Productivity leads you to more work done. Being consistent and more productive will lead you to success. Staying productive in this generation could be a challenge because tons of distractions are in the way. At any given time there are seemthings fighting for your attention. If you’re a productive person, you can do more with less time. That means you can take on harder, more important tasks. It also means that you have more time to do the things you enjoy like hobbies or spending time with friends.

Most Essential Stoic Habits For Productivity 

“People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” “Time is money” -Benjamin Franklin told us that earlier. We could not buy it again. If we use it in the right manner it will lead us to success.

1) TAKE CARE OF YOUR TIME

Planning your time can make us more productive every day and help us achieve our goals in life. So take control of your time; do not let it control you! The value of time is something that everyone understands. Time is a precious commodity that we all have an equal amount of, and it is something that should not be wasted. How can you apply the stoic rule for time management : Block out your day in the schedule.Stop feeling obligated to say ‘yes’ to everyone.

Minimalism allows us to focus on our priorities. “By maintaining a clutter-free environment, you’re able to increase focus and productivity thus reducing stress”. “Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are” Being a minimalist means you value yourself more than material things. It means making decisions based on what you need instead of getting everything you want. It does not mean the things you buy are cheap. It means they are something you need, regardless of how much they cost.

PRACTICE MINIMALISM 

<ul><li>Decluttering helps people breathe.</li><li>Minimalism allows for refocusing.</li><li>Less stuff equals more money.</li><li>You have more time.</li><li>You have more energy.</li></ul>How can you apply the stoic rule for being minimalistic :<ul><li>Begin with One Aspect of Your Life.</li><li>Determine Necessities.</li><li>Get Rid of Excess Clutter.</li><li>Reduce Technology Usage.</li><li>Prioritise Relationships.</li><li>Make a Budget..</li></ul>

Benefits of being minimalist 

Solitude is an essential component of your health and well-being. Being alone is what bears great ideas. People look for retreats, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful retreat than in his mind.” Being alone and feeling lonely are two completely different things, however. Many people feel lonely even when they’re in a crowded room. And some people spend lots of time alone without ever actually feeling lonely

PRACTICE SOLITUDE 

In fact, building more solitude in your daily life might reduce your feelings of loneliness. Solitary skills take practice if you’re not used to being alone, but over time, you can grow more comfortable with being by yourself. How can you apply the stoic rule for Solitude : <ul><li>Daily mindfulness practice.</li><li>Schedule time away from social media.</li><li>Eliminate distractions while working.</li></ul>

These are the top habits everyone should apply in their daily life. 

Medium is an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

writing

Reading & Writing

strategy

Strategy

education

Learning & Education

creativity

Creativity

3 stoic rules for productivity. 

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26123.Learned_Optimism">Learned Optimism </a>digs into why optimists are healthier, happier, and more successful people than pessimists, how both are learned attitudes and what you can do to become an optimist yourself.

Learned Optimism - Book Summary 

"I don't mind being wrong, and I don't mind changing my mind."-Martin Seligman

Author Quote

Do you see some people in your life who just seem to have everything fall into their lap? Who master life as if in cruise control mode, where everything works on autopilot and is super easy? I know I do. <a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/martin_seligman">Martin Seligman </a>, the father of positive psychology, has spent decades of research trying to find out why some people maneuver through their lives so easily. His answer: They’re optimists .

Book Overview 

He calls optimism and pessimism explanatory styles , they are the way in which we explain bad events in our lives.

1. Optimists see problems as temporary, pessimists as permanent . Sticking with the example from <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/mindset-summary/">Mindset </a>, if optimists  spill their coffee they won’t say “I always spill my coffee and ruin my clothes.”, but rather “I spilled my coffee this time , but I won’t spill the next one.”

