This was a good book to read before my 49th birthday! Arthur Brooks makes the case that after our mid thirties, we have to make the jump between fluid and crystallized intelligence if we are to continue contributing to society. Rigidly holding on to the “first curve” is often responsible for the “midlife crisis”. He…
(original post 2021-10) A good, short read – about an hour. Best to read on one’s birthday :-). (I do every year). Excerpts in italics below. Before you read the book or the excerpts, watch this TED talk by Leonard Skinner. He has figured out what Seneca wrote about more than 1900 years ago. If…
Katherine May’s thought provoking book about taking a break, a sabbatical, a pause in life. It is a book about depression and anxiety but it is also a book about hope. It is a book about new beginnings. There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you…
Cal Newport makes a great case for rethinking how we work and how we interact with the internet, email and social media. Deep work is necessary to wring every last drop of value out of your current intellectual capacity. Neal Stephenson – “If I organize my life in such a way that I get lots…
I don’t agree with everything Tim Ferriss says but agree with most of what he says. Here are some gems from his book. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Gold is getting old. The New Rich are those who abandon the deferred-life plan. The…
Thought of the week format by poet and writer Mark Nepo. Some annotations from the book: Don’t you want to be alive before you die? Eventually, all the love, suffering, and humility we go through wear away our walls of resistance until Spirit shines from within us like an inner sun. This is how Spirit…
Alain de Botton, the author of “How Proust Can Change Your Life” follows the course of a relationship from first love to maturity. Lots of life lessons in this little novel. Here are some annotations from the book: For the Romantic, it is only the briefest of steps from a glimpse of a stranger to…
Sometime when you’re feeling important;Sometime when your ego’s in bloom;Sometime when you take it for granted,You’re the best qualified in the room:Sometime when you feel that your going,Would leave an unfillable hole,Just follow these simple instructions,And see how they humble your soul. Take a bucket and fill it with water,Put your hand in it up…
I jot down random tidbits from books that I read. Here are some things that caught my attention in 2012. Power of Now – Eckhardt Tolle: Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. All of these things you will have to relinquish sooner or later. To be identified with your mind…
Published 1908. Under 1 hour to read. It has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time you can obtain money— usually. Talk about an ideal democracy! In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no…