Wednesday’s Wisdom
Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard.
With great power comes great responsibility…
With great responsibility comes great power.
There’s difference between fault and responsibility. Something doesn’t have to be your fault for you to take responsibility for it.
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
-Henry Ford
Your Life in Pizza:�How Short Life is if You Live for the Weekend
"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it."
-Paulo Coelho
You are always training your dog!
I’m Not That Smart
Read this article: https://seths.blog/2022/10/im-not-that-smart/
Behavior Before Success
Would You Be Able to Change?
Quick Write: If you had two months left to live what would you change?
Read: https://dailystoic.com/would-you-actually-be-able-to-change/
And the Bad Version Is…
https://stevenpressfield.com/2021/09/and-the-bad-version-is/
Sam Harris on Meditation
12 Questions to Ask Everyday -
Ryan Holiday - Stoicism
Sam Harris
“The Last Time”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cx445DRSBW2fP8IlGVAse7FVNFfNLT9M/view?usp=sharing
Sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoML0_FiV4
Bill Hader on Anxiety
All the posters in the classroom can each be one day of wisdom
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Bruce Lee Quotes
Fixed vs. Growth Mindset
Inner Critic
Comfort Zones
Quick Writes:
Write about a time when you didn’t do something because it made you uncomfortable. What prevented you? Why were you uncomfortable? Is this a common problem for you? What were the consequences or missed opportunities? (examples: not speaking because of what others might think, not trying something because you might fail, hiding your true feelings, avoiding a situation…)
How big do you consider your comfort zone to be? How often do you go outside of your comfort zone?
Comfort Zones
As you watch, identify any key points in the speech.
Find an important quote.
“There’s a positive correlation between how much we get out of our comfort zone and how much money we earn.”
“If you want something you don’t already have, you have to do something you are not already doing.”
Comfort Zones
What is something you can do that will put you out of your own comfort zone and will have a positive impact on your life?
Quick Write: Do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist?
“There is neither good or bad in a thing, but thinking makes it so” -Hamlet
We see what we look for. Pay attention to what you are looking for!
SELECTIVE ATTENTION
Look Up - What Are You Missing
How You Do One Thing is How You Do Everything
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-campbell/how-you-do-anything-is-ho_b_1110048.html
J K Rowling Harvard Commencement Speech
Who Knows What is Good or Bad?
Who Knows What is Good or Bad?
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -Hamlet
Quick Public Speaking Tips
Negative fear: Everyone is judging me.
Positive variable: People are self-interested.
Negative fear: I need to be perfect.
Positive variable: Nothing’s perfect; accept it!
Negative fear: I am afraid I will freeze and get stuck.
Positive variable: You can memorize your speech.
“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.”
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
Fail Early, Fail Often, Fail Forward
Health benefits of being thankful
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
– Mark Twain
Our fundamental attribution error
When someone else screws up, it’s because of who they are, their race, their upbringing… a glimpse into their true character.
When we do something, it’s because the situation we’re in caused it to happen.
The fundamental attribution error is based on a glitch in the way we understand causation and statistics, and it’s fueled by our unique view of ourselves. Because I’m the only person who can hear the story in my head.
It’s obvious that gender and other easily visible traits are not completely correlated with behavior. And yet we act as if they are, writing off countless individuals instead of embracing the contribution they can offer.
From: https://seths.blog/2018/12/our-fundamental-attribution-error/
Last year, the writer Chuck Palahniuk received the kind of news that all of us dread. Someone he trusted—the book agent who had represented him for years—had been slowly but steadily robbing him blind. All the millions he’d earned from the royalties of his bestselling books were gone. All the financial security he thought he’d built up was an illusion—undone by the cruel deception and greed of someone close to him.
In July, Palahniuk was asked what it felt like to lose all his money. He stared down at the ground. He was quiet. Then he answered:
“It’s kind of nice. Writing was initially my way of saving money, because if you’re writing, you’re not spending. So it throws me back into writing. There are larger issues in life – the embezzlement is dwarfed by my father-in-law’s death. And there’s the awareness that I’m the person who got me to this place, and I’m still that person, so I can still turn it all back around, and come up with something really strong and vibrant and interesting.”
