#1 Following the Crowd

Books offer us so many riches. An endless amount really. You can learn anything from books. How to speak a language, how to garden, baking or cooking, health science, dog training, engineering, new insights about friendship and romantic relationships, what living in another culture might be like,...

Think of the special, emotionally close, rare friends you’ve had during your life. These types of connections do not grow on trees.

Maybe you’ve had a handful, in which case, you are lucky. Some people have had none.

Friends are easy to find. Genuine, truly awesome friends with whom y...

The world is always going to have a ton of problems. Sometimes it will look worse than at other times.

This is NOT to say we shouldn’t acknowledge and speak about these things. We should and we must. Otherwise, there is no hope of ever changing them.

Choose to (more of the time) focus...

Granted, if you’re from America, you are up against a tough culture, work-wise. We have a hard time with work-life balance, plus some of the least vacation time of any developed country, as well as, zero paid maternity leave, and usually crappy allotted sick time as well. So, this is a difficult ...

This point relates to everything health-wise.

• Exercising several times a week
• Eating healthfully
• Not eating wheat or sugar. I realize not everyone will agree, but that’s OK
• Stretching routinely
• Paying close attention and attending to your mental health

Because thinking carefully about the things we are likely to regret can help re-calibrate and re-focus how we live.

• Following the crowd in order to fit in or gain approval
• Not taking chances
• Not putting in discipline and effort toward your health
• Staying within your small bubble
• Not making the time and effort for the things important to you
• Complaining all the time

This can be anything. The book you talked about writing for years and never did. That you wanted to learn to play guitar and never put in the effort. That you kept thinking you’d spend more time with your kids or your beloved pet, and instead, put it off, and put it off.

You will re...

Children play. Adults tend not to as much. We’re taught that play is “silly” and something to be shy about. Not so, though. Check out the work of Brene Brown. She speaks to this topic and how important it is for our mental well-being, our relationships, and our sense of creativity.

Play. It...

It’s always sticking to the same habits and routines.

It’s never daring. It’s always taking the easy, more comfortable way.

Staying in your bubble, though, is more like never trying to make new friends.

It’s staying in the same job for your entire life.