being.”
I keep a photocopy of that interview on my desk at all times… and I read it often. ;)
