Tag: work

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Life & Philosophy Productivity & Work

The young/old dynamic

gif by Feliks Tomasz Konczakowski

Younger people are generally more obsessed and driven. Older folks are generally more accepting of the status quo, albeit through jadedness rather than experience.

The juniors depend on the adults to help guide them through operational jungles. The seniors lean on younger folks to remain naive and use their lofty dreams to gather raw material. There’s no need to medicate the starlets out of their creative urges–they will figure out the harsh realities of survival later when they have to earn a paycheck.

The young and the old, the old and the young. The symbiotic relationship between generations breathes new elements of innovation, wisdom, and cynicism into the palette of life.

It is best to keep the dynamism moving, all believing, betting, and guessing what comes next.

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Life & Philosophy Productivity & Work Writing

Relaxed while working

The synchronicities tend to happen in our most relaxed moments, not when we’re stressing out about work or life.

Bothersome thoughts place a block on our ability to connect disparate ideas.

Unmoored from the monkey mind, we grant the synapses a passport to freedom.

In a state of flow, nothing is wanting. The pen can hardly keep up with the bicycle of impressions peddling through our heads.

Awake on our passions, always working to a place where we catch onto to things.

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Creativity Life & Philosophy Social Media

The only reassurance you need

We treat fame and social media status like currency. We presuppose that anonymity or a lack of engagement trivializes what we do.

Even worse, we let TV and Instagram determine our self-worth.

But what and who matters is rarely popular. No one wants to pull back the curtain and see the sweat and tears of a Van Gogh, who toiled in obscurity his entire living life. He never knew publicity.

Even if you’ve achieved some level of recognition, what you consider your best work will almost always contrast with the public perception.

At the end of the day, humans want to feel necessary. They want to commit themselves to a worthy discipline, whether’s it’s expressed through art or driving an Uber to support the art or vice versa.

It’s a canard to think that fame predetermines whether you matter or not. The most important things in your life are provided by the most anonymous people.

Fame is fake stimuli. If you feel like your work matters, that’s the only placebo you need.

Categories
Life & Philosophy Poetry Productivity & Work Psychology

A coherent me

When we are stuck and predictable, we stop beating the heart to our own drum.

Instead of chasing our dreams, we ride on the coattails of others. We become a cog that seeks to please rather than to push.

How we align our attention — to mimetic desire or to the clusters of individual freedom — is what determines self-worth.

The story we tell ourselves helps to combat the harsh reality of Monday morning meetings.

We buck the reassurance of controlled variables in pursuit of a cloudy destiny. 

We read life to read ourselves. The copy is the original.

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Books Life & Philosophy Productivity & Work

Don’t think. Act.

Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway. How do we achieve this state of mind? By staying stupid. By not allowing ourselves to think. A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. Don’t think. Act.

Steven Pressfield, Do the Work
Categories
Productivity & Work

Doing more begets more productivity

Busy people get more done. Having multiple priorities creates a state of flow.

We worry more when we give too much form to the unknown.

The most productive days are those in which we go immediately into action, en medias res, with a to-do list baked in our head.

Of course, busyness is not a badge to wear either.

If we’re going to chase something, it better be something we enjoy. Passion helps absolves the grind.

Doing meaningful work centers us. But for that, we must also take responsibility and choose ourselves.

Own the confidence to discover and resolve anything by staying busy.