1st Characteristic In Which Optimists Different From Pessimists

2. Optimists see problems as specific to a situation, pessimists make them a general case.  Being on a team assignment where one person doesn’t deliver their part, a pessimist is likely to say: “This team sucks.” and write off the entire team as lazy. An optimist would say: “One person is not very helpful, but I’m sure the rest of the team will do great work.”

2nd Characteristic In Which Optimists Different From Pessimists

3. Optimists see problems as externally caused, pessimists blame themselves.  When getting a divorce, both people will think one of them is the major cause. An optimist will always attribute the failure to an external source, in this case, their former spouse (“He never wanted kids anyway”). The pessimist is likely to blame herself (“I never made time for her that’s why she left me).

3rd Characteristic In Which Optimists Different From Pessimists

Luckily, both styles are acquired and can be learned. Until now your explanatory style has been shaped primarily by your parents and your teachers in school. Have you ever heard a teacher yell at someone for chatting in class? That’s good, because it’s an external problem they point to. “You have to listen more closely next time.” is a much better statement than “You’re just a bad reader.” because the latter makes the student internalize the problem. One of the advantages of being an optimist is  being healthier.

Book Review

What’s more, optimists are likely to take good care of their bodies, because they believe that their choices will make a difference. Pessimists are prone to junk food and no exercise, as they believe it won’t matter. On the other hand, pessimism  can likely be a cause of depression . Believing that nothing you do will change anything can of course make you depressed. A <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/31/2/311/">study </a>where people had to press buttons to make noises stop found symptoms of depression in them whenever the experiment was rigged so that the buttons had no effect.

Optimism is also a deciding factor in professional sports . Seligman looked at baseball teams in 1985 and determined <a href="http://gyroconsulting.com/2014/11/03/the-power-of-optimism/">the New York Mets were the most optimistic team </a>, the St. Luis Cardinals the most pessimistic. Guess who won the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_World_Series">World Series </a> one year later? The Mets.

Talent at work is just as overrated as talent in professional sports . <a href="https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/">The University of Pennsylvania </a>usually assesses their freshmen according to their SATs, high school grades and achievement test. When they let Seligman segment the new students into optimists and pessimists, it turned out that the optimists exceeded expectations, where pessimists fell behind.

That same optimism will also carry you through a successful career , as <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1986-23196-001">Seligman’s study with Metropolitan </a>shows. He hired people for them who underperformed skill-wise, but showed great optimism. The new employees outperformed even those with better skills.

So what can you do to become an optimist as quickly as possible? Use the ABC technique by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ellis">Albert Ellis </a>.

It works like this: When facing a crisis, you note 3 things about it. What’s the A dversity? For example you just got fired. What is my B elief about this?

For example you believe you did a horrible job and that’s why you were let go. What is the C onsequence of my belief? For example you feel depressed and can’t get out of bed for 2 weeks.

Go through your recent, negative self-talk and try to record 3 ABCs. Be sure to pick major challenges and differentiate between thoughts and feelings. Telling yourself you’re a bad golfer or that you have bad memory is a belief, crying or getting angry are the feelings that follow from your belief.

How you decide to deal with a negative event determines almost entirely how much it will affect you.  That’s why it’s important to start recording your ABCs and seeing where you can change your beliefs. Once you’ve recorded a few negative believes, start challenging them.  Ask yourself if they’re really true, whether there’s another explanation and if they’re true, what that implies.

Then you can start labeling your thoughts into two categories: useful and not useful . Whenever you notice a thought is not useful to you, then you should probably not pursue it any further. Start thinking of negative events as temporary, specific and external, record your ABCs and know that your attitude is learned – you can change it at any time. This way, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a true optimist.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26123.Learned_Optimism">Learned Optimism </a> is so packed with actionable advice and great insights, it’s hard to condense it any further.I’m a big fan of positive psychology and this book intersects a lot with <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/mindset-summary/">Mindset by Carol Dweck </a>, but is much more encompassing.

