Four enemies of a fulfilling life

Big Think thoughts

Excerpt: "When was the last time you had a good sulk? It probably wasn’t the cross-armed, scowling caricature kind of a sulk, but probably the subtler, more common kind. It’s the sulk of bitterness and bottled fury. It’s the desire to harm someone who’s harmed you, to want vengeance for some slight, and to imagine them begging forgiveness as you deal out their comeuppance.

We all do it. If someone denies you something you wanted, or insults you in some way, or even beats you at some task or game (fairly or not), then we sulk. And blanketed in our seething, plotting anger, we think we can make things better again. We think that if we can get our own back, everything will be okay.

But this misunderstands the self-harm done by hatred, anger, and a bubbling thirst for revenge. When we stew in bitterness, we too become bitter. It’s something explored in a video by the Buddhist psychologists, Robert Thurman and Sharon Salzberg. In the video and in their book, Love Your Enemies, they call out what they call “The Four Enemies” in life. But what are they, and how are we best to avoid them?"