Wherever you find yourself on the Israel-Palestine debate, Russell Brand makes one thing undeniably clear: Sean Hannity is not a people person.

It’s a must-watch clip of Brand brilliantly explaining what needs to change in our interpersonal behaviors if we ever want to see real change in the world.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Okay, this ages me, but for the sake of this article I’ll tell you. I remember a time without internet. I remember getting letters in the mail, calling from a landline, and making fun of Facebook. I even remember when I sent my first email. But nowadays, internet addiction is the norm; the idea of living offline or without the internet seems a foreign concept.

I’m a writer that depends on WWW to communicate with my editors, set up interviews, and research my articles. In my free time, I check Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. I get news updates from Twitter. But after reading about Paul Miller, a 26-year-old tech writer who gave up the internet for a full year, the idea seems more and more appealing.

For Miller, he sought a break from the internet to solve larger issues like a lack of focus and time wasted. He wanted to write and read books, meet friends in person, and get out of his apartment. In the end, going offline didn’t solve all of his problems, though his editors did say his writing was more focused and he did lose a bunch of weight.

Whatever the issues that plague him, they did not simply go away from switching email to snail mail or choosing a paper map over Google. But Miller did find space to take a closer look at himself and his habits. For me, that’s a great start and motivation enough to take a closer look.

Do you Have an Internet Addiction? Ask Yourself These 4 Questions:

1. Do you often realize that you’ve been online longer than you meant to be?

2. Do you choose to spend time online rather than with other people?

3. Do you use your smartphone in awkward social situations rather than just talking to those around you?

4. Even when you have stuff to do, do you find yourself connecting to the internet first?

If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, maybe it’s time to take a few steps back from the World Wide Web. And that doesn’t mean you have to give it up for an entire year to feel pleasantly disconnected.

Here are 4 tips for facing your internet addiction:

1. Add an internet free day to your week. Maybe it’s a weekend day when you don’t have to check email. In fact, leave your smartphone at home.

2. Have certain allowable times for checking email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Maybe once a day or once every other day during a certain allotment of time.

3. When you’re out with friends, do not take your phone out of your pocket or purse.

4. Call instead of email at least a few times per week.

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Learning to chill out and deal with painful emotions is a huge step toward peace and balance. More importantly, realizing that your emotions are a part of you, but they aren’t all of you.

Our emotions are closely tied to our feelings and when they come on strong they can be overwhelming. We can begin to think in extremes without repercussions, hurting ourselves through impulsive behavior like overindulging on vino, slamming a bag of Reese’s pieces, maxing out our credit cards, or worse.

Learn to Deal with Emotional Pain

1. Don’t forget the basics.

If you’re uncomfortable, you’re more likely to fly off the handle, so make sure you get enough sleep, nourishment, and leisure time. It’s easier to take what’s thrown at you when you start on balanced ground.

2. Breathe before responding.

Don’t let your emotions hijack your relationships. When you get into a heated spat, take a few breaths before responding with bitter anger or tear-filled rants. Gain your composure and go from there.

When emotions get heated that’s when you say things that you don’t mean and it just makes the problem worse. In these situations, consider keeping quiet. That way you don’t have to take something back later.

3. Consider the Eight Worldly Dharmas.

Much of our emotional instability in life is based on the classic Buddhist teaching about the Eight Worldly Dharmas. These are four pairs of opposites: four pairs of things that we like and become attached to and four pairs of things that we don’t like and try to avoid. We like pleasure and are attached to it while we don’t like pain and try to avoid it. Second, we like praise and are attached to it while we don’t like criticism. Third, we like fame and dislike disgrace. And finally, we like to gain and we don’t like to lose. Basically, when we’re feeling good our thoughts are pleasure, praise, fame, or gain and when we’re feeling bad our thoughts are pain, criticism, disgrace, or loss.

While at first you might see eradicating these emotions as the only way to alleviate the roller coaster that they cause, but that’s impossible. According to Pema Chödrön, it’s best to see how they hook us, how they color our reality, and then realize that they are not real. In meditation, you can start to see how closely these emotions are tied to thoughts and begin not reacting to them quite so much. Start to label the Worldly Dharmas for what they are.

