Dreading the future, or anticipatory fear, is quite common and can be quite debilitating in extreme cases. People struggle with anticipatory fear when they worry about the outcome of a future event they have never experienced before.It can also be linked to the intolerance of uncertainty which leads to indecisiveness and an increased likelihood of constant comparison. Thus, people tend to overthink the possible outcomes of their decisions.

Past negative experiences can make people feel worried that the same series of events will line up allowing the past to recreate itself.

Prior Painful Experiences

When the anticipatory fear is rooted in a past event or experience, it is often associated with dread, which can be physiologically intense and frequently associated with something ominous or traumatic in nature. Some form of trauma is often at the root of a dread response.

A study says that, if you're experiencing high levels of anticipatory fear, protective responses can lead to being unable to think clearly, being afraid to leave the house, or even being afraid of most social interactions.

Protective Responses

1. Practice Mindfulness Research has shown that mindfulness can improve emotion regulation, which is incredibly helpful in reducing stress.2. Repeat MantrasYou can repeat things like:<ul><li>I am safe</li><li>It's gonna be alright </li><li>All is well </li></ul>Saying things like this to yourself can be helpful as your search for a long-term solution.

Ways to Fight Anticipatory Fear

3. Exercise Exercising can help keep you in the present moment. This way you are forced to think about the task at hand rather than worry about the future.4. Keep a journal ﻿Keeping a journal can help you fight off hindsight bias, which is when you get caught up thinking that you had better control of past events.

Whether you have found yourself experiencing anticipatory fear as a result of past traumas or for another reason altogether, it is important to find a therapist who can help you. Specifically, it would be helpful to seek out a therapist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety, trauma, and PTSD.

5. Seeking a therapist 

It is completely normal to fear the future, but definitely take note if your fears are starting to take up a lot of your mental space. It's also important to notice if your actions are being impacted by your concerns. That said, hopefully, you can rest a little easier knowing that there are ways to get help and to move past these fears.

It happens to me..always! But it's normal, yeah. 🥲

If you the future and find yourself feeling fearful or anxious from those thoughts, you may have a fear of the future. Here are some tips to help you address your fears.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

mentalhealth

Mental Health

communication

Communication

Future Fears 

There is the great difference between what is effective and what is efficient as most of the people tend to confuse them and use them interchangeably in their perspective teams.

Effective vs Efficient

The term "Efficient" simply means doing things right. Simply note that you have to be perfect in what you are doing. This may be moving faster with your activities, either accomplishing more with few resources, or anything associated with a perfect thing.

Efficient

This term "Effective" means that you have to do what is right. In our everyday life, we make decisions and not always we make a better choice but what we consider must consider is if our actions are the best choice we should have made.

Effective

The summation of the two in the team will only result to the best of your team's achievements as well as you will have to do right things right and that is what every team leader and team member shall be proud of.

Effective + Efficient

Some people always use the two terms interchangeably and it is time we do the right things right starting with our communication.

teamwork

Teamwork

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Efficiency vs. effectiveness in business: Why your team needs both

Making a to-do list is an old yet effective way to manage time and be more productive. Pretty much everybody makes to-do lists nowadays. However, just making to-do lists isn’t going to help you, unless you avoid these pitfalls:Assigning too many tasks: It’s better to write the three most important items you want to accomplish that day.Make a to-do list in the morning: Don’t waste your morning energy on thinking ‘what I should do today?’. Instead, writing down your to-dos in the evening is much better.

1. Making Ineffective To-Do Lists:

2. Not Prioritizing:When you have a pile of tasks on your hands, and you don’t prioritize them, you will surely accomplish some of your tasks by the evening .However, by the end of the day, you will realize that although you did accomplish some simple tasks like replying to a client's email. But in the thick of these trivial tasks, you missed some urgent and important ones e.g. a deadline.That’s why it is necessary to prioritize your tasks in the order of their importance. So your most important tasks don’t get buried under the unimportant ones. Moreover, eliminate some unnecessary tasks altog<warningtag>ether</warningtag>

2. Not Prioritizing:

In this day and age of digital technologies, multitasking has become a default habit. But focusing on a single task is a much better approach than switching between the tasks. Because, if you multitask, what you will get by the end of the day, is a few partially completed tasks.When you constantly shift from one task to another, you are more prone to making mistakes. Moreover, multitasking slows you down because you are focusing on many tasks at a time.It is better to be a single-tasker than to be a multi-tasker.

