The universe is friendly

It may be apocryphal, but Einstein is often quoted as saying that the most important question humans have to answer is whether the universe is a friendly place. Apocryphal or not, it’s a useful question.

When a person is friendly, what that means to me is that if I treat him with friendliness, I will receive friendliness in return.

If I choose to look at the universe in that way, I will tend to meet the people and contexts of my life with openness, curiosity, and the benefit of the doubt. In my experience, this really does lead to good results.

One reason is that the universe — at least, the part of it that I interact with, is full of people — and people are, by and large, friendly.

The other reason is that my brain is constantly constructing my reality as I live my life. If my brain is in a state of expecting the universe to be friendly, it will tend to see the parts and patterns of the world that fit this expectation. From my perspective, the universe will be experientially a more friendly place.

Worth it.