Timeless Ideas | August 1, 2020
Here’s your weekly dose of timeless ideas to sharpen your mind, make smarter decisions, and live better.
Quotes
I.
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure when he is really selling himself to it.
― Benjamin Franklin
II.
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the mind as the wish to forget it.
― Michel Montaigne
III.
There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.
― Voltaire
Ideas
I.
If someone tried to take control of your body and make you a slave, you would fight for freedom. Yet how easily you hand over your mind to anyone who insults you. When you dwell on their words and let them dominate your thoughts, you make them your master.
Epictetus in The Manual: A Philosopher's Guide to Life
II.
If you live in a past dream, you don't enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is. There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive. Not enjoying what is happening right now is living in the past and being only half alive. This leads to self pity, suffering and tears.
Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
III.
Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.
Greg Mckeown in Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Articles Worth Reading
I.
How to Make Your Arguments Stronger
Niro Savanthan | TED Ideas
Have you ever been in a heated discussion and wanted so badly to show the other person just how wrong they were? If you’re like most of us, you tried to overwhelm your opponent with sheer quantity, to barrage them with every scrap of evidence you could think up. As it turns out, piling on the proof is an unwise approach. That’s because when we double down on our arguments, we’re setting ourselves up to be undone by the so-called “dilution effect”.
II.
The ‘mega monk’ who wants us to slow down and embrace our imperfections
Anna Moore | The Guardian
Often, one of the hurdles for loving and accepting yourself is the idea of how you should be, how your life should be. But that picture of perfection resides only in your imagination. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to be good at something or have a good life, but if you’re dissatisfied and want to change things all the time, you are going to find yourself very unhappy. So the trick is, how can you make peace with what is? That’s the recipe for happiness.
III.
‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy
Arthur C. Brooks | The Atlantic
Success in and of itself is not a bad thing, any more than wine is a bad thing. Both can bring fun and sweetness to life. But both become tyrannical when they are a substitute for—instead of a complement to—the relationships and love that should be at the center of our lives.
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