Know thyself. Every system of improving your life has some concept of increasing your self-awareness. But what is self-awareness? People with low self-awareness, who could benefit from it most, tend to understand it least. The self self-awareness is aware of refers to something different than, say, knowing you have ten fingers and breathe air. Experience increases self-awareness best. I wrote below the most effective exercise I know of to increase[…] Keep reading →
After three posts on avoiding expressing judgment, I should clarify I don’t suggest never expressing judgment. Here are a few cases where I express judgment. Judging myself: using my criteria to evaluate myself doesn’t deprecate others’ values, for example, writing “I should clarify” above. I do take care to notice my values change, particularly when evaluating myself in the past (see my series Goodbye guilt and blame for more on[…] Keep reading →
A reader wrote, in response to Friday’s post “How to stop being so judgmental,” Thanks Joshua for the insight on judgement. I have used less negative words and have already replaced them with a more positive intake on certain topics to avoid negativity. By doing so, I have noticed a more positive reaction from peers and friends, which leads to more productive outakes on actions in a general sense. Thanks![…] Keep reading →
Another reason for yesterday’s post on avoiding acting judgmentally came from a project some people told me about called E-prime. From Wikipedia E-Prime is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be. Hence, E-Prime allows neither conjugations of to be (am, are, is, was, were, be, been, being), nor archaic forms (e.g. art, wast, wert), nor contractions (‘s, ‘m, ‘re). Some scholars advocate[…] Keep reading →
“Women are more emotional than men.” “Men are more rational than women.” I hear such statements all the time. I think they are nonsense that only reveal that the person saying them doesn’t understand emotions. A reader emailed me about Tuesday’s post that mild emotions are still emotions and requested I “continue the insightful thread on emotional-based behavior on the blog.” I’m not sure if this post qualifies, but I[…] Keep reading →
Another quote from the Man Ray biography reminded me of a recent post of mine on values (exercise to the reader: which recent post?). Man Ray had a number of great quotes, especially on this page and this page, relevant to my focus on understanding values and meaning. As a surrealist and dadaist, movements whose “purpose was to ridicule what its participants considered to be the meaninglessness of the modern[…] Keep reading →
Why do we create and invent? Many people enjoy creating, but can’t express why — what they get out of it or what motivates them. The masters often express these things best — mastery often requires understanding your motivations. A quote by Man Ray has stuck with me for years after first hearing it on an American Masters documentary on him. I believe it expresses a, or perhaps the, fundamental[…] Keep reading →
Today is another pause in my series on exercises on communications skills, based on some posts I read on orange juice and how agribusiness processes it. Do you love orange juice? How could it not be just squeezed fruit juice? I love fresh squeezed juice. Fresh squeezed orange juice is one of my favorite things on earth. Growing up we got it from concentrate, I guess because we couldn’t afford[…] Keep reading →
Yesterday’s post described how interacting with a former Austrian soldier, now friend’s grandfather led me to examine my values. Such interactions lead you to expand your understanding of others and of humanity as well. Let’s understand the situation. Comparing people to Nazis has become an internet joke (perhaps insightful) called Godwin’s Law. This situation isn’t that. This man was a Nazi foot soldier, proud of some aspects of it. I’m[…] Keep reading →