Maintaining friendships may feel hard for you if you are juggling more than you have the capacity for in your life.Create a list of the prominent people in their lives with whom they want to spend the most time.When you've created that list, let those friends know how much it means to you that they've stuck by your side for so long.

The Friends You Don't Want To Lose

Create a standing time for socializing without the need to plan it.If you already have social infrastructure built into your calendar, it alleviates the burden and energy drain of constantly figuring out a time that works for everyone.It's very hard to reach out to people when you're lonely.

Create A Social Infrastructure

<ul><li>If a weekly meetup doesn't work for you or your friend, be prepared with another offer that allows you to meet in the middle.</li><li>Discuss why recurring hangouts are important.</li><li>You can spend less time with a friend and still feel close to them if you are both willing to get more vulnerable more quickly.</li><li>Find topics of interest you have in common that you can both continuously reach out about.</li></ul>

Recurring Meetings

If you cut others off at the slightest sign of an issue, many of your friendships won't last.When a friend continually does something that you don't like, instead of saying nothing, talk about it from a place of love and express that you're bringing it up because you want to stay close.

Don’t Avoid Conflict

<ul><li>Being there for your friends during theirs is something they won't forget.</li><li>If you don't give to other people, and if you're not nourishing the people in your life, who's to say you'll have people who are there for you when you're going through difficult times?</li></ul>

 Lean Into The Hard Times

The effort to maintain bonds with friends is important. From creating traditions to scheduling meetups, here are the best ways to ensure relationships thrive.

communication

Communication

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

How to Keep Your Connections Strong

We live in a culture that likes idealism. We notice so much wrong with others, ourselves, the way things are. Little things such as the sound of a car horn or a lost set of keys remind us that idealism is impossible. Often, anger makes a lot of sense. Certain types of anger can be very useful as a source of insight when we've been wronged, when things are going poorly, when we want change. However, anger can also be a source of foolishness, miscalculation, regret, resentment, and detachment.

The good and bad of anger

We can be wronged in unjust ways, such as being targeted,  and in these cases, anger can be used to motivate us to stand up and defend ourselves. But, more often we are wronged in a way where anger will not help to correct or solve it. When we try to resist and reject any sort of softer acceptance and sadness in response to this, we can become hardened with a sort of brute and frequent anger and become numb and unfeeling.

Becoming hardened is unhelpful

Psychologist Magda Arnold developed the appraisal theory. It states that our emotional responses are mostly created by our conscious evaluations of events - how we view, interpret, and label stimuli. For example, if we believe cats are sweet and harmless, holding a particular cat will be a favourable emotional experience. But someone who believes cats threatening or devious, will likely have a negative experience. The responses are very different to the same stimulus.

Appraisal theory

When we are angered frequently or remain angered for long periods, there is an opportunity to switch our mental filter in favour of better, more productive experiences. For the stoics, events in the world are objective and neutral. Our emotional experiences are the product of the stories we tell ourselves. It can't hurt you unless you interpret what's happening as harmful. If we realise that the world has not singled us out, most people are trying their best, that ignorance is more often the reason than malice, we can realise that the situation is not worthy of being angry about.

Practical use of the appraisal theory

Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice in ... life, you will be totally hosed.

We should not live an agreeable life in which our anger is always denied of its expression. But when anger comes from a place that isn't angry about the thing we seem to be angry about, the anger is a liability, not an asset.  We should not think that we have personally been made victim by the world. When we are angry, all of this sounds nonsensical or impossible, but it is then that these ideas matter so much.

Controlling unhelpful anger

Thanks to Acorns for sponsoring! Click my link https://get.acorns.com/PursuitofWonder to get a $10 bonus investment when you sign up. T&C’s apply. There are so many good reasons to be angry, but there are so few good uses. In this video, we explore the reasons for frequent anger as well as how to potentially be it less through psychology and philosophy. Pursuit of Wonder books available here: Notes from the End of Everything: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08D4VSD88 The Hidden Story of Every Person: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095L8LP33 Guided writing journal here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09K1ZVMM8 (Also available to more international locations here: https://pursuitofwonder.com/store) Important Risk Disclosures: Investing involves risk including the loss of principal. Services offered by Acorns Advisers, LLC (“Acorns”), an SEC-registered investment advisor. Brokerage services are provided to clients of Acorns by Acorns Securities, LLC, an SEC-registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC. Please consider your objectives, risk tolerance, and Acorns’ fees before investing. https://www.finra.org/#/ https://www.sipc.org Special thank you to our very generous Patreon supporters: OnlineBookClub.org Zake Jajac Alan Stein Zinzan Heather Liu Siddharth Kothari Stanley Chan Dave Portnoy Jaad Van der Wee Justin Redenbaugh Fathy Abdalla Christian Villanueva George Leontowicz Kelly J. Rose Asael Ramirez Terry Gilmour Follow Pursuit of Wonder on: Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/pursuitofwonder Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/PursuitOfWonder

