Category Archives: Health

Tying Up Loose Ends — Again

Earlier this year, I did a where I talked about a number of ideas in one post. This served a couple of interconnected purposes: 1) it emptied my “posts to write” list, and 2) it allowed me to flood that list with some new ideas. (I said the purposes were interconnected.) My list has again started to grow a little bit, so I thought I would do another one of those to flush out the list. There are a couple of ideas that I won’t include in this post because I do want to write a “fuller” post on them, so look for some posts in the next few days about “balance,” “The Stockdale Paradox,” and the idea that “every game (in a season) counts equally.”

The Enneagram — Through my exposure to transpersonal psychology, I was introduced to the . I don’t know this for a fact, but my suspicion is that the Enneagram is highly underutilized relative to its helpfulness in understand one’s self and others.

Life’s all about making decisions — One of my interests is “decision-making.” Books, literature, research: I’m fascinated by how humans make decisions. On that note, one of the things I’ve learned is that life is — really — all about making decisions. More importantly though, it’s important to put yourself in situations that allow you to make good choices. Let me say that again: “It’s important to put yourself in situations that allow you to make good choices.”

Measuring outcomes in the non-profit sector — I’ve talked before about my time with , but I also had a class in this summer. The thing that struck me the most about the non-profit sector is the lack of ways to measure outcomes. That is not to say that there aren’t ways to measure outcomes in the non-profit sector, but when compared to the for-profit sector, it seems that, for whatever reason, there aren’t as many established and agreed upon ways to measure outcomes.

Reframing your life — Many people, myself included, sometimes get caught up in choosing things they want to do (career-wise). An important realization on that front: it’s not what you want to do for the “rest of your life,” but simply, what you want to do “for right now.” Meaning, it’s okay to change your mind later and move into a different position, field, or industry.

Psychological reasons why good people do bad things — I came across this a few days ago that recounts a number of reasons why good people do bad things. I think it’s really important to understand the underlying psychological concepts that contribute to these errors in “decision-making.”

Some Key Differences between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life

I saw a earlier today from , who’s a Professor of Marketing at Stanford’s , that linked to a she was a contributing author to: “Some key differences between a happy and a meaningful life.” When I clicked over to see the , it got me pretty excited or a couple of reasons.

The first, it’s going to be published in the . It was during my senior year of undergrad when I first came across  — what I think is a rather brilliant subject. In fact, I was even a of the for a brief time. The second, the lead author: . During my time at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now called, ), I remember reading a lot of . In fact, one of the papers I wrote on “transpersonal belongingness” relied on a .

Anyway, below is the abstract to the paper that Prof. Aaker linked to. If you find it interesting, I hope you take the time to read the whole journal .

Being happy and finding life meaningful overlap, but there are important differences. A large survey revealed multiple differing predictors of happiness (controlling for meaning) and meaningfulness (controlling for happiness). Satisfying one’s needs and wants increased happiness but was largely irrelevant to meaningfulness. Happiness was largely present-oriented, whereas meaningfulness involves integrating past, present, and future. For example, thinking about future and past was associated with high meaningfulness but low happiness. Happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker. Higher levels of worry, stress, and anxiety were linked to higher meaningfulness but lower happiness. Concerns with personal identity and expressing the self contributed to meaning but not happiness. We offer brief composite sketches of the unhappy but meaningful life and of the happy but meaningless life.

6 Principles for Living from 2nd Century Indian Philosopher Nagarjuna

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been spending this summer working for , (which, by the way, is a fantastic organization — be sure to check out what they do). On part of my route, I take the , which could use some upgrading. While I’m only on the Metro for a few stops, it gives me time to read. Usually, I read . However, since I’ve moved recently and my mail hasn’t caught up with me yet, I’ve gone back to reading books.

I mentioned that I was reading a by the Dalai Lama. Yesterday, I found a passage that I thought would be good to share:

When it comes to avoiding harmful actions of body and speech, in addition this fundamental rule [the Golden Rule], I personally find a list of six principles from a text by the second-century Indian thinker Nagarjuna to be helpful. In this text, Nagarjuna is offering advice to an Indian monarch of the time. The six principles are as follows:

  • Avoid excessive use of intoxicants.
  • Uphold principles of right livelihood.
  • Ensure that one’s body, speech, and mind are nonviolent.
  • Treat others with respect.
  • Honor those worthy of esteem, such as parents, teachers, and those who are kind.
  • Be kind to others.

You Are Exactly Where You’re Supposed To Be

By being a good listener, people often come to me for advice. Maybe this is why I decided to get into (or maybe I got into psychology because I’m such a good listener?) One of the common themes I recall has to do with people asking about some iteration of “.” I’d be lying if, I, myself, never considered that I took “the wrong road.”

