159. In the infinitely unlikely chance that you’re not too nuts, there is a way to enjoy all that is life. And, as simple as it sounds, the cause of your unhappiness is also the cure. Thoughts are the cause and thoughts are the cure. Thoughts cause misery or cause happiness.

160. You can cure your unhappy mind. You can take charge. You can be the boss. All you need to do is cut off its nuts, which means you quit being the nut that feeds it and submits to its thoughts. Quit playing victim to its nutty agenda that makes you so happy being miserable. Control your mind.

161. Don’t think thoughts that get you upset or make you angry.

162. If your misery makes you happy there’s nothing wrong with you, so you’re good to go. If complaining is your joy, go for it. If discord and strife is your peace, strive on. If you think life should be a miserable experience, be its guest (and may your consequences rest easy on you in the nut orchard).

163. Your mind can only entertain one thought at a time. So the key to your peace (when something happens that frustrates you) is to replace a, “Life sucks!” thought with, “Yeah, I know, my leg fell off; so does this peg-leg make me look fat?” Of course you don’t have to be at peace with your new one-legged reality. Instead you can turn your life into a complaining, sulking, depressing whine-fest, and if you get good at it you can make everyone around you miserable too.

164. Every time your mind thinks a thought that might stir your fire and cause you to become irritated, upset, angry, violent, stressed, worried, afraid or depressed, immediately replace it with thoughts that promote your peace, joy and happiness.

155. The reason you act the way you act is because you think the way you think. If you don’t like the way you act, stop thinking the way you think. When you have thoughts that make you angry, stop thinking them and be still, or start thinking thoughts that don’t make you angry.

166. “THANK YOU VERY MUCH” is the thought I think when something happens or when I did something that challenges my peace and serenity. Sometimes I preface my “Thank you very much,” with, “Holy Shit!”).

167. Knowing a thing is not the same as doing a thing. To take charge of your life you must take charge of your mind which takes practice, takes repetition, but if you really want to enjoy life more, you will keep practicing. You will not give up. You will keep practicing until you conquer your mind, until you are the jealous watcher and gatekeeper of your mind and its thoughts and the master of your life.

168. You know life will not cater to your every need, want and desire, nor fulfill your every wish. The question is, why get angry or depressed when you don’t get what you want? (It doesn’t do any good and doesn’t serve you). Why will you not accept reality? Why MUST life go your way for you to be happy? Logic and reason say, work to make your life the best and expect the best, but be at peace with the rest, be at peace if your expectations go South and you wanted to go North. And, put your heart into it, but don’t set your heart on it, because....if it doesn’t work out, you’ll just break your heart. Most people don’t want to get sick, but they do, and most people don’t want to die, but they do, and to kick against the pricks of reality, to kick against things that cannot be changed, is nuts. You don’t expect a monkey to be anything but a monkey, that would be insane, and you don’t expect a deer to act like a gopher, that would be crazy, yet, if you expect life to be anything but what it is at any given moment, that’s kinda crazy and insane and nuts too, for life will always be exactly what it is, and people will always be who they are and do what they do, and if you’re not good with that, you are human, and you already know what that means–you’re nuts.

169. You may be fooling yourself into thinking that you are in control of your mind and are using it successfully to pursue happiness, but you don’t realize that when you are unhappy it is caused by the very mind that you think you control. Your unhappiness is proof that you really don’t know what’s going on inside your own head. If you are not in charge of your mind and its thoughts, who is?

170. Your thoughts help make you and reveal you. If you don’t like what you’ve made or what they reveal, change your thoughts.