mindfulness

Mindfulness

mentalhealth

Mental Health

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Videos

How To Remain Calm(er) With People - Psychology & Stoic Philosophy

Mobile devices are interconnected with our work and lives. Many industries expect that some portion of work will be done on the phone, yet many of our mobile app experiences still lag far behind our expectations.
One reason is that some companies who build software don't take a mobile-first approach to product development. Instead, they focus on web-based experiences, then scale them back for mobile.
Adopting a mobile-first approach is vital to stay competitive and stand out in a multi-screen world.

Embracing a mobile-first mindset

With the rise of flexible and hybrid work models, the need to always be connected, and the expectation that our phones are nearby, we've redefined work as something we do, not somewhere we go. We use our phones to submit reports or update our CMS in between flights. We send our colleagues feedback. A mobile-first mindset can help your team prepare to design multi-screen and multi-session experiences and help with more thoughtful decisions on prioritisation, feature placement, and functionality.

Work happens everywhere

Mobile apps and seamless digital experiences are table stakes. Employers are looking to empower their teams to have access to tools to get their work done, wherever they are.  <ul><li>Adopting a mobile-first mindset can help you build mobile apps that live up to your customer's high expectations.</li><li>The element of personalisation can create moments of delight and work in your product's favour.</li><li>Your app on a user's phone can help you become more "sticky".</li></ul>

Your users expect it

In July 2019, Google announced that mobile-first indexing would become the default for all new websites. It means Google uses the mobile version of your content to index and rank your site. A mobile-first mindset ensures that you get your users curious to explore your mobile app's full functionality and user interface and make them feel that your app is worthy.

Mobile-first indexing

Building with a mobile-first mindset forces your team to think about how your product looks and feels across device types and operating systems. This creates an understanding of the various ways your users could interact with your product and encourage you to modify the product's UI to suit their individual circumstances.

It helps you build a better experience

While it may feel counterintuitive to build for the smallest screens first, a mobile-first approach actually creates competitive advantage. Here's why.

product

Product & Design

Why you should build your product with a mobile-first mindset | Pendo Blog

The Metaverse is a visual network of virtual environments where people can interact via their avatars. If online multiplayer video games are combined with immersive virtual reality and high-speed internet, we can begin to understand the Metaverse. The metaverse has been in the science fiction realm for ages, but it is only now that Big Tech envisions it as the future internet, with companies like Facebook wanting to set up an immersive, 3D/virtual ecosystem for people to work, play, study and shop.

Ready Player One: The Metaverse

Presence: the feeling of actually being in a(virtual) space, typically using head-mounted displays.Interoperability: The ability to seamlessly switch, travel and move between the virtual spaces, just like a single login works on different websites.Standardization: Any new technology requires common standards, which are open and affordable, something that is essential for widespread usage.

The Three Aspects Of The Metaverse

The metaverse is a network of always-on virtual environments in which many people can interact with one another and digital objects while operating virtual representations – or avatars – of themselves. Learn more about its development from science fiction to reality in this article.

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Science Fiction

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Science & Nature

The metaverse: From science fiction to virtual reality

Science suggests that while venting your emotions feel good in the moment, it might make matters worse in the long run.
Sharing our emotions reduces our stress and make us feel closer to others. When we open up, and people respond with sympathy, we feel understood and supported. But, expressing our emotions often to others may make us feel worse if we fail to gain some perspective and don't take steps to soothe ourselves.

Venting feelings is not always helpful

We vent our feelings to connect with other people who can help validate what we're going through. It feels good to know you have someone to rely on who takes the time to listen. Sharing our feelings also help us to clarify and gain insight into what's causing our complicated feelings. Our confidants can also provide new perspectives and offer sound advice. But if we only vent, we won't address our cognitive needs too. We need to make meaning of what we're experiencing.

