Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place.
You would be surprised at the difference.

Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility; it results from some ecological or naturalistic wisdom, and is not always bad -- at an existential level, it is my body rebelling against its entrapment. It is my soul fighting the Procrustean bed of modernity.

<ul><li>Attempting to avoid all volatility and disorder renders systems fragile, unable to adapt and strengthen.</li><li>Biological and social systems require exposure to stresses, failures and turbulence in order to evolve greater resilience.</li></ul>Progress comes through encountering challenges, not hypothetically modeling perfection.

Embrace Volatility 

Keep options open rather than narrowing choices. Optionality and flexibility allow capturing unpredictable upside while containing downside risk.Specialization and overoptimization reduce options and increases fragility.

Leverage Optionality

Many elegant mathematical models fail to account for real world unpredictability and complexity. Progress comes from incremental empiricism, not theoretical perfection.Beware rationalist policies not grounded in on-the-ground evidence. Reality throws curveballs that defy detached abstractions.

Beware Theories Detached From Reality

The turkey gets fed for 1000 days, every day confirms to its staff of analysts that butchering is not around the corner. The 1001st day is when expectations meet reality.

Place small, low-risk bets to empirically test theories and options rather than making high-risk gambles based on assumptions.Leverage fast feedback loops to gain intuition and learn from mistakes. Develop skills to handle unforeseen challenges through lived experience.

Use Small Safe Bets For Learning 

<ul><li>Sheltered from volatility, systems become fragile and collapse with any disruption.</li><li>True strength stems from stressors, trial-and-error, and antifragility.</li><li>Turbulence distills via selection, revealing what withstands unforeseen risks. Challenges mastered make systems resilient.</li></ul>

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

How something is conveyed often matters more than what is conveyed - the medium influences interpretation and acceptance.Leverage nuance and multiple mediums when communicating ideas.

The Medium is the Message

My characterization of a loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn't introspect, doesn't exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on.

Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder is authored by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The book argues that certain systems, entities, and processes can benefit from shocks, volatility, and uncertainty, and become stronger and more adaptable as a result. Taleb introduces the concept of "antifragility" to describe this property and contrasts it with fragility and robustness. 

Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.  In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile “Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist “A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

creativity

Creativity

books

Books

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Antifragile

The multiverse comes from the idea that beyond the sphere of our observable Universe are other universes, distantly separated from ours. Richard Bower, professor of cosmology theorised four levels of the multiverse.<ol><li>An infinite universe in which “every possibility that could happen would happen”</li><li>Multiverses where the basic laws of physics are the same, but fundamental constants differ.</li><li>The many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics where every choice causes a split in the Universe, leading to infinite parallel realities.</li><li>Multiverses that have entirely different laws of physics.</li></ol>

The Multiverse is Hypothetical

Are there universes where the laws of physics do not apply, like in the newest Doctor Strange outing?

sciencefiction

Science Fiction

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

Doctor Strange: Could we really be living in a multiverse? | BBC Science Focus Magazine

The problem with “work-life balance” is that the forces of work and life don’t exist in equilibrium. 
At times, our careers will have an outsized influence on our decision-making. Other times, we’ll set work aside to enjoy life’s many pleasures or deal with its potential hardships. 
The two will never be in a state of equality. By seeking balance, we’ve propped ourselves up to fall.

The Key Issue With Work-Life Balance

<ul><li>There’s no such thing as achieving a perfect work-life balance. </li><li>If “balance” implies equilibrium, then “integration” implies combining various components or aspects into a unified whole.</li><li>Focus on being the same authentic person at work, at home, and in your community.</li><li>Avoid burnout by carving out time for all of the elements of your life.</li></ul>

Aim For Integration In Your Work-Life

<ul><li>It’s important to create space for family, friends, and fun. Put boundaries around your time.</li><li>Think consciously about where you want to focus your energy. Ask: Outside of work, what’s most important to me now? My community? My kids? Something else?</li><li>Remember: You can’t get back the time you sacrifice today.</li></ul>

Make Thoughtful Trade-Offs

career

Career

timemanagement

Time Management

Make a little time for yourself (in a 24/7 world)

Leo Szilard, a Hungarian-born Jew, fled Germany for the UK two months after Adolf Hitler became chancellor.
At the time, James Chadwick just discovered the neutron. Not long after, Cambridge physicists split the atom by bombarding a lithium nucleus with protons. In this, they confirmed Albert Einstein's idea that mass and energy are different forms of the same thing.
In 1933, Szilard thought that if you could find an atom that was split by neutrons, and in the process, release two or more neutrons, then the mass would emit a huge amount of energy.

