Recently by James Altucher: 10 Life-Changing Decisions We Make WithoutThinking

I wanted to pull out his eye while he screamed. Then I would see straight through into the brain that did this to me. I walked over to his house in Brooklyn. He had lied about me, distorted the truth, wrote about me in a major public forum, got others writing lies about me. I was angry. I had thought he was a friend.

I knocked on the door. He opened it. I then took a glass bottle I happened to have on me and smashed it over his head. He fell to the floor and was bleeding from all over his face, his glasses broken, one of his eyes maybe gashed too deep. “What the f***?!” I then kicked his head. Flattened his nose. And I left and walked away. In my dream about it I think I had an erection.

The brain is the worst tyrant. I imagined the above scene in my head the day he wrote about me. And a year later, today, I imagined it again. It’s hard to be a pacifist sometimes. Sometimes I think I’m mentally ill.

Anger (external or internal) can raise your heart rate in seconds to 180 beats a minute from 120. It can raise your blood pressure from 120 over 80 to 220 over 130. Over 400,000 deaths a year are attributed to sudden anger. Your brain kicks into survival mode. Chemicals get unleashed that clot your blood, causing heart damage or strokes. Acids get released into the stomach, causing ulcers. It’s all bad.

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I want to be happy and healthy. A vow of pacifism is hard to stick with. But it’s worth doing. An outer renunciation of violence as well as an inner renunciation. You have to do both. A perfect example of not “practice makes perfect” because I never will be. But eventually practice will make permanent.

Someone asked in my Twitter Q&A if they should be a “physical pacifist” as well as a “verbal one”.

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You must commit to being a pacifist in EVERY WAY else it’s false pacifism. There’s 27 kinds of pacifism and to be the happiest you can possibly be you must engage in all of them. I would say most people do a few of these but that’s not good enough. That’s a false commitment. One must practice and get better until one is doing all 27.

The FIRST THREE

There’s thinking, speaking, acting. Don’t think bad thoughts of someone (because those thoughts can be better and more productively used). Don’t speak badly about someone or to someone (has gossip ever helped you in life?), and don’t hurt someone physically (you will only hurt yourself in the end and your lifespan will be one day less so was it worth it?) That’s three ways.

The SECOND THREE

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