Asking yourself, “What am I doing when I like who I am?” seems to me to be a more direct way to figure out what you need more of (and what you need less of) in life, regardless of what you think you should need. Often, the healthy, fulfilling things we’ve drifted away from are things whose significance probably wouldn’t occur to us, until we start doing them again and see how much they contributed to our well-being.
habits
Why do you always sit in the same place in meetings? – Barking up the wrong tree
People exhibit territorial behavior when they take seats in public places, limiting themselves to small areas so they don’t have to “renegotiate” seating arrangements with other people, researchers say. In one study by Marco Costa of the University of Bologna in Italy, university students showed strong attachments to specific areas of a lecture hall; on average, each student made use of just 2.4% to 2.7% of the seating area.
Confession: at college back in the day and at work currently, I’m that jerk that, every so often, likes to take the seat where other people always sit. Always stirrin’ shit up.
Why do you always sit in the same place in meetings? – Barking up the wrong tree
Behavior is easier to change than expectations are. […] Telling your enthusiasm and daydreams to sit in a closet till [the situation] proves worthy of them? That involves the hard work of identifying, and admitting, why you so badly need the validation. Repairing the source of the need is the answer here.
Carolyn Hax. I edited this quote to make it more general. Relates to another favorite line of hers: Let the facts write your dreams. Other Hax quotes I love.
Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.
Heaven knows! such lives as yours, though they should pass the limit of a thousand years, will shrink into the merest span; your vices will swallow up any amount of time.
The difference between potential and output comes from human qualities. You can make a list of the qualities you admire and those you despise. To turn the tables, think if this is the way I react to the qualities on the list, which is the way the world will react to me. You can learn to turn on those qualities you want and turn off those qualities you wish to avoid. The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. You can’t change at 60; the time to look at that list is now.
Warren Buffett on habits and being a better person. Ties in with some of my thoughts on a well-balanced life earlier this year. Write it down, check in every so often, re-calibrate as needed.
Today I learned the word “musterbation” at LifeClever.