First off, kudos is due to Palaniuk, because that’s a far more enlightened view than most of us would take of such a betrayal. It could not have been natural or easy to get to that point. The other stages of grief would come before such acceptance: anger, denial, bargaining. But it’s impressive that he got there.
It’s also very Stoic. Seneca spoke often of the reversals that life has in store for us—no matter how successful or secure we might believe that we are. “No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune,” he wrote, “that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.” Which is why we have to make sure that our identity and our happiness is not tied up in physical or financial things—because these things are not in our control. Seneca’s advice was that we ought to “possess nothing that can be snatched from us to the great profit of a plotting foe.”
Chuck Palahniuk’s money was stolen. That kind of theft is always a possibility since money is never really “ours” to begin with. It’s just a number in our bank account. It’s something on loan to us until we spend it or until it’s rendered worthless by some government institution we don’t control. But our confidence—that sense that we’re the person who earned it in the first place, the person who has worked hard and sacrificed and created—that’s 100% ours. No one can take that from us. Fortune can take our jobs, unfairly tarnish our good name, or burn down our house.
Can it change who we are? Our sense of ourselves? Only if we let it.
Byron Katie
https://thework.com/2014/05/video-the-worst-that-can-happen-to-me/
"Most people live their lives dwelling on things that happened in the past and worrying about the future. They never live in the present and therefore, never actually exist."
-E. P. Worrel
Fear
Slim “Ain’t many guys travel around together, I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” (35)
Curley’s Wife “Funny thing, if I catch any one man, and he’s alone, I get along fine with him. But just let two of the guys get together an’ you won’t talk. Jus’ nothing but mad. You’re all scared of each other, that’s what. Ever’one of you’s scared the rest is goin’ to get something on you.” (77)
Quick Write: Why do we have fear? How does fear motivate people? In what ways have you seen fear bring out the worst in people?
What’s Happening?
https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/behavior/sunday-firesides-whats-happening-is/
Be the bell. Make music from your misfortune.
(From Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic 2/17/22)
Life batters us. It does. We find out that we’ve lost our job...or someone we love. We find out that some ruling has come down against us or that a bad review has been written. We fall and hurt ourselves. We get a diagnosis. We are mistreated or attacked.
We get hit. Hard.
But there is a beautiful metaphor in a Rilke poem we can take heart in. “Let this darkness be a bell tower,” he writes, “and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change.”
Instead of seeing ourselves as the victims, we can turn around what happens to us. By turning ourselves into the bell, we make music out of the hits we take.
The worst thing that ever happened to you is the worst thing that ever happened to you.
The Stupidity of Perfection by Matthew Dicks
Zooming out from Earth to the Universe
Why Being Bored is Good For You
You can fit in or stand out but you can’t do both.
"Don't fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail."
-Bruce Lee
Who you are today is the result of what you did in the past. Who you are in the future will be the result of what you do today.
"Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
-Viktor Frankl
Aim Low
Jordan Peterson
Painter and visual artist Chuck Close on inspiration:
"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to do an awful lot of work.
All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case."
The Golden Rule - Treat others as you wish to be treated.
The Reverse Golden Rule - Treat yourself as you would treat others.
You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize they seldom do.
David Foster Wallace
The Most Important Question
Mark Manson
AIM LOW
What you pay attention to expands.
-Humans of NY
Life is not a journey
Alan Watts
30 Principles of Adult Behavior
Robert Rodriguez on Identity
Answer these questions about your identity.
What kind of student are you?
How athletic are you?
How social are you?
How creative/artistic are you?
A year from now, you will wish you had started today.
The Secret to Success - The Three Dimensions of P
Master all three and you will be a success!
Otherwise, be really good at two of them!
“You can have results or excuses. Not both.”
-Arnold Schwarzenegger