Meeting Albert Ellis | Oliver Burkeman

“That would be highly disagreeable. You might feel sad. But it doesn’t have to be awful.”

That last statement isn’t as glib as it sounds. It encapsulates a key principle of cognitive therapy, which he helped create: that it’s our thoughts – our irrational beliefs about the events that happen to us – that make us upset, not the events themselves. We take the things we merely want (success at work, a fulfilling relationship) and elevate them into things we believe we absolutely must have or else catastrophe will strike. “Pretty much every time a human being gets disturbed, they’re sneaking in, consciously or unconsciously, a ‘must’,” Ellis said. “That’s what I call ‘awfulising’.” By regularly arguing with ourselves, we can identify our hidden “musts”, realise they’re irrational, and gradually become happier.

and elevate them into things we believe we absolutely must have