3. Multitasking:

Social media is good for networking, and email is good for business. But we all know that constant checking of social media and emails throughout the day becomes a great distraction.When you are working on a difficult task, scrolling Twitter seems to be the perfect 5-minute break. But this 5-minute break soon turns into a 30-minute of doom-scroll. After which, you not only have wasted 30 minutes but also the motivation and energy to complete your task.The best approach is to schedule 20-minute time blocks for using social media and email, maybe twice or thrice a day.

4 . Checking Social Media & Email Through Out The Day:

If you found this article helpful  kindly follow my Medium.com profile for such tips and tricks.You can follow me at:<a href="https://medium.com/@maaz.zulf">https://medium.com/@maaz.zulf</a>

For More Such Tips

We read and watch a lot about productivity and time management these days. We also have a lot of productivity tools and apps at our disposal. However, it is important to get familiar with the basic mistakes that we might be committing while considering ourselves to be productive.

We read and watch a lot about productivity and time management these days. We also have a lot of productivity tools and apps at our disposal. However, it is important to get familiar with the basic…

productivity

Productivity

problemsolving

Problem Solving

timemanagement

Time Management

4 Common Mistakes That Ruin Your Productivity

Its the actions of an Individual that decides their destiny. So, what successful people do? What are the things that let them standout?Here are 5 things that all successful people have in common according to the speaker and his studies of strategies of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanakya">Chanakya</a>

What Success people do?

Successful people are readers. These people read a lot, they reflect the ideas and even discuss them with other. So, be a good reader and never be shy on telling or discussing the ides you have learned.

1. Reading

Not All Readers Are Leaders, But All Leaders Are Readers.

Successful people write a lot. These people are always ready to jot down thing they have learned, read and their personal thoughts.It's scientifically proven that we learn and remember things much more faster and for longer if we write them.

2. Writing

Successful people are admirable at time management. They do multiple things in their life but focus on only one thing at time.They try to manage and plan every seconds.When you manage seconds, you manage minutes. When you manage minutes, you manage hours. When you manage hours, you manage a whole day and when you manage day you manage years and even your entire life.

3. Time Management

People often complain about lack of time, when lack of direction is the real problem.

They choose their friends and people they would spend time with, wisely. They will be friendly and interactive to everybody but they are also aware that from which group they really belong to.Always try to be with people who are better than you. The moment you will do this, you will subconsciously manifest the way of thinking that they have.

4. Being in the right Company

If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.

It not always that they are leaders but they always and think like a leader and take action accordingly. They have that unflinching faith on themself that they can accomplish anything. They have a clear picture and a solid plan in their head about you end result. And they work very hard with right strategy to reach their destination.Be selfless. A leader is someone who is always in the quest of finding ways to serve other in whatever best way possible.

5. Leader

In the happiness of his subject lies the king’s happiness ; in there welfare his welfare . He shell not consider as a good only that which pleases him treat as beneficial to him whatever pleases his subject.

By practicing these fundamental things one can become successful.

Conclusion

⭐👇 Do You Have Big Dreams & Want To Succeed In Life? 👇⭐ Josh wants to help you achieve these dreams with our brand new Josh Skills App .🙌 DOWNLOAD NOW: https://joshskills.app.link/PqZuf24Qnab With 50+ courses on topics like Digital Marketing, Personality Development, Time Management & Personal Finance - you can learn from the top most experts of every domain - at the cost of a mobile recharge only! 😮 Use the app, and get ahead in your life - use coupon code JOSHYTE for 10% discount on all courses! Chanakya Niti gives a sense of direction and clarity which helps a person to think through and act. On the journey of being an entrepreneur, Arthashashtra viz. Chanakya Niti can be a catalyst which may help to actualize the goals. We might not have a Chanakya for ourselves but his words shall forever be our guide. In his Josh Talk, Radhakrishnan Pillai talks about the leadership lessons that one can learn from the knowledge that was imparted by Chanakya more than 2000 years ago. He talks about how Chanakya Neeti can shape a person's orientation to watch the world, and how it can inculcate a completely new vision to observe the world with the help of just 5 Lessons. These 5 Lessons can help anyone to have a leader like qualities in them, which can eventually make them successful. Radhakrishnan Pillai from the University of Mumbai, Department of Philosophy is the founder-director of Chanakya Institute of Public leadership (CIPL), a leadership academy which trains political leaders and aspirants. With nearly 20 years of combined working and business experience, he is a well-known management speaker, trainer, author, and consultant. His first book ‘Corporate Chanakya’ has been on the “best-seller” list since its launch in 2010 and used as a textbook in various Business schools in India and abroad. His second book ‘Chanakya’s 7 Secrets of Leadership’ along with Mr. D. Sivanandhan created waves in the corporate world. He has been awarded the prestigious Sardar Patel International award 2009 and Aavishkar Chanakya Innovation Research Award 2013 for his research and contribution in the field of management & Industrial development. He is rated among the top 50 management thinkers from India by the global organization Thinkers50. Watch this Josh Talk to know how the new age budding entrepreneurs can learn the leadership lessons from Chanakya. How his Chanakya Niti can help leaders of today and tomorrow to gain leadership skills, maintain leader like qualities and become successful in life. This talk was recorded at Josh Talks Mumbai 2018. Josh Talks collects and curates the most inspiring stories of India and provides a platform to showcase them. Speakers from diverse backgrounds are invited to share their stories, highlighting the challenges they overcame, on their journey to success and realizing their true calling. ► SUBSCRIBE to our Incredible Stories, press the red button ⬆️ ► Say hello on FB: https://www.facebook.com/JoshTalksLive ► Tweet with us: https://www.twitter.com/JoshTalksLive ► Instagrammers: https://www.instagram.com/JoshTalksLive ► Josh Talks is in your city soon: https://events.joshtalks.com

