Month: April 2017

Stop Watching the Local News

I turned on the news last night only to be barraged by a laundry list of atrocities. A home explosion, a MOAB dropped in Afghanistan, protests, a judge found dead in the Hudson, four teenagers brutally murdered, NYC officers complicit in helping a suspect escape custody, a guy got stung by a scorpion on a United flight from Texas to…

Expertise is Intuition

It’s easy to assume that expertise is experience. That ten years of experience makes an expert. Quite often it’s just ten years of experience holding a title. But after 10 years, it’s possible that a manager could be flustered when confronted with conflict resolution. Or a photographer could be incapable of framing a photo. When you’re an expert you will feel it, you’ll…

You don’t have to listen to yourself 

Your mind will tell you what it thinks whether you want to hear it or not. But just like with other people, you don’t have to listen.  You aren’t obliged to concur. You can freely ignore. You can disagree. To the untrained mind, one cannot differentiate oneself from one’s thoughts. To the trained mind, one can.

Being right often conflicts with being successful 

The desire to be “right” is occasionally mutually exclusive with being successful. Which do you prefer?  Either way the desire to be right is innate, subconscious. That means it’s largely out of your control.  You’re not a bad person for wanting to be right. No, you pretty much have no say over the satisfaction you receive. Or the gut wrenching…

Stress is often an illusion 

Over the course of a day you can encounter many small stressful situations. Maybe a difficult problem to solve, a difficult decision to make, some conflict, maybe a paper cut or a stubbed toe.  These stressors tend to linger in your mind. By the end of the day you can feel stressed even if all the sources of stress are…

Staring 

If you’re waiting in line at a fountain while the person in front of you is filling up a gallon jug, all you have to do is make eye contact and they’ll stop.  Even a momentarily glance will come across as a death stare.  Conversely if you don’t mind, avert your eyes or you’ll interrupt them. Influence is affect 

Not even the worst of things last

It doesn’t matter how good things get, or how bad they become. After six months at most, your mind will revert to a mean level of happiness. Lose your job or win the lottery? Same impact on happiness in the long haul.  That means that no matter what happens in life you can take solace in knowing  that the new…

Giving the benefit of the doubt. 

Tonight as I was putting Pax’s collar on for her last walk of the day, I unintentionally pulled a bit hard on her leash as I was standing up.  It jerked her a little and I felt bad. I apologized. She looked at me like I was a bit crazy before proceeding out the door.  She was more interested in…