The advice that stems from this title is simple: you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

In short: if “here” weren’t where you were supposed to be, you’d be somewhere else.

After I continually repeat some iteration of these two phrases (the title and the one in the previous sentence), the advice-seeker’s demeanor begins to soften in a way that lets me know that they’ve taken ‘it’ in. It’s one of my favorite pieces of advice (along with ““) Why? Because it gives the advice-seeker the permission to stop second-guessing themselves, something that our culture is rife with. It lets the person be okay with where they are and in another way, gives them permission to stop wishing they were somewhere else.

Of course, someone may choose to continue to wish they were somewhere else, but this philosophy can be — at least a little bit — liberating.

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An extension of this phrase can be used when someone is still in the ‘before’ stage of their decision. That is, I just described how it can be used ‘after’ someone’s made a decision, but it can also be offered before a decision is made. When someone is trying to decide between two paths, again, it can be kind of freeing when you realize that no matter which way you choose, it will be the ‘right’ way.

I also want to make it clear that I’m not offering this phrase/post as a “tweet-worthy” canned piece of advice. There’s a whole philosophy (see either or ) behind this way of thinking and some folks subscribe to it. I’m not advocating one subscribe to it in some or all instances, but I would suggest one take the time to consider it.

Are You Feeling Stuck on a Project?

The short answer: go get some exercise.

The longer (and slightly tangential) answer: Get out of the house. Leave the office. Get a change of scenery. Head down to the beach. Walk to the park. Some people like to say that our outside reality is a reflection of our inside reality. So, if your stuck on a project (can’t think of what to do next), then it’s possible that your workspace may also be ‘messy.’ By cleaning up your workspace, it may ‘clear up space’ in your head to allow you to think of what to do next in the project.

Back to the shorter answer: exercise. This is similar to the longer answer in that having your physical workspace (untidy) may be having an effect on your mental workspace. Let’s say someone is stuck on a project. They can’t quite connect the dots on something. They try and try and try by staring at the project materials to consider what the next avenue may be. Essentially, they’re stuck and can’t . By going and exercising, this person could shake-up their physical environment, which would have a cascading effect on their mental environment. There’s than I’m willing to get into this morning, but the next time you’re feeling stuck on a project, consider going for a walk, a run, a swim, or some other form of exercise.

Shouldn’t “Work” be About Production not Hours Completed?

I have to ride an elevator to the 20th floor for my . There’s also no restaurant on the floor and I don’t usually bring my lunch, so I find myself riding up and down the elevator quite a bit during the week. There was one interesting conversation I overheard this past week riding in the elevator.

On the way down, the elevator stopped a few floors after I got on and two gentlemen walked on. The elevator began descending again and I one of the guys said that he finished his “code” (work product) an hour early. (The hour early referring to how much time before, presumably, he was allowed to go home.) After a short pause, the same guy then said that he should have waiting an hour and then submitted his code. There was then a long pause and the other guy called the first guy an idiot.

While I didn’t exactly care for the unnecessary demeaning term, there is most definitely something to be gleaned from this situation.

Even with the all of the that has been done allocating time at work, the numerous of companies implementing it, and the various published on the subject, there are still companies that operate under the impression that giving an employee autonomy, mastery, and purpose is a non-optimal solution.

On account of this example, I wonder how many similar companies/organizations there are out there that don’t operate under these principles. More importantly, I wonder what the state of the business world (and by extension, the rest of it) would look like if a great majority of companies gave their employees autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Twitter: Who I’m Following, Part 8

It’s been quite awhile since I last did a post in my series of “”Who I’’m Following”” on Twitter. In fact, it’s been 6 months! That’s almost half as long as I’ve been participating on Twitter. In looking at the some of these old posts (see below) of who I’m following, I seemed to have unfollowed a number of folks. I wish I had kept a list of the people I’ve unfollowed, so I could offer reasons as to why I decided to unfollow some folks. Briefly, I can say that sometimes the reason is because the person isn’t very active on Twitter. Other times, it’s because I became frustrated with the amount of negativity (sometimes in the form of the person retweeting “trolls” or people being unnecessarily negative in the form of ad hominem attacks). I most certainly won’t be able to get to all the new people I’m following on Twitter (it’s approximately doubled!), so look for a few of these posts in the coming weeks (or months).

If you missed any of the earlier posts in this series, here they are:







Part 7

Here we go!

Big Think@bigthink: Big Think aims to, “help you move above and beyond random information, toward real knowledge, offering big ideas from fields outside your own that you can apply toward the questions and challenges in your own life.”

