“I needed someone to hate me, just so that I could see for myself how pointless it is to always want to be liked by everyone.”

It’s very rare that reading a book causes a spiritual assault.

But sometimes a good slap in the metaphorical face is the only way to swallow some uncomfortable life lessons.

Before becoming a monk, Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad was a master of the financial world. He worked in Spain for a large Swedish Gas company and as an economist for the United Nations before he traded in his financial spreadsheets for Buddhist robes.

He tossed aside his promising career in finance, economic security and high status as a master of the universe to sit cross-legged unable to touch money or have any possessions.

His book, I May Be Wrong, is a masterpiece of capturing timeless life lessons through his own spiritual journey. 20+ years worth of lessons in 200 pages.

I highly recommend it. But be warned. It might come with a spiritual punch (or slap) or two.

Let’s begin.

“What I value most from my seventeen years of full-time spiritual training is that I no longer believe my every thought. That’s my superpower.”

You are not your thoughts.

How often do we get trapped in a story we keep telling ourselves? We keep repeating past wounds and trauma through our daily thoughts.

If you said publicly what you think privately, people would think you’re mad.

If you talked to your best friend the way you talk to yourself, you would soon have no friends.

“Where’s the dignity, where’s the freedom, in a life where you believe everything you think?”

Your thoughts can be the seeds of a beautiful harvest or the bars that keep you locked in your mental prison. And the most secure prisons are the ones we create for ourselves.

Approach your own thoughts with a healthy dose of skepticism and humor. Treat the thoughts in your mind like a shady car salesman. It’ll make it infinitely easier to be you.

You don’t have a choice in the thoughts that you think. You can’t control the emotions that arise. But you can choose whether or not you believe it.

“But I think almost everyone who has ever appeared outwardly successful has also eventually realized there’s no guarantee of happiness.”

As a person on the extreme end of type-A personality, I regularly feel like if I am not achieving, I won’t be worthy of love or happiness.

It’s a story that keeps me unhappy. Even despite achieving a level of success in my career, I still find myself left trying to answer the same questions about happiness.

I don’t have any answers for you. This is an ongoing struggle.

I know too many people who are outwardly successful but inwardly miserable. They have collected trophy cases worth of accolades but struggle to get out of bed most mornings.

Despite knowing this, I still find myself trapped in this continued cycle of striving and burnout.

I’ll find myself physically and mentally exhausted wondering what this was all for, only to turn around and start the cycle again. All for the sake of attaining success and happiness. I need to keep reminding myself that no amount of success can be exchanged for happiness.

Reading these words was confronting. I felt exposed and naked. I wanted to stop reading. Acknowledging that success doesn’t equal happiness is a truth that I didn’t want to accept.

“We all go through periods when we feel utterly lonely, helpless, friendless, misunderstood, ill-treated. And when a storm is brewing, we need to find things to hold on to, lash ourselves to. We can find them outside ourselves or within. Preferably both.”

Nothing lasts. Not even the difficult times.

“This too shall pass” is the old stoic mantra.

Directing our attention, and choosing what we aim it at, is the best and possibly the only thing you can do when things get really hard.

I read this book when I was going through a big transition in my life. It was a time of rapid change punctuated by conflict with my previous employers. Everything felt like it was happening all at once.

To top it all off, I was in a foreign country traveling alone when the shit hit the fan. I had no one around me and I felt isolated and lonely.

But when everything seems to be going wrong, that’s when I start to focus on my breath and meditation. I would purposely slow things down. Focus on the present moment and what action I could take within my circle of influence.

When life demands more, I choose to do less.

“I needed someone to hate me, just so that I could see for myself how pointless it is to always want to be liked by everyone.”

Our unrelenting desire to please everyone keeps us unhappy.

When people start to dislike you it's usually a good sign. You are growing. You stand for something. You have an opinion. You have a unique voice.

If you write online and create content only to please people, you will be boring. I’ve written things that people didn’t like. Created content that got me blocked. It becomes part of the territory.

In the beginning, poor feedback would impact me a lot. Now I would rather be disliked than ignored.

Trying to make everyone like you is like trying to boil the ocean. Don’t drown attempting to do the impossible.

“Most of the psychological suffering we humans experience is voluntary and self-inflicted.”

You are your worst critic. Your biggest enemy is the person staring back in the mirror. If you can control your mind, you can control anything.

Learn to get out of your own way, you’ll solve 80% of your problems.

“Only one of our relationships is truly lifelong, from our first breath to our last. The one we have with ourselves.”

During my early 20s, I spent so much time dating other people.

I would invest my energy, time and money to date as many people as possible. At one stage I was dating 3–4 people at once. I was trying to make up for an internal void with an external solution.

I went through a series of short-term flings and disaster relationships. I was left feeling more empty than when I started. Why? Because I never invested enough time dating myself. I didn’t really know who I was or what I liked.

I felt so lost and didn’t have a good relationship with myself. How could I expect to have a better relationship with someone else if I didn’t like who I was?

Now in my late 20s, I’ve decided to stay single for the foreseeable future. I want to take this time to focus on myself. Invest my time, energy and money in exploring my curiosities and interests.

I see too many of my friends settling for a life that is beneath them. They have unfulfilled dreams and aspirations that are held back by someone else or the fear of being alone.

While I am not saying romantic relationships aren’t important, the relationship you have with yourself is even more important.

People will leave you inevitably through death or a relationship breakdown.

But you can never leave yourself.

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