“There’s a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.”
– Alain De Botton
Month: March 2020
Have you ever asked yourself what Rules you want to live your life by? We often grow up following rules given to us by our parents, family, teachers, society… we don’t ever stop to question whether those rules are actually in alignment with who we are.
Then one day, if we’re lucky, something happens that brings us to open our eyes. We don’t feel lucky at first. Coming to terms with the fact that we haven’t been living truly and authentically is scary. It sucks. It can evoke frustration, anger, or even guilt. But these strong emotions can be channeled into finding the path that we really do want to travel.
And that often starts with setting our own life rules.
In his article, Nik highlights 7 Cardinal Rules of Life which were extracted from the movie Whisper of Heart.
- Make peace with your past so it won’t mess with your present
- Time heals everything, so give it time
- What others think of you is none of your business
- Don’t compare your life to others and don’t judge them
- Stop thinking so much, it’s all right not to have all the answers
- No one is in charge of your happiness except for you
- Smile, for you don’t own all the problems of the world
Image: Pixabay (CC0 – Creative Commons)
“Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.”
– Alain de Botton
“The emotionally intelligent person knows that they will only ever be mentally healthy in a few areas and at certain moments, but is committed to fathoming their inadequacies and warning others of them in good time, with apology and charm.”
– Alain de Botton
The more we are open to changing and adapting to live in a multitude of contests, the more emotionally mature we are. But that doesn’t come easy. Not even close.
Emotional intelligence seems to be all the hype today, one of the most saught-after soft skills by employers. Emotional intelligence though is something we should all pursue not to sound cool at our next job interview, but to travel the obstacle-ridden path that is called life.
The good news? It can be learned.
Even more good news? Alain de Botton has published “The School of Life: An Emotional Education” to teach you how.
Image: Pixabay (CC0 – Creative Commons)
“The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.”
– Alain De Botton
When needing to make a choice, we are often conditioned by our fears more than our goals. Often we know where we want to go, but we are stuck. We’re just too afraid. Of what might happen. Of what others might think of us. Of whether we’re making a responsible choice or not. If we’re going to regret our decision.
“Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life”
– Jerzy Gregorek
Tim Ferriss suggests we should change our approach to taking action and overcoming paralysis. In an exercise he calls “fear-setting” he asks us to envision and write down our fears in detail.
Hear all about it in his TED Talk.
“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”
– Alain de Botton
Smartphones are great. They connect us to the world, they allow us to find any information at any time, in any place, they help us find the best services available around us and they can also be a creative outlet.
Smartphones are also overwhelming. They have brought us to fill every single moment of our life. Whether we’re scrolling the screen or listening through our earphones, there is always a flow of information streaming through our brains. This has terrible consequences on our physical and mental health. We’re more prone to burnout, to excessive levels of stress and to overwhelm. Our brains don’t have any more time to process what we’re feeding them. They don’t have time to elaborate, create and simply be.
The author of this article suggests an easy (and trendy) way to put your smartphone away: buy a fanny pack!
Picture: CC0 – Creative Commons – Unsplash
The Diplo calendar 2020 realized by Stefano Baldi presents a selection of quotes for better living and better working.
The selected quotes are by well-known as well as lesser known Italian men and women that can inspire us in our daily life.
Here is the selected quotation for the month of March
The real hero is always a hero by mistake;
he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else
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