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

habits

Habits

⭐👇 Do You Have Big Dreams & Want To Succeed In Life? 👇⭐
Josh wants to help you achieve these dreams with our brand new Josh Skills App .🙌
DOWNLOAD NOW: https://joshskills.app.link/PqZuf24Qnab
With 50+ courses on topics like Digital Marketing, Personality Development, Time Management & Personal Finance - you can learn from the top most experts of every domain - at the cost of a mobile recharge only! 😮
Use the app, and get ahead in your life - use coupon code JOSHYTE for 10% discount on all courses!

Chanakya Niti gives a sense of direction and clarity which helps a person to think through and act. On the journey of being an entrepreneur, Arthashashtra viz. Chanakya Niti can be a catalyst which may help to actualize the goals. We might not have a Chanakya for ourselves but his words shall forever be our guide. 

In his Josh Talk, Radhakrishnan Pillai talks about the leadership lessons that one can learn from the knowledge that was imparted by Chanakya more than 2000 years ago. He talks about how Chanakya Neeti can shape a person's orientation to watch the world, and how it can inculcate a completely new vision to observe the world with the help of just 5 Lessons. These 5 Lessons can help anyone to have a leader like qualities in them, which can eventually make them successful.

Radhakrishnan Pillai from the University of Mumbai, Department of Philosophy is the founder-director of Chanakya Institute of Public leadership (CIPL), a leadership academy which trains political leaders and aspirants. With nearly 20 years of combined working and business experience, he is a well-known management speaker, trainer, author, and consultant. His first book ‘Corporate Chanakya’ has been on the “best-seller” list since its launch in 2010 and used as a textbook in various Business schools in India and abroad. His second book ‘Chanakya’s 7 Secrets of Leadership’ along with Mr. D. Sivanandhan created waves in the corporate world. He has been awarded the prestigious Sardar Patel International award 2009 and Aavishkar Chanakya Innovation Research Award 2013 for his research and contribution in the field of management & Industrial development. He is rated among the top 50 management thinkers from India by the global organization Thinkers50. 

Watch this Josh Talk to know how the new age budding entrepreneurs can learn the leadership lessons from Chanakya. How his Chanakya Niti can help leaders of today and tomorrow to gain leadership skills, maintain leader like qualities and become successful in life.

This talk was recorded at Josh Talks Mumbai 2018.

Josh Talks collects and curates the most inspiring stories of India and provides a platform to showcase them. Speakers from diverse backgrounds are invited to share their stories, highlighting the challenges they overcame, on their journey to success and realizing their true calling. 

► SUBSCRIBE to our Incredible Stories, press the red button ⬆️
► Say hello on FB: https://www.facebook.com/JoshTalksLive
► Tweet with us: https://www.twitter.com/JoshTalksLive
► Instagrammers: https://www.instagram.com/JoshTalksLive
► Josh Talks is in your city soon: https://events.joshtalks.com

1+ Billion Views | 10 Languages | 13,50,000+ Downloads
Inspiring, Informing, Upskilling

“If you want to do something big in life, all you need is Josh”
With this thought an idea was born, to share and celebrate the most incredible stories of Bharat and ignite power inside each one of us. 
Josh Talks is this thought. 

