Queen Elizabeth II rose to the throne in 1952 at the age of 25 after the death of her father, King George VI. She became the longest-reigning monarch in British and Commonwealth history. The previous record-holder was Queen Victoria, who ruled from 1837 to 1901.

Queen Elizabeth II

<ul><li>The record-holder for the longest-reigning monarch is French King Louis XIV, who ruled as an absolute monarch from age 4 for approximately 72 years. He reigned from 1643 to 1715.</li><li>The next longest-reigning monarch is Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), who was on the throne for about 70 years from 1946 until he died in 2016. He was known as one of the world's wealthiest royals.</li><li>Queen Elizabeth is the world's third longest ruling monarch in modern history. She is two years away from becoming the longest-reigning monarch in Europe.</li></ul>

The world’s longest reigning monarchs

history

History

Longest Reigning Monarchs: Where Queen Elizabeth II Fits

When Margaret started writing, it was open season for herNobody was there to tell her what to do; there were no writing schools. She wrote both poetry and proseNovels are 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Writing novels is work, you have to put in the hoursFor poetry, it’s the opposite poets get caught in the moment of inspiration. Poetry is more likely written on the fly. Poetry comes from the part that is linked to the patterning of music and mathematics.Novels come from the part that is associated with narrative and telling stories. Epic poetry is similar to novels, unlike lyric poetry.

How Are Poetry and Prose Different?

You don’t know when something may strike you and that’s why poets are so annoying to people who are not poets

Margaret Atwood is 82 years young. Is longevity determined by genetics? Margaret’s mom lived to 97.Curiosity is a big factor; her parents were always curious. She is curious about new technologies. She is also a big fan of astrology, she reads palms and does horoscopes.She got into it while studying English literature (she was a Victorianist). Astrology was an integral part of the Renaissance worldview (many astrological symbols in arts and literature)

What Keeps Her Going?

I always want to know what’s the upside, what’s the downside, cost-benefit, but also what are people using this for?

Margaret was always an avid reader and she read a lot as a teenager in the 50s. What you read as a teenager has the biggest influence when you start writingShe wanted to write something like 1984, but with women, It’s all about the people you are drawn to and the skills you have at the moment.Growing up in a cabin in the woods, When it rained, she read. There was nothing to do when it was raining, except reading, writing, and drawingThere was a strong focus on family narrative in their household; they told stories of their shared past and extended family. Her first novel was about an ant.

What Makes Margaret Good at Speculative Fiction?

Nature does not deal in closed boxes. Everything in nature is on a bell curve, some forms cannot be put into closed boxes (liminal beings) e.g. the platypusWe all contain multitudes; just because Margaret is a woman and a writer, it doesn’t mean that’s the end of the story.People label other people, and then they attack the label. You can put a general heading over anything; people can share many similarities, but in the end, no one is exactly like you.When you get attached to labels, they become an important facet of your identity. Living in a multiple democracy calls for going beyond labels

Resisting “Closed Boxes”

Reading dystopian fiction, we know we’re capable of really awful things, we’re also capable of really pretty wonderful things. And we’re smart and inventive

Hope is built on a very fundamental levelHow to find hope in the face of the climate crisis?. The climate crisis is real, but we are inventing a lot of new things. We are looking at the problem, and coming up with answers. The 19th century was a century of utopias: “They wrote a lot of them because they had made so many improvements already in the 19th century, that they thought, ‘This is just going to go on, and it’s going to get better and better and better.'Why don’t we write more about utopias?People are writing dystopias; why not imagine a better world instead?

A Connoisseur of Dystopian Speculative Fiction

“Practical Utopias” is on DISCO (an interactive live learning platform)With DISCO, you have the tools to do your own live learning experience.“Practical Utopias” is a problem-solving enterprise<ul><li>Practical world-building: What to eat? What to wear? What houses will we live in? </li><li>“Did you know you can make bricks out of mushrooms? </li><li>“Would you like to have a mushroom coffin?”</li><li>“Do you know you can 3D print houses out of compressed earth in two days?” </li></ul>“Practical Utopias” is bringing all of these ideas together, with an aim for a cheap, scalable, green solution.

