We should exercise more our gratitude.
Gratitude is essential for healing and for helping others. It is an essential ingredient of our lives that is too often overseen.
Like this quote from Neale Donald Walsh: “The struggle ends where gratitude begins”
Tony Robbins in this video explains how he exercises gratitude for a few minutes every morning as part of his start-the-day ritual.
Gratitude can be exercised. Every day. When do you start?
Pema Chodron writes: “This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky – that’s called liberation.” Is that really true?
This idea that to be free we must move away from our comfort zone is quite strong and scary at the same time. It would mean that we can’t find freedom within the comfort of our lives.
The challenge is of course that those religious people who seek liberation tend to enclose themselves in a physical comfort zone made of habits and rituals. Is that possibly to be in a better situation to escape their mental comfort zone? This would seem to be a contradiction.
At the same time it is in times of unknown possibilities that we can find the best opportunities to reveal ourselves. That is often not possible in our comfort zone, unless some events happen that shake it.
It would seem to me that Pema Chodron’s words mean that we need to seek situations that are unknown and unpredictable to reach freedom. Let’s look for them – wherever they are, close or far from our comfort zone!
“If you can raise somebody’s level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise.” says Shawn Achor in a lively TED talk.
The traditional success formula is broken. “Most companies and schools follow a formula for success, which is this: If I work harder, I’ll be more successful. And if I’m more successful, then I’ll be happier. That undergirds most of our parenting and managing styles, the way that we motivate our behavior. The problem is it’s scientifically broken and backwards”.
In particular, it does not work because “Every time your brain has a success, you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like.” And thus we never reach that success we are striving for.
How much better do we get if we have the happiness advantage? “In fact, we’ve found that every single business outcome improves. Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed. You’re 37% better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed“.
Let’s strive to get the happiness advantage and produce success rather than the other way around!
“Your external world can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness. 90 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world.” says Shawn Achor in a lively TED talk.
External-generated happiness is only temporary and limited. Hardwiring ourselves to be happy relatively irrespective of the circumstances is what creates long term happiness.
It is a long way from the usual understanding of happiness associating happiness with wealth, idleness and the ownership of worldly things.
Let’s train and hardwire our brains to see the world in a more happy manner, and live happier lives!
“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly” – Buckminster Fuller, Author, Designer and Inventor
At the same time, unless there is an unfortunate accident, it is the inevitable destiny of the caterpillar to become a butterfly.
Many people are like caterpillars crawling around in life. Not many know they can become a butterfly. Many will stay caterpillars.
But when one knows it is possible to become a butterfly, unless of an unfortunate accident, they will become a butterfly. In their own way.
Let’s tell more people-caterpillars they have the capacity to become a butterfly.
“Even the most career driven and ambitious among us eventually come to a decision point, do we follow the norm and risk living lives filled with decisions made by others, or do we take responsibility for ourselves, to become fully engaged with the process of defining what matters and focusing on what’s in our control?” writes Valeria Maltoni in her blog.
This powerful question is at the core of our lives. Some of us take this decision early, some late, but we always take it. Most of us star their adult life on the path more or less chosen for them by their family, and then by the organization that has welcomed us, but at some stage we all ask ourselves the question and resolve it. It might be at retirement only, but the question is always there lurking in the dark.
This is life’s key decision point and it is a critical question to consider (and not to escape from). The way to deal with it is to face this question, because escaping from it may lead to depression, sadness and fear. This crisis will happen sooner or later so better anticipate it as much as possible.
Look at the question in the eye: “Do I want to keep following the norm and a life filled with decisions from others, or do I want to choose my own and take responsibility for myself?”. Scary, and necessary.
Benevolence means being well meaning and showing kindness. It is an older word that became a bit disused. The concept however, I believe, is becoming very important in today’s world.
We are always wondering what are the motives behind the actions of people. In particular in the daily office world, this question is always lurking behind in our minds. And this is becoming increasingly so.
However we know that some people, and some actions, are only motivated by goodwill and kindness that does not seek anything specific in return. We struggle sometimes to recognize this fact in particular in today’s fast paced environment full of unknown motives.
Showing and recognizing benevolence is an essential element of goodwill and credibility. It is important sometimes to do some actions without seeking any advantage, just for the pleasure of helping, supporting, creating stuff.
