Monday, January 27, 2014

What I’ve learned since moving to D.C. (some of which should be obvious): 0054

2651.  Forgive yourself and welcome love back into your life.  When you can do this, a kind of balancing occurs.  Rather than atoning for faults with guilt, you are more committed to promoting joy and service;
2652.  Notice the acts of kindness other people do rather than their shortcomings.  We are all good, decent, loving souls who occasionally get lost.  When you can focus on the good in another and hold that in your mind, you are acting from your higher self.  This can help dissipate fear and anger;
2653.  Everything that’s created comes out of silence.  Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence.  Your words come out of this void.  Your very essence emerged from emptiness.  All creativity requires some stillness.  Your sense of inner peace depends on spending some of your life energy in silence to recharge your battery and remove tension and anxiety;
2654.  It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.  When you watch children playing, notice how totally involved they are in what they’re doing, how they run everywhere they go.  Notice how they are oblivious to future problems almost as if they have given themselves permission to be free and they show it by becoming totally absorbed in their play.  To be more childlike, you don’t have to give up being an adult.  The fully integrated person is capable of being both an adult and a child simultaneously.  Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe;
2655.  Notice how children are willing to try anything on a moment’s notice.  The child inside you wants to be impulsive and adventuresome, without always having to plan things in advance.  Spontaneity is in many ways the key to all childlike behavior.  That ability to stop suddenly by the roadside when something interesting catches your eye leads directly to childlike immediacy and “wonder in the face of the world;”
2656.  When the infant comes into the world, it has no thought that the world can or should be any different from what it is.  The infant just opens its eyes in wonder and fascination at what is out there and makes its way in that world as best it can.  The child inside of you knows how to take things as they come, how to deal most effectively and happily with everything and everyone it encounters on this planet.  If you can recapture that childlike essence of your being you can stay “forever young at heart;”
2657.  You’d think that your checking account would be the (only) account connected to your check card. . . . Apparently, that’s not necessarily the case;
2658.  There are a lot more restaurants and bars open on Christmas Eve than I thought there’d be . . . and a lot more people out . . . at least in (Old Town) Alexandria;
2659.  The “K(evin)-bomb” (i.e., champagne and tequila) . . . classy but slutty;
2660.  Elizabeth likes Fireball shots;
2661.  (Three-time) Super Bowl winning linebackers (specifically Riki Ellison of the San Francisco 49ers) like to hang out at the Fish Market in (Old Town) Alexandria;
2662.  Skip the ultimatums, those resolutions with the due dates and deadlines.  We can’t threaten ourselves into being our best.  Instead, focus on how you want to feel each day.  Be in the now – where all of our growth and healing takes place.  Just for today, be that sugar-free, smoke-free, kind, positive person you want to be.  And see how it feels.  One day at a time;
2663.  Any resolution that involves you making decisions about long-range upcoming behavior reinforces the self-defeating notion of living in the future rather than in the present moment;
2664.  The important questions to be asking yourself are “How am I going to use my present moments this year?” and “Will I waste them in reviewing to myself how I used to behave, or how I would like to behave in the future, rather than resolving to live each day to the fullest?”
