Quotable | Reality

When you argue with reality you lose, but only 100 percent of the time.
 --Byron Katie, inventor of The Work, a method of self-inquiry

I don't know what I think about The Work, the system that Katie developed after experiencing "an awakening" after years of severe depression, but I do like today's quote. In The Work, Katie's major premise is that we are disturbed and tortured not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us. She says that we can 'turn around' any situation that hurts or angers us by asking ourselves four basic questions:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

It is interesting to note that this line of questioning can very quickly show that you have been lying to yourself about the situation. And using words like always, never, everyone, etc., can also indicate that you are lying to yourself and creating an imaginary issue much larger and weighty than what actually exists. But I won't say that this is "always" the case. ;)