Wired@wired: Wired is the digital home of Wired Magazine and it acts as a daily technology site.

Austan Goolsbee@Austan_Goolsbee: Goolsbee is a Professor of economics and Economics at the Booth School of Business (University of Chicago). He is also the former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Richard H Thaler@R_Thaler: Thaler is a Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the Booth School of Business (University of Chicago) and the co-author of Nudge.

Maria Popova@brainpicker: “Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are.”

Ashoka Changemakers@changemakers: “The latest in innovation, social entrepreneurship, and how you can make a difference. Why? Everyone Can Be a Changemaker.”

Ashoka@Ashoka: “Ashoka is an international citizen-sector organization that is leading the way to an Everyone a Changemaker World.”

Rick Mercer@rickmercer: Mercer is a Canadian comedian and political satirist. He’s an alumnus of This Hour Has 22 Minutes and is currently the host of the Rick Mercer Report.

Josh Barro@jbarro: “I write on fiscal and economic policy issues at all levels of government. Areas of particular interest for me include tax policy, entitlements and public employee compensation.”

Matt Yglesias@mattyglesias: “Matthew Yglesias is Slate‘s business and economics correspondent. Before joining the magazine he worked for ThinkProgress, the Atlantic, TPM Media, and the American Prospect.”

Lifehacker@lifehacker: “Lifehacker curates tips, tricks, and technology for living better in the digital age.”

Timothy P Carney@TPCarney: “Timothy P. Carney is the Washington Examiner‘s senior political columnist.” Carney is also a prominent conservative voice.

Joseph Weisenthal@TheStalwart:  Joe Weisenthal is the Deputy Editor Of Business Insider. “He previously was a writer and analyst for Techdirt.com, and before that worked as an analyst for money management firm Prentiss Smith & Co.”

Bob Rae@bobraeMP: Bob Rae is the current (interim) Leader of the Liberal Party (of Canada). He was previously the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party.

Mediaite@mediaite: “The site for news, info and smart opinions about print, online and broadcast media.”

Susan Rice@AmbassadorRice: Susan Rice is the US Ambassador to the United Nations. According to Wikipedia, she is not related to Condoleezza Rice.

Josh Rogin@joshrogin: “Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.”

Andrew Exum@abumuqawama: “Andrew Exum is a Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security,” and “Abu Muqawama is a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East.”

Anne-Marie Slaughter@SlaughterAM: “Princeton Professor. Director of Policy Planning, U.S. State Dept 2009-2011. Foreign policy curator.”

Library of Congress@librarycongress: “We are the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in our collections.”

Bill Nye@TheScienceGuy: “‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ is an American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, mechanical engineer, and scientist.”

Bill Cosby@BillCosby: “Bill Cosby is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist.”

Jeffrey Levy, EPA@levyj413: “Jeffrey Levy is the EPA Director of Web Communications, Co-Chair of the Federal Web Managers Council, and Gov’t 2.0er.”

Ed Husain@Ed_Husain: “Ed Husain is a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of ‘The Islamist.'”

Daniel Drezner@dandrezner: “Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.”

John Green@realjohngreen: I just wrote a post about John Green’s Crash Course in World History. Check it out!

Amazing Photography@AmazingPics: This Twitter feed regularly posts some of the best photographs. You’ll want to see these.

kelly oxford@kellyoxford: Kelly Oxford’s current Twitter Bio: “Writer. Designed to make you feel like everything is going well. I am your Perestroika.”

Joe Randazzo@Randazzoj: “Joe Randazzo is currently the editor of the satirical newspaper, The Onion.” As you might think, his tweets are often sarcastic (and funny).

Ken Jennings@KenJennings: Of Jeopardy! fame. He’s written a bunch of books, including Maphead. His tweets are often intended to be funny.

Seth Meyers@sethmeyers21: “Seth Meyers currently serves as the head writer for Saturday Night Live and hosts its news parody program segment Weekend Update.”

Anjeanette Carter@anjeanette: I found Anjeanette’s twitter feed as a result of this article. “The aspiring actress isn’t afraid to let the sarcasm fly – and sometimes that’s just the sort of thing you need to pop up on your screen.”

Andy Carvin@acarvin: “Senior strategist at NPR. Online community organizer since 1994. Former director of the Digital Divide Network. Writer. Photographer. Dad.”

AJELive@AJELive: “Breaking news alerts and updates from Al Jazeera English, a 24-hour news and current affairs channel.” By now, you should all know that I’m a big fan of different perspectives (here or here).

