Quick snippets from my morning read on Tuesday, 27th October 2020
Oliver Burkeman’s last column: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life.
1. There will always be too much to do – and this realization is liberating.
Today more than ever, there’s no reason to assume any fit between the demands on your time and the amount of time available.
2. When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness.
Major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” We’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy.
3. The capacity to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower.
It’s shocking to realise how readily we set aside even our greatest ambitions in life, merely to avoid easily tolerable levels of unpleasantness.
You already know it won’t kill you to endure the mild agitation of getting back to work on an important creative project; initiating a difficult conversation with a colleague; asking someone out; or checking your bank balance – but you can waste years in avoidance nonetheless.
4. The advice you don’t want to hear is usually the advice you need.
I spent a long time fixated on becoming hyper-productive before I finally started wondering why I was staking so much of my self-worth on my productivity levels.
The broader point here is that it isn’t fun to confront whatever emotional experiences you’re avoiding – if it were, you wouldn’t avoid them – so the advice that could really help is likely to make you uncomfortable.
Check out the full article at The Guardian.
And as always, if you enjoyed this, check out the rest of my daily snippets, curated daily, right here on The Red Notebook.