Learned Optimism - Book Review

The 23 year old soccer player whose coach always makes excuses why their team loses, the 19 year old graduate who’s worried that her resumé is not perfect and anyone who keeps complaining about what’s in the newspaper.

Who would I recommend the Learned Optimism to?

The Learned Optimism summary shows you why optimism will lead to a better life and how you can become an optimist. Read in 4 minutes.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

mentalhealth

Mental Health

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Learned Optimism Summary

The Feynman Technique is a method of learning that maximizes your potential and helps you to develop a deep understanding.Richard Feynman was a Nobel prize-winning physicist. He was a front-runner in quantum mechanics and particle physics. His real superpower, however, was his ability to explain complicated subjects to others in simple terms.Feynman understood the difference between understanding something and knowing the name of something. He was never content with just knowing the name of something. He wanted to understand it at a deeper level.

Introduction

The first step is straight forward. Whenever we want to learn something, we study it.Write down all of the things you know about a skill/topic on the piece of paper. Try and break it down into its core components and seek to understand it as a whole.

 1. Study

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.

Once you’ve completely covered the topic, it’s time to teach it to someone else.If you’d rather avoid actually teaching someone, you can just teach it to an imaginary audience. But the Feynman technique works much better if you use a real person. They’ll be able to give feedback and let you know when something isn’t clear.Ideally, the person you’re teaching will ask questions and probe you, trying to find holes in your knowledge base. This might feel a little uncomfortable, but it’s exactly what you need in order to improve.

2. Teach

Step 2 will uncover some gaps in your knowledge.This step involves going back to studying, reviewing it with an intense focus on these gaps. The aim of step is to remove these weaknesses and turn them into areas of strength.It's like how watching a movie more than once helps you spot more details, look from different perspective and improves your understanding of it.

3. Review/Fill the Gaps

Ideally, you've already made significant progress in your understanding of the desired skill. But you're not done yet. Now you need to simplify the content.This step is quite successful in helping you develop a solid understanding of a topic. It is quite challenging to be able to break through the noise and explain things in a way that even young children with minimal vocabulary can understand. When you try to achieve this, you are forced to truly understand the knowledge or talent as well as understand how all of the different components work together.

4.  Simplify

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”

Richard Feynman is one of great minds of humanity. His way of looking at things, learning and coming up with profound ideas  is really something to learn.

If you want to learn anything faster, you need to know the Feynman technique. Richard Feynman was famous for his work in theoretical physics, but he also invented and popularized this mind-blowing learning technique. This simple hack will help you learn anything fast. Sources: The Feynman Technique https://www.colorado.edu/artssciences-advising/resource-library/life-skills/the-feynman-technique-in-academic-coaching Note Taking in Class https://law-hawaii.libguides.com/notetaking/feynman How I Used the Feynman Technique to Study https://study.com/blog/how-i-used-the-feynman-technique-to-study-and-got-better-grades.html Learning Effectively with the Feynman Technique https://www.lifehack.org/862931/feynman-technique The Feynman Technique: The Best Way to Learn Anything https://fs.blog/2012/04/feynman-technique/ Chief Editor: Tristan Reed Voice Over: Troy W. Hudson For Troy: www.youtube.com/TroyWHudson Music from Bensound.com

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

If you want to learn anything faster, you need to know the Feynman technique. Richard Feynman was famous for his work in theoretical physics, but he also invented and popularized this mind-blowing learning technique. This simple hack will help you learn anything fast.

Sources:

The Feynman Technique
https://www.colorado.edu/artssciences-advising/resource-library/life-skills/the-feynman-technique-in-academic-coaching

Note Taking in Class
https://law-hawaii.libguides.com/notetaking/feynman

How I Used the Feynman Technique to Study
https://study.com/blog/how-i-used-the-feynman-technique-to-study-and-got-better-grades.html

Learning Effectively with the Feynman Technique
https://www.lifehack.org/862931/feynman-technique

The Feynman Technique: The Best Way to Learn Anything
https://fs.blog/2012/04/feynman-technique/

Chief Editor: Tristan Reed
Voice Over: Troy W. Hudson
For Troy: www.youtube.com/TroyWHudson
Music from Bensound.com

TopThink

The Feynman Technique: How to Learn Anything Faster!