Brian Stelter@brianstetler: A really good person to follow if you enjoy things in “meta.” Stetler reports on TV & Media for the New York Times.

johnmaeda@johmaeda: “President, Rhode Island School of Design, RISD, College, Museum, USA, 1877, Laws of Simplicity, MIT, Design, Art, Business, Technology, Life.”

OMG Facts @OMGFacts: As you might expect, this Twitter feed specializes in tweets that are facts that might “knock your socks off.”

BuzzFeed@BuzzFeed: “BuzzFeed is a website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of “the viral web in realtime.”

Tim O'Reilly@timoreilly: “Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media. Watching the alpha geeks, sharing their stories, helping the future unfold.”

Jay Rosen @jayrosen_nyu: “I teach journalism at NYU, direct the Studio 20 program there, critique the press and study new media. I don’t do lifecasting but mindcasting on Twitter.”

daveweigel@daveweigel: Dave Weigel is a political reporter for Slate. While his main focus is politics, his tweets are often laced with humor.

Mark Knoller@markknoller: Mark Knoller is a CBS News White House Correspondent. Similar to Stetler, he sometimes comments on what other networks are reporting.

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I’m well past my self-imposed 1000 word limit, but I wanted to begin to squeeze a bunch more feeds into one post (because I have a lot to make up in this series). As always, I welcome your suggestions in the comments or tweet me!

Tying up Loose Ends: Or, a Mishmash of Ideas in one Post

It’s been awhile since I wrote a post () and even longer since I wrote consecutive posts ( and ). Obviously, I’d like to have written more, but that’s just not how things have worked out. Regardless, I thought it might be a good idea to write a “post of posts” of sorts. That is, I’ve had a list of “ideas to write about” for over a year. Some of the things on the list are recent (thought of in the last few months) and some have been there for at least 9 months. As a way to inject some fresh energy into that list, I thought I’d write a post where I spent some time talking about a number of things on the list — rather than writing a post about just one of those ideas. Hope you enjoy!

It’s Kind of a Funny Story () – I saw this movie awhile back and thought it was rather good. The premise is that a teenager checks himself into an adult psychiatric ward. Some very serious issues are addressed and I think they were done so in an appropriate manner.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never () – This whole list won’t be of movies, but I thought I’d group the two. I saw the “Justin Bieber Movie” sometime this past summer. I didn’t really know too much about Justin Bieber, just that he was pretty famous with the younger age groups. While this movie wasn’t necessarily an unbiased biography, it definitely did showcase how much hard work Justin invested in himself. Hard work (by itself) will not get you where you want to go all the time (for example: ), but it will go a long way to getting you where you want to be.

What if the car (automobile) were invented today? – I wonder if the car were invented today, would we accept it as is? Meaning, given everything that goes into making the car and everything that is affected because of the car (read: environment), I wonder if consumers would accept it as a product.

Nordic spas – This past summer, just before moving to DC, I spent some time at in Quebec. It was the first time that I’d seen the idea of (hot, cold, hot) in an establishment. Growing up in Canada, it was a common thing — in the winter — to sit in the hot tub for awhile, jump in the pool for a minute (or the snow!) and then get back into the hot tub. I remember trying to find some scientific evidence to back this up as a (positive) thing for the human body, but I couldn’t find anything. That’s not to say that there isn’t any out there.

Blowing in a dog’s face – I find it interesting that dog’s don’t like it when someone blows in their face — but — they can’t wait to stick their head out the window when you’re driving down the road. I wonder if this has something to do with carbon dioxide (on the exhale of someone blowing in their face) vs. oxygen (from the car ride).

Jaywalking – Intuitively, I would think that laws against jaywalking would have been written with a focus on keeping pedestrians safe. Believe it or not — this was not the case. I forgot where I heard it (maybe NPR?), but did you know that jaywalking was — in a way — instituted because of the automobile associations lobbying legislators? In doing some research for this (part) of this post, I found from three days ago talking about this very thing.

Visioning for a job? – Have you ever noticed how couples plan for a baby? Even before they’ve conceived, (sometimes) they’ve bought the crib, painted the room, and are in a sense, planning for this new part of their lives. I wonder why this is normalized, but doing the same thing for a job is viewed with some disdain. Why shouldn’t someone wake up and get dressed as if they’re going to work (even though they may not be)? They could even go to the “office” (library?) and prepare themselves for work.

Secret to happiness – Short and sweet. The secret to happiness is not wishing things were different from they currently are.

Evolution of the electric car – I wonder if there’s a special (or one in the works?) on the evolution of the electric car. I remember reading that the electric car was first invented in the 19th century, but fell out of favor when the internal combustion engine was invented (see: ).