2665.  What you can do is set up day-to-day goals for yourself, and then resolve to begin living with present moment awareness for the rest of your life.  For example, instead of deciding you are going to give up sugar for a year, resolve to go one day without eating sugar.  Anyone can do virtually anything if it is for only one day.  When you go for one whole day without eating sugar (or any other new behavior), you are a totally different person at the end of that day.  Learn to let that totally different person decide on the second day whether he or she wants to do it again on this new day, rather than letting the same old person decide that it is only going to be difficult in a couple of days anyhow, “so what’s the use.”  Always let the new you make the decision, and then you’ll be living your present moments;
2666.  Remember, anyone can do anything for just one day, so tune out the sentences that keep you locked into your old self-defeating ways and begin to enjoy each day of your bright new year;
2667.  Unrequited love is pretty terrible;
2668.  The Bastille Restaurant & Wine Bar (BastilleRestaurant.com) in (Old Town) Alexandria has some really tasty homemade ketchup (with notes of anise);
2669.  Make a deliberate, conscious effort to slow yourself down by relaxing your mind.  Take a little more time to enjoy your life here on this planet: Be more contemplative by noticing the stars, the clouds, the rivers, the animals, the rainstorms, and all of the natural world.  And then extend the same slowed-down loving energy to all people;
2670.  Your life is simplified enormously when you don’t have to defend yourself to anyone, and when you receive support rather than criticism;
2671.  You don’t need to purchase more of what will complicate and clutter your life.  If you can’t afford it, let it go until you can.  By going into debt, you’ll just add layers of anxiety onto your life.  That anxiety will then take you away from your peace.  When you have to work extra hard to pay off debts, the present moments of your life are less enjoyable; consequently, you’re further away from the joy and peace that are the trademarks of inspiration.  You’re far better off to have less and enjoy the days of your life than to take on debt and invite stress and anxiety where peace and tranquility could have reigned;
2672.  Do what your heart tells you will bring you joy, rather than determining whether it will be cost-effective.  If you’d really enjoy that whale-watching trip, for instance, make the decision to do so – don’t deny yourself the pleasures of life because of some monetary detail.  Don’t base your purchases on getting a discount, and don’t rob yourself of a simple joy because you didn’t get a break on the price.  You can afford a happy, fulfilling life;
2673.  Make an attempt to free yourself from placing a price tag on everything you have and do.  Don’t make money the guiding principle for what you have or do; rather, simplify your life by finding the inherent value in everything.  A dollar does not determine worth, even though you live in a world that attempts to convince you otherwise;
2674.  A counterfact is an alternate scenario our brains create to help us evaluate and make sense of what really happened.  Because it’s invented, we actually have the power in any given situation to consciously select a counterfact that makes us feel fortunate rather than helpless;
2675.  Choosing a positive counterfact, besides simply making us feel better, sets ourselves up for the whole host of benefits to motivation and performance we now know accompanies a positive mindset.  On the other hand, choosing a counterfact that makes us more fearful of the adversity actually makes it loom larger than it really is;
2676.  In one interesting study, researchers at the University of Virginia asked participants to stand on a skateboard at the top of a hill and estimate the slope of the hill below them.  The more frightened and uncomfortable the subject was standing on a skateboard, the higher and steeper the slope appeared;
2677.  When we choose a counterfact that makes us feel worse, we are actually altering our reality, allowing the obstacle to exert far greater influence over us than it otherwise should;
2678.  Decades of study have shown that explanatory style – how we choose to explain the nature of past events – has a crucial impact on our happiness and future success;
2679.  People with an optimistic explanatory style interpret adversity as being local and temporary (i.e., “It’s not that bad, and it will get better.”) while those with a pessimistic explanatory style see these events as more global and permanent (i.e., “It’s really bad, and it’s never going to change.”).  Their beliefs then directly affect their actions; the ones who believe the latter statement sink into helplessness and stop trying, while the ones who believe the former are spurred on to higher performance;
2680.  Virtually all avenues of success, we now know, are dictated by explanatory style.  It predicts how well students do in high school, and even how well new recruits do at the U.S. Military Academy.  First-year plebes with a more optimistic explanatory style perform better than test scores predict, and are less likely to drop out than their peers.  In the world of sports, studies of athletes ranging from collegiate swimmers to professional baseball players show than explanatory style predicts athletic performance.  It even predicts how well people recover after coronary bypass surgery;
2681.  One way to help ourselves see the path from adversity to opportunity is to practice the ABCD model of interpretation: Adversity, Belief, Consequence, and Disputation.  Adversity is the event we can’t change; it is what it is.  Belief is our reaction to the event; whey we thought it happened and what we think it means for the future.  Is it a problem that is only temporary and local in nature or do we think it is permanent and pervasive?  Are there ready solutions, or do we think it is unsolvable?  If we believe the former – that is, if we see the adversity as short-term or as an opportunity for growth or appropriately confined to only part of our life – then we maximize the chance of a positive Consequence.  But if the Belief has led us down a more pessimistic path, helplessness and inaction can bring negative Consequences.  Disputation involves first telling ourselves that our belief is just that – a belief, not fact – and then challenging (or disputing) it.  Psychologists recommend that we externalize this voice (i.e., pretend it’s coming from someone else), so it’s like we’re actually arguing with another person.  What is the evidence for this belief?  Is it airtight?  Would we let a friend get away with such reasoning?  Or is the reasoning clearly specious once we step outside of ourselves and take a look?  What are some other plausible interpretations of this event?  What are some more adaptive reactions to it?  Is there another counterfactual we can adopt instead?  And finally, if the adversity truly is bad, is it as bad as we first thought?
