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What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

Alain de Botton

It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Before Bore Calm Easier Even Good Live Make Perhaps Stay
We will cease to be angry once we cease to be so hopeful.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Angry Cease Hopeful Once
Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Mauch Sign Taken Understand Understood
The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Destiny Life Long Romantic Stronger
Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Matter Much Only People Reputation Seldom Themselves
Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t – surrender to events with hope.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Come Control Despair Hope Suggest Surrender Total
I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Day General Life Optimistic Person Pessimistic Take Terrific Thing
Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Before Blend Define Joy Melancholy Perfection Sadness Sear
The only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Normal Very Only People Think Well
The media insists on taking what someone didn’t mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Closer Insist Media On Being Say Truth
Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Conscious Employing Less Medium Pay Rather Substitute Supplement Used
Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Art Hold Inner Promise Wholeness
A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Archive Enough Ordinary Strive Virtuous Wisdom
The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Along Difficult Force Greatest Oneself Travel
The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Censor Fear Idea People Say Something Stupid
True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.
ALAIN DE BOTTON

Majority People Reason Respectability Stem

What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

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What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

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