Freedom is the capacity to pause; Your list of three people

Freedom is the capacity to pause in the face of stimuli from many directions at once and, in this pause, to throw one’s weight toward this response rather than that one.

The pause is especially important for the freedom of being, what I have called essential freedom. For it is in the pause that we experience the context out of which freedom comes. In the pause we wonder, reflect, sense awe, and conceive of eternity. The pause is when we open ourselves for the moment to the concepts of both freedom and destiny.

~ Rollo May from, “Freedom and Destiny”

Check out Maria Popova’s, “Existential Psychologist Rollo May on Freedom and the Significance of the Pause”
https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/10/04/rollo-may-freedom-destiny-pause/

…and my favorite season is here! I love the cool evenings, and how the knowledge that Daylight Savings is about to kick in makes me pay extra attention to my time outdoors in the evening. One thing I love doing is walking while listening to podcasts where I often find inspiring gems.

Here’s an example from The Tim Ferris Show Episode #86
https://tim.blog/2015/07/05/stanley-mcchrystal/

Around 1 hour 20 miutes in, Chris Fussell says:

I had a great mentor of mine, early on in my carrer, say, you should have a running list of three people — you can but you don’t need to share it with them or the world — that you’re always watching: Someone senior to you that you want to emulate; A peer who you think is better at the job than you, and you respect; And someone subordinate who is doing the job that you did a year or two or three years ago better than you did it. If you just have those three individuals that you’re constantly measuring yourself off of, and who you’re constantly learning from, you’re going to be exponentially better.

~ Chris Fussell

slip:4c2le2b.

Aside: DST should be abolished. It no longer saves us energy (it’s original purpose), but it does cause a statistically significant rise in traffic accidents:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199604043341416
(that’s the actual New England Journal of Medicine mind you.)

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