Original link: https://weichen.blog/letters/67/
Hello friend!
Here’s the 67th issue of Life Adventures, sharing seven little things with you each week to design a healthier, richer, wiser and more fun life together.
one
Chatting with a friend who is a PhD candidate the other week. Most of the PhD students seemed to be suffering, but I saw her like a duck in water and asked how she did it.
I thought she would say she has a passion for the research topic and a sense of meaning to contribute to humanity.
Research is secondary, she said. The most important thing is that she loves the way of life, she has free time, she decides when to work, and she can work with smart and interesting people.
I find this answer wise.
I remembered a point of view that many people treat work and life as “goal first”, I want to get a degree, I want to get a promotion and a raise, I have to get married and have children, I want to achieve this and that. Others are “income first,” maximizing income, regardless of health and relationships.
But perhaps even better, “lifestyle first.” Goals and income are not unimportant, but they all serve our lives. Of course, the food and clothing problem must be solved first, but on top of this, more money and more goals are all to support and enhance our way of life.
two
We all want a better life, but what is a better life? Is there a clear definition?
Then talk to the friend, she said that she was not so comfortable in the beginning. She didn’t like the previous tutor very much, so she took the initiative to contact her for another one. She said she knew exactly what she wanted and what fit, and if she wasn’t satisfied with reality, she would change it.
It’s really hard to know what you want . I thought I wanted to live in a luxury condo, I thought I wanted a higher position, I thought I wanted to climb and camp outdoors every day, but then I found out that these things didn’t bring me long-lasting happiness.
I used to feel that I was ignorant in the past, but recently I realized that this is the process of progress – positive action, generating experience, reflecting on experience, not repeating the same mistakes, and doing better next time.
three
On how to find the right career, “Many people first ask themselves ‘what am I passionate about?’ and then think about the cool things they do while drinking beer with their friends (like playing games), and then feel like they’ll never be able to do those things to make money.
But this method completely misses the point. Because asking yourself what you like is superficial — we mostly only enjoy these things for short periods of time, or when we’re not stressed.
A better question is, “What do you value? What is valuable to you? 』Because if you feel that what you do has value, you will not only enjoy it, but you will still find it meaningful in the face of difficulties. A sense of meaning is key to getting us through tough times. “
Source: How to Find The Perfect Career by Mark Manson
Four
Whether it’s about living a better life or finding a career you love, the key is “fit quality,” or how closely what reality offers and what we want.
Herminia Ibarra, professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School, says the way to maximise the quality of a match is to try a variety of activities, social groups, settings, jobs and industries, then review and Adjust and repeat the process.
“If this answer sounds superficial, think about it, it’s the exact opposite of what we’re exposed to — all the marketing that tells us that we can find the best match just by doing self-reflection. A lucrative personality test , the related career consulting industry, all rely on this concept to survive.
And those talk about “finding your strengths” categorize people without considering how much people have grown and improved, and what new things have been discovered. People just want an answer, Ibera said, and that’s why the frame of mind sells well. And it’s a lot harder to say to people, ‘Okay, let’s do some experiments and see what happens’.
“Do it first, think later,” she advises. Ibera integrates perspectives from social psychology to make a strong case that each of us is made up of an infinite number of possibilities. As she puts it, “We discover these possibilities through action—trying out new activities, building new networks, finding new role models. 』We know ourselves in practice, not in theory. “
Source: Range , Chinese translation of “The Boundary of Growth”
five
About mindfulness:
“Be careful when you compare yourself to others. This habit stems from a rigid self-concept (ego) and is a surefire way to make yourself unhappy.
Even if you feel superior to another person, how well do you feel? What kind of relationship do you think you are cultivating based on this?
When you are mindful and aware of the habit and its consequences, you can stop it. “
Source: Waking Up
six
Sometimes, though, comparing yourself to others isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and may help us find what we want.
“At a billionaire’s party, author Kurt Vonnegut told his author friend Joseph Heller that the party was hosted by a hedge fund manager who made a day’s worth of More money than Heller made from his popular novel Catch-22 from scratch to the present day.
Heller replied, “Yes, but I have one thing he will never have… enough . 』
When we compare unconsciously with someone, stop and ask ourselves, would we be willing to exchange all of that person? Not only good things, but also their pain and troubles.
Take myself as an example, I used to be like employees of many large companies, hoping that I could climb to a higher level. But I later found out that, in addition to higher income and more influence, they were extremely busy, always on call for all kinds of urgent matters, even sacrificing their personal lives. Is this really what I want?
As the saying goes, “there is no harm without comparison”, but comparisons cause more harm because they are too one-sided. If we take everything into consideration, we find that everyone is in a similar situation, and the key is what we choose.
That story is from The Psychology of Money, Taiwanese translation of “The Mentality of Getting Rich”
seven
Talk about something light.
In November, it is late autumn. The state of Washington where I live is also called the evergreen state. The forests here are mostly dark green pine or fir trees, not as orange-yellow and orange-green as in the eastern part of the United States. I used to complain that there is no autumn here.
But I often walk downstairs this year and find that autumn is around me, but I haven’t seen it before. The leaves are turning red layer by layer, the leaves are falling more and more, the sunrise is getting later and the rain is getting more and more. Change is felt every day.
A recent discovery is that squirrels are especially busy. While most of them hid when I was far away, some didn’t find me until I walked in, and I found them buried acorns in the ground (I posted an instant video ).
But you don’t have to worry about me tainting the food they have worked so hard to save for the winter. It is said that they only remember a quarter of all the food they buried.
Recommend a very interesting YouTube video: Backyard Squirrelympics 3.0 by Mark Rober (Backyard Squirrelympics 3.0)
Well, I hope to inspire you!
If you like this issue, please help to share it with your friends and support me to continue writing.
See you next week,
Wei Chen
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