Perception

Returning after nearly a month always leads to thoughts on things you take for granted when you're home. The first is that no matter how comfortable a hotel bed, no matter how well a maid prepares it, and no matter how jet lag keeps you up at night, no rest matches sleeping in your own bed. While I've always preferred sleeping in my bed, my past year was my first to find the same comfort in eating food from my kitchen. I owe this new preference to my new practice of cooking from scratch so much more. Most of my life, most of my food at home was pre-packaged, meaning less flavorful or healthy. In yesterday's case, my farm delivery arrived a day before I…

When you think, do you consciously decide what to think? I think most people do. But if you pay attention very closely to your thoughts, do you notice different parts of your mind working differently? I mention this because there seems to me to be a part of the mind that generates thoughts and another part that observes the thoughts. The part generating the thoughts seems to work on its own. Like breathing, if you choose to control it you can, but most of the time it works by itself. The part that observes is the part that feels like yourself. When you work on influencing and motivating yourself and others, as leaders do, how our thoughts work matters. The more automatic they are, reacting…

If you earn $10 and then have to pay $3 to taxes, you net $7. Emotions don't work that way. Many people think they do, which leads them to miss out some of the most interesting parts of life. Say you like a friend and they also annoy you. If you net out that you kind of like them you miss out that you have a complex relationship with them. The emotions you feel to them don't cancel or net out. Without recognizing the range of emotions you feel with them, you might spend time with them as much as someone you're tepid with. With recognizing it, you might, say, figure out how to get the best of the parts you like and avoid the parts…