Making a LEGO Village (Practical World-Building)

Margaret Atwood — A Living Legend on Creative Process, The Handmaid’s Tale, Being a Mercenary Child, Resisting Labels, the Poet Rug Exchange, Liminal Beings, Burning Questions, Practical Utopias, and More | Brought to you by 80,000 Hours free career advice for high impact and doing good in the world, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 770M+ users More on all three below.Margaret Atwood (@margaretatwood) is the author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. Dearly, her first collection of poetry in over a decade, was published November 2020. Her latest novel, The Testaments, is a co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. It is the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series. Her other works of fiction include Cat’s Eye, finalist for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; the MaddAddam Trilogy; and Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest Retold.Margaret’s work has been published in more than 45 countries, and she is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Innovator’s Award.Burning Questions, a collection of essays from 2004–2021 will be published in March of this year. Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible, an eight-week live online learning experience, will run later this year.Please enjoy!This episode is brought to you by 80,000 Hours! You have roughly 80,000 hours in your career. That’s 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 40 years. They add up and are one of your biggest opportunities, if not the biggest opportunity, to make a positive impact on the world. Some of the best strategies, best research, and best tactical advice I’ve seen and heard come from 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit co-founded by Will MacAskill, an Oxford philosopher and a popular past guest on this podcast.If you’re looking to make a big change to your direction, address pressing global problems from your current job, or if you’re just starting out or maybe starting a new chapter and not sure which path to pursue, 80,000 Hours can help. Join their free newsletter, and they’ll send you an in-depth guide for free that will help you identify which global problems are most pressing and where you can have the biggest impact personally. It will also help you get new ideas for high-impact careers or directions that help tackle these issues.*This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim or use code TIM at checkout. *This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 770 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.*For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Balaji Srinivasan, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Michio Kaku, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

podcasts

Podcasts

Brought to you by 80,000 Hours free career advice for high impact and doing good in the world, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 770M+ users More on all three below.Margaret Atwood (@margaretatwood) is the author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. Dearly, her first collection of poetry in over a decade, was published November 2020. Her latest novel, The Testaments, is a co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. It is the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series. Her other works of fiction include Cat’s Eye, finalist for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; the MaddAddam Trilogy; and Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest Retold.Margaret’s work has been published in more than 45 countries, and she is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Innovator’s Award.Burning Questions, a collection of essays from 2004–2021 will be published in March of this year. Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible, an eight-week live online learning experience, will run later this year.Please enjoy!This episode is brought to you by 80,000 Hours! You have roughly 80,000 hours in your career. That’s 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 40 years. They add up and are one of your biggest opportunities, if not the biggest opportunity, to make a positive impact on the world. Some of the best strategies, best research, and best tactical advice I’ve seen and heard come from 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit co-founded by Will MacAskill, an Oxford philosopher and a popular past guest on this podcast.If you’re looking to make a big change to your direction, address pressing global problems from your current job, or if you’re just starting out or maybe starting a new chapter and not sure which path to pursue, 80,000 Hours can help. Join their free newsletter, and they’ll send you an in-depth guide for free that will help you identify which global problems are most pressing and where you can have the biggest impact personally. It will also help you get new ideas for high-impact careers or directions that help tackle these issues.*This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim or use code TIM at checkout. *This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 770 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.*When jumping into a new writing project, does Margaret know if it’s going to be expressed as poetry or prose? From her perspective, is there a difference in where they originate? How do these two sometimes act in synergy? [07:59]How does Margaret maintain her vital life energy at 82 years young? [16:55]In what way does astrology — particularly Gemini rising — explain Margaret’s tendency to “stick [her] nose into things?” [18:45]The Gift vs. Trickster Makes This World. [24:24]What drives Margaret’s ability to craft engaging speculative fiction? [26:51]What are the downsides of raising a family in the woods, blissfully isolated from the world? Margaret shares a glimpse into her own childhood. [33:07]How crossing a football field in a pink princess line dress nudged Margaret toward writing poetry for the first time. [38:03]How the limited number of career options from which a young woman was expected to choose guided Margaret toward her current profession — and how long it took to start paying off. [44:17]What benefit did Margaret get from writing during the time before being paid to do so? [49:44]As someone who’s often found herself in the teaching profession, what type of teaching has Margaret enjoyed most? [52:59]Why Margaret considers The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson to be required reading for young adults. [55:28]Why Margaret resists the act of labeling that humans tend toward. [58:24]What explains Margaret’s ongoing interest in dystopian — as well as utopian — literature, and what can people expect from “Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible,” her eight-week online learning experience? [1:02:58]Comparing and contrasting major revolutions and political upheavals of recent centuries, and what Margaret learned by visiting Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War. [1:08:31]How is the DISCO online learning platform that will host “Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible” different from other such platforms, and what kind of problems will participants be solving? [1:12:01]What readers can expect from Burning Questions. [1:14:42]How has Margaret’s writing process changed over the course of her life? What does it look like these days? [1:19:24]A tangent about shows we binge when our writing quotas for the day are fulfilled, an H.G. Wells story about perspective, and a Twilight Zone episode that (surprise!) doesn’t end well for its protagonist. [1:22:04]Tezos NFTs, illustrated utopias, and inventions fitting unexpected functions. [1:24:22]A spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t yet read The Testaments and doesn’t want to know what happens to a character from The Handmaid’s Tale: skip ahead to the next timestamp! [1:31:48]Does Margaret do research for her characters? [1:33:27]Margaret turns the tables and asks me what prompted my podcasting endeavors. [1:35:36]Dictation apps, the three Henry Jameses, and confessional stenographers. [1:37:48]Undertaking winter adventures at high elevations and other parting thoughts. [1:41:25]*For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Balaji Srinivasan, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Michio Kaku, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tim Ferriss is a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been translated into 40+ languages.  Newsweek calls him "the world's best human guinea pig," and The New York Times calls him "a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk."  In this show, he deconstructs world-class performers from eclectic areas (investing, chess, pro sports, etc.), digging deep to find the tools, tactics, and tricks that listeners can use.