Benjamin Graham Principals On Investing

A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price.

What Is Stock

The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.

And The Market?

The future value of every investment is a function of its present price. The higher the price you pay, the lower your return will be.

Value 

No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety"-never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be can you minimize your odds of error.

Risk?

The secret to your financial success is inside yourself. If you become a critical thinker who takes no dalal street "fact" on faith, and you invest with patient confidence, you can take steady advantage of even the worst bear markets. By developing your discipline and courage, you can refuse to let other people's mood swings govern your financial destiny. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave.

The Financial Success

Help you to understand basics of investing

“By far the best book on investing ever written.” — Warren Buffett The classic text of Benjamin Graham’s seminal The Intelligent Investor has now been revised and annotated to update the timeless wisdom for today’s market conditions. The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham, taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing"—which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies—has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949. Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham's strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles. Vital and indispensable, this revised edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.

philosophy

Philosophy

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

books

Books

The classic bestseller by Benjamin Graham, perhaps the greatest investment advisor of the 20th century, The Intelligent Investor has taught and inspired hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Since its original publication in 1949, Benjamin Graham's book has remained the most respected guide to investing, due to his timeless philosophy of "value investing," which helps protect investors against the areas of possible substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies with which they will be comfortable down the road.Over the years, market developments have borne out the wisdom of Benjamin Graham's basic policies. Here he takes account of both the defensive and the enterprising investor, outlining the principles of stock selection for each, and stressing the advantages of a simple portfolio policy. Among the book's special features are the use of numerous comparisons of pairs of common stocks to bring out their elements of strength and weakness and the construction of investment portfolios designed to meet specific requirements of quality and price attractiveness.The Intelligent Investor may be the most important book you will ever read on making your investments a success."The Intelligent Investor is the best book ever written for the stockholder," says author and investment counselor John Train. Benjamin Graham's classic work offers sound and safe principles for investing-principles that have worked for more than forty years since the first edition was published. With an introduction and appendix by Warren Buffett, one of Graham's most famous students in investing strategy, this book takes account of both the defensive and the enterprising investor."By far the best book on investing ever written." -- Warren E. Buffett"There have been other good books written about money since 1841, but only a few hold up. The best known and most likely to make you money is The Intelligent Investor." -- Andrew Tobias"Graham ranks as this century's (and perhaps history's) most important thinker on applied portfolio investment." -- John Train, author of The Money Masters

Benjamin Graham was a British-born American economist, professor and investor. He is widely known as the "father of value investing", and wrote two of the founding texts in neoclassical investing: Security Analysis with David Dodd, and The Intelligent Investor.

Benjamin Graham

The Intelligent Investor

The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed

“Some people<a href="https://list25.com/25-luckiest-people-in-the-world/"> </a>can’t believe in themselves until someone else believes in them first.”

“Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or <a href="https://list25.com/25-easiest-languages-you-could-be-learning-today/">learn </a>from it.”

“No one ever made a difference<a href="https://list25.com/25-crazy-differences-between-the-harry-potter-movies-and-books/"> </a>by being like everybody else.”

“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming<a href="https://list25.com/25-best-places-for-swimming-in-the-world/"> </a>, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.”

To encourage in whatever you do and wherever you are in life, we present to you these 25 inspirational movie quotes that could change your life.

movies

Movies & Shows

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Inspirational Movie Quotes That Could Change Your Life

There has been considerable research on how body language, particularly <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190108-why-meeting-anothers-gaze-is-so-powerful">those coming from eye contact </a>, affects our behavior. It's actually quite astounding just how powerful eye contact can be.  Eye contact is so important that science has actually been studying it for many years and they continue to find out more about just how powerful it is. The eyes can give away so much and when we make eye contact with someone, it can have an impact on how we view that person.