Szilard's eureka moment

<ul><li>Szilard's idea did not gain traction until 1938, when German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman (opponents of the German regime) bombarded uranium atoms with neutrons. They found traces of the element barium in the debris.</li><li>Hahn wrote about it to Austrian chemist Lise Meitner, who explained that the uranium nucleus was splitting into two equal parts - a process named "fission."</li><li>In New York, Italian physicist Enrico Fermi found that uranium fission released secondary neutrons needed to start the chain reaction.</li></ul>

Pieces of the puzzle

After the discovery of Fermin, Szilard joined him in New York. Together they figured that a kilogram of uranium would make energy similar to 20,000 tonnes of TNT. However, Szilard knew that this discovery could be disastrous and feared that the Nazis would soon figure this out too. In 1940, two German physicists working in the UK worked out how to produce uranium-235 in high quantities, how it could be used to make a bomb, and the disastrous consequences if they succeeded.

Insight about the atom bomb

In March 1940, German physicists Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch wrote to the British government in their Memorandum on the Properties of a Radioactive 'Super-Bomb', urging them to take action. It led to the British bomb project, codenamed Tube Alloys. The US government appointed physicist Arthur Compton to lead a nuclear weapons programme, eventually named the Manhattan Project. Over the next four years, the US, UK and Canada poured resources into the Manhattan Project. Tube Alloys was eventually joined with the US project.

The bomb projects

In 1942, a pile of uranium and graphite was assembled in a squash court underneath a stand on a football field in Chicago. Then, on 2 December 1942, the first man-made nuclear chain reaction was created. Once confirmed, Szilard shook hands with Fermi and said, “This will go down as a black day in the history of mankind.” On 16 July 1945, the US detonated the world’s first nuclear bomb in the New Mexico desert. The test proved that nuclear energy could be weaponised.

 A black day in the history of mankind

Leo Szilard was waiting to cross the road near Russell Square in London when the idea came to him. It was 12 September 1933. A little under 12 years later, the US dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 135,000 people. The path from Szilard’s idea to its deadly realisation is one of &hellip;

history

History

The invention of the nuclear bomb

The origin of tennis was believed to have come from Northern France around the 12th century, the game was called jeu de paume, which was initially played using the palms of our hands and the use of rackets were added around the 16th century.

The origin of tennis

the very first Wimbledon championship happened on July 9, 1877 at 3:30 in the afternoon. It took place in beside London and Worple road, Wimbledon.There were twenty-two men who each paid a guinea just to be able to compete.Over time, the Wimbledon championships evolved and finally let women participate with their own competition in 1884

The early beginnings of the Wimbledon

Before the first world war insinuated, the Wimbledon club realized the inadequacy of their current capacity at the Worple Road. They then decided to transfer to Church Road, to the north of Wimbledon Town Center in 1922.This move was a huge gamble that cost them £140k but the great news is that moving to another area is most likely never going to happen again.

From Worple Rd to Church Rd

No one officially "won" anything for competing up until 1968. During the early years of the Wimbledon, many of the competitors would pay money out of their own pocket just for the opportunity to be able to compete.When Rod Laver won the Men's finals in 1968, he was rewarded £2,000, and Billie Jean King with £750.

The Prize Money

In 1947, Hans Redl of Austria progressed to the fourth round of the Men's Singles event at the Wimbledon. The catch however is that Redl had only his right arm with him to compete.He had lost his left arm while on active service. He, however, was granted a special dispensation during the competition. He was allowed to touch the ball twice every time he served.Redl went on to compete at Wimbledon until 1956.

The one-of-a-kind tourney

Reverend John Thorneycroft was the third man to ever win the Wimbledon Men's Singles. He was a devout and religious man who wasn't expecting to reach the latter stages of the Wimbledon.He left the tournament to fulfill his religious duties and came back to to finish the tournament and eventually won against the Irishman Vere Thomas St. Leger Goold.This Irishman, after losing mutliple times to the Reverend, was found guilty of killing a wealthy Danish woman.

The Saint and The Sinner

Due to the first world war, the Championships were suspended from 1915-19 but the All England Club survived due to donations from members and wealthy benefactors. By the time that the hostilities continued in 1939, the Wimbledon was already moved from Worple Rd to Church Rd becoming ever more resilient to a point.However, on October 11th 1940, a 500lb bomb caused great damage to the club's ground. The championships were suspended but the grounds were being used for a variety of war-related purposes back then.

The Championships and The War

In 1921, Max Woosnam won the Men's Doubles with Randolph Lycett. Max was greatly known for his exploits with balls of a slightly larger nature where he played centre-half for Chelsea and Manchester City and he also earned a solitary Enland cap in 1922.In 1961, Stanley Matthews won the Junior Wimbledon. This was not the famous Englash footballer, but rather his son that had the same name as him who defeated Alexander Metreveli in the final.

