Always do your best

Alba Pardo, Best experience ever...

Regarding „Always do your best…?”, I think you should never consider you did your best.

You should aim for doing things the right way, you should aim for perfection.

If perfection means doing things 80%, that’s fine. If it means just scratching the surface, doing 10%, it’s OK also.

But, once the task has been done, if you look back at what you did and say „Hey, I’ve done my best”, you’ll never wish to grow.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

I don’t think I did anything perfect. I did get some things right, but perfect – no. There’s always room for more.

Why do I say „you can do everything even better!”?

Because there are multiple aspects of any activity.

A product, a service, an entity – everything has multiple aspects on which it can be improved. I don’t think I consider that anything’s perfect in this world.

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Good understanding and Optimism and Trust vs. Poor understanding and Pessimism and Mistrust

Shawn Harquail - Happy Holidays!

How about Optimism and Trust vs. Pessimism and Mistrust?

First, some quotes:

 

Progress happens when people learn something new. And they learn the most, as a group, when stuff breaks and gets painful.

So the reasonable optimist expects the world to break all the time. But they know – as a matter of faith – that if they can survive the day-to-day fractures they’ll capture the up-and-to-the-right arc over time.

(via The Reasonable Optimist · Collaborative Fund)

 

Seeing a situation from all angles is always preferable, adds Laslett, saying: “Any strength overplayed becomes a weakness: that is to say, blind optimism is never good.”

But a little optimism does go a long way.

(via How ‘optimism bias’ shapes our decisions and futures – BBC Worklife)

 

All good investing comes down to surviving an inevitable chain of short-term setbacks and disappointments in order to enjoy long-term progress and compounding.

Save like a pessimist, investing like an optimist.

(via Save Like A Pessimist, Invest Like An Optimist · Collaborative Fund)

 

But introverts have unique personality traits that can empower them to be exceptional leaders if properly leveraged.

(via Why introverts can be better leaders than extroverts)

There’s a quote by Gala Galaction (a writer/priest) I like a lot (from „Lângă apa Vodislavei”):

Turcul se învoi ușor cu toți, până la Iordache, crezu fiecăruia și primi și mai jos decât ceruse.

(Adapted translation – The Turk easily agreed with everyone, up to Iordache, believed everyone’s story and accepted to receive even smaller amounts of money than he asked.)

(This last quote shows pity, in my opinion.)

A quote by Nicolae Steinhardt:

Se cuvine să înțelegem că orice am face și oricât ne-am strădui, tot supărăm. Singura soluție e resemnarea. Ce putem face? Să tăcem, să tăcem. Să nu facem răul, și nici binele cu sila. Dar și trecând, tăcând, tot nemulțumim. Odată pentru totdeauna se cade să ne băgăm bine în minte: deranjăm doar pentru că suntem prezenți. Și să nu ne oprim aici: mai trebuie să recunoaștem că și ei ne deranjează pe noi! Gând înfiorător: Căci nu suntem mai buni ca ceilalți, tot în aceeași oală ne aflăm și fierbem înăbușit.

(Adapted translation – We should understand that no matter what we do and no matter how hard we try, we are still upsetting others. The only solution is resignation. What can we do? Let’s shut up, let’s shut up. Let us not do evil, nor do good by force. But even by our passing, silent, we are still upsetting others. Once and for all, it is important to keep in mind: we bother even because we are present. And let’s not stop here: we must also admit that others bother us too! Creepy thought: Because we are not better than the others, we are in the same boiling pot and we are also boiling and suffocating.)

Now, let’s get down to business.

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Despre vaccinul anti-Covid din surse mai puțin sigure

jeanneg. - Second Covid Vaccine for Mom Today

Mai jos, opinia mea pe tema – ce fac dacă am de ales între un vaccin mai sigur și altul mai puțin sigur (ipotetic, unul rusesc/chinezesc)?

Dacă am de ales între a nu mă vaccina și a mă vaccina cu un vaccin mai nesigur, aleg vaccinarea. Nici nu am vreo dlilemă aici.

Dacă am de ales între a aștepta un termen relativ scurt (o lună – două) pentru un vaccin mai bun (mi s-a întâmplat recent, disponibil Astra Zeneca, dar într-o perioadă scurtă eram destul de sigur că am opțiune mai bună – Moderna, la Năvodari), voi alege, foarte probabil, să aștept.

Cred că oamenii nu înțeleg diferența între certitudine și risc, și între grade de risc – dacă nu te vaccinezi ai o mare probabilitate să iei un virus și un risc mai mare să pățești ceva. Dacă te vaccinezi, ai, potențial, niște riscuri, dar acelea probabil sunt mai mici. Chiar și de la state totalitare.

F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real.

Ne e frică de teroriști, rechini și avioane, și murim de diabet și boli de inimă. Și de aer poluat.