We can even make assumptions about someone's personality, or even what they could be thinking based on the way that they make eye contact with us. Here are 5 interesting results:

Staring directly into someone’s eyes causes an arousal reaction. How that arousal is interpreted, however, depends on the parties involved and the circumstances. Being stared at by a stranger who appears large or ominous can be seen as a threat and elicit a fear response. This is common in social animals. A direct stare from a human to a dog or an ape can be interpreted as a threat from the large (and strange) human.

1. If someone is sexually attracted to you

Eye contact has also been found to be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887618508000972">somewhat linked to social anxiety </a>. However, the gaze of a <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/200937082/are-your-astrology-signs-sexually-compatible">potential sexual partner </a>causes arousal that can be interpreted positively — as a sexual invitation or a clear sign of interest.

Psychologist Paul Ekman has distinguished between <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thriving101/201001/what-science-has-say-about-genuine-vs-fake-smiles">smiles that represent genuine happiness </a> (“Duchenne” smiles), and fake smiles that might be used to feign happiness, or cover some other emotion. The key to <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/2018310955/4-biggest-communication-mistakes-we-make-when-reading-body-language">telling a fake smile from a real one </a>is in the eyes. When <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/love/how-to-make-a-girl-smile">forming real smiles, </a>the eyes narrow and create lines, or “crow’s feet,” at the outer corners.

2. If a smile is real or not

When we are interested in something or someone, our pupils will dilate. Some <a href="https://health.howstuffworks.com/relationships/love/love-make-pupils-dilate.htm">research has even found </a>that men rate a woman who has larger pupils as more attractive than women with fuller irises.

3. If someone is interested in you

Research on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-attraction-doctor/201503/loving-eye-contact-how-mutual-staring-can-create-passion">love and attraction has found </a>that a mutual gaze — <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/2018314040/how-get-high-through-eye-contact-according-study">staring into each other’s eyes </a>— is a good predictor of two individuals being “in love.” Eye contact could be a very important part of dating. The research discovered that even those who <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/love/4-secrets-happiest-married-couples-know">were already a couple </a>found that when they continued to <a href="https://www.yourtango.com/experts/teresa-maples/how-eye-contact-improves-marriage">have eye contact with their partner </a>, they had a greater affection and feeling of passionate love between them.

4. If you're in love

Everyone assumes that a liar won’t look you in the eye, but <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156615">research on the nonverbal cues </a>associated with deception suggests that a liar engages in more eye contact than a truth-teller. The explanation is that the deceiver goes the extra mile to try to convince you of his or her veracity and so “overdoes” the eye contact in order to appear truthful.

5. If someone is lying

5 Things You Can Learn About Someone Just By Looking Them In The Eye

When You Want To Get To Know Someone, Making Eye Contact And Reading Their Body Language Can Do Wonders. And In This Case, There Are A Few Ways You Can Determine How Someone Feels.

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

5 key insights from the new book, The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

We all lie, all the time—including you. Human deception is no different from its animal equivalent of camouflage, spots, and stripes. Charm is our very own version of frilly fins and peacock feathers. Like a stick insect adapted to hide among twigs, the effort to deceive, from camouflage to creative bullshit, is an evolutionary arms race as old as organic life.

1. You’re a natural-born liar.

Trickery is fundamental to interaction, and the instinct to misrepresent objective reality to suit our needs is fundamental to communication. In the evolution of deceit, language only came about quite recently, billions of years after more basic and more effective tools of the con. In fact, humans may have developed language specifically to manipulate each other in new and cleverer ways; it’s just the latest innovation in a billion-year-old chess game.