The Tim Ferriss Show

#573: Margaret Atwood — A Living Legend on Creative Process, The Handmaid’s Tale, Being a Mercenary Child, Resisting Labels, the Poet Rug Exchange, Liminal Beings, Burning Questions, Practical Utopias, and More

How to get smarter isn't mysterious and it isn't complex. The answer has been the same for millennia. Read more (though it's true these days we do now have lots more delivery methods. 
The trick isn't in figuring out what you need to do--it's in actually managing to do it.

Getting Smarter

Not captivated by a particular book at a particular time? Then on to the next. Just stop reading, put them down. 
There are countless amazing books out there. Don't settle for less than good.

Be Ruthless

At least in the case of nonfiction, if you already know the material, feel free to skip ahead. When you go to read actual books you're like, 'I know that, I know that, I know that,' and you keep on going, and you read much more quickly. 
And that's really the way to read a lot. This also creates a virtuous cycle in which the more you read, the more you'll know, and the more you can skip.

Skim Those Books

The best reading is focused reading, when you're trying to solve some kind of problem. You could aim to answer a specific question, investigate a given author, or scratch an itch of curiosity. 
You want to start with a problem or question when you're reading.

Read To Solve A Problem

If you arrange your reading around questions or areas of exploration, you'll end up reading multiple books about the same topic.
That allows you to do a kind of cross-sectional mental econometrics and see which pieces start fitting together.

Read In Clusters

Gathering a stack of non-fiction titles to explore a topic is great, but don't neglect fiction. 
Reading fiction is important to understand the cross-sectional variation in humanity, to understand how difficult generalizations can be, to just get a sense of how different social pieces fit together, and to get a sense of different historical eras -- and plus, reading fiction is often just plain flat-out fun.

Read Fiction

Every area you don't give a damn about you probably should read at least one book in. Because the very best book in that area is superb, and you're not going to know what it is. 
So if tennis is something you don't know anything about, well, read Andre Agassi's memoir. That's a wonderful book. You don't have to know about or care about tennis.

Read Stuff You Know Nothing About

Take reading seriously, develop a passion for it, and view it as part of your practice as a knowledge worker to get ahead, but along the way, have fun doing so!

Have Fun!

