Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason — Tim Lawrence I emerge from this conversation dumbfounded. I've seen this a million times before, but it still gets me every time. I’m listening to a man tell a story. He tells of how she had been a mess before the accident, but that the tragedy had engendered positive changes in her life. And then he utters the words. Everything happens for a reason. That's the kind of bullshit that destroys lives. It is amazing to me that so many of these myths persist—and that is why I share actionable tools and strategies to work with your pain in my free newsletter. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Let me be crystal clear: if you've faced a tragedy and someone tells you in any way, shape or form that your tragedy was meant to be, that it happened for a reason, that it will make you a better person, or that taking responsibility for it will fix it, you have every right to remove them from your life. Grief is brutally painful. Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried. Be there.
Does Trying to Be Happy Make Us Unhappy? Does Trying to Be Happy Make Us Unhappy? As we muddle through our days, the quest for happiness looms large. In the U.S., citizens are granted three inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The kingdom of Bhutan created a national index to measure happiness. In a series of new studies led by psychologist Iris Mauss, the more value people placed on happiness, the less happy they became. These careers and countries didn’t fulfill him. Tom made four mistakes that are all too common on the road to happiness. Csikszentmihalyi finds that when people are in a flow state, they don’t report being happy, as they’re too busy concentrating on the activity or conversation. The second error was in overestimating the impact of life circumstances on happiness. The third misstep was in pursuing happiness alone. The final mistake was in looking for intense happiness. Today, for the first time in more than a decade, Tom reports being — and appears to be — happy.
How to Make Anxiety Work for You, Not Against You “Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.” ~Jean Vanier I got fired from my job, my boyfriend left me, and my father died in one day. In reality, my career was going super well, I didn’t have a boyfriend, and my father was amazingly healthy, but what I did have was something I call an ultra amazing imagination, where I would make up fascinating stories about things that could happen and worry about them. I met my now BFF anxiety when I was about ten years old. I didn’t understand why she was telling me this. Rationally I knew it wasn’t true. Anxiety took the liberty of moving into my room and accompanied me through my teenage years and twenties. The more I ignored her, the more she dug her dirt-filled, jagged nails deep into my bare skin. There was nothing I could do to escape her. Besides, I had grown used to the feeling of having knots in my stomach every day and the sleepless, nightmare-filled nights. There had to be another way. These things helped immensely.
52 things I learned in 2015 52 things I learned in 2015 This year I got an amazing new job (at Fluxx) and continue to be surprised by the amount of things still to be learned in the world. $8 pizza tastes 11% better than $4 pizza, even when the pizza is the same. Previously: 52 Things I Learned in 2014. Things I published this year: Why Do All Records Sound the Same? More like this on My Tumblr or learn more about Fluxx. 10 Signs You May Be Involved With a Sex Addict, By a Sex Addict by Brian Whitney You've been hanging out with this guy for a while and everything is great. That's what you tell people. The truth is, everything is not so great. Things he says and does don't add up. When you're together, there is often something forced, even fake, about how he relates to you. The guy may be going through a tough time. I did all 10 of the things on this list, in all of my relationships. The list is a compilation of everything I've learned about sex addiction in my own experience and treatment and from many other men in groups I've been part of. Most doctors would prescribe treatment to help your sex addict get his obsessions and compulsions under control. "The sex addict's impulse is to cover the pain of feeling damaged, whereas the opportunist's impulse is to take whatever he can get without having remorse. So what do you do if your partner is exhibiting three or more (my estimate) of these signs? But be prepared for deception. 1. 2. This is a tricky one. 3. 4. 5. 6.
How I Became A Morning Person, Read More Books, And Learned A Language In A Year You’ll notice that I made the title of this post sound quite impressive (at least I hope I did!). But the great thing about this story is that anyone can have such an impressive outcome, and it’s not at all as daunting as it might sound. In fact, all these outcomes came from doing small things every day over a long period. I’m a big fan of working smarter, not harder and finding small ways to make my work more efficient. As I became Buffer’s first content crafter about two years ago, I got the chance to explore these topics quite a lot. Now I’m excited to be back to show you exactly how I came by these wins in 2015. From a habit of practicing French for just five minutes a day, I can now read, write, and speak basic French. Basically, I used small, everyday habits to build up into big, long-term outcomes. There are four principles I try to stick to whenever I’m building a new habit. 1. I would go from reading hardly ever to attempting to read one book per week. A great example is flossing.
Psych Pedia: The Science of Happiness: Why complaining is literally killing you. By Steven Parton, From CuriousApes.com Sometimes in life, all the experience and knowledge simmering around in that ol’ consciousness of ours combines itself in a way that suddenly causes the cerebral clockwork to click into place, and in this fluid flow of thought we find an epiphany rising to the surface. One such point for me came in my junior year at University. It changed the way I viewed the world forever as it catapulted me out of the last of my angsty, melancholic youth and onto a path of ever-increasing bliss. Sounds like I’m verging on feeding you some new-agey, mumbo-jumbo, doesn’t it? Well, bear with me, because I assure you the point here is to add some logical evidence to the ol’ cliches, to give you what I would consider my Science of Happiness. At the time of this personal discovery, I was pursuing a double-major in Computer Science and Psychology. 1. Your thoughts reshape your brain, and thus are changing a physical construct of reality. 2. 3. 4. But it’s not bullshit. 5.
Why You Should Wait Five Minutes Before You React - Motto A few years ago I used to be a hothead. Whenever anyone said anything, I’d think of a way to disagree. I’d push back hard if something didn’t fit my world-view. It’s like I had to be first with an opinion – as if being first meant something. It’s easy to talk about knee jerk reactions as if they are things that only other people have. This came to a head back in 2007. And what did I do? His response changed my life. This was a big moment for me. Richard has spent his career thinking about these problems. There’s also a difference between asking questions and pushing back. Learning to think first rather than react quick is a life long pursuit. If you aren’t sure why this is important, think about this quote from Jonathan Ive regarding Steve Jobs’ reverence for ideas: And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. That’s deep. There are two things in this world that take no skill: 1.
A Non-Conformist's Guide to Success in a Conformist World, Bryan Caplan I've been a non-conformist for as long as I can remember. "All the other kids love sports" never seemed like a good reason why I should feel - or pretend to feel - the same way. "None of the other adults are wearing shorts and flip-flops" never seemed like a good reason why I should make myself uncomfortable. It wasn't mere elitism on my part. "All the other Princeton economists take general equilibrium models seriously" was no more compelling to me than "All the other teens want their own car." Non-conformism at my intensity rarely allows real-world success. Some of it's luck - especially the luck of being in the right place at the right time to meet the right people. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
How to write paragraphs — Advice for authoring a PhD or academic book In English the core building blocks of any intellectual or research argument are paragraphs. Each paragraphs should be a single unit of thought, a discrete package of ideas composed of closely linked sentences. The most generally applicable sequence to follow is — Topic, Body, Tokens, Wrap. The opening ‘topic’ sentence alerts readers to a change of subject and focus, and cues readers (in ‘signpost’ mode) about what the paragraph covers. It should never link backwards to material that came before (linkages are instead always made forward in ‘wrap’ sentences). So be wary of starting paragraphs with linking words (such as ‘However’, ‘Never the less’, ‘Furthermore’), lest they lead you into looking back. Rational, skimming readers do not treat all parts of paragraphs in the same way. It follows that the beginning and endings of paragraphs should always be the most carefully written materials. Six common paragraph problems Six things most commonly go wrong in writing paragraphs: 6.