Răspunsul meu cred că e – ce va zice știința la momentul respectiv. Dacă peste 2 luni se aprobă de către entități competente „Faceți așa, sfat pe baze științifice”, mă voi plia pe acest răspuns.

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The real news is you!

Sharon Lee - Most Versatile 'Hobbies'

These days, there’s a lot of buzz in the media about a politician in Romania, which used to be prime minister, now offered a „warm job” – a well-paid position for which, the media says, that person might not be the most suited candidate. I won’t link to any news on that, I would do the Internet a bad service.

The news is mostly that:

  • „If I were the person naming X in that position, I would have chosen a better candidate”.
  • „I’m a much better person than X, I deserve even better than X in life”.
  • „Political party Y, now in power in Romania, is not that trustworthy”.
  • „In Romania, things go wrong”.

While I would understand most people’s reactions for feeling disappointed by a political party, now governing, I think most of the reactions in the media (in various forms) were due to two main reasons:

  • „I’m better than the person naming X, why am I not in that person’s shoes?”.
  • „I’m better than X, why don’t I get a good position?”.

To me, the things above are not the real news. To me, the real news is that society (in which you, the reader are included) is so preoccupied with this issue that this is even news.

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Redescovering Romania

Reto Fetz - Home Sweet Home

I’ve seen some countries until now – Bulgaria, Germany, Turkey, England, Ireland, Hungary, Serbia. To a lesser extent, Austria and Slovakia. I lived in London for more than a year.

I read one thing on a forum today which made me think – once you visit/live in another country, you look at your original country with different eyes.

I also look at Năvodari differently, based on other experiences I’ve had.

It made me rediscover Romania, Bucharest, Năvodari. Even Pârjol, where I was raised in the first years of my life, looks differently.

Strangely, I like it more. You might think that going from Năvodari to Bucharest would make me look with a poorer look at Năvodari, but the contrary happened. Similarly, I liked Bucharest more after living in London.

The thing is, what’s on a higher level than London? :)

Note – this doesn’t mean I don’t like London or Bucharest anymore. It’s just that I appreciate other places more than before.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.” ― Heraclitus

 

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ― Maya Angelou

Also see:

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Mesaj către cineva anume, fără să menționez un nume

Iaia - message in a bottle

Ce i-aș spune cuiva din trecutul meu, fără să îi menționez numele?

Acum sunt alt om decât cel ce am fost atunci. Nu mai știu cum să mă raportez la momentele respective, pentru că omul, din mine, de azi nu mai e omul de ieri. Rămâne amintirea emoțiilor din momentele respective.

(răspuns pentru Monica Daniela Găitănaru, via Instagram »cont)

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Șmecherie pentru a citi cărți – audiobooks (via Dan C. Mihăilescu)

Alba García Aguado - Books & lavender

Dan C. Mihăilescu, invitat la emisiunea „Credință și Cultură„, cu Vasile Bănescu, a avut o afirmație un pic surprinzătoare, inițial – poți face o mică „șmecherie” pentru a facilita citirea cărților – poți parcurge cărțile ca audiobooks. (Emisiunea »)

Mi-a plăcut abordarea, mie unuia mi se pare un pic dificil să mă concentrez la un roman, însă cred că m-aș adapta mai bine la o non-ficțiune, din care dacă pierd anumite bucăți, pentru că sunt concentrat pe alte sarcini, pot înțelege totuși unele idei.

Eu prefer să ascult interviuri, conferințe, podcasturi, emisiuni online (sau adaptate la online, dar difuzate și pe alte canale).

Sau basme și povești.

Iar cărțile le rezerv unui format fie fizic (exemplu: cărți de la Cărturești sau eMAG), fie electronic (Kindle).

Însă ideea de bază rămâne – poți citi cărți și în variante alternative, ascultându-le.

 

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Allow your kids to go through adversity, but not trauma – Brené Brown

Khánh Hmoong - Trauma

I like this (approximate) quote by Brené Brown (via »):

„Allow your kids to go through adversity, but not trauma”.

And a definition by Merriam-Webster:

Trauma = „a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury” (via »)

How do I interpret this?

  • Limits are OK, „You shouldn’t do this, you should do this”. They can be framed as „This has some advantages, the other thing brings some other results”.
  • On another hand, what is trauma? Something that can leave a mark, bring trouble, and is, all-in-all, unwanted. Yes, something that doesn’t kill you may make you stronger, but after some degree, it’s just too much.

In conclusion, do set boundaries, but don’t transform them into inner limitations, don’t force things that cut others’ wings.

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Space, the final frontier

longreach - People 5498

Following up on a question by Carmen Cucul, a question arises: what’s important when choosing a location from where to work remotely?

To me, space matters little. But, boy-oh-boy!, does being around other people matter! If I have a big or small office, a comfortable or ergonomic chair, all of these matters little. On another hand, spending some time around other people – now, that’s important.

The complete introduction, spoken by Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard at the beginning of each episode, is:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before! (Where no man has gone before – Wikipedia)

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