Why we vent

For many years, psychologists believed that dark emotions needed to be released physically, like hitting a soft object, like pillows or punching bags. <ul><li>However, this type of emotional venting makes people relive their anger in their bodies, strengthening the neural pathways for anger and making it easier to get angry the next time.</li><li>The same is true of grief or anxiety. If we only relive our experience without finding meaning and a way to soother ourselves, it could extend our suffering.</li></ul>

The dark side of venting

While supportive friends and family may care enough to listen and sympathize with us, there's often a limit to how much listeners can actually hear. It can be frustrating to listen to someone wallowing in emotion without learning from their experience. The listener may also "catch" these emotions themselves.  An artful listener will use empathy or sympathy and wait for the right moment before offering perspective.

Venting negatively affect the listener

<ul><li>Be selective about when you vent. Instead of venting to people, you can gain perspective on your own by writing your thoughts down or changing your environment.</li><li>When you vent to others, ask them for their perspective. It will help you not to keep rehashing your experiences.</li><li>Consider to whom you vent. Did this person help you last time you spoke to them or just make you feel worse?</li><li>Be careful around online venting. Negative emotions easily spread online, which can result in bullying or trolling.</li></ul>

A healthier way to vent

While letting your negative emotions out may feel good in the moment, science suggests it might make matters worse in the long run.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

Does Venting Your Feelings Actually Help?

Science Fiction, or Sci-Fi, which takes us into fantasy worlds with aliens, robots, spaceships, time machines, powerful superhumans and monsters, is an extremely appealing genre, due to its boundary-less escapist content.
It challenges existing assumptions and limitations, exploring questions that were never asked before, something which closer-to-reality fiction and non-fiction cannot do with ease.

The Lure Of Science Fiction

Many broad themes explore science-fiction thought experiments. These include the creation story (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), the fantastic voyage (Journey To The Center Of The Earth, or Star Trek), and the domestic science fiction story that we can relate to in our daily lives (E.T. The Extra Terrestrial)
Other genres include cyberpunk, popularized by the Matrix franchise, having stories related to the personal computers and internet revolution.

Categories Of Science Fiction

Science fiction provides a window into the social and cultural dilemmas that characters have to tackle, like what is the culture of the alien species, or if robots have feelings.
Movies like I am Legend, or 2012 explore the controversial topics of today like industrialization, biological warfare, the environmental crisis and cyber-terrorism, pushing them into a future fantasy world that can examine the problem closely.

A Dry Run Of The Future

Hostile aliens rocked the world when the book The War Of The Worlds was adapted as a radio play.
Aliens, hostile or friendly, have always been the surest, most profitable route to success, as verified by pulp stories that were bought in American magazines in the last seven decades.

Aliens: The Goldmine Of Sci-Fi

Science fiction often predicts the future, with most popular stories almost always having elements of fixing a society on the verge of decline, or which is already in a state of dystopia.
It is ultimately a positive genre, a portal in which we can see where our world may be headed, drawing from contemporary life, breakthroughs in medical and space science, technology and even history.

The Mass Appeal Of Sci-Fi

Aliens. Monsters. Robots. Spaceships. Superhuman powers. Time machines. Yup, we're talking science fiction. But just why are these ideas so perennially popular?

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Technology & The Future

movies

Movies & Shows

Why We Love Sci-Fi: It Boldly Goes Where Other Stories Can't

Laughter, a positive, contagious and heartwarming expression can be scary sometimes. This phenomenon is due to our fears, which stem from a misalignment in what we see and what our expectations were.
If laughter sounds sinister, out of context or out of tune with what is happening (like a person laughing while seeing people dying in an accident) it sends a red flag to the mind, signalling that something is not right or that the person is not to be trusted.

Laughter As A Scary Sound

Both laughter and fear are states of high arousal, common during intense emotions. A scream and a laugh are closely related and use the same emotional energy.
If a laughing person isn’t supposed to be laughing, or if the laugh is coming from a non-person, like a robot or a doll, there is a creepiness to it. Example: Alexa, the home virtual assistant from Amazon, started laughing out of the blue in many homes, terrifying families.

Laughter And Fear

Laughter can be heartwarming, contagious, lovely … and at times, very unsettling.

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Entertainment

Why Is Laughter Sometimes Scary?

A study done by researchers from Carnegie Mellong University found that videoconferencing hampers group collaboration, problem solving, and it can also reduce collective intelligence.
Moreorver, videoconferincing leads to a higher inequality when it comes to contributing to the conversation due to the disruption in vocal synchrony.

