I don't want to have to work hard. I don't want to have to roll out of bed at a certain time. I don't want to have to answer to somebody. I optimize for independence and freedom ... I'm lazy. I wake up at 7, 8, 9, 10 AM. I go to sleep at 2 [or] 3 AM. I don't work a lot of days. Some days I work morning to night ... I never want to have to answer to a boss. No one's ever going to tell me what to do.

The most important relationship you have is with yourself—it's with this voice in your head that is constantly rattling every waking hour. It's this crazy roommate living inside your mind who's always chattering [and] never shuts up. And you can't control these thoughts—they just come up out of you don't even know where ... Those conversations you're having in your head all the time—that is your world ... That's going to determine the quality of your life more than anything else.

Proper meditation—proper examination—should ruin the life that you're currently living. It should cause you to leave relationships. It should cause you to re-establish boundaries with family members and colleagues. It should cause you to quit your job. It should cause you to change your eating patterns ... If it doesn't do that, it's not real examination. If it doesn't come attached with destruction of your current life, then you can't create the new life in which you will not have the anxiety.

We waste so much energy through anxiety. If you can be calm and still go about your business, it's a superpower.

This pervasive nonspecific anxiety where you're just constantly on edge about everything—that comes from an unexamined life.