Thebobo
Lifer
- Jun 19, 2006
- 18,574
- 7,672
- 136
Are you done reading Origin? I liked it a lot but only have read angles and the original da vinci code book.
Are you done reading Origin? I liked it a lot but only have read angles and the original da vinci code book.
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,081
- 136
Half way through Origin, Dan Brown, hasn't gripped me like that last x Robert Langdon books but still enjoying it.
Thebobo
Lifer
- Jun 19, 2006
- 18,574
- 7,672
- 136
Malogeek
Golden Member
spacejamz
Lifer
- Mar 31, 2003
- 10,970
- 1,679
- 126
FeuerFrei
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2005
- 9,144
- 929
- 126
CURIOUS MYTHS of the MIDDLE AGES
by Sabine Baring-Gould
Presents maybe 14 myths that rose to popularity, evolving as they crossed cultural boundaries, and appearing in various literary works. It doesn't try to bust the myths, or simply tell the tale. It discusses variations, dates, and authorship. Includes: "William Tell", "Man in the Moon," "St. George," etc.
It's probably public domain, but I liked the 1987 hardback edition's binding.
by Sabine Baring-Gould
Presents maybe 14 myths that rose to popularity, evolving as they crossed cultural boundaries, and appearing in various literary works. It doesn't try to bust the myths, or simply tell the tale. It discusses variations, dates, and authorship. Includes: "William Tell", "Man in the Moon," "St. George," etc.
It's probably public domain, but I liked the 1987 hardback edition's binding.
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,081
- 136
Reading the 3rd book of the Bill Hodges trilogy by Stephen King. I actually first read The Outsider, which is set in the same universe and take place after the trilogy, so I was a little bass ackwards in the order. These are good reads if you’re up for murder drama with some creepy sci-fi molded in Stephen King style.
Thebobo
Lifer
- Jun 19, 2006
- 18,574
- 7,672
- 136
Finishing up the book Ender's Game oddly I didn't tie it to the not-so-great movie I had seen and forgotten until I checked out IMDB. The book in this case the audio book is well done with very good narrators. I will have to see the movie again after I am finished.
clamum
Lifer
- Feb 13, 2003
- 26,256
- 406
- 126
Nearing the end of "World Without End" by Ken Follett. LOVE this and the previous book (Kingsbridge series), and it was the same way with his Century trilogy. I dunno what it is, but Follett's stories and characters just draw me in and I can't wait to read more. Just really well done I guess.
Audiobook, I just started "Law School for Everyone" (part of The Great Courses). Only maybe a half hour into it. I just felt like it wouldn't hurt to know more "legalese" and it was kind of interesting, so we'll see. I have a ton of audiobooks to listen to since the last Audible deal came with 12 credits up front.
For my Kindle on-phone reading (usually when I go out to eat), I'm reading Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Biography of Musk and how he started his companies. Interesting read; recommended if you have any interest in Elon or his companies.
Audiobook, I just started "Law School for Everyone" (part of The Great Courses). Only maybe a half hour into it. I just felt like it wouldn't hurt to know more "legalese" and it was kind of interesting, so we'll see. I have a ton of audiobooks to listen to since the last Audible deal came with 12 credits up front.
For my Kindle on-phone reading (usually when I go out to eat), I'm reading Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Biography of Musk and how he started his companies. Interesting read; recommended if you have any interest in Elon or his companies.
I'm on book 9 and it's going well. But I've slowed down a bit as I'm working on writing my own book. From the bit I've read, book 12 does sound like a good stopping point. The books can stand mostly on their own, but yes, they do build.
bfun_x1
Senior member
- May 29, 2015
- 475
- 155
- 116
I read up to #5 Death Masks and had to take a break. I like the series but each book seems like more of the same. I'll probably pick it up again someday.
I just finished the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. I really liked it. The middle book was kind of slow but the last book was great.
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
- Feb 14, 2004
- 51,610
- 7,258
- 136
Mindset, by Carol Dweck:
https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck-ebook/dp/B000FCKPHG/
Just finished it. The basic idea is that there are two mindsets that govern humanity's psychology:
1. Fixed mindset
2. Growth mindset
A fixed mindset means that you believe that things are stuck the way they are, whereas in a growth mindset, you realize that things can change (with your work & effort). Modern science tells us that you can literally get smarter - you can learn how to learn better, you can learn new things, and so on - and that your IQ is not fixed & you are not stuck skills & smarts-wise where you are now.