Economist, blogger, and super reader Tyler Cowen's advice on how to get smarter by reading way more. 

writing

Reading & Writing

books

Books

A Super Reader Who Gets Through Hundreds of Books a Year Explains How to Read Way More

AfricaKebili, Tunisia, located on the northern edge of the Sahara Desert, reached 131.0°F (55.0°C) in July of 1931. AsiaIn 2016, Mitribah, Kuwait saw a high of 129°F (53.9°C).Turbat, Pakistan reached 128.7°F (53.7°C) in May of 2017.Tirat Zvi, Israel, reported 129.2°F (54.0°C) on June 21, 1942, but it was not officially recorded at the time. AustraliaIn the Stuart Range of Oodnadatta, South Australia, nearly in the centre of the country, 123.0°F (50.7°C) was reached on January 2, 1960.

The highest temperatures by continent

North AmericaFurnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, California, holds the world record for the highest officially recorded temperature. The temperature achieved on July 10, 1913, was 134.0°F (56.7°C). South AmericaOn December 11, 1905, a high of 120°F (48.9°C) was recorded in the coastal province of Rivadavia, Argentina. EuropeAthens, Greece, recorded 118.4°F (48.0°C) on July 10, 1977 AntarcticaThe highest temperature ever was at the Esperanza research station on March 24, 2015. The temperature was 63.5°F (17.5°C).

Highest temperatures America

Read about the hottest temperatures ever recorded on earth by continent, as reported by the World Meteorological Organization.

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

What Is the Highest Temperature Ever Recorded?

The genre of drama is comfortably predictable and our brains eat this up because of the pleasure it brings from its symmetry and completion.
Our brains release mood-impacting neurotransmitters such as cortisol, dopamin, and oxytocin whenever we react to the challenges, twists, and happy resolutions of the narrative arc, thus providing an emotionally satisfying journey.

Stories and Their Predictable Patterns

Many popular dramas focus on how relatable the characters are since we all yearn to connect and desire to be loved authentically and unconditionally. For women, the appeal lies in well-written characters with a complex social milieu, because the characters have spunk and are not just objects of beauty.
Dramas also center around the emotional intricacy of human relationships, the ability to overcome challenges, and more.

The Appeal of Desire, Love, and Social Connection

We are social animals that are more often than not, inherently curious about others. We find out about others by observing their behaviors and seeing how certain decisions pan out.
Works of fiction allow us to be voyeurs and participants emotionally and virtually. We then visualize, sometimes fantasize, the ambience of wealth and royalty because dramas allow us to be members of an exclusive world, for a short period of time.

Stories Let Us Practice for Real Life

<ul>
<li>Amplified emotional investment on certain characters thus enhancing our ability to drill personal meaning from the narrative;</li>
<li>The ability to express love and affection strengthens our willpower -- which also enhances self-efficacy and self-esteem;</li>
<li>When we connect with the characters it also brings us personal validation and inspiration; and </li>
<li>The behaviors and choices we see can become a part of our mental inventory of thoughts and actions.</li>
</ul>

The Benefits of Fandom and Character Connection

<ul>
<li>Watching dramas can affect us because they are extremely pleasurable to watch.</li>
<li>It gives us a place to go when life gets hard, something like a comfortable blanket, that allows us to rest and regroup our thoughts.</li>
<li>Stories, lest we forget, makes us think about big issues and even scary ideas. They give us hope and optimist for the future and encourage us to believe in ourselves, and in what we can accomplish.</li>
<li>The universal truths in fiction can shift our perspective and making us feel a little more equipped to deal with life's challenges.</li>
</ul>

From Feeling Good to Gaining Insights

Escapism, a good character, and a happy ending can build optimism and esteem.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

movies

Movies & Shows

problemsolving

Problem Solving

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

How Period Dramas Soothe and Inspire

<ul>
<li>A name is used for communication on a daily basis, but it is much more than just a calling card.</li>
<li>The name forms the person’s self-conception and is a highly personal influence imposed from birth.</li>
<li>The name becomes a crucial and foremost anchorage to one’s self-identity.</li>
</ul>

Our Name And Its Impact

Parents can pick a particular name for their kid due to many reasons: vanity, a test of creativity or an expression of their own personality.
The choice plays a significant part in how others see the child and what kind of person the child evolves into. As our names reveal our ethnicity and background, there is both conscious and unconscious social bias attached to it, even though they are a highly unreliable indicator of personality.

The Name Is The Person

If a name has an unappealing or unfashionable association, it can impact how others treat the person. Self-confidence and self-perception are also impacted if the person does not like their own name.
A study conducted on how names affect choice of partners in dating apps showed that unfashionable or ‘off-putting’ names were more likely to be rejected.