Josh Talks is a platform where we share beautiful stories of role models; of people who come into our lives in the form of an elder brother and sister- sometimes as stories that show us the bright side of the world, sometimes as faces that we love and look up to and sometimes as skills that bring the better of us. 

So let’s fill ourselves with Josh and keep moving forward in our lives.
If you know of someone who has attained success because of their hard work and determination and are role models for people, share their stories on speaker@joshtalks.com

Part of The Josh Group.


Josh Talks

Chanakya Neeti For A Successful Life | Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai | Josh Talks

New plan: Think about what makes you specialLots of us have a friend who posts perfect craft projects (“Nailed it!”) or know a fellow parent who never misses a kid’s game, but dwelling on where you fall short isn’t helpful. “By learning to focus on ourselves instead of others, we can decrease our stress and anxiety, increase our happiness and self-esteem, and live a more purposeful and authentic life,” says Renee Exelbert, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and an adjunct professor at New York University.

1. Comparing yourself with people around you

Shouldering responsibility for everythingNew plan: Delegate—even if it doesn’t seem worth itWhether you’re handling a big project at work or planning a family reunion, it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing most of the work to be sure the end result is perfect. “We go through life as if we’re responsible for every outcome we experience,” says Amy Johnson, Ph.D., author of The Little Book of Big Change. “We fail to recognize just how much happens effortlessly.” Letting other people pick up the slack will lower your stress, and you may be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

2. Shouldering responsibility for everything

New plan: Notice who comes throughIt’s hard to forget friends who didn’t visit when you were laid up or failed to attend an event you hosted. “This ‘injustice collecting’ causes us to see the glass as half empty versus half full,” Exelbert says. “Embrace gratitude for those who do show up. It increases our happiness, improves social relationships and self-esteem, and increases our longevity.” Try starting a gratitude journal: Every day, write a few sentences about something you’re thankful for.

3. Tracking who disappoints you

New plan: Take intentional breaksLeave your phone out of the picture when you’re with friends and family, even if you’re just digging into takeout food on the couch. “We simply can’t focus after so much online time; this practice shortens our attention span,” says Lori Whatley, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and the author of Connected & Engaged. Plus, she adds, “too much social media use has been connected to depression and anxiety.” One thing that will help: practicing mindfulness. If you’re new to the idea, try a meditation guide or an app like Headspace. Stay in the present moment

4. Constantly checking your phone

Shopping for happinessNew plan: Revel in nonmaterial joys and experiences“So much of our energy is spent chasing [physical] things we think will make us happy,” says Johnson. “The next vacation, losing a few pounds—they never lead to lasting happiness.” She says humans evolved to “recalibrate” quickly after events, so the happiness boost triggered by things outside of ourselves fades fast. Teaching a niece how to read, having adventures with friends—intangibles like these give us real warm fuzzies.

5. Shopping for happiness

OverthinkingNew plan: Focus on what you can controlThousands of years ago, the practice of turning stuff over in our minds kept us from repeating dangerous mistakes, says psychiatrist Mimi Winsberg, M.D. These days, overthinking can lead us to agonize over mundane things like the wording of an email or events beyond our control. To prevent spiraling, decide whether you’re obsessing about something you can actually change. If so, allot a certain amount of time to taking action, then distract yourself with an activity like a movie or exercise.

6. Overthinking

New plan: Loosen your grip and let it goEven if you know that your coworker purposely leaves you off happy hour invites or that a neighbor spoke ill of you, revisiting these complaints hurts only you. “Holding on to anger and repressing angry feelings may increase blood pressure and the risk of coronary heart disease,” Exelbert says. “Forgiveness can lead to healthier relationships and improved mental health.” Consider where the other person was coming from (maybe your coworker feels insecure about their work performance or your neighbor has been stressed by caregiving duties).

7. Holding on to a grievance

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

7 Unhelpful Habits Everyone Should Quit

We are told that if we do not have an ambition in our life, we our missing the most important thing in our life, which is opportunity.Many of us don't understand ambition; those who do are thriving and those who believed they understand it but didn't struggle in their life.

<ol><li>Your ambition is not equal to your desires.- A desire could be earning a million dollars, but an ambition cannot be equal to your desire because desire is just a milestone, it doesn't make you happy. Your ambition should be such that your desires become a by-product of it. Like becoming a wealthy person and being independent could be your ambition and it will make your desire achieved.</li><li>Your ambition will change.- As you age, you realize this that your ambition is bound to change. Those who think its rigid, lead a painful life. If you are young, you must know that your ambition will change.</li></ol>

Understanding Your Ambition

3  Your ambition needs to match the opportunities that you sit on.- If your ambition does not match your availed opportunities then it is the opportunities that need to be worked upon, not your ambition. You set your mechanism to set opportunities in our life. The best thing you can do for your life is to create an opportunity engine. You must route your wanted opportunities to yourself.

