Habits are pretty important and habit building has been an ongoing process for me. There is so much information on habits that I think we can sometimes drown in the information without actually getting to the implementation and action side.
There are two books that I usually recommend to people. I’ve found these the most helpful and practical.
Continue reading “The Only Two Habit Books You Need to Read”
Meaning is often seen as a good thing. We want the work that we do to be meaningful. We want our relationships to be meaningful. We attach a lot of value to meaning because we believe that a big, important “why” will counterbalance the inevitable difficulties of the “how.” This idea has merit, but attaching too much meaning to something can also be burdensome. Meaning can bring a certain amount of expectation and heaviness.
Continue reading “The burden of meaning”
Years ago an argument with someone made me so angry that I struggled to sit still after the interaction. This was quite a while ago, and back then, I still had a punching bag in my backyard. I couldn’t get my mind off the incident so I went outside to throw some punches just to get all that anger out of me. There was an enormous amount of frustration and anger flowing through me while I was punching the bag, and by the end of ten or fifteen minutes, I felt completely spent. Not only was I exhausted, I also had a raging headache.
Continue reading “Emotional Work: Why venting is a bad idea”
Robert Greene in Mastery talks about how easy wins or successes can sometimes be a curse rather than a blessing. Greene argues that most things in life do not come easy and if we have the expectation that it should, then that can cripple us. This is because the expectation for things to be easy can cause us to give up too quickly. When I read Mastery years ago I did not fully appreciate that insight, but over the years, I’ve seen that it’s not only true but also beneficial to not expect quick results. In other words, it might be better to expect certain things to take a long time. Your best strategy is to favour process over progress.
Continue reading “Process over progress”
I think most people will agree that progress is a good thing. Something to strive for. But lately I’ve noticed my attachment to this thing called progress.
Continue reading “Attachment to Progress”
The other day I wanted to see if my local bookstore had any books on Python programming. A few years ago they used to have at least one or two, but I’ve recently noticed the IT section shrinking steadily. Today the IT section is a mere single shelf in a store where nearly 25% to 30% (by my own estimation) of the shelves are taken over by popular psychology, or self-help, or business tactics, or some combination of those. And when I say 25% to 30% that’s a fairly conservative estimation on my part—it might actually be more.
Continue reading “Is self-help the weed of the book world?”
The thing about self-awareness is that you can’t really sleepwalk your way through it. You can try. But it doesn’t work. Awareness requires you to wake up. You have to ask the difficult questions and grapple with those aspects of yourself that you don’t like.
Continue reading “Fractals”