Liking Our Own Name

A German study found that people were less likely to help out a complete stranger if the name was negatively rated in their minds, regardless of it being normal. An otherwise warm and trustworthy person can feel wrecked if there is repeated rejection simply due to their name, and is more likely to commit a crime.
This can be explained by cause and effect: If a person is socially rejected, there is a risk that he or she develops a disagreeable personality, and commits wrongful deeds as a result.

The Impact Of A Name

<ul>
<li>People with softer, sonorant names like Marla or Samantha (names that flow from the tongue easily) are perceived to be more agreeable and warm.</li>
<li>Names that sound sharp and abrupt like Eric or Kirk are perceived to have a cold nature.</li>
<li>Names that are uncommon and rare often have an unusual career like that of a judge or film director.</li>
<li>An unusual name can shape us into being more creative and open-minded, according to US research.</li>
</ul>

The Sound Of Your Name

<ul>
<li>If you desire that your child should be popular and well-accepted, you can provide them with a common, recognized name that sounds positive and likeable.</li>
<li>If you want your child to be unique and outstanding, a distinctive name will act as a constant reminder that the individual is special and has to do something out-of-the-ordinary.</li>
</ul>

What Name To Give Your Child

Your name is often the first piece of information strangers learn about you and it can have a surprising impact on how others perceive you.

communication

Communication

How your name affects your personality

When temptation or self-doubt arises, you can repeat a mantra you have created, to recall yourself back in your self-disciplined state of mind.Think of a quick word or phrase that you can repeat to yourself when you're tempted to indulge. You'll likely find it boosts your self-discipline fast.

Develop a Mantra to use when temptations appear

We give in to temptations due to our emotions winning over logic, as indulgence offers us temporary relief.Create a list, with clear reasons for staying under control and all the ways you will be better if you don't give in to temptation. Keep the list at hand and read it out whenever you feel like indulging, until the craving passes.

Know your reasons for breaking bad habits

Sometimes, bad habits are just too convenient and we're used to them, so creating obstacles that make the bad habit a challenge to perform will take care of impulsive actions and indulgences.If one wants to quit smoking, it does help if there are no cigarettes around, for example.

Keep bad habits out of reach

Giving up bad habits and defeating temptations makes us mentally stronger and more reliable.Overcoming mistakes and slip-ups also helps build our mental muscle.

Grow stronger mentally by defeating temptations

Bad habits are not easy to break, especially if you find them satisfying. But it is possible. Read here how.

health

Health

How To Break Bad Habits

Getting rid of bad habits can be tough. Here are a few tricks that work.

Whether you want to stop eating that midnight snack or you want to stop talking to your ex once and for all, getting rid of bad habits can be tough. It only takes one minute of weakness to talk yourself into a bad decision. The "just one cookie won't kill me" attitude is a slippery slope.

food

Food

habits

Habits

Strategies for Giving Up Bad Habits

<ul>
<li>Binging Netflix shows, marathoning on escapist TV all night is a popular way to pass time, more so due to the pandemic.</li>
<li>We dive into endless streams of media to avoid confronting our emotions and numbing our uncomfortable feelings.</li>
<li>While it does de-stress us once in a while, making us forget our problems temporarily, escapism harms us in the long run.</li>
</ul>

De-stressing Through Escapist TV

Being addicted to escapist media like video games and web series (that keep us hooked using algorithms) is linked to poor cognitive health.
Watching an episode or two of a good TV show intentionally is beneficial for us, but overdoing the same leads to increased worry and anxiety, the very thing we are trying to avoid.

Escapist Media Affecting Mental Health

Escapist media causes damage to our brains as we soak into our senses all the sounds and visuals, our bodies lying on the couch doing nothing.
We need to honestly ask ourselves what we are feeling and what we need to do, rather than distracting ourselves by consuming mind-numbing media. The solution may lie in self-introspection, journaling or even therapy.

Face Your Emotional Needs

How marathoning escapist TV can impact your mental health.