I wanted to talk about something we are told we should all have our lives: ambition. While there's a lot of talk about it, but we don't truly understand it or how it works through the ages. It's often pegged to something false or not very foundational.

Woice is the official podcast of Ankur Warikoo, where he talks about entrepreneurship, startups, careers and personal growth. Warikoo has been creating video content for the past 4 years across all social media platforms and has a following of 1.7Mn people. Through Woice, he brings his decade long experience as an entrepreneur, as the founder of nearbuy.com, as a public speaker and as an active student of life, risk and failure.  Millions of listeners seek out Bingepods (Ideabrew Studios Network content) every day. Get in touch with us to advertise, join the network or click listen to  enjoy content by some of India's top audio creators.studio@ideabrews.com Android | Apple

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Understanding your ambition

What we think we know is what we believe we know.

Psychologist, B.F. Skinner put a pigeon in a box and gave it food at regular intervals irrespective of what it was doing. He noticed that the pigeons believed that they were given food because of what they are doing; like hopping around etc.This behavior was called as 'superstitious belief' by Skinner.

Skinner box

Here, Michael made a room with checkerboard tiles on the floor and a button in the middle of the room kept at a table. He also made a money outlet (like the food outlet in original skinner box) from which 1 dollar bills would come out. The people (pigeons) were told that their aim is to collect as much bills as they can in 10 minutes. Michael sent them each bill after 30 seconds BUT people thought that they are causing the bills to come. For example, a woman thought that her opening and closing of the door led by pressing of the button was causing the bill to come.

Human Skinner Box

some people thought that dancing would urge the machine to give bills. A lady thought that pushing the button 4 times, then going out and coming in to the room was causing it, some made the producers laugh. But there was this one man who just stood there and didn't push the button at all, in fact, he resisted it. This thought of thinking that your actions are not affecting the money was called 'extinction' by Skinner. When he was asked about it in the interview, he said that he had thought that what would others not do. so he decided to do a different thing- do nothing.

Here they will be trying to feel the person that they have induced a spirit in them. That's why it's reverse exorcism.A clinic with dim lights with religious and scientific symbols here and there. People sat down on the bed, a doctor entered told that they will be facing reverse exorcism. A priest entered, holding Christ entered with his "ancient" book. They attached a brain-activity-checking machine to their head. The doctor, not the priest, started reading the things from the book like 'relax yourself, you may see a cut head or your mouth would start tweaking or fingers tinkling".

Reverse Exorcism

There was lady who said that she saw her deceased mother, she heard an angel say "Come, we can relieve you." She continued to watch wings. She could feel the winds and said that the dream was vivid.

Observation

<ul><li>We are belief-machines. We are patter seekers.</li><li>When confronted with uncertainty, people often behave superstitiously. Under the belief that they do have control.</li><li>To not form a superstition about the word around us makes us powerless.</li><li>Are we all fools?</li></ul>

Conclusions

How can a lie become true? In this episode, Dr. Aaron Blaisdell and I create a game show that is actually a giant “human Skinner Box” to observe the formation of superstitious beliefs. And Dr. Samuel Veissière helps me design and perform a placebo reverse exorcism, harnessing the power of belief in both science and religion to convince normal people that a spirit has possessed their bodies. Available with YouTube Premium - https://www.youtube.com/premium/originals. To see if Premium is available in your country, click here: https://goo.gl/A3HtfP

How can a lie become true? In this episode, Dr. Aaron Blaisdell and I create a game show that is actually a giant “human Skinner Box” to observe the formation of superstitious beliefs. And Dr. Samuel Veissière helps me design and perform a placebo reverse exorcism, harnessing the power of belief in both science and religion to convince normal people that a spirit has possessed their bodies.

Available with YouTube Premium - https://www.youtube.com/premium/originals. To see if Premium is available in your country, click here: https://goo.gl/A3HtfP

Our World is Amazing. 

Questions? Ideas? Tweet me: http://www.twitter.com/tweetsauce

Vsauce was created by Michael Stevens in the summer of 2010.

Vsauce is...