Those two mindsets are not universal, either - it's on a case-by-case basis. So you can have a fixed mindset about say food preparation ("I can't cook!"), but have a growth mindset about playing the guitar ("I'm awesome at playing the guitar!"). It's really interesting to look at people's behavior through this window because you can pretty quickly zero in on what kind of mindset they have about a particular topic within just a few minutes of listening to them talk about it.
On a tangent, I've read a zillion self-help books, as life-hackery type of stuff is really interesting to me, i.e. how can we do better at things, do things in a less dumb way, and get better results in an easier manner? There's an awful lot of garbage & noise out there, but I've decided to include this particular book in my personal productivity recommendations list, which goes like this: (in order)
1. "Attitude is Everything" by Jeff Keller: This is a great intro into how your attitude affects literally everything in your life - how you feel, what you choose to do, what you choose NOT to do, and so on. Fairly light reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Attitude-Everything-Change-Your-Life-ebook/dp/B007FXULUE/
2. "Mindset" by Carol Dweck: Introduces the concept of a fixed & growth mindset, and then provides a concrete way to switch from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Note that none of this stuff is rocket science; simply taking the right actions, over time, will lead you to accomplish your goal - but if your attitude is bad & your mindset is fixed, then you'll never even take the first step, which means you won't take the second or any of the rest, which means you won't walk down the path to accomplish things - so figuring out those mental belief systems & then deciding how you want to operate is critical to both taking action & finishing things, as well as to how much enjoyment you choose to pull out of those situations.
https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck-ebook/dp/B000FCKPHG/
3. "Feeling Good" by David Burns: This introduces the concept that 'thoughts create feelings'. Also, that everyone has an "inner voice" (i.e. how you think), so you recognize that you have that, but also learn that that voice doesn't always speak the truth, and that you can question that voice, which is groundbreaking for most people, because we always just kind of accept how we think & what we think.
https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy-ebook/dp/B009UW5X4C/
For the record, I do think other issues contribute to how you feel. How you manage your physical body is a huge one - your sleep, your diet, your exercise, your stress. If you treat your body like crap, then it's pretty easy to feel like crap. Also, I had a physical problem, a medical condition, where I was basically leaking adrenaline & would have terrible anxiety for no reason. That same feeling of shock when a deer jumps of front of your car all of a sudden would kick in inside my body for no particular reason on a regular basis.
So David Burns explains that how you think creates how you feel, because you react to a situation a certain way mentally, which gets translated into an emotion over time, to the point where you don't even think about it anymore & just feel it (warm chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven? that sports team you loathe? those kick in thoughts, which are felt as emotions). He proposes that you document a particular situation (a trigger), then how you react to it (a reaction, which is typically reactive rather than proactive), and then decide how you want to think & feel about it instead (being proactive, by choice).
I would add that we also have internal motors that push us - if you're tired & sick, then you're going to be dragged down. If you have a medical problem like I did where certain situations like being in public would be enough of a stress to trigger the anxiety tripwire that gushed out adrenaline, then that's going to be something that you have to deal with as well. Bu I think his book sets up the structure from which you can grow on & start recognizing where your other issues are.
4. "Ten Days to Self-Esteem" by David Burns: This is the workbook for the Feeling Good book above. It basically has you track what that inner voice says for a week & a half, and then help you change the things you don't like by recognizing that your thinking voice is there, that it doesn't always tell the truth, and that you can choose how to react & choose what you want to believe & choose how you want to think. So basically how to engage in proactive thinking, as opposed to reactive thinking. I was amazed at how much dumb stuff went through my head on a daily basis lol...but I just took it all for granted because that was the flow of my thinking!
https://www.amazon.com/Days-Self-Esteem-David-Burns-M-D-ebook/dp/B009R5H19W/
4. "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle: This book is a deep-dive into how talent is created, aka how do you get good at stuff? I've come to realize that talent starts with ability (i.e. you can't run a marathon if you're wheelchair-bound, so you have to actually be capable of doing the task, to start out with). Next, how talented you are is simply the speed at which you can acquire a skill. The procedure for doing so is detailed in the book, which includes deliberate practice, slow failure over time, chunking, and so on. It all makes perfect sense, but really having a formula to put it to work is what sets this book apart from the others:
https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown-ebook/dp/B0026OR1UK
5. "Grit" by Angela Duckworth: I actually liked the TED Talk better than the book - I feel like the book & subject matter both need more development work to be a closed-loop system like the Talent Code offers, although it is still worth a read (or a listen). In the video, she talks about the Mindset concept referenced above, about how believing that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort, that it can change & grow in response to challenge, and equally importantly, believing that failure is not a permanent condition. Video is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8
Book is here:
https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth-ebook/dp/B010MH9V3W
I like this idea because it basically says to stick with things until they are finished. You need to start, and in order to start, it helps tremendously to have a good attitude & a growth mindset about it, because that means you'll actually start, and then the Talent Code lays out a great foundation of how to break things up & work on things over time, even when they get really boring (i.e. practicing the same guitar song over & over until you master it perfectly), and then grit is simply sticking with it until you're done, or sticking with something long-term, like learning a musical instrument, which can be a lifelong hobby.
6. "Getting Things Done" by David Allen: This is an amazing & life-changing book for people who want to get their act together in life. It teaches you how time works, how your brain works, and how to manage action. It's basically a personal productivity system. It works 100%, but the book is very wordy & has a high barrier to entry due to that & due to what you have to do to get everything setup. A lot of people become GTD hobbyists rather than doing a full implementation, and thus they never really get on top of things like they should, so there's a trap there to be wary of! The core idea is a 3-step process:
1. Write down (in a notebook or app) every commitment that comes your way - something you'd like to do, want to do, have to do, need to do, should do, etc. Your brain makes a crappy storage system, but writing things down is 100% effective because your notepad or app won't forget.
2. Use the GTD flowchart to identify what each to-do item is, clarify what you want the outcome to be, and then figure out the very next physical action required to move that project towards completion. The bulk of the time, you don't know what to do, and it's hard to get started when you don't know what to do!
3. Stick a reminder of that next-action you need to take into a trusted system, which is either a list of next-actions, or our calendar, if it's time or date-dependent. When you want to be productive & get to working on stuff, you can check out your calendar to see what is due today, and then look at your next-action list to pick something to work on next. It's easy to dive right in because you've separated out the work from the thinking, and you never forget to do the work because it's on either your calendar or a next-actions list.
In short, you make your brain quit doing jobs it isn't designed to do - be an alarm clock, be a calendar, be a list of all of the stuff you have to do, be a list of all of the steps required to do each to-do item, and be able to visualze alllllll of that stuff & make priorities based on that. Instead, you let your off-brain system take care of it for you. This way you are on top of things 100%!
So GTD helps you to stay on top of the actions required to finish tasks & move projects along and finish those too. Combine that with a good attitude, a growth mindset, self-esteem & mood control, the talent code procedure, and the grit to stick with things, and you've got a pretty dang good personal productivity system on your hands!
https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck-ebook/dp/B000FCKPHG/
Just finished it. The basic idea is that there are two mindsets that govern humanity's psychology:
1. Fixed mindset
2. Growth mindset
A fixed mindset means that you believe that things are stuck the way they are, whereas in a growth mindset, you realize that things can change (with your work & effort). Modern science tells us that you can literally get smarter - you can learn how to learn better, you can learn new things, and so on - and that your IQ is not fixed & you are not stuck skills & smarts-wise where you are now.
Those two mindsets are not universal, either - it's on a case-by-case basis. So you can have a fixed mindset about say food preparation ("I can't cook!"), but have a growth mindset about playing the guitar ("I'm awesome at playing the guitar!"). It's really interesting to look at people's behavior through this window because you can pretty quickly zero in on what kind of mindset they have about a particular topic within just a few minutes of listening to them talk about it.
On a tangent, I've read a zillion self-help books, as life-hackery type of stuff is really interesting to me, i.e. how can we do better at things, do things in a less dumb way, and get better results in an easier manner? There's an awful lot of garbage & noise out there, but I've decided to include this particular book in my personal productivity recommendations list, which goes like this: (in order)
1. "Attitude is Everything" by Jeff Keller: This is a great intro into how your attitude affects literally everything in your life - how you feel, what you choose to do, what you choose NOT to do, and so on. Fairly light reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Attitude-Everything-Change-Your-Life-ebook/dp/B007FXULUE/
2. "Mindset" by Carol Dweck: Introduces the concept of a fixed & growth mindset, and then provides a concrete way to switch from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Note that none of this stuff is rocket science; simply taking the right actions, over time, will lead you to accomplish your goal - but if your attitude is bad & your mindset is fixed, then you'll never even take the first step, which means you won't take the second or any of the rest, which means you won't walk down the path to accomplish things - so figuring out those mental belief systems & then deciding how you want to operate is critical to both taking action & finishing things, as well as to how much enjoyment you choose to pull out of those situations.
https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck-ebook/dp/B000FCKPHG/
3. "Feeling Good" by David Burns: This introduces the concept that 'thoughts create feelings'. Also, that everyone has an "inner voice" (i.e. how you think), so you recognize that you have that, but also learn that that voice doesn't always speak the truth, and that you can question that voice, which is groundbreaking for most people, because we always just kind of accept how we think & what we think.
https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy-ebook/dp/B009UW5X4C/
For the record, I do think other issues contribute to how you feel. How you manage your physical body is a huge one - your sleep, your diet, your exercise, your stress. If you treat your body like crap, then it's pretty easy to feel like crap. Also, I had a physical problem, a medical condition, where I was basically leaking adrenaline & would have terrible anxiety for no reason. That same feeling of shock when a deer jumps of front of your car all of a sudden would kick in inside my body for no particular reason on a regular basis.
So David Burns explains that how you think creates how you feel, because you react to a situation a certain way mentally, which gets translated into an emotion over time, to the point where you don't even think about it anymore & just feel it (warm chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven? that sports team you loathe? those kick in thoughts, which are felt as emotions). He proposes that you document a particular situation (a trigger), then how you react to it (a reaction, which is typically reactive rather than proactive), and then decide how you want to think & feel about it instead (being proactive, by choice).
I would add that we also have internal motors that push us - if you're tired & sick, then you're going to be dragged down. If you have a medical problem like I did where certain situations like being in public would be enough of a stress to trigger the anxiety tripwire that gushed out adrenaline, then that's going to be something that you have to deal with as well. Bu I think his book sets up the structure from which you can grow on & start recognizing where your other issues are.
4. "Ten Days to Self-Esteem" by David Burns: This is the workbook for the Feeling Good book above. It basically has you track what that inner voice says for a week & a half, and then help you change the things you don't like by recognizing that your thinking voice is there, that it doesn't always tell the truth, and that you can choose how to react & choose what you want to believe & choose how you want to think. So basically how to engage in proactive thinking, as opposed to reactive thinking. I was amazed at how much dumb stuff went through my head on a daily basis lol...but I just took it all for granted because that was the flow of my thinking!
https://www.amazon.com/Days-Self-Esteem-David-Burns-M-D-ebook/dp/B009R5H19W/
4. "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle: This book is a deep-dive into how talent is created, aka how do you get good at stuff? I've come to realize that talent starts with ability (i.e. you can't run a marathon if you're wheelchair-bound, so you have to actually be capable of doing the task, to start out with). Next, how talented you are is simply the speed at which you can acquire a skill. The procedure for doing so is detailed in the book, which includes deliberate practice, slow failure over time, chunking, and so on. It all makes perfect sense, but really having a formula to put it to work is what sets this book apart from the others:
https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown-ebook/dp/B0026OR1UK
5. "Grit" by Angela Duckworth: I actually liked the TED Talk better than the book - I feel like the book & subject matter both need more development work to be a closed-loop system like the Talent Code offers, although it is still worth a read (or a listen). In the video, she talks about the Mindset concept referenced above, about how believing that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort, that it can change & grow in response to challenge, and equally importantly, believing that failure is not a permanent condition. Video is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8
Book is here:
https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth-ebook/dp/B010MH9V3W
I like this idea because it basically says to stick with things until they are finished. You need to start, and in order to start, it helps tremendously to have a good attitude & a growth mindset about it, because that means you'll actually start, and then the Talent Code lays out a great foundation of how to break things up & work on things over time, even when they get really boring (i.e. practicing the same guitar song over & over until you master it perfectly), and then grit is simply sticking with it until you're done, or sticking with something long-term, like learning a musical instrument, which can be a lifelong hobby.
6. "Getting Things Done" by David Allen: This is an amazing & life-changing book for people who want to get their act together in life. It teaches you how time works, how your brain works, and how to manage action. It's basically a personal productivity system. It works 100%, but the book is very wordy & has a high barrier to entry due to that & due to what you have to do to get everything setup. A lot of people become GTD hobbyists rather than doing a full implementation, and thus they never really get on top of things like they should, so there's a trap there to be wary of! The core idea is a 3-step process:
1. Write down (in a notebook or app) every commitment that comes your way - something you'd like to do, want to do, have to do, need to do, should do, etc. Your brain makes a crappy storage system, but writing things down is 100% effective because your notepad or app won't forget.
2. Use the GTD flowchart to identify what each to-do item is, clarify what you want the outcome to be, and then figure out the very next physical action required to move that project towards completion. The bulk of the time, you don't know what to do, and it's hard to get started when you don't know what to do!
3. Stick a reminder of that next-action you need to take into a trusted system, which is either a list of next-actions, or our calendar, if it's time or date-dependent. When you want to be productive & get to working on stuff, you can check out your calendar to see what is due today, and then look at your next-action list to pick something to work on next. It's easy to dive right in because you've separated out the work from the thinking, and you never forget to do the work because it's on either your calendar or a next-actions list.
In short, you make your brain quit doing jobs it isn't designed to do - be an alarm clock, be a calendar, be a list of all of the stuff you have to do, be a list of all of the steps required to do each to-do item, and be able to visualze alllllll of that stuff & make priorities based on that. Instead, you let your off-brain system take care of it for you. This way you are on top of things 100%!
So GTD helps you to stay on top of the actions required to finish tasks & move projects along and finish those too. Combine that with a good attitude, a growth mindset, self-esteem & mood control, the talent code procedure, and the grit to stick with things, and you've got a pretty dang good personal productivity system on your hands!
Mai72
Lifer
- Sep 12, 2012
- 11,562
- 1,741
- 126
Mindset. Grit and Anti-Fragile have changed my life. I first found out about those books by Tom Bilyeu. Tom, along w/ 2 partners created Quest Nutrition. Took Quest from 0-1B dollars in 5 years. Anyway, given a growth mindset I know that I can learn practically anything given a long enough time frame. Give me enough time, and the willingness to invest that time (because it's not easy) that I can practically learn and even excel. Which brings me to Anti-Fragile. There is fragile, resilient and anti fragile. Fragile, it breaks easily. Think when people throw criticism at an idea you might have. You give up. That's fragile. Resilient just means your breaking point is further away. So, you just give up at a later date. But, being anti fragile means that you're able to deflect that criticism. Think Ford, Edison, Wright Brothers. It's basically people who are crushing life on their terms. Tom Bilyeu talks about becoming the learner, rather than thinking he knows everything. So, you can attack him and tell him he's wrong. You're only making him stronger. Why? Because since he's the learner he can go back and learn what mistakes he made. That is what makes him anti fragile. Most people think they know everything so when criticism you challenge their belief they get angry. They've reached their breaking point. They've become fragile. Anyway, I've tried to explain it the best I could.
clamum
Lifer
- Feb 13, 2003
- 26,256
- 406
- 126
A Column of Fire by Ken Follett (3rd book in Kingsbridge series; just released a year ago). I didn't know about this book until recently so I thought there was only two books in that series when I was reading it. But when I finished World Without End I browsed the Kindle store and saw this book and was super excited. Takes place a couple hundred years after the last book, around the 1550s. Man I love these books so much.
Audiobook, still on Law School for Everyone. It's ok so far but I was tempted to switch to the biography of Stalin instead. I have half of Law School downloaded so we'll see if I finish it.
Kindle book, finished the Elon Musk biography and started the Orbs series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, which Amazon says is a post-apocalyptic science fiction survival thriller. Two of my co-workers recommended it so we'll see. I'm liking it so far. I started reading the author's Extinction Cycle series but surprisingly got bored with it (which isn't exactly strange for me) and moved on.
Audiobook, still on Law School for Everyone. It's ok so far but I was tempted to switch to the biography of Stalin instead. I have half of Law School downloaded so we'll see if I finish it.
Kindle book, finished the Elon Musk biography and started the Orbs series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, which Amazon says is a post-apocalyptic science fiction survival thriller. Two of my co-workers recommended it so we'll see. I'm liking it so far. I started reading the author's Extinction Cycle series but surprisingly got bored with it (which isn't exactly strange for me) and moved on.
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
- Feb 14, 2004
- 51,610
- 7,258
- 136
Is that this one? I'll have to check it out if so:
https://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Incerto-ebook/dp/B0083DJWGO
I like the saying that there are only two problems in the world:
1. You don't know what you want
2. You don't know how to get what you want
Thus, I think it mostly boils down to:
1. Pick something to do
2. Stick with it until you're done
If you don't pick something to do, then you're not going to accomplish anything, which is obvious in writing but not so obvious in the ongoing headspace of life. And if you stop making progress before you've completed your project, then you will not be successful. That's really all there is to it! But there's an awful lot of psychology, motivation, and other factors that go into that simple procedure. People are convinced they "can't", or run into barriers & quit, or don't take the right path to get the results they want, or get distracted & forget to finish things. That's why I like GTD as a tracking system...I'm a horribly disorganized person & have long searched for a way to overcome being an ADHD space cadet lol. Or you run into situations where things are hard & so you stop trying, or someone makes fun of you, or whatever. Like you said, given a long enough timeframe, you can do just about anything...there are plenty examples of successful late bloomers: Susan Boyle (47 years old when she appeared on Britain's Got Talent), Stan Lee (Fantastic Four is what kicked off his career at age 39), Vera Wang (40 years old when she entered the fashion world), Henry Ford (45 years old when he created the Model T), and many others.
So when you boil things down, if you want to do something & have the ability to do so, then you have a choice to be the victim or the victor: you can make excuses why you can't, or you figure out how you can. By combining the tools in my other post (mindset, attitude, action-management system, etc.), you can have a fun time doing the things you want in the most efficient way possible. And to be clear, the point isn't productivity, the point is that productivity stuff are tools to be used in achieving the life you want & helping you live the way you want to live, and productivity only needs to happen when there are things you want to work on & accomplish, separate from your free time. There are a lot of unhappy, depressed, miserable people out there who don't clearly realize that how you feel about things is a choice, that you can enjoy doing things, especially difficult things, and that you can take charge of your life & be proactive instead of reactive. Ultimately, the bottom line is whether or not you are interested & want to change your life for the better, or not. That's what it all funnels down to, and where it all begins: making the decision that you want to do better, and then figuring out exactly what you want, how to achieve it, and then chipping away at it day after day, even when it's boring, even when you don't feel like doing it.
DigDog
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2011
- 14,652
- 3,011
- 136
Adam Smith's other book (not Wealth Of Nations).
Have not really started. Also found in the PlayStore for free an app (search "cthulhu" and look around) that somehow contains ALL of H P Lovecraft's works on epub.
I suspect copyright infringment, that just passed unnoticed.
I also want Beyond Weird - analysis of the double slit experiment and the implications in quantum mechanics.
But its £20 which i dont have. So maybe next month.
Have not really started. Also found in the PlayStore for free an app (search "cthulhu" and look around) that somehow contains ALL of H P Lovecraft's works on epub.
I suspect copyright infringment, that just passed unnoticed.
I also want Beyond Weird - analysis of the double slit experiment and the implications in quantum mechanics.
But its £20 which i dont have. So maybe next month.
Mai72
Lifer
- Sep 12, 2012
- 11,562
- 1,741
- 126
Yep. That's the book.
We tend to ratioalize and make up stories for why we can't do something. I'm not smart enough. I don't know it. I don't have the time. I'm too young. I'm too old. I don't have enough money. I'm uneducated. I come from a poor family. ETC... This is exactly why I love reading auto biographies. When someone tells me that their life is hard, I say "Oh, is it more difficult than Victor Frankl?" Victor was thrown into a concentration camp during WW2, and he lost everything. His kids. Wife. Relatives. Poof. All gone. His book "A Man's Search for Meaning" should be a must read. It really is an amazing book. There was one point in the book that he was writing down on scraps of paper how he would lecture to a packed college classroom what he endured. On scrapes of paper he laid out his future, and how he would tell the world his story after he escaped the concentration camps. And, he did it! We need to have something to look forward too. It's what keeps us going.
IMO, it's mindset. Think about going to the gym. Why do most peole quit after a week? They haven't cultivated the mindset to go on. It's hard, but most people mistakenly think it's easy. Nothing worthwhile in life is easy.
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
- Feb 14, 2004
- 51,610
- 7,258
- 136
Man's Search for Meaning should be required reading for everyone, imo. Personally, I am strongly motivated by contrasting situations in life because I tend to fall into the whiner trap on a regular basis. A photo I reference sometimes is the one by Kevin Carter of the starving child being stalked by the bird of prey, which is just heartbreaking:
http://100photos.time.com/photos/kevin-carter-starving-child-vulture
Stepping back, from a more global perspective, I'm of two minds about this:
1. Most of my problems are minor; I just get stuck in a complaining mood sometimes. The majority of problems are also of my own doing, as I'm really my own worst enemy. So I don't really feel like I have room to complain when someone cuts me off in traffic & then I want to fume about it all day, when there are literally people starving across the planet. I mean heck, I'm not dying of starvation & no one is actively trying to kill me, you know? It makes me feel like a real chump when I get reminders like that, like when you see photographs like the one above or read about people's experiences, like Viktor Frankl's, because it's a wake-up call to just how good we really have it.
2. Your feelings are valid (because you have them) & your situation is valid (because you're in it), regardless of what other people are dealing with in their own lives. Your life is your life & your problems are your problems. Those problems are not any less valid than other people's problems, because they are still problems. Several sub-points on that idea:
a. Just because other people have it worse than you, doesn’t invalidate your own problems.
b. Just because some people have it better than you, doesn’t mean you can’t also be happy.
c. Even when someone has it worse or perhaps much worse than you, that doesn't change the fact that you have what you have, whether it's good or it's bad.
I think it's important to have a balance, because your problems are your problems regardless of how bad other people have it - however, in many cases, we grumble about stuff that is really rather minor & having some real perspective from serious life & death type of problems can help us see that our situation isn't as bad as we think it is. But we also have serious problems of our own to deal with sometimes - poor health, losing loved ones, and so on.
I learned part of this from my grandpa. He was a quiet man for the most part, but he didn't put up with any complaining. In WWII, he was a tail-ball gunner & witnessed some really awful stuff, like seeing the tail-ball module on other planes get shot off in the heat of battle & seeing people fall to the earth, or seeing planes land without landing gears, where the tail-ball gunner didn't make it out alive in order to save the rest of the crew. I think about stuff like that sometimes when I get sucked into arguing with trolls & flamewars & whatnot, because man, while those situations are technically valid, they're not really that big of a deal, you know?
That's partly why I like to work on things like improving my attitude & my life situation, because if people like Viktor Frankl can find hope in the darkest of times, then I can try harder in my own life, especially because in comparison of our situations, mine isn't all that bad. On the more positive side of things, it's a similar idea to how we live better than the kings of old did - we have running water - both hot & cold, we have refrigerators, we have insulation, we have air-conditioning, we have food available, and even if you're living in extreme poverty, we have food-stamp type of systems available to help out. You can get any job you're capable of doing & willing to put in the effort to get; no one is telling you you're stuck doing one specific thing for the rest of your life.
Again, we all have our own individual struggles & we all go through bad times, and sometimes the road ahead look pretty dark, but I think most of us, for general day to day type of situations, can also be reminded that, overall, we have it pretty good. I'm not Anne Frank, stuck hiding in an attic from literal Nazis who want to take me to a death camp to kill me. I'm fortunate to live in a country where we have access to food, where we have good building codes, where we can have elections without any loss of blood, where a lot of goodness happens. Reminds me of one of my favorite parts in The Office...it might be cliche, but I like it:
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
- Feb 14, 2004
- 51,610
- 7,258
- 136
I think it starts with mindset, but there's more in the chain! I actually think it's more like an iceberg, where the individual action to execute in a given moment is just the tip, because you need other supporting stuff:
1. A reminder to take that action
2. A checklist to follow so that you know what to do when you get the reminder
3. A plan to follow, so that you're taking the right actions towards a specific goal
4. A structured environment that is setup for your success
I really enjoy reading books like The Talent Code & Getting Things Done because they dive past "surface motivation" into the actual mechanics of how life, time, your mind, and habits operate. I've come to a lot of realizations over the years, especially with the things I personally struggle with...like, I want to do everything, all the time, and for a long time, I ended up doing nothing at all, whether it was because I had built it up so big in my mind that I couldn't get started, or because I was fighting perfectionism, or whatever. But a few lessons in particular that I've taken away from all of these books include:
1. Work first, play later is my mantra. Goofing off is like opening a portal to a black hole, where all of your time gets sucked in & just disappears. If you get your work done first, then it's done & you're free to play without guilt.
2. Compounding interest is the most powerful force in the universe (to paraphrase the quote that has been attributed to many different people). Basically, like how money can grow over time in a high-yield returns account, action works the same way...as you work on stuff, your skill-set & knowledge improves, and you get better & better at things, and projects make progress towards getting done. For a long time, I was all about big, heroic (in my mind) pushes to get things done, rather than small bites over time, day after day after day. The game isn't about being superman & having a willpower of steel, it's about doing stuff day after day, even when it gets boring & you don't feel like doing it. That's why people are successful - they simply stick with things, no matter what.
3. Having a support system that includes a structured environment is huge, because that's simply how our psychology works - we are habitual creatures. Like, at one point in my life, I struggled with being over fifty pounds overweight. I didn't grow up as an active or athletic person & I didn't understand how diet influenced body weight at all. But I learned, and for weight management in particular, I discovered that food was the key. So what I do now, in terms of structuring my environment for success, is that I have a giant lunchbox with ice packs, which I fill up every day with food, so that I can funnel myself into the behavior I want: to eat according to my macros in order to stay in shape, and to create tasty food so that I actually want to eat it, instead of going out to eat or hitting up a vending machine.
That sounds fairly obvious & intuitive when written out, but it took me the better part of my adult life to see how the underlying mechanics of life really operated - just vowing that you'll try really hard & get 'er done is kind of a ridiculous approach because it's short-sighted & doesn't include the elements of working on things over time or being "gritty" & sticking with stuff even when that in-the-moment motivation wears off, because that's simply how projects operate - you can't do 1,000 pushups in one night & then wake up ripped the next morning, you have to stick with it over time, and you're going to lose that motivating feeling you originally had sometimes, so you're going to have to fight through boredom & aversion & not being in the mood and do it anyway, if you want to be successful.
Anyway, I've pretty much just come to the realization that success is work, and more specifically, success is deliberate work against a specific goal over time & requires pushing yourself through the boring parts & hard parts. I use to think success had a fair bit of magic to it...people were great filmmakers because they were born to make awesome movies, or people who were self-made millionaires were really lucky simply because they had a great product idea, or that people got huge muscles because of great genetics. The bottom line for all those people is that they picked a specific goal & stuck with it over time, engaging in deliberate actions to achieve that specific output they wanted & fighting through feelings of aversion day after day when actually faced with the task in the moment.
I really like the Jordan quote below about failure & success. That's a concept that The Talent Code gets into, about how slow failure over time leads to growing your knowledge & skills to the point where you get really good at something. Understanding that in my life has been huge, because I struggled with sticking with stuff before - I had a zillion projects that I would start but never finish, and lots of ideas that I'd get spooled up over but not really get any traction on. Because that's not the reality of how life works - success is specific, success require work, and the practical execution theory of working on stuff day in & day out, even when it's hard or boring, is pretty much the non-magic magical key to success, haha!
Muse
Lifer
- Jul 11, 2001
- 40,876
- 10,224
- 136
Really cool posts just now, read them all. Super food for thought... and action!
I have a ton of unfinished projects, things to do, the evidence surrounds me all the time. I tell myself I have to have faith I can figure out a way to prioritize it and get beyond the quagmire. Kaido's ideas (and Mai72's) just presented are very positive in terms of dealing with such things.
Well, I vote for the Bruce Lee. I tend to shy away from fiction.
Bruce Lee was an amazingly inspirational person.
I have a ton of unfinished projects, things to do, the evidence surrounds me all the time. I tell myself I have to have faith I can figure out a way to prioritize it and get beyond the quagmire. Kaido's ideas (and Mai72's) just presented are very positive in terms of dealing with such things.
Books I picked up from the library. Not sure which on to start first.
Well, I vote for the Bruce Lee. I tend to shy away from fiction.
Bruce Lee was an amazingly inspirational person.
Last edited:
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,081
- 136
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
News NVIDIA and Intel to Develop AI Infrastructure and Personal Computing Products- Started by poke01
- Replies: 411
Facebook
Twitter