Where to Begin

Begin with the end in mind. -Stephen R. Covey

forget yourself

Get lost in a book. Watch a sunset. Do things that make you forget yourself.

Winging It

There are no grown-ups. We suspect this when we are younger, but can confirm it only once we are the ones writing books and attending parent-teacher conferences. Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently.

Pamela Druckerman writing in the New York Times

unsolicited advice

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.  Mary Schmich

a Life Tip for Graduates

Because I graduated in Britain, I missed out on the traditional American commencement ceremony at which a middle-aged bore intones, “You can be whatever you want to be.” Obviously, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The trick is to work out what you should be. -Simon Kuper

religious morality

There is always a danger of thinking religious morality is the same as cultural norms. (unknown)

stubbing your toe

You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.  Charles F. Kettering

Saying No

How do you personally determine when it’s right to say ‘no’ to an ask or opportunity?

I ask myself three questions:     

Is this in line with my values?    

Will it add significant value to my life? (Skills, increase my network, etc.)    

What will I be sacrificing to take on this opportunity?

Claire Wasserman, Founder of Ladies Get Paid in GirlsNightinClub

the highest mountain

You walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

Learning from Envy

Aristotle described envy not as benign desire for what someone else possesses but “as the pain caused by the good fortune of others.” Not surprisingly these pangs often give way to a feeling of malice. Witness the fact that throughout history and across cultures, anyone who enjoyed a piece of good fortune feared and set up defenses against the “evil eye.” Of course, there is not much talk today about the evil eye, at least not in the West, but it surely isn’t because we are less prone to envy than our ancestors.

One of the reasons envy does not take a holiday is that we never give a rest to the impulse to compare ourselves to one another. I have had students respond with glee to being admitted to a graduate program and then a few days later coyly ask: “Hey, Doc. How many applicants do you think were rejected?” — as in, the more rejected the merrier I can allow myself to be.

Social media has generated new vistas for this compulsion to compare and lord it over others.

“Envy is secret admiration,” Kierkegaard said. As such, if we are honest with ourselves, envy can help us identify our vision of excellence and where need be, perhaps reshape it.

Gordon Marino writing in The New York Times

You never know

You never know when you're making a memory.

pack your bag

I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones. -Leslie Jamison

your choice

You make what seems a simple choice: Choose a man or a job or a neighborhood—and what you have chosen is not a man or a job or a neighborhood, but a life. -Jessamyn West

Your coworkers are better at rating some parts of your personality

Sixteen rigorous studies of thousands of people at work have shown that people’s coworkers are better than they are at recognizing how their personality will affect their job performance. As a social scientist, if I want to get a read on your personality, I could ask you to fill out a survey on how stable, dependable, friendly, outgoing, and curious you are. But I would be much better off asking your coworkers to rate you on those same traits: They’re often more than twice as accurate. They can see things that you can’t or won’t—and these studies reveal that whatever you know about yourself that your coworkers don’t is basically irrelevant to your job performance.

Adam Grant writing in the Atlantic

what to do with the towel

You have a choice. You can throw in the towel, or you can use it to wipe the sweat off of your face.

pretending

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty. - Sacha Guitry

The Phone Trade-Off

Smartphone photography isn’t making us dumber. It’s shifting the way our minds work, refocusing our attention.

Alixandra Barasch is a cognitive scientist at NYU. In her work, she finds that, yes, incessant smartphone camera use can lead to lapses in memory. But, more importantly, she finds a wrinkle: Cameras can also focus our attention to enhance memory.

She’s run similar studies to the one at Stanford, where participants either take photos or don’t take photos while on a museum tour. When instructed to take photos of an exhibit, her participants were more likely to remember visual aspects of their experience (the art and artifacts they saw) than if they didn’t take photos. But there’s a trade-off: The participants snapping photos were less likely to remember information they heard.

Brian Resnick writing in Vox

except for two things

You are the same today as you will be five years from now except for two things . . . the people you meet and the books you read. -Charles E. Jones

Winners must have..

Winners must have two things: definite goals and a burning desire to achieve them.

you are finished

You are not finished when you are defeated. You’re finished when you quit.