4. Cut the judgement.

Don’t judge your emotions. By judging them you begin to get caught up in the drama. Instead, just notice how they come in and go out. Feel the emotions as you sit with them without reaction or judgement. After a time, you’ll begin to notice now quickly they change. In the end, emotions are constantly changing like clouds in the sky. The more you practice detaching from these emotions, the more you can find freedom from emotional pain.

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Daily fear can be a major stumbling block to an abundant life. Here’s how to stop worrying and enjoy every moment.

When the tune Don’t Worry Be Happy comes on, you can’t help but smile at the thought of not having to worry because everything will actually be alright. But after the song comes to an end you’re back to thinking about all the nasty fears that could come true in the future. Fear sets in and you become a worrywart once again. But what if the song could actually be your reality? Here’s how to stop worrying and start living.

How To Stop Worrying in 6 Easy Steps

1. Create a worry period.

The best way to learn how to stop worrying is to contain the damage. Set a certain time period aside for worrying. From 5:00-5:30 pm everyday you’re allowed to run through your list of worries. Worry about whatever is on your mind but after your worry period is up, move on. If another worry comes up after your worry period, put it off until your next worry period.

2. Ask yourself: “Is the problem solvable?”

Let’s get realistic here. Is your problem solvable or is it something that just cycles through your head, driving you crazy? Though we like to think that we’re working toward a goal by worrying, in reality, worrying and problem solving are two totally different things. If you’re a chronic worrier then you’ll find that the vast majority of your worries are things you can’t solve–so why waste the energy?

3. Feel your emotions.

Worry is just another way of suppressing your emotions so you don’t have to feel them. But the truth is emotions are not always rational. In fact, they’re messy just like life. Feel your emotions and stop trying to organize them.

4. Accept uncertainty.

Worrying is an attempt to predict the future and prevent unpleasant surprises, but in reality it can do neither. If you want to learn how to stop worry, you’ve got to be willing to ride the waves of life. While goal setting is important, understand that not everything is going to turn out the way you planned. And that’s OK. It’s not what happens to you in life that matters but the way you react to it.

5. What is the evidence that your thought is true?

In the whirl of thoughts that cycle through your mind, how many of your worries could actually happen? Is there a more positive and realistic way that you could look at the situation? Learning how to stop worrying starts by not allowing yourself to get worked up about improbabilities.

6. What would you say to a friend who had your same worry?

We tend to treat ourselves worse than we would treat anyone else. What if your friend were to have the same worry? How would you respond to them? Would you think they were being crazy to even have the thought? Likely, the answer is yes. In the end, our worries and thoughts can be so irrational that if anyone else were thinking this way we would tell them to calm down, take a breath, and get real. Give yourself the same advice.

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Here are some of our favorite quotes to inspire living intentionally and with peace. What’s your favorite?

1. You cannot control the results, only your actions.
-Allan Lokos

2. The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change, for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.
– Charles Morgan

3. The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
-Henry Miller

4. The object of living is work, experience, happiness.
-Henry Ford

5. Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
-Carl Jung

6. I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
-Maya Angelou

7. No one ever finds life worth living – one has to make it worth living.
-Winston Churchill

8. Living in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

9. Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake…
-Francis Bacon

10. We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.
-Epicurus

11. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
-Martin Luther King Jr.

12.Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
-Brenden Francis

13. Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement.
-Aldous Huxley

14. Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward.
-Achaan Chah

15. Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
– Buddha

16. As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
-Goethe

17. We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.
-Henri Frederic Arnier

18. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
-Leonardo da Vinci

19. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
-Henry David Thoreau

20. The point of life is happiness.
-The Dalai Lama

21. It is better to live in peace than in bitterness and strife.
-Confucius

22. We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
-Thornton Wilder

23. Be happy in the moment – that’s enough. Each moment is all we need – not more.
-Mother Teresa

24. Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
-William Hazlett

25. Without vision, we perish.
-Proverbs

26. The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.
-Richard Bach

27. You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
-Mary Oliver

28. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
-Lao Tzu

29. Peace is every step.
-Thich Nhat Hahn

30. Let him that would move the world first move himself.
-Socrates

31. Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
-Saint Francis de Sales

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