2682.  Decatastrophizing: taking time to show ourselves that while the adversity is real, it is perhaps not as catastrophic as we may have made it out to be;
2683.  Thousands of years of evolution have made us so remarkably good at adapting to even the most extreme life circumstances, adversity never hits us quite as hard – or for quite as long – as we think it might;
2684.  After an initial adjustment and period of hardship, most victims of paralysis bounce back to just about the same level of happiness they experienced before;
2685.  The human psyche is so much more resilient than we even realize.  Which is why, when faced with a terrible prospect – for example, the end of a love affair or of a job – we overestimate how unhappy it will make us and for how long;
2686.  Adversities, no matter what they are, simply don’t hit us as hard as we think they will.  Just knowing this quirk of human psychology – that our fear of consequences is always worse than the consequences themselves – can help us move toward a more optimistic interpretation of the downs we will inevitably face;
2687.  Success is not about never falling down or even simply about falling down and getting back up over and over.  Success is about more than simple resilience.  It’s about using that downward momentum to propel ourselves in the opposite direction.  It’s about capitalizing on setbacks and adversity to become even happier, even more motivated, and even more successful.  It’s not falling down, it’s falling up;
2688.  Chopsticks work really well for eating mussels;
2689.  One of the biggest drivers of success is the belief that our behavior matters; that we have control over our future;
2690.  If we first concentrate our efforts on small manageable goals, we regain the feeling of control so crucial to performance.  By first limiting the scope of our efforts, then watching those efforts have the intended effect, we accumulate the resources, knowledge, and confidence to expand the circle, gradually conquering a larger and larger area;
2691.  Feeling that we are in control, that we are masters of our own fate at work and at home, is one of the strongest drivers of both well-being and performance;
2692.  Among students, greater feelings of control lead not only to higher levels of happiness, but also to higher grades and more motivation to pursue the careers they really want;
2693.  Employees who feel they have high levels of control at the office are better at their jobs and report more job satisfaction;
2694.  A 2002 study of nearly 3,000 wage and salaried employees for the National Study of the Changing Workforce found that greater feelings of control at work predicted greater satisfaction in nearly every aspect of life: family, job, relationships, and so on;
2695.  People who felt in control at work also had lower levels of stress, work-family conflict, and job turnover;
2696.  Psychologists have found that these kinds of gains in productivity, happiness, and health have less to do with how much control we actually have and more with how much control we think we have;
2697.  How we experience the world is shaped largely by our mindset;
2698.  The most successful people, in work and in life, are those who have what psychologists call an “internal locus of control,” the belief that their actions have a direct effect on their outcomes.  People with an external locus, on the other hand, are more likely to see daily events as dictated by external forces;
2699.  People with an external locus don’t just duck the blame for failure, though; they also miss out on the credit for their successes, which can be equally maladaptive because it undermines both confidence and dedication;
2700.  Believing that, for the most part, our actions determine our fates in life can only spur us to work harder; and when we see this hard work pay off, our belief in ourselves only grows stronger;