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Mental Health

Experts Explain Why Marathoning Escapist TV To De-Stress Can Backfire

<ul>
<li>The phrase originates from the silent films era when normal dialogue wasn’t engaging enough to the viewer. </li>
<li>Physical comedy, popularized in the 1920s by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, relied heavily on action sequences that involved a chase, to keep the viewers hooked on without sound.</li>
</ul>

Cutting To the Chase

Moviemakers were advised to ‘cut to the chase’ or move faster towards an action sequence to keep their audiences engaged. 
This carried on in the screenplays of the 60s, and though the phrase is figuratively used nowadays (We say ‘cut to the chase’ to someone when we want to tell them to get to the point), newer movie franchises like Fast And The Furious remind us that viewer patience is still short.

Cut To The Chase: Keeping The Momentum Going

“Cut to the chase” is a slightly friendlier way of telling someone to get to the point, but old Hollywood filmmakers meant it literally.

Why Do We Say 'Cut to the Chase'?

Our self-perception is completely distorted, according to psychological research. We do not know who we are, something known as ‘introspection illusion’. Further complicating matters is the fact that we do not realize this and think about ourselves as somebody who we are not.
Our self-image, it seems, is affected by biases, illusions and processes that remain in the unconscious realm.

We Are Totally Wrong About Ourselves

<ul>
<li>We have certain unconscious inclinations and motives, a part of our personality that is hidden from us.</li>
<li>An extensive psychological experiment that examined the automatic, reflexive response in participants revealed that the image conveyed in surveys has little to do with the actual personality.</li>
<li>Questions that required automatic reactions showcased the habitual and spontaneous personality parts, whereas those requiring thought and reflection revealed a different personality.</li>
</ul>

Your Motives Are Unknown To You

Our outward appearance, hairstyle, clothes, behaviour (like averting a gaze or hand-wringing) indicates a lot to other people without our being conscious about it.
We are not always aware of our hand gestures, facial expressions and body language, and are blind towards the effect it has on others. A blinking eye, for instance, indicates stress, and a slump in one’s posture portrays how mentally burdened we are feeling.

Your Outward Appearance And The Perception Of Others

Mindfulness meditation increases self-reflection and helps in overcoming two major hurdles: Distorted thinking and justification of our egoistic nature.
Meditation makes us remove our identification with the constant stream of thoughts, and simply observing the mind increases clarity. Imagination is also a powerful tool to manifest our desires.

Self-Reflection Helps Us Know Ourselves Better

The Dunning-Kruger effect says that most incompetent people are not aware of their incompetence and have inflated self-esteem.
Believing we are better at something than we are in reality has an advantage: it makes us cope up with the daily ups and downs in a better way.

We Are Not As Competent As We Believe

Being overly critical of oneself and developing a negative self-image is a sure-fire way to create a distorted self-perception. 
People with self-doubt are more susceptible to confirmation bias about their own incompetence. This subconscious phenomenon is like a reversal of the Dunning-Kruger effect, where people seem to wrongly believe that they are competent.

Negative Self-Assessment Is A Downward Spiral

Our desire to impress others leads to self-deception. To make sure that others are convinced about our truthfulness, capabilities and IQ, we ourselves have to be convinced first. Extensive studies show that our self-deception fluctuates depending on factors like how we believe others will perceive us.
We are also ready to deceive ourselves to come closer to our own perception about ourselves, which is kind of head-spinning!

Self-Deception Is Possible Without Us Realizing It

While our moral values are relatively stable, our preferences can change. How we view our true self plays a big role in our self-worth.
Being faithful to our true self reduces complexity in a world that is complicated and always in flux. Our true self becomes the center of the wheel that is not going round and round like the circumference. That is why people move towards enlightenment, the path of self-realization.

Our Own True Self Is Good For Us

People who are insecure are the ones who are more aligned towards behaving in a moral, socially acceptable way. Those who are really sure that they are intelligent, good looking, generous or sociable are confident about themselves and make less effort to prove it to others.
However, too much self-assurance results in an inflated ego, which if fed constantly, takes us away from reality.

Insecure People Behave Morally

Self-image can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. We need to see ourselves as a process, an evolving individual who is adaptive, flexible and shape-shifting. If we see our traits (like willpower or IQ) as fixed, we won’t be able to improve upon those.
Example: Fear of failure can be the root cause of eventual failure.

You Are Mentally Flexible

An attitude of personal growth (also called growth mindset) can be a way to learn, evolve and succeed in life. 
Self-knowledge is not a rigid piece of information but is a continuously changing process.

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