People’s relationships to their body – It’s interesting to see how people relate to their body (in general) in comparison to how they relate to their body at a place where the body can sometimes be more prominent (at the gym or the beach).

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That’s narrowed down my list to four! Three of those are “recurring posts” (, , and personality tests). There is one post that I do want to dedicate some time to, so I didn’t want to shorten it here. Look for it in the next little while.

What if Every Major Religious Holiday Were a National Holiday?

There were a few articles (, , and ) in The Economist over the last few issues that got me thinking about religion. And not any one particular religion — all of them — and how they might be very much interrelated. At the same time, I often think about the growing . It seems the ways of balance has completely gone out the window.

There are lots of different explanations as to why people continue to overwork themselves. One from this claims that Americans mistake overwork for good work. Meaning, they think that if they work harder (they’ll be working better). by way of a calculator that lets you visually see how much time you’re spending on a variety of activities, which include: work, sleep, leisure, chores, meals, commute, etc.

Another contribution to the nature of overworking is the amount of holidays that people are ‘allowed’ to take. In some countries, it’s pretty to have 6, 7, or 8 weeks as holidays. We could also say the workweek itself is a pressure to work harder. In France, they have a . There’s also the idea that you need to work longer hours in order to .

Circling back to my initial point about religion: there are certain days in countries that are designated as . In the US, for instance, Easter and Christmas are holidays for which it is illegal to mandate that someone needs to be at work. According to , there are an assortment of religions represented across the United States.

So, my “big” idea: make all the major religious holidays national holidays.

When I say national holiday, I mean that these are days that are mandatory days off for businesses. I realize that this kind of idea would take an enormous amount of planning, that there would need to be legislation passed, that we’d need to define “major religious holidays,” and all that jazz, but just think about it (abstractly) for a moment.

Think about the extra days off to spend with family. Think about the prospect of religious acceptance for the younger generations. Instead of just “taking the day off and ,” parents could spend the day with their kids explaining to them what the major holiday means to that religion. Or, if there were no kids, the adults could take the day to learn about the culture and religion for the holiday. This could definitely foster a greater sense of compassion and empathy between people of different faiths.

What if Business (or ALL Interactions) Ended With Hugs Instead of Handshakes?

According to , the origin of the handshake was thought to be a gesture of peace by demonstrating that you held no weapons. (Of course, this presupposes that everyone is right-handed, but that’s a story for a different post.) When you think about the handshake in that sense, it’s actually kind of nice, isn’t it?

There’s really a lot that could be said about the evolution of the handshake. We could talk about the different cross-cultural rituals that take the place of handshaking. For instance, , bowing is the norm when it comes to social interactions. However, with the prevalence of globalization, there are now many instances where east-Asians and non-east-Asians will be engaged in some sort crossed bow and handshake.

We could even discuss some of the of the handshake. For instance, Wikipedia lists 6 different kinds of handshakes (hand hug, dominance, cold and clammy, crusher, queens fingertips, and keep back), some of which you could probably figure out the gist of just from the name. Wikipedia also lists a number of modern customs spanning African-American culture to Arabic-speaking people and even for non-business situations in Turkey.

So, as I said, there’s so much information simply from a historical or anthropological point of view. I’m more interested in what it might look like to substitute a hug for the handshake. I’m sure I’m not the first person to imagine this possibility, (and a quick internet search even turns up results in and on the topic of hugs and handshakes), but I think I have a unique perspective on the matter.

Historically, as discussed above, the handshake was meant to show that there wasn’t a weapon in one’s hand. If we look at the of the act of the handshake (including both participants), there isn’t often an opening, specifically with regard to the heart area. If you think about when you shake someone’s hand, this is usually what happens (or some degree of variations thereof): one of the two participants (in the handshake) will stretch thereby shifting their torso out on an angle to the left (can you visualize it?) And the other person, the person who receives the handshake, has their elbow a little closer to their stomach and their hand is usually out in front of themselves (more towards the center). Take a second and picture this in your mind. The person receiving the outstretched hand, in a way, is closing off their heart area by way of their arm/bicep.

Now, I don’t think that either side of this equation is consciously or intentionally shifting their heart away from the action, I just think that this is how the ritual has developed over time. So instead, what if we hugged? I know, I know, this might not work across all cultures. And then you’d probably raise the issue that some people don’t feel comfortable being that ‘intimate’ with strangers. . Okay, but how did the handshake start? By showing the other person that you weren’t carrying a weapon.

Maybe a global movement to replace the handshake with the hug could be a way to promote more compassion and empathy for each other.

One things for sure, we could all use a bit more (through natural means).