As Rutgers Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences Robert Trivers put it, “Our most prized possession, language, not only strengthens our ability to lie, but greatly extends its range.” Consider that when you lie with your scent, your pattern, or your petals, you can only lie about what you are, here and now. But lie with words, and you can lie about anything, anyone, anywhere; you can rewrite facts past, present, and future. In other words, human speech allows deceptions to transcend space and time. Dishonesty is truly a feature, not a bug, of our nature.

Jefferson Randolph Smith was a con man who set up the first telegraph office out of Skagway, Alaska. For the price of five dollars, settlers, frontiersmen, and prospectors could send a telegraph message to anyone in the United States. Unsurprisingly, there were lines around the building every day. It was great business—even though the first telegraph wires didn’t actually arrive in Alaska until two years later.

People lined up and paid for over a year to send important messages that went as far as the wall of Smith’s office. So why were people so ready to believe that Smith could send out telegrams just because he said so?

In the absence of evidence, humans tend to believe that whatever we’re presented with is true—be it someone’s name, a random fact, a complex explanation, even something as obvious as the presence of a physical object we see Neurologists refer to this tendency as the “honesty bias,” and it’s how we know almost everything that we know. It’s because of your honesty bias that you don’t automatically wonder if a lamp is a hallucination that only you can see, or suspect that everyone you meet might be lying about their name. If we didn’t lean toward this neurological shortcut, we’d all go insane.

It’s also the single adaptation that has allowed humans to develop speech, literacy, history, science, and civilization itself. You don’t have to discover, confirm, or even understand every fact or idea you learn, because you are biased to just accept them as true and keep climbing. This is the mechanism behind our species’ collective intelligence: To rapidly acquire another’s lifetime of experience or problem-solving for ourselves, all we need to do is ask—and then trust the answer.

So in the long run, we benefit more from the honesty bias than we risk in being overly trusting. Our honesty bias may be exploitable, but it’s also indispensable.

Seeing may be believing, but it really shouldn’t be. Your brain doesn’t actually have the processing power to deal with all of the sensory data available at every second—so, like all gamblers, it cheats. As a result, we often end up seeing what we expect to see.Take shell games; everybody falls for sleight of hand because it exploits several loopholes in perceptual cognition, the ways in which your brain processes and interprets input from your senses. In other words, if you have a normally functioning brain, you literally can’t not fall for it.

3. Lies take advantage of the way we perceive—and construct—reality.

Your visual cortex—the part of the brain that processes electrical signals from the retina and turns them into images in your mind—functions with a 0.1-second delay. So you can’t believe your eyes, because while your eyes may work, your brain is processing everything your eyes pick up about one-tenth of a second behind what’s happening.

Your brain also doesn’t have the bandwidth to process everything you see, so it fills in most of what’s around you with what it expects to be around you. It’s only when something changes radically that your brain notices, and loops back around to see what’s going on.

There are other exploitable neurological loopholes as well—for example, there’s the mirroring effect. Mirroring is when specialized cells in your brain called “mirror neurons” cause you to imitate the gesture, posture, or subtle movements of whomever you’re interacting with. Someone smiles, you smile back. Someone looks up suddenly, you look up too. You assume these are conscious choices, but they’re not—and it’s an incredibly effective way to make people look (or not look) at whatever you want.

In 1898, four Denver reporters from different newspapers went to a bar, got really drunk, and made up a story. They all claimed in their separate papers to have met a team of four American engineers on their way to China. The engineers, they said, told them that they’d been hired to destroy the Great Wall at China’s request. Supposedly this was being done as a gesture of goodwill, and as an invitation to foreign trade.

4. What matters is not if something is true, but if it is believed.

It was a multi-person hoax, and unfortunately, other newspapers picked up the story, and it went viral. Within weeks, a major east coast newspaper did an entire special Sunday spread about the fake destruction of the Great Wall, including elaborate illustrations and further exposition about the Chinese government’s historic plan to end their isolationist policy.