Michael Stevens: Producer/Host of Vsauce1
Kevin Lieber: Producer/Host of Vsauce2
Jake Roper: Producer/Host of Vsauce3
Eric Langlay: VFX for Vsauce1/2/3
You: Thanks for watching!!!

Vsauce

Behavior and Belief

'While we wait for life, life passes.'

I see this problem in a lot of people, including me. Either being overly picky or just hesitant and fearful to make progress or moves. A lot of people recognise signs and opportunities that are staring at us, right in front of our faces, but we attempt to seize them when they have just drifted out of our reach. Why?

Seize The Day

If you, currently reading this, struggle to make decisions and be assertive, it may be because of reasons such as:<ul><li>There may be a lot of responsibility put onto you and you may feel intimidated</li><li>You may want everything to be perfect and not have to suffer the consequences of making a mistake</li><li>You don't want to make the wrong decision</li></ul>This is completely normal. I'll be diving into each and I'll hopefully be able to provide some of you with some meaningful advice .

Indecisiveness

I have this fear a lot, being indecisive because there's a lot of responsibility and pressure on you. The truth is, with every thing you do, this is going to be the case, an action can change your life no matter how small it is.My point is you have to feel this responsibility, not only will it shape you into a better person overall, it will teach you about leadership and how to manage emotions such as stress.Let's say however, you make a bad decision that impacts you or those around you negatively, mistakes happen and they're apart of life but the key is learning, adapting and moving forward.

Responsibility 

A lot of my points are going to lead to similar things as the whole subject relates. Some of us naturally tend to want everything to be perfect, to make no mistakes and have everything already set without any work or effort.Mistakes are okay. But are they really mistakes?The way you perceive events makes a huge difference. E.G. you can dwell on negative thoughts or take just one thing from your 'mistakes' and turn them into successes.My point is, perfection is impossible, never fail to seize something with the fear of not doing things right. That's what Learning is for.

Perfectionism

Similar to what I said earlier, let's say you made a bad decision, now what?It most likely won't be as bad as you think, there's many ways around it, for example:<ul><li>You can take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again</li><li>You gain experience and knowledge </li><li>You'll be way better equipped in the future</li><li>Most importantly, you'll grow as a person.</li></ul>

Learning, Adapting And Moving Forward

At the end of the day, it's important to not be so hard on yourself, going back to the quote we can't sit back and be passive, if you see an opportunity, take it. If it doesn't go well then so what? You try again. The main message is to get up and do something great, whether it's today, tomorrow or in a few months, take action because time isn't infinite.Good luck and it's time to stop being passive!

The Message

I felt like I should speak about this since I'm trying to combat it myself, I hope this is useful to at least one person.

Helping You To Solve Indecisiveness 

Our default understanding of the word ritual is misleading. Ritual is not about meticulously obeying stale old rules. Instead, Confucius taught life as a ritual, transforming everyday actions into sacred activities. Ritual governs our greetings and conversations. If you submit to ritual and practise it, then it can change your life for the better.

Ritual is not about stale traditionalism

Treat all contexts as sacred spaces with their own rhythms and patterns. For example, driving a car is not a time to check your phone. Hiking is not the time to scroll on your phone. When you start treating your contexts with the reverence they deserve and submit to their rituals, it becomes effortless to resist the pull of your phone.

Ritual is about reverence

Habits (good and bad) are effortless and cultivated through repetition. But habits are hard to change. A ritual is more like improvising music or an athletic performance. It means adjusting to different conditions. Confucian ritual is similarly flexible. It depends on the awareness of the relevant factors in a situation. For example, someone who submits to a ritual does not shake hands out of habit but because it is the proper thing to do in that context at that time.

Everything is ritual

<ul><li>Habits leave no room for asking questions. </li><li>Ritual governs all behaviour in all contexts. The right ritual in a situation is only possible when you learn to ask questions. You won't be able to live harmoniously if you do not understand why you should act in a certain way.</li></ul> Studying the classics is uniquely helpful with rituals.<ol><li>Classics contain time-tested life wisdom.</li><li>Sacred texts, folk tales and fairy tales, nursery rhymes and proverbs are woven into the fabric of our lives and the organisation of our communities.</li></ol>

Ritual differs from habit

"Fake it until you make it’ suggests that performing the right action will eventually lead to the right mindset or intentions. The underlying assumption is that the rightness of an action is separate from the character of the person doing it. How﻿ever, a ritual cannot be performed insincerely. A fake ritual is not a ritual at all, no matter how much it looks like one. For example, pretending to love another human won't work, because 'loving' means doing it for real. You may know when laughter is appropriate, but if you fake it, the ritual will fail.

