Nerves are cousin to excitement, and excitement is cousin to gratitude. Pay attention to your nerves: If you feel nervous, it’s a sign that a Very Bi… - Alexi Pappas

The brain behaves similarly with emotional trauma: When we create a personal law in response to trauma, the law can become hardwired into your brain so strongly that when you encounter even vaguely similar situations much later, your mind reacts with irrational intensity.

"I was no longer down to "meet at 3-ish for a run somewhere", because I understood that the back-and-forth texting leading up to the run would cost me some willpower."

I used to think that my Always Try Hard Rule was the only way to avoid becoming like my mom, but now I saw that blindly obeying this rule had in fact made me more like her than I ever wanted to be.