Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
~ Lao Tzu
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Do the difficult things →
One tongue →
Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue – to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.
~ Socrates
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Real-time chat →
I believe attention is one of your most precious resources. If something else controls my attention, that something else controls what I’m capable of. I also believe your full attention is required to do great work. So when something like a pile of group chats, and the expectations that come along with them, systematically steals that resource from me, I consider it a potential enemy. “Right now” is a resource worth conserving, not wasting.
~ Jason Fried from, «https://m.signalvnoise.com/is-group-chat-making-you-sweat-744659addf7d»
Certainly there are situations where real-time chat is the right tool. But I think real-time chat is the rare case.
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When it gets hard →
The road to success is through commitment, and through the strength to drive through that commitment when it gets hard. And it is gonna get hard and you’re gonna wanna quit sometimes, but it’ll be colored by who you are, and more who you want to be.
~ Will Smith
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Advice on losing weight →
Truth be told, if I really wanted to help people lose weight I would increase the price of Eat Stop Eat to 100 dollars per book. Far less people would buy it, but those who did would be invested heavily in making a change in their lives. They wouldn’t just read about fasting and weight training, they’d actually practice it.
~ Brad Pilon from, What Do You Do When A Friend Asks You For Advice On Losing Weight? – Brad Pilon’s ‘Eat Blog Eat’
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Call it wisdom– Call it Imposter Syndrome— whatever. The more I learn about health, the more I’m convinced I know nothing.
For me, the solution to my unhealth was to change my life. Not, “more exercise,” but “rediscover moving.” Not, “eat better,” but “listen honestly to my body.” Not, “lose weight.” — there’s no, “but…” on that last one; The weight loss just happens the more I change my life.
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What is health? →
But as the saying goes, the darkest hour is just before dawn. At some point during this “dark night of the soul,” I realized that the depression and despair I was feeling was the direct result of comparing my actual experience with an idea of what I thought my experience should be. I saw that I was striving for an ideal of health that was—at least at that point—unattainable, and that this was the cause of most of my suffering.
~ Chris Kresser from, What is Health? | Chris Kresser
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This idea is right at the heart of my experience of the last few years.
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Rise to the work of a human being →
In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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Tulip subsidies →
But the solution isn’t universal tulip subsidies. Higher education is in a bubble much like the old tulip bubble. In the past forty years, the price of college has dectupled (quadrupled when adjusting for inflation). It used to be easy to pay for college with a summer job; now it is impossible. At the same time, the unemployment rate of people without college degrees is twice that of people who have them. Things are clearly very bad and Senator Sanders is right to be concerned.
~ Scott Alexander from, Against Tulip Subsidies | Slate Star Codex
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Don’t be distracted by the Sanders reference. This article stands just fine three years later.
It raises what I think is a really good idea: What if employers were NOT allowed to ask about post-primary education degrees? So just as an employer cannot judge you based on your skin color, they could not judge you based on some letters and a school name. INSTEAD, they would have to judge you based on your ability. Suddenly, the only value in those letters and the school name [to the potential student] would be the TRUE VALUE AND QUALITY of the education. At the same time, anyone who can match that quality of skill/knowledge — regardless where they got it — would be equally considered.
Make. This. Happen.
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On depression →
Unfortunately, the “chemical imbalance” theory continues to be the dominant paradigm for understanding depression nearly 30 years after this profound discovery, despite the weak correlation between serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine and depressive symptoms.
~ Chris Kresser from, Is Depression a Disease or a Symptom of Inflammation? | Chris Kresser
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I’m sure I have nothing useful to add on the topic of Depression– being not a doctor, psychologist, etc.
But I can raise my voice because I believe I understand the personal experience of depression. It sucks. Talk to someone.
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