You can’t fake it until you make it

For a life of harmonious ease, find the rhythm in the everyday: make your world your temple and submit to its sacred ritual

How to set yourself free with ritual | Psyche Guides

Why are we always in such a rush? What is the cure for time-sickness? Is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down?

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

It is a Western disease to make time finite, and then impose speed on all aspects of life.Despite what people think, the discussion about speed is never really about the current state of technology. It goes much deeper than that, it goes back to the human desire for transcendence … It’s hard to think about the fact that we’re going to die; it’s unpleasant, so we constantly seek ways to distract ourselves from the awareness of our own mortality. Speed, with the sensory rush it gives, is one strategy for distraction.

The Problem With Speed

Reading implies time for reflection, a slowing-down that destroys the mass’s dynamic efficiency.

The world is still straining to do everything faster—and paying a heavy price for it. The toll taken by the hurry-up culture is well documented. We are driving the planet and ourselves towards burnout. We are so time-poor and time-sick that we neglect our friends, families and partners. We barely know how to enjoy things any more because we are always looking ahead to the next thing. Much of the food we eat is bland and unhealthy. With our children caught up in the same hailstorm of hurry, the future looks bleak.

The World Is Speeding Up

All the things that bind us together and make life worth living—community, family, friendship—thrive on the one thing we never have enough of: Time.Time is getting away, that there isn’t enough of it, and you must pedal faster and faster to keep up. These days, the whole world is time-sick. We all belong to the same cult of speed.Time-sickness can also be a symptom of a deeper, existential malaise. In the final stages before burnout, people often speed up to avoid confronting their unhappiness.

Time Sickness

Inevitably, a life of hurry can become superficial. When we rush, we skim the surface, and fail to make real connections with the world or other people.We have forgotten how to look forward to things, and how to enjoy the moment when they arrive.In this social media-drenched, data-rich, computer-gaming age, we have lost the art of doing nothing, of shutting out the background noise and distractions, of slowing down and simply being alone with our thoughts.

A Superficial Life

If we are ever going to slow down, we must understand why we accelerated in the first place, why the world got so revved up, so tightly scheduled. And to do that, we need to start at the very beginning, by looking at our relationship with time itself. Ancient civilizations used calendars to work out when to plant and harvest crops. Right from the start, though, timekeeping proved to be a double-edged sword. On the upside, scheduling can make anyone, from peasant farmer to software engineer, more efficient. Soon enough, the tables turn, and time takes over. We become slaves to the schedule.

Our Relationship With Time

As the clock tightened its grip and technology made it possible to do everything more quickly, hurry and haste seeped into every corner of life. People were expected to think faster, work faster, talk faster, read faster, write faster, eat faster, and move faster.The result is a gnawing disconnect between what we want from life and what we can realistically have, which feeds the sense that there is never enough time.

The Clock

Part of the problem may lie in the way we think about time itself. In Chinese, Hindu and Buddhist traditions, time is cyclical. On Canada’s Baffin Island, the Inuit use the same word—uvatiarru—to mean both ‘in the distant past’ and ‘in the distant future.’ The Hindu word kal means both yesterday and tomorrow.Time, in such cultures, is always coming as well as going. It is constantly around us, renewing itself, like the air we breathe.In the Western tradition, time is linear, an arrow flying remorselessly from A to B. It is a finite, and therefore precious, resource.

Time Is Actually Cyclical

Fast and Slow do more than just describe a rate of change.  Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried, analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient and jumpy.Slow is the opposite: calm, careful, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity. It is about making real and meaningful connections—with people, culture, work, food, everything. The paradox is that Slow does not always mean slow. As we shall see, performing a task in a Slow manner often yields faster results. It is also possible to do things quickly while maintaining a Slow frame of mind.

The Two Different Frame Rates Of Life

Speed has helped to remake our world in ways that are wonderful and liberating. Who wants to live without the Internet or jet travel? The problem is that our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far; it has turned into an addiction, a kind of idolatry.  Falling behind at work? Get a quicker Internet connection. No time for that novel you got at Christmas? Learn to speed-read. Diet not working? Try liposuction. Too busy to cook? Buy a microwave. And yet some things cannot, should not, be sped up. They take time; they need slowness.

The Addiction Of Speed

When you accelerate things that should not be accelerated, when you forget how to slow down, there is a price to pay.

