A personal ode to meditation: Meditation, my dependable friend. You are the source of a peaceful trend. When my mind is racing, you help calm the storm. If I have shallow breaths, oxygen flow becomes the norm. Like coffee, you are energizing to imbibe. The energy I feel is superb but hard to describe. Numbness…
The topic of happiness can come across as cheesy or superficial. Life isn’t easy, so how can someone tell me joy is simple? Then there’s the whole genre of self-help books. Do they work? It’s easy to be skeptical. The problem with happiness is we wait for something good to happen, and then we’ll be…
In a previous post, I mentioned the wise words of Naval Ravikant, an investor and modern philosopher. I want to share another piece of wisdom. He calls it the fundamental delusion. In episode 18 of the Knowledge Project Podcast, interviewer Shane Parrish asks him, “what’s the most common mistake you see people make over and…
I love an analogy I heard from Naval Ravikant, a tech investor and modern-day philosopher. In a podcast interview, he said that life is essentially a single-player game, not a multiplayer game. These terms equate to interior life vs. exterior life. Let’s elaborate: The single-player game: just you, your thoughts, and your emotions. The multiplayer…
Are smartphone apps tools or drugs? A proper tool is passive, and it waits for us to use it, much like a hammer sits and waits in our toolbox. The hammer doesn’t actively seek anything from us, and it doesn’t use psychological tactics to take hold of our attention. On the other hand, many social…
I started using an app called Focusmate in September 2021, and it’s been a game-changer. I tell my friends and family about it and why I’m a proponent of it. I discovered the app during a long struggle to establish habits. I especially wanted to get up early and exercise before work, but I failed…
Decluttering our space is an overwhelming task. The thought of it often paralyzes us, so why do it? I suggest these reasons: When we spend less time cleaning, organizing, or taking care of our possessions, we gain time for what matters most to us. We have more peace of mind with fewer possessions occupying our…
When I think of motivation, I think of something I don’t want to do, and that definition doesn’t serve me because I make little progress on my task. But I find splitting the concept into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is very helpful. Extrinsic motivation is action toward an external reward or an ulterior motive. For…
Minimalism, or essentialism as I like to call it, is the practice of removing excess possessions to focus on our life’s values. My interest in the subject was sparked by Marie Kondo’s book titled The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Marie is from Japan and emphasizes keeping possessions that “spark joy” and discarding/donating/selling the rest.…
David Goggins is the embodiment of human transformation. I read his autobiography Can’t Hurt Me, and it details his rough childhood and severe lack of education. It’s an understatement to say he wasn’t set up for success, but life didn’t stop him. He became a Navy Seal, Army Ranger, set a pull-up world record, and became…