Because this was a respected newspaper, the story quickly spread to Europe, then to Asia, and finally to China, where political tempers were already running high. In fact, this fiction allegedly contributed to the Boxer Rebellion, a destabilizing and violent disaster that hastened the decline of the Qing Dynasty.

The point of this story is not that a single fake news story may have radically altered the course of 20th-century Chinese history—though it did—it’s that the Boxer Rebellion occurred just as it would have had the news been real. The cause may have been fictitious, but it had the same effect as its truthful parallel.

Reality, in other words, is circumstantial. In the greater scheme of things, it matters less whether or not a thing is actually true, but rather whether or not it is believed to be so.

If a whole civilization believes certain objects have power or value, and everyone behaves accordingly, then for all intents and purposes, they do possess that value or power. It may be a lie, but a quality counterfeit object still works precisely the same way the real object would—for exactly as long as it is believed to be authentic. And if a thing only needs to be believed in to be effective, then that begs the question: Was there ever anything to value or authority other than belief in the first place?

5. Nothing is entirely real.

The rule of law, the value of diamonds, the existence of the economy—when we all agree to believe certain things, those things become real. Take paper money—it’s just paper, but as long as we all agree to believe in it together, it has value. It takes on the weight of reality.

Why we lie and how we believe are so inextricably intertwined that there can be no faith without fraud, no truth without lies, no civilization without cons. Whether they’re the lies we tell each other, or the subtler and more complicated lies we tell ourselves, deceit and belief are two halves of one whole. One can’t exist without the other, and society can’t function without both.

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit 

Scientist and historian Aja Raden untangles the complex relationship of truth to lie, belief to faith, and deception to propaganda.

history

History

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43212922-our-wild-calling">Our Wild Calling </a>  delves into the subject of our lost sense of identity in relation to the natural world and all the living things that surround us, such as plants and animals, and aims to address the need of reconnecting with our wild side.

Our Wild Calling - Book 

"Poems are constricted not only with words but also from the spaces between the words. This is true for our relationships with other people, and it is also true for our connection to other animals l."-Richard Louv

Author Quote 

If you have a feeling that something’s missing from your life, yet can’t really put a finger on it, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43212922-our-wild-calling">Our Wild Calling: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives—and Save Theirs </a>by <a href="https://richardlouv.com/">Richard Louv </a>might be the book for you.  The author addresses the urge all humans have to reconnect with nature and its earthlings, an urge often repressed in today’s society.  The beauty behind reconnecting with the natural world lies within our native inclination to gravitate towards our rawest, purest form. By doing so, we improve our self-awareness and become more grounded.

Book Overv

Plus, the benefits that arise from spending more time in nature go far beyond improved health, including a sense of reconnection with oneself and a clearer, more peaceful mind.

<ol><li>Connecting with animals can help us tame loneliness.  </li><li>Humans are quite similar to animals, sharing common motivators.  </li><li>Our planet needs us just as much as we need it, so it’s our duty to protect it. </li> </ol>

Top 3 Book Ideas

Animals are a God-given gift to our planet. Everything about them is remarkable if you allow yourself to notice it and immerse yourself in their beauty. As the author suggests, in order to reconnect with nature and your wild side, you must connect yourself to animals first.  As such, make sure to take a day off and explore your natural surroundings. How? Let me explain! Once you step foot in nature, detach yourself from all your thoughts and worries, and simply focus on whatever you see.

Lesson 1: Notice the beauty of animals and connect with them

Whether there’s a group of squirrels around you, a fox, a small lizard, or any animal at all, just explore their beauty, look for inspiration in their little routines, and try to connect with them. You can talk, follow, play with them, or do whatever makes you happy when you’re around them.  The connection humans have with animals goes <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/the-four-agreements-summary/">way back to ancestral times </a>. Our co-dependence existed from the beginning when our species would live together and share common practices. The fondness we have towards them is extremely powerful and lasts to our days.

Just look at all pet owners who consider their little animals like their family members. It’s only natural for us to form connections with other species, so in order to live a healthier and happier life, take some time to connect with them.

