I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.
A. J. JACOBSI don’t believe that prayers actually change God’s mind – if there is a God – but I liked praying for people in need. It was like moral weightlifting. I tend to be self-obsessed, and it was nice to get out of my brain once in a while.
More A. J. Jacobs Quotes
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The Bible talks a lot about thankfulness, and I’m more thankful than I ever was. I try to concentrate on the hundreds of things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four that go wrong.
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One of the interesting things to me is that God grows throughout the Old Testament. He evolves, sort of matures, and becomes kinder.
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How do you gag the voice in your head that says, ‘You don’t have to [do it] today. There’s always tomorrow.’?
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I thought religion would eventually wither away and we’d all be worshiping at the altar of science.
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Paintings! They’re like TV, but they don’t move.
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It’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re walking around looking like you’re about to play the semifinals at Wimbledon.
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I grew up in a very secular home with no religion at all, so I was starting from zero.
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My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it’ll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It’s like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.
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I thought religion would eventually wither away and we’d all be worshiping at the altar of science.
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If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they’d get along OK, but they’d both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.”
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After a while, if you’re committed, you start to believe in the things in which you’re praying. It’s just cognitive dissonance. You can’t live a completely religious life and not start to have it sink in.
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The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one.
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Paintings! They’re like TV, but they don’t move.
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A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It’s just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses.
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When I went to Israel, it was a little disorienting, because there are so many people who look crazy and were dressed like me. There, I was just one of the apocalyptic crowd.
A. J. JACOBS