The Max Factor and the Matthews Final

Curious facts about the Wimbledon Tennis Championships – the oldest tennis tournament in the world.

sports

Sports

The History Press | A miscellaneous history of Wimbledon

<ul>
<li>Gaps in experience indicate a struggle with securing jobs in the past or poor performance to the hiring manager.</li>
<li>One can proactively explain the real, often valid reasons for a gap in your employment, like taking care of a sick family member, recession, or taking time-out for education or reskilling.</li>
<li>It is a good idea to add some contractual or consulting work, pursue a degree or diploma, or even do volunteer work.</li>
<li>If you were out of work due to your being selective about your career, mention the same to the recruiter.</li>
</ul>

Resume Red Flags: Employment Gaps

Taking multiple jobs in a short span of time can indicate struggle towards commitment, or chronic performance issues. Brief tenures can be tackled as follows:<ol><li>Show the positive side of working with a diverse set of companies, gaining experience and a solid network.</li><li>Focus on the accomplishments rather than the tenure.</li><li>Make the hiring manager understand the exposure you had and best practices that were acquired, increasing your competence</li></ol>

Resume Red Flags: Job Hopping

Not being currently employed or having an unplanned departure is a red flag for recruiters, who believe a strong candidate would not leave a job without a new profile in hand. You can handle this by:<ol><li>Not blaming the old company, and not highlighting their mistreatment of you.</li><li>Focusing on the good aspects of your tenure with them: Your learnings, new relationships and accomplishments.</li></ol>

Resume Red Flags: Unplanned Departures

<ol><li>Emphasising the environment that makes you be at your best, indirectly telling them that the reason you didn’t thrive at the previous place was that they didn’t support you.</li><li>If you were laid off, disclose the fact honestly, emphasising the reason for being fired and the lessons learnt.</li></ol>

Being Out Of Work: Reasons To Give

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

How to Overcome Red Flags on Your Resume

The only international law that governs space comes from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty controlled by the United Nations.
It states that no government can lay claim to the Moon, but it did not foresee that private companies may also venture out to space. No thought has yet been given to what will happen if two parties want to set up on the same spot. Mining rights are unclear and Lunar water and may also need protection.

Moon ownership

Many have visited – but who does it belong to?

health

Health

Who owns the Moon?

The most dangerous emotions are the ones you don’t know are affecting you. When you know what happens when the worries start, you’ll be relieved and you'll also be able to do something constructive about them. So make a list with thoughts you have when you get worried, physical sensations and also actions you feel driven to take.

Recognizing warning signs

<ul><li>Fear is what you feel in the moment when someone comes at you with a knife. </li><li>Anxiety is about the anticipation of an event. Anxiety is often problem-solving — but without the solving part.</li></ul>

Anxiety vs. Fear

Whenever you have the urge to avoid, you need to realize that’s an opportunity to weaken your worries. It’s a chance to practice more mindfulness. Shift your focus away from your thoughts and back to the concrete world.

Avoiding bad feelings doesn't work

Trying to push the worries out of your head is inherently problematic because to be vigilant about not thinking about something, your brain needs to keep it in mind. Mindfulness does the opposite by making you aware of your state of anxiousness.

Mindfulness = anxiety antidote

<ul><li>Acceptance: accept that the worries are here and stop trying to make them go away.</li><li>Attention: get out of your thoughts and focus on the world around you. </li><li>Labeling: When a worry pops up, label it as “a worrying thought.” It’s not you. Do not identify with it and don't let it overtake you.</li></ul>

Build the Mindfulness muscles

<ul><li>Catch yourself worrying. </li><li>Turn your attention to your body and notice sensations you can identify (muscles are tense, heart beating nausea). </li><li>Don’t get involved with your worrisome thoughts. </li><li>Try to label or name your emotion, whether it’s anxiety, dread, fear, trepidation, anger, irritation, shame, or sadness. </li><li>Tell yourself that it’s okay that you feel what you feel, that your emotion won’t kill you, and try your best to simply let it be there for as long as it’s there.</li></ul>

Practices to tend to your emotions

It’s a technique where you deliberately expose yourself to the thing that is making you anxious. It helps your brain to figure out which places or people are not actually dangerous and don’t need to be avoided. Once your brain makes that connection, your fear tends to diminish, you stop wanting to avoid things or people, and your life opens up so that you have more freedom to go where you want to go and do what you want to do.

Opposite Action

Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here. *** We all worry. At one point or another, almost one-third of people have dealt with a level of anxiety that would qualify as a disorder.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

mindfulness

Mindfulness

mentalhealth

Mental Health

How To Stop Worrying: 7 Secrets From Mindfulness

Prince Philip was never in line for the throne (his eldest son stands to inherit it) and never held the title of king.
The reason for that: in the British monarchy, a woman who marries the monarch can use the ceremonial title of queen - but men who marry the monarch can't use the title king, which can only be used by male sovereigns.