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher in the seventeenth century. Although he discovered some brilliant philosophical facts, he also came up with <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/descartes-error-summary/">a rather disappointing concept </a>– that animals were resources to exploit for the development of humans, and they exist to serve humans such as robots.  Naturally, the convenience of this idea was enough to make everyone adopt this philosophy. Since then, people alienated themselves from animals more and more, creating a society based on consumption and making us lose <a href="https://fourminutebooks.com/feral-summary/">our sense of connectivity with them </a>.

Lesson 2:  Humans and animals resemble each other in many ways.

However, recent studies suggest that humans and animals are more similar than we might’ve thought. Dogs, for example, are social animals, just like us. They crave a sense of belongingness and live well in communities.  We also share similar motivators with animals. Moreover, we have a shared sense of identity that makes our encounters feel natural and happy, and if we see that an animal is hurting, we feel for them.

If we manage to once again let humans and animals coexist and contribute to each other’s happiness, we’ll be one step closer to becoming more grounded and fulfilled.

Not all change has to be groundbreaking and monumental. Sometimes a small act of kindness and consideration can improve everything around us. Think of a bird that can get trapped in a plastic foil and die or a turtle that may get caught up in other types of residue.  However, if we pay more attention to our planet and clear our waste whenever we get a chance, we might be one step closer to saving the world.

Lesson 3:  Help the environment by protecting it

Nowadays, people seem to be too interested in profits, and forget about the bigger picture: this planet is our only home, and if we don’t maintain it, there’s not going to be another one waiting for us.  Therefore, we must mobilize ourselves and educate our communities to reduce waste, recycle, and nurture our fauna. With a little bit of empathy and a strong sense of responsibility, we can bring the necessary change to our society.

The ecophilosopher Glenn Albrecht developed a concept named solophilia, which implies that if we help our environment and take care of our animals, we’ll help ourselves.  This philosophy proves how a series of actions can dictate our quality of life on this planet, so it’s truly up to each and every one of us to take action and do away with the detrimental actions we make every day.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43212922-our-wild-calling">Our Wild Calling </a>highlights the importance of having a connection with nature, animals, and all earthlings in general. By reconnecting with our roots in the natural world, something remarkable clicks in our brain, which in turn makes us feel less stressed, less anxious, and more grounded.  This book will teach you how to observe the beauty of nature, recall your wild side, and connect with the world as it is – raw, healing, and eternal. Frankly, this is a must-read for every modern, busy human stuck in the digital era, and not only.

Our Wild Calling - Book Review

The 30-year-old office worker who feels like they’re spending too much time inside their walls, the 24-year-old person who wants to connect with nature on a deeper level, and anyone approaching retirement, which they’d like to use to spend more time outside.

Who would I recommend the Our Wild Callingto?

Read our summary of Our Wild Calling by Richard Louv to rediscover the magical connection we have with animals.

health

Health

meditation

Meditation

Our Wild Calling Summary

Find  Self Improvement Tips - Curated from popular Books like Atomic Habits, 48 Rules of Power, Deep Work, Rich Dad Poor Dad and way more!

3 stoic rules for productivity.

Learned Optimism Summary

The Feynman Technique: How to Learn Anything Faster!

The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed

Inspirational Movie Quotes That Could Change Your Life

5 Things You Can Learn About Someone Just By Looking Them In The Eye

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

Our Wild Calling Summary

The Daily Laws Summary

How To Overcome Depression And Live A Happy Life

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

3 stoic rules for productivity.

Learned Optimism Summary

The Feynman Technique: How to Learn Anything Faster!

The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed

Inspirational Movie Quotes That Could Change Your Life

5 Things You Can Learn About Someone Just By Looking Them In The Eye

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

Our Wild Calling Summary

The Daily Laws Summary

How To Overcome Depression And Live A Happy Life

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.