lifehack Books have the power to help people realize their dreams and maximize their potential. A good reading experience can be life-changing. Here are 10 books recommended by global entrepreneurs. 1. “It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.” – Og Mandino This book topped number one on Wall Street, New York Times and USA Today, so it is bound to be a good read. The book is described as an “excellent read for not only your business but any goal you are trying to achieve in life”. With the amount of distractions in this day and age from emails, text messages, and phone calls, it is hard to not get side tracked from what does matter. As the book quotes “Extraordinary results require focused attention and time. Figure out what the one thing is in your life that you want and achieve it. 2. “Believe you can succeed and you will” If you want to do more and achieve more, then you need to learn how to think properly. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Set a Goal For Yourself
What Work Is Really For The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. Is work good or bad? A fatuous question, it may seem, with unemployment such a pressing national concern. (Apart from the names of the two candidates, “jobs” was the politically relevant word most used by speakers at the Republican and Democratic conventions.) But there’s an underlying ambivalence: we celebrate Labor Day by not working, the Book of Genesis says work is punishment for Adam’s sin, and many of us count the days to the next vacation and see a contented retirement as the only reason for working. We’re ambivalent about work because in our capitalist system it means work-for-pay (wage-labor), not for its own sake. Everything depends on how we understand leisure. We can pass by for now the question of just what activities are truly enjoyable for their own sake — perhaps eating and drinking, sports, love, adventure, art, contemplation? Leif Parsons
When Your Calling Seems Vague and Unclear, You’re on the Right Track When Your Calling Seems Vague and Unclear, You’re on the Right Track Most people don’t know what to do with their lives. And that’s okay. “We see in order to move; we move in order to see.” —William Gibson These days, there’s a lot of talk about discovering your dream. More and more people are unwilling to exchange their ideals for a paycheck. I’m sure there are people who know exactly what they were born to do, who have had a vision of their life since they were six years old. So where do you go from there, if all you’ve got is an itch, a vague premonition of an un-lived life? That was the question I sought to answer in my book, The Art of Work. Lesson 1: Don’t wait for clarity “I have never had clarity. The other day, I was on a call with a young woman who was passionate about getting involved in social work — she just didn’t know where to start. As the discussion continued, she confessed that she didn’t know what her calling was. Takeaway: Clarity comes with action. So where do you start?
Aristotle's Ethics Bk. X, Chapter 7, 1177a11-1177a18 to Bk. X, Chapter 8, 1178b33-1179a33. Translated by W. The Complete Works Of Aristotle, Jonathan Barnes (ed.), Princeton U. Chapter 7 If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us. Now this would seem to be in agreement both with what we said before and with the truth. But such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of excellence. Chapter 8 But in a secondary degree the life in accordance with the other kind of excellence is happy; for the activities in accordance with this befit our human estate.
How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love “Find something more important than you are,” philosopher Dan Dennett once said in discussing the secret of happiness, “and dedicate your life to it.” But how, exactly, do we find that? Surely, it isn’t by luck. I myself am a firm believer in the power of curiosity and choice as the engine of fulfillment, but precisely how you arrive at your true calling is an intricate and highly individual dance of discovery. Every few months, I rediscover and redevour Y-Combinator founder Paul Graham’s fantastic 2006 article, How to Do What You Love. What you should not do, I think, is worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your friends. More of Graham’s wisdom on how to find meaning and make wealth can be found in Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age. Alain de Botton, modern philosopher and creator of the “literary self-help genre”, is a keen observer of the paradoxes and delusions of our cultural conceits. His terrific 2009 TED talk offers a taste: 16. 28. This is your life.
KLsssssw Plato On Leisure, Play, And Learning reprinted from Leisure Sciences by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt Professor, The Most Leisure Study textbooks used in college survey courses include a chapter on the history of "play" and "leisure." Using modern concordances, one may locate each time Plato used "play" and "leisure" and come to some conclusions about how Plato used the words and what significance they had in his overall philosophy (see appendixes). Such a study will help correct some of the more unfortunate misunderstandings that have developed in this century. Plato built his ideas about freedom on the common, everyday Greek word schole (Brandwood 1976). These were no special inventions on Plato’s part; such meanings were part of the current popular use of schole and ascholia (Stocks 1936; Appendix A, roman numeral III and IV). Unfortunately, in the Modern Age schole is translated as "leisure;" ascholia as work, occupation, or business. Plato was careful to distinguish leisure from idleness.
One Woman's Lessons From Living On The Street Susan sits on a park bench in Washington, D.C. She has struggled with homelessness for nearly two decades. Gabrielle Emanuel/NPR hide caption itoggle caption Gabrielle Emanuel/NPR Susan sits on a park bench in Washington, D.C. She has struggled with homelessness for nearly two decades. Gabrielle Emanuel/NPR The grass is fraying around the edges in Washington, D.C.' Many of the park benches are occupied by homeless men — but there are a few women too. Susan says life on the streets is a constant battle for all homeless people, but for women it's particularly hard. In nearly two decades on the streets, Susan, with graying hair and bright eyes, has learned some tough lessons. Lesson One: Don't Look Like A Woman "It's not easy to be a woman on the streets, OK?" When darkness falls, Susan pulls out her dark and bulky clothes. A slight Boston accent betrays her childhood origins, and it's particularly strong when she speaks of her children and grandchildren. Lesson Two: 'Act Crazy' Dr.
Philosophy, Democracy and Leisure Philosophy, Politics and Leisure Dr Alexandra Cook Comments welcome: cookga@hku.hk Nowadays most people have to hold a job or in some way work for their living. Yet the political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) predicted in her 1956 book, The Human Condition, that humans would in some future time enjoy liberation from work and therefore greater leisure through automation and labour-saving devices. We would therefore need to decide how best to use that leisure, a task for which Arendt wishes to prepare us through a reassessment of the relationship of labor, work and action based on a return to ancient political ideas of philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Inspired by her readings of ancient philosophers, Arendt was aware of a sphere of human activity that she claimed could be truly free, independent of the necessities of labor and work. Action is free human activity, as contrasted with enslavement to machines, computers, repetitive tasks and demanding bosses. II.
7 Smart Ways to Deal with Toxic People Don’t let toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and get them out of there. Surviving the ups, downs, and lightning storms of other people’s moodiness can be quite a challenge. It’s important, though, to remember that some moody, negative people may be going through a difficult stage in their lives. But there’s another type of moody, negative behavior: that of the toxic bully, who will use his or her mood swings to intimidate and manipulate. I’m a firm believer that toxic mood swings (like chain letter emails) should not be inflicted on one person by another, under any circumstances. 1. If you know someone who insists on destructively dictating the emotional atmosphere, then be clear: they are toxic. When you delete toxic people from your environment it becomes a lot easier to breathe. A healthy relationship is reciprocal; it should be give and take, but not in the sense that you’re always giving and they’re always taking. 2. 3. Stand up for yourself. 4. 5. 6. 7. Related