Prince Philip: A Husband But Never A King

<ul>
<li>He was born on 10 June 1921 on the Greek island of Corfu. His heritage made him a prince of Greece and Denmark, but the following year the family was banished from Greece after a coup.</li>
<li>In 1930, when he was eight years old, his mother was committed to a secure psychiatric centre after suffering a nervous breakdown. Philip saw little of either parent in the years that followed.</li>
<li>His mother's relatives in the UK helped raise him. He would later adopt their surname, Mountbatten - an anglicised form of the family name Battenberg.</li>
<li>In 1937, one of Philip's four sisters, Cecilie, died in an air crash along with her German husband, mother-in-law, and two young sons. She was pregnant at the time.</li>
</ul>

Prince Philip's Start In Life

<ul>
<li>When Philip left school, he joined the UK's naval academy and he graduated top of his class.</li>
<li>When King George VI paid an official visit in July 1939, Philip was charged with entertaining his young daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.</li>
<li>He made quite an impression on the 13-year-old Elizabeth, as would soon become clear.</li>
<li>Prince Philip served with distinction in World War Two, seeing military action for the first time in the Indian Ocean. By October 1942, he was 21 years old - and one of the Royal Navy's youngest first lieutenants.</li>
<li>The teenaged princess and the officer kept in touch by letter.</li>
</ul>

Meeting Elizabeth, The Future Queen

<ul>
<li>King George gave Philip permission to marry his daughter, Elizabeth.</li>
<li>The Prince of Greece and Denmark became a naturalized British subject, formally joined the Church of England, and abandoned his foreign titles.</li>
<li>On his wedding day, 20 November 1947, he was made Duke of Edinburgh, a name he was widely known by for the rest of his life. He was 26, and his new wife 21.</li>
<li>During their 1952 tour of the Commonwealth, King George VI, Elizabeth's father, was dead at 56.</li>
<li>Philip's naval ambitions were curbed. The new Queen Elizabeth would need her husband by her side. The Duke of Edinburgh was named as the Queen's consort. His primary function was to support his wife.</li>
</ul>

Marrying the Queen

He believed monarchies must adapt to survive.
<ul>
<li>He set up informal lunches where the Queen could meet people from a broader range of backgrounds.</li>
<li>Before the Coronation, when Philip and the future Queen moved into Clarence House in 1949, he installed an array of labor-saving devices, including one in his wardrobe that would eject a suit at the push of a button.</li>
<li>The Duke also championed a 90-minute fly-on-the-wall BBC documentary entitled Royal Family, which aired in 1969 and was considered landmark television.</li>
<li>At Buckingham Palace, Philip had intercoms put in so that servants no longer had to ferry written messages to his wife.</li>
</ul>

How Price Philip Changed The British Monarchy

He was the man beside Queen Elizabeth II - and arguably the world's most famous husband.

communication

Communication

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Prince Philip: 99 years, 143 countries and one very famous wife

Epicureanism is the philosophy that is based from the teachings of Greek philosopher Epicurus. It denotes that pleasure is the only good there is in life. Alongside it, it mentions that the absence of pain and that living a simple life are the greatest pleasures in life.
Stoicism is a philosophy that maximizes positive feelings, reduces the negatives, and allows the individual to find their purpose to live a virtuous life.

Epicureanism vs. Stoicism

According to Epicureanism, life should be lived rationally through removing the illusion that is making us unhappy. Fantasies and over-romanticizing of events eventually lead to disappointment.
Meanwhile, stoicism reminds us that we must find tranquility in our virtuous lives and improve ourselves to becoming a better characterization of one's being.

Living life according to Greek philosophy

The Stoics and the Epicureans understand that some good things are better than others.
As a consequence, you inevitably run into options, and the need to forgo one good to secure or benefit another. If you make those decisions carefully, you're going to be happier. However, the Stoics believe you're going to be behaving in accordance with a grand designer's grand scheme, and the Epicureans don't.

The difference between Epicureanism and Stoicism

Epicurus felt that politics is an area accompanied by anger and frustration. Despite Epicurus feeling that way about politics he believed that education should be made available to everyone - from women to slaves.
The Stoics believe that one should be heavily involved in politics as much as one can. They believe that action needs to be taken when it is needed the most. A long line of Stoics have gone into politics because they did not believe in passivity in this area.

Stoics and Epicureans in Politics

The two philosophies of ancient times - Stoicism and Epicurean - have been reduced to competing attitudes about comfort and pleasure, but both have a say when it comes to the pursuit of happiness.

Antifragile

Doctor Strange: Could we really be living in a multiverse? | BBC Science Focus Magazine

Make a little time for yourself (in a 24/7 world)

The invention of the nuclear bomb

The History Press | A miscellaneous history of Wimbledon

Charlotte Wood