How much benevolence do you demonstrate on a day-to-day basis?
In this excellent article, ‘the Pentagon’s Terminator Conundrum – robots that could kill on their own‘, the issue now faced by weapons developers is explained clearly.
While the development of drones and robots that could take themselves the decision to engage targets becomes closer, the issue of whether to develop such system becomes a conundrum. It is important to be able to face such a possible threat, at the same time usage of this type of weapon will need to remain very much controlled. Mechanisms similar to control of nuclear proliferation or chemical weapons might need to be put in place – with the particular challenge that no huge and noticeable industrial complex will be needed to produce such weapons.
The Open Letter by concerned scientists on autonomous weapons is interesting to read. It states “If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow.”
At the same time, military might contend with enhancing human capabilities by teaming humans with robots, in particular to be able to take decisions in uncertain situations. But the issue needs to be tackled quickly because the consequences of robots engaging without control could become a proliferation issue.
Our society seeks the Flawless Record. Our resumes have to be flawless and have no holes, and in general we are suspicious of people with any hint of controversy. However as Seth Godin reminds us, this is a paradox. Success only comes from creating things that are criticized.
Being criticized means that we try to move things forward. It means we have tried something new, something disruptive. As Seth Godin reminds us “If your goal is to be universally liked and respected and understood, then, it must mean your goal is to not do something that matters.”
I would like to add that it is great to be criticized and controversial as long as there is no integrity issue related to the matter (although sometimes adversaries might appeal to put our integrity, so that it is sometimes difficult to discern).
Flawless is not an objective. Consistent and courageous is. We need to choose – and maybe not make it through the usual filtering criteria of the Industrial Age!
Today is the best time to be around for a human – that’s a least what the statistics show. A large number of statistics are for example given in this Spectator article ‘Why can’t we see that we’re living in a golden age?‘ : wealth, life expectancy, violence rate, all indicators trend favroably (on average).
And indeed in spite of the increase of the world population and all the problems that plague humanity, it looks like it has never been a best time to be alive for a human, male or female.
Of course, the world changes fast and it is difficult to know what to do to thrive, because the practices from yesterday are not the one that will make successful tomorrow. Of course, inequality tends to increase as a result of connectivity and increased complexity. Still humanity has never been as protected and wealthy.
Still we are also very fearful and believe doomsayers. That might be because “We’re hardwired not to believe this. We’ve evolved to be suspicious and fretful: fear and worry are tools for survival. The hunters and gatherers who survived sudden storms and predators were the ones who had a tendency to scan the horizon for new threats, rather than sit back and enjoy the view. They passed their stress genes on to us. That is why we find stories about things going wrong far more interesting than stories about things going right. It’s why bad news sells, and newspapers are full of it.”
Look at evidence and enjoy the ride. And we have never had so much spare time and communication capability to enjoy it anyway!
“Relationships are mirrors to use for self-learning, enquiry, and investigation” – writes Cate Stillman in ‘Body Thrive‘.
She continues “Through that very learning, radical transformation of one’s life can take place. If our relationships are unclear, confusion and conflict will affect our well-being.”
I like the idea that our relationships are like mirrors that we can use to get feedback on who or what we really are. And the thing is that we don’t use relationships in this capacity enough. We underestimate what they can bring to us in particular when they are deep and authentic.
Think about your most important relationships today. How could you use better their mirror capability to improve yourself?
It seems that there is a trend for people to increasingly buy experience and not just things as part of their luxury expenditures.
“In a 2014 report the Boston Consulting Group says that nearly $1 trillion of the $1.8 trillion spent on “luxuries” in 2013 was spent on experiences — 55 percent.” quotes Valeria Maltoni in her excellent post ‘Seeking Experiences Where the Product is a Better Self‘
“When we buy experiences, those purchases make us happier than when we buy things,” says Joseph Pine, the co-author of The Experience Economy. “Some large part of that trillion is luxury transformations—people looking to recharge, revitalize or to improve well-being in some way.”
And it is true that in the quest for the meaningful, minimalism and avoidance of excessive tangible ‘stuff’ is quite a trend.
What about you? Do you increasingly buy and offer experiences instead of things?