Zoom Calls Don't Work

Audio cues are pivotal to task success because we are able to listen fully to one&#39;s intonation, rhythm, tone, and many more speech cues that get us talking.
Videoconferencing reduces audio cue synchronicity which actually impairs the group&#39;s ability to take turns when speaking. Thus proving that audio calls are better if you want people to talk and be cooperative during your sessions or meetings.

Audio Cues In Videoconferencing

Zoom vs phone call: Which one is better for meetings?

Charisma is about what you say and do as opposed to who you really are as a person. Your subconscious, social cues, physical expression, and the way you treat others all play a part in developing your charisma.Developing charisma is a process that involves looking carefully at yourself and fine-tuning your communication.

Learning To Be Charismatic

Presence is necessary for charisma and it’s all about being truly engaged with others and showing them that they have your complete attention. Without presence, you can come across as just wanting to show off.Shut down your ego, and pay attention to and focus on every word that others say.

Presence As A Charisma Tool

People like confident individuals, even if their other qualities are less attractive. Developing confidence is a balancing act as you don't want to be arrogant, but you also don't want to come across as timid or scared.Exercising regularly, dressing in clothes that make you feel good, and talking about the things you understand well can help you build and maintain confidence.

Develop A Sense Of Confidence

Control the flow of conversation and make others feel comfortable:<ul><li>Think of things you would and wouldn’t like to talk about and use that as an initial guide.</li><li>Be nice, as opposed to trying to sound brilliant.</li><li>Tell stories.</li><li>Ask questions.</li><li>Know how to get people on the same level.</li><li>Use humor as a tool. Keep jokes you are unsure of to yourself.</li><li>Remember that the way something said is more important than what is said. </li></ul>

The Basics Of Conversation

Proper eye contact can express that you're invested, listening and accepting of the other, while looking down or constantly shifting your gaze shows lack of interest and focus. Too much or too little eye contact can be off-putting, experiment to find the right amount.

Practice Effective Eye Contact

<ul><li>Don’t stand stiff. It makes you look less interesting.</li><li>Smile to seem more approachable and likable.</li><li>People enjoy being around those who are expressive and use appropriately responsive gestures.</li><li>Nodding shows that you're listening, but nodding too much gives the impression you’re faking interest.</li><li>If you lose awareness of your mannerisms, stop and assess what your body is doing to become more self-aware and then adjust accordingly.</li></ul>

Be Expressive With Your Body

Match the other person's physical mannerisms and energy level, and you'll notice how well they'll respond to it. You don't need to agree with what they say or do, the mirroring itself can increase your likability.You can also mirror the qualities that you find likable in others. You don't need to copy them, but learn their secrets, try them on and adapt them until they fit you.

Practice Mirroring

It may seem like some people are born likable, but everyone is capable of developing charisma. No matter your personality, there are certain traits you can practice and apply to your own behavior that can possibly make you seem more magnetic, trustworthy, and influential. Here are the basics to developing charisma.

How to Develop Your Charisma and Become More Likable

We often find that we understand a topic but can't explain it to anyone. A simple method you could use to better understand and clearly communicate a concept is called SEE-I.
<ul>
<li>State it: Clearly state the idea in a single sentence or two.</li>
<li>Elaborate: Explain it further in your own words, using phrases like "in other words".</li>
<li>Exemplify: Give concrete examples and counter examples of the concept.</li>
<li>Illustrate: Provide a picture, diagram, metaphor or analogy of the idea.</li>
</ul>

The SEE-I method for explaining ideas

How to use the SEE-I method to explain, for example, what learning is.
<ul>
<li>State it: "Learning is the gaining of knowledge, understanding, or ability."</li>
<li>Elaborate: "In other words, learning is the process where a person gains specific knowledge, then internalises that knowledge by using it."</li>
<li>Exemplify: "For example, a child learns to ride a bike by being guided, practising, and falling before they master it."</li>
<li>Illustrate: "Learning is like a sponge absorbing water, yet it does not get saturated."</li>
</ul>

Explaining ideas: An example of using the SEE-I method

Wondering how to explain things better? The SEE-I method is a simple framework to better understand and clearly explain any concept or idea.

How to Keep Your Connections Strong

How To Remain Calm(er) With People - Psychology & Stoic Philosophy

Why you should build your product with a mobile-first mindset | Pendo Blog

The metaverse: From science fiction to virtual reality

Does Venting Your Feelings Actually Help?

Laila M.