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Many people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.

Irvin D. Yalom

The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Both Decision Domain Finiteness Groundlessness Hard Lead Path Soak Territory
I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Cluster Individual Known Last Live Old People Person Some Someone Thought
Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a ‘falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Being Fall Give Large Limited Love Mode Person Rather Relate Single Way
Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Absolute Always Corrupt Individual Known Power Trick
Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Absorbed Being Distinction Heidegger Make Thing Way World
Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Die Fullest Life Live Only Then
It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death’s terror.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Aware Death East Every Face Moment Much Not Only Stand Stare Sun Terror Try
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Choose Every Must Person Stand Truth
Therapists need to have a long experience in personal therapy to see what it’s like to be on the other side of the couch and see what they find helpful or not helpful. And if possible, get into therapy at different stages of their life with different kinds of therapists just to sample a bit.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Couch Experience Like Long Need Personal Side Therapist
There is some evidence, for example, that those who enter the death-related professions (soldiers, doctors, priests, and morticians) may in part be motivated by a need to obtain control over death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Death Doctor Enter Evidence Example Ned Priest Professional Soldier
Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
IRVIN D. YALOM

Heal Healer Only Truly Wound
Indeed, the evidence supporting the efficacy of group therapy, and the prevailing sentiment of the mental health profession, are sufficiently strong that it would be difficult to defend the adequacy of the inpatient unit that attempted to operate without a small group program.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Attempt Difficult Evidence Grow Health Impatient Indeed Operate Profession Small
…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Creator Death Life Money Unlive
One reason patients are reluctant to work in a therapy group is they fear that things will go too far, that the powerful therapist or the collective group might coerce them to lose control–to say or think or feel things that will be catastrophic.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Far Fear Group Once Patient Powerful Reason Reluctant Therapist Therapy Thing Too Work
A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Death Deep Dissatisfaction Focus Overcome Point Strat
To the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Extent Life Alone One Responsible

Many people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.

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Many people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.

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