Instead of doing everything faster, many people are decelerating, and finding that Slowness helps them to live, work, think and play better. But is the Slow movement really a movement? It certainly has all the ingredients that academics look for—popular sympathy, a blueprint for a new way of life, grassroots action. True, the Slow movement has no formal structure and still suffers from low brand recognition. Many people slow down—working fewer hours, say, or finding time to cook—without feeling part of a global crusade. Yet every act of deceleration is grist to the mill.

Put Your Feet Off The Gas

Many recommend doing fewer things in order to do them better, a core tenet of the Slow philosophy … The twenty-four-hour society is not intrinsically evil. If we approach it in a Slow spirit—doing fewer things, with less hurry—it can give us the flexibility we need to decelerate … Slower, it turns out, often means better—better health, better work, better business, better family life, better exercise, better cuisine and better sex.

Less But Better

The Slow movement is still taking shape. It has no central headquarters or website, no single leader, and no political party to carry its message. Many people decide to slow down without ever feeling part of a cultural trend, let alone a global crusade. What matters, though, is that a growing minority is choosing slowness over speed. Every act of deceleration gives another push to the Slow movement.

The Invisible Movement

To roll back the fast-food tsunami sweeping across the planet, Carlo Petrini, a charismatic culinary writer, launched Slow Food. As the name suggests, the movement stands for everything that McDonald’s does not: fresh, local, seasonal produce; recipes handed down through the generations; sustainable farming; artisanal production; leisurely dining with family and friends. Slow Food also preaches ‘eco-gastronomy’—the notion that eating well can, and should, go hand in hand with protecting the environment.

No To McDonalds: Slow Food

Many find that slowing down has a spiritual dimension. But many others do not. The Slow movement is broad enough to accommodate both. In any case, the gap between the two may not be as wide as it seems. The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections—with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds. Some call that living better. Others would describe it as spiritual.

The Spiritual Side Of Slowing Down

In the war against the cult of speed, the front line is inside our heads. Acceleration will remain our default setting until attitudes change. But changing what we think is just the beginning. If the Slow movement is really to take root, we have to go deeper. We have to change the way we think.

Changing The Way We Think

For the Slow movement, the workplace is a key battlefront. When the job gobbles up so many hours, the time left over for everything else gets squeezed. Even the simple things—taking the kids to school, eating supper, chatting to friends—become a race against the clock. A surefire way to slow down is to work less.These days, we exist to serve the economy, rather than the other way round. Long hours on the job are making us unproductive, error-prone, unhappy and ill.

Work Less And Avoid Burnout At The Office

People who cut their work hours often take a smaller hit financially than they expect. That is because spending less time on the job means spending less money on the things that allow us to work: transport, parking, eating out, coffee, convenience food, childcare, laundry, retail therapy. A smaller income also translates into a smaller tax bill.

Benefits Of Working Less And Staying Home

We live in the age of speed. We strain to be more efficient, to cram more into each minute, each hour, each day. Since the Industrial Revolution shifted the world into high gear, the cult of speed has pushed us to a breaking point. Consider these facts: Americans on average spend seventy-two minutes of every day behind the wheel of a car, a typical business executive now loses sixty-eight hours a year to being put on hold, and American adults currently devote on average a mere half hour per week to making love. Living on the edge of exhaustion, we are constantly reminded by our bodies and minds that the pace of life is spinning out of control. In Praise of Slowness traces the history of our increasingly breathless relationship with time and tackles the consequences of living in this accelerated culture of our own creation. Why are we always in such a rush? What is the cure for time sickness? Is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down? Realizing the price we pay for unrelenting speed, people all over the world are reclaiming their time and slowing down the pace -- and living happier, healthier, and more productive lives as a result. A Slow revolution is taking place. Here you will find no Luddite calls to overthrow technology and seek a preindustrial utopia. This is a modern revolution, championed by cell-phone using, e-mailing lovers of sanity. The Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word -- balance. People are discovering energy and efficiency where they may have been least expected -- in slowing down. In this engaging and entertaining exploration, award-winning journalist and rehabilitated speedaholic Carl Honoré details our perennial love affair with efficiency and speed in a perfect blend of anecdotal reportage, history, and intellectual inquiry. In Praise of Slowness is the first comprehensive look at the worldwide Slow movements making their way into the mainstream -- in offices, factories, neighborhoods, kitchens, hospitals, concert halls, bedrooms, gyms, and schools. Defining a movement that is here to stay, this spirited manifesto will make you completely rethink your relationship with time.

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In Praise of Slowness

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