In „Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing | MasterClass” there was, at some point, a focus on how people talk – if you write something, it will help imagining a real person talking.
To me, that’s rather difficult. I tend to talk like I write, and this empathetic exercise is rather difficult.
But it would be a nice thing to try, in the future.
It might look to you that whenever you say „Freedom of choice”, it’s about the last moment: „Should I eat, right now, this unhealthy but tasty food?”, or „Should I stay late and have fun, or be a party pooper, but have a good night’s sleep?”. Things like that – the last moment, when you make the final decision.
„Oh, if only at time X I had chosen a different path …”.
But, to me, the freedom of choice is mostly not on short-term, but on long-term acts.
If at the end of the day you make a poor decision, there were some factors leading to that decision:
The most important observation of this blog post is that long-term decisions affect a lot of short-term decisions. If you’re aware of a poor habit and ignore it, you take some risks. Whenever the risks happen to actually lead to a bad situation, the problem is not only that at that specific moment you took a poor decision, but the fact that you had a long-term habit, which you kept on ignoring.
Most of the time, when people analyze a situation, they focus on just the last bit. If I take a poor grade on an exam, I’ll look at the time of the exam – „Oh, I took a C because I missed just the part which was chosen for the test”. How about you look at a more situation: „I could have slept better in the last year; I could have focused on reading more on the courses; I could have joined a learning group; I could have read extra materials on the subject; I could have written on the matter, so I would have made more associations”.
Why is focusing on the long-term helpful? Because it leads to better habits, and, to me, these are more important than sprints. You can sprint for one good grade on an exam, but it matters more if you can commit to a marathon of lifelong learning.
În analiza unor CV-uri, apare unor un îndemn de tipul „Sunt niște cuvinte care ar trebui evitate, precum spirit de echipă, care ar trebui evitate”.
O căutare la Google » e edificatoare în această direcție.
Încep să am o alergie la cuvântul „profund/profunzime”.
Dacă intenționezi să lauzi pe cineva, spui că textul lui este profund, iar dacă vrei să critici, e superficial.
Problema e că sunt unele situații în care nu se aplică corect atributul.
Pe scurt, dacă îți place articolul, înseamnă că e un articol „profund”, iar dacă nu – „superficial”.
Repetați asta constant, și cuvântul își pierde din substanță (era să zic profunzime).
Ajunge, de la un punct, ca termenul „profunzime” să producă aceleași iritări ca un „spirit de echipă” în CV.
I got at least one idea by listening to Despre relațiile din copilărie și cum să menții pacea în cuplu, cu Paul Olteanu și Alexandra Irod – YouTube (RO):
It happens to me a lot. I used to reply to pretty much all emails/comments. Now, I do so but to a lesser degree.
I used to be very upset when someone wrote something bad online about me. Now, I tend to control it better.
I used to post a lot of things on social media, now – I still do so, but on other means (blog, Google groups).
What’s the solution? Posting fewer things? No, I do it for multiple reasons, not only for personal satisfaction.
Not caring about a message someone sends to me? I don’t think that’s very OK. Sure, if it’s a SPAM/very aggressive message, I can choose to ignore it. But for a general message – I will generally choose to reply, even though now I understand there are some underlying reasons.
What I need to work on is the general image I make in my mind whenever I get an aggressive message. Right now, it’s not that pleasant.
More than this, I need to place myself in the world better. I wrote about this in the past (1, 2, 3). I still need to fix some things in there.
You can’t be fearless. Avoiding fear 100% is, in my opinion, not only impossible but also undesirable. But one can fear less.
The acronym “F.e.a.r.” (False Evidence/Expectations Appearing Real) comes to mind whenever I talk about fear.
Via a great online course (“The Science of Well-Being” by Yale University | Coursera) I found out a definition of savoring:
Savoring = The act of stepping outside of an experience to review and appreciate it. (via »)
I tend not to savor things a lot. I’m always in a hurry, pretty much whatever I do. When I walk, I let my mind wander. Whenever I eat, I think of something else. When I work, I listen to something in the background. Whenever someone speaks, sometimes I think of something to say back, instead of being at the moment.
Some drawbacks:
What to do? Concrete steps:
TV cartoon called G. I. Joe: „Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.”
Just knowing about a thing doesn’t allow you to make some connections.
That’s why I like writing on this blog. It’s actually a very nice activity, I get enthusiastic about it. I enjoy every moment.
On one hand, it helps me structure my mind – if I write in order for others to understand, I have to make the ideas clear to me, first.
On another hand, I can be more open. If I write, I’ll put myself out there. I’m exposed, out in the open, I put my thoughts free for all. Anyone can see how I think.
All-in-all, blogging helps with making connections. And this helps with understanding.
I actually recommend this to others – if you want to know better, teach others.
There’s a learning method called „The Feynman Technique”, which has the following steps for learning:
- Pretend to teach a concept you want to learn about to a student in the sixth grade.
- Identify gaps in your explanation. Go back to the source material to better understand it.
- Organize and simplify.
- Transmit (optional).
Although transmitting is optional, I think it helps a lot.
„Ține-ți mintea în iad și nu deznădăjdui” – Sfântul Siluan Athonitul
I was there, once, in my life. It wasn’t pleasant. Actually, it was as unpleasant as one bad thing could be.
There’s a book in which a dog goes through pain. When the pain is over, he’s not the same as it once was.
A thing to remember.
Keep the faith, try, focus on the positive, insist.
But the bad things leave a trace.
Is there hope? It sure is:
Rana este locul pe unde intră lumina în tine… – Protosinghel Hrisostom Filipescu
I’ll say it again and again – I like this quote
“[…] ceea ce contează în viață nu-i niciodată inteligența, ci bunătatea […]. E lucrul cel mai bun pe care îl poate avea cineva în viață.” (Mircea Cărtărescu – via video-ul de aici)
And another one:
„never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” (Hanlon’s razor)
(adapted from:)
This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions,[3] and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions. (Occam’s razor – Wikipedia)
Innocence is so cool! Sure, it lacks intelligence, sure, it’s not smart, but a happy heart can be forgiven for the lack of intelligence.
As long as you have a good heart, even though „The road to hell is paved with good intentions”, I think that’s the way to go.
Do good, as good as you can do it, and you’ll be forgiven for the lack of intelligence in making things right.
Mistake 1: Thinking people give feedback the way they want to receive it
[…]
One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is that humans aren’t pure functions: an input that works one day and gets one result, then again another day and get an entirely different result.
The same is true of how people give and receive feedback: someone may give you feedback in a particular way, but they prefer to receive much differently when it comes to themselves.
This happens to me quite a lot. I sometimes give a lot of feedback, some of it is perceived as aggressive, but when others give feedback to me, when others tell me some things, I tend to overreact.
I’ve gotten better with both parts, I think, as time passed by – I was able to receive feedback without getting upset, and I was able to give feedback which is as little emotional as possible.
Still, at the end of the day, there’s a gap between how I give and how I receive feedback.
Two battles: