sayana/nag/grief/positivity/daily

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Daily Dose of Positivity – Getting through hurt

 “If we are sincere in wanting to learn the truth, and if we know how to use gentle speech and deep listening, we are much more likely to be able to hear others’ honest perceptions and feelings. In that process, we may discover that they too have wrong perceptions. 

After listening to them fully, we have an opportunity to help them correct their wrong perceptions. If we approach our hurts that way, we have the chance to turn our fear and anger into opportunities for deeper, more honest relationships.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm

Spend the best hours of your day on the biggest opportunity, not the biggest problem.

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Daily Dose of Positivity - Via negativa

When asked what it takes to win a Nobel prize, Francis Crick said, “Oh, it’s very simple. My secret has been I know what to ignore. Avoiding can be more important than finding."

 

I recently read somewhere that we spend the first half of our lives adding things, and the second half subtracting most of them.

 

Somewhere in mid age, we realize that most of our choices were mistakes, and then we start subtracting vigorously.

 

Lest you lose out on the positive compounding timeframe, you will do yourself a world of good by respecting and practicing this lesson – of saying no to most things, of not adding a lot of unwanted stuff early.

 

Most people immediately look at what they can create or add to something to make it better. Very few people consider what they could remove.

 

Yet, there is immense power in improvement by subtraction - an idea called Via negativa.

 

Via negativa is essentially the study of what not to do.

 

The idea comes from a Latin phrase used initially in Christian Theology to explain what God is by focusing on what he isn’t.

 

Naval Ravikant uses via negativa to help him make decisions.

 

In The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, he says: "I don’t believe I have the ability to say what is going to work. Rather, I try to eliminate what’s not going to work. I think being successful is just about not making mistakes. It’s not about having correct judgment. It’s about avoiding incorrect judgements."

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Daily Dose of Positivity - Controlling Yourself

If you don’t control it, why worry about it? Because you don’t control it!

And if you do control it, why worry about it? Because you control it!

One of the best ways we can improve our mental health is to give less energy to things that we don’t control and more attention to the things that we do.

This means not getting overly emotional about the stock market, our favorite sports team, the weather, other people’s emotions, and other things that are out of our control. Instead, we should focus our time and energy on where it matters and makes a difference.  

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Author Unknown

 

From Friday Forward- Robert Glazer

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Daily Dose of Positivity

In many cases, change is warranted; life is indeed too short to spend time doing something you don’t like with people you don’t trust or respect. But when we make an impulsive change for change’s sake, we can often end up disappointed. 

The grass always appears greener on the other side of the fence until we inspect more closely from that side.

A lack of patience changes the outcome.

Many great projects go through a stage early on where they don't seem very impressive, even to their creators. You have to push through this stage to reach the great work that lies beyond.

“What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.” 

Doing something because everyone else is doing the same is never a great justification. We preach that in Kindergarten classrooms to our kids, but often fail to heed the lesson ourselves.

Things turn out for the best when we assume positive intent, keep our cool, and seek to understand and connect.