Life, Money & Development » Mind

5 quotes to live by

Herrera — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:36:26 +0000

“If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.” (Bertrand Russell)
“Try to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.” (Sydney Smith)
“What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.” (Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama)
“Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” (Bertrand Russell)

50 Hacks for Developing a Strong Mind

Herrera — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:15:14 +0000

Solve some puzzles and crosswords.
Try to be ambidextrous. Use your nondominant hand to brush your teeth, comb, handle the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Do the same with the knife and fork.
Learn new languages
Learn to enjoy things like paradoxes and optical illusions.
Make mental maps of your neighborhood, state, country.
Block one or more senses. Eat with your eyes closed, use earplugs, bathe with eyes closed.
Develop comparative tasting. Learn how to properly taste wine, chocolate, beer, cheese, etc.
Develop leadership attributes.
Find intersections between seemingly unrelated subjects.
Learn how to use different keyboard layouts.
Help others.
Play some musical instrument.
Find new uses for common objects. How many different uses you can find in a nail? 10? 100?
Reverse your assumptions.
Learn techniques of creativity.
Go beyond the “right” answer.
Go beyond obvious reality. Ask yourself: What if…?
Play your favorite videogame
Become a critical thinker. Learn to realize common lies.
Learn logic. Solve puzzles logically.
Familiarize yourself with the scientific method.
Draw. Make doodles. You don’t have to be an artist.
Think positive.
Do some calculus and mathematical operations.
Read these exercises to keep a young mind and try to retain the essential ideas of the post.
Sit up straight.
Listen to music.
Catch all the ideas. Form a list or database with your favorite ideas.
Eat at different restaurants.
Simplify your to-do list.
Learn to spell long words backwards.
Change your environment. Rearrange items in your room or office.
Write! Write stories, poetry, create a blog and write on it.
Learn sign language.
Visit museums.
Study how the brain works.
Meditate about managing your time.
Watch movies of different genres.
Get in touch with nature.
Relax throughout the day.
Commit to lifelong learning.
Travel to other countries. Learn other cultures and different lifestyles.
Learn Braille.
Buy a piece of art that you like. Stimulate your senses in a way that makes you think.
Try different perfumes.
Keep a glossary of interesting words. Invent your own words.
Learn metaphors.
Manage stress.
Read random things in this blog.
Deliver more than expected.

A Few Thoughts on Procrastination

Herrera — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:53:50 +0000

We urgently need to break the modern hedonistic cycle, that contemporary behavior characterized by the pursue of the least effort. We all want to succeed, and we have to know that success can only be achieved through effort.
Today, our most important and immediate challenge is to shake off passivity and lethargy, which are the most visible symptoms of mediocrity. It’s a time for sustained effort, steadfastness and perseverance.
We have to focus at our activities if we really want to emerge as individuals, families and nations of winners.
We should contribute to science and arts. Motivation is the key. People who do not love their work, do not face challenges, do not find obstacles to overcome… that’s bored (and likely boring) people.
The human being is a miracle because it has the ability to perform miracles, mainly due to his/her creative efforts. The secret of success is within every person and we should start by sprinkling the seeds of effort, by investing the energy required to achieve all that we want to reach. Let’s put procrastination aside and realize our dreams.
Obviously, we tend to avoid things that are unpleasant, boring, difficult, or anxiety provoking. However, several of such boring and tiring things help us to realize what are the good things of life. A sound life is a balanced life. We cannot live trapped inside the hedonisctic cycle which is continually looking for pleasure. Every great man has had to carry out boring and unpleasant things. That’s a fact of life.
Procrastination will hurt your productivity and diminish your chances for success. The first step to fight procrastination is: get started right now.
A tip I’ve find very useful figthing procrastination: if there’s some task I don’t want to do, I program an alarm to activate after 10 minutes, and work complelely focused on such task until the alarm activates. Then I spend about 30 minutes without thinking about the task (and don’t think on it!). Then, I reprogram the alarm, and so on. Sooner or later, we’ll complete the task. There’s a trick here.

The Fear of Failure: A rationalization

Herrera — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:51:22 +0000

What’s a failure? According to Wikipedia, failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Therefore, failure is the opposite of success, and that’s why fear of failure can reach really high levels. A process leading to failure or success involves a lot of decision-making. Many people are tormented by some decisions: they may even have a great idea, but do nothing to get it going, just for the fear of not succeeding. The most practical way to banish this fear is changing the attitude and the way we perceive failures. If we learn proper ways for decision-making, we could stop giving so much power and energy to the thoughts related to the possible consequences of our decisions, and thereby we could save ourselves from unnecessary suffering.

When we are walking the paths of life, we always learn something new, and in the learning process have to pour a few drops of sweat. There is no reward without effort. So, every time you try to learn something new you will have to invest some energy. That is the investment you have to do to achieve mastery in something. Do you want financial freedom? Well, you have to start learning how to make decisions and avoiding the fear stemming from mental scenaries of failure. Because financial freedom is not achieved only with the money. Wealth does not just mean to have a lot of money. If you’re hoping to win the lottery to get your financial freedom, you are standing on quicksand. Now, if you want to go on a safer, smarter road (and of course a little slower), it all depends on your learning process. You have to keep a positive attitude all the time, you have to be resilient, ready to overcome any failure. When you accept failure, when you learn to ignore failure scenearies because you’ll be ready to overcome them and keep going on, then the word failure will be erased from your mind. The trick is not to avoid thinking on failure; the trick is forming the mental disposition to, no matter the result of our decisions, keep going on. In fact, failure might become a powerful ally, an instructor, you will learn to stand up after falling. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: remember that seemingly negative circumstances can turn into blessings.

Considering an error or a failure as a disastrous event, is to give it the power to defeat you. On the contrary, think that for every possibility of failure there is also a hidden victory. Just took a look at the other side of the coin. If you fail for some reason, don’t worry: try again. What is the problem? What do you fear? To lose it all? And what is it? You came into the world with nothing and you will leave with nothing. Never miss the opportunity to cultivate and improve yourself. In fact the only thing that remains is that the body and material wealth only serve as instruments to accomplish something: hapiness. What is that thing? Discover who you are, build a happy reality, and live in it. Focus on self-mastery and on our universal and individual purpose. Therefore, failure is just the result of a decision, and no matter the decision, the result, goal or the process… all of it is relatively insignificant compared to the magnitude of the universe and our inner selves. This is the importance of internal growth: wealth of soul and mind last forever. What I mean is: do not be afraid of making mistakes. We all make mistakes You can always try again, try, try and try until you succeed. Because every time you’re trying, you learn new things, you are growing and getting one step closer to your personal and spiritual progress. Remember the power of a disciplined mind: when you have to make a difficult decision, start thinking about it only after all the data are available; then give the problem your best thought and make your decision: just after making the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact arrives to your knowledge. Let the decision consequences to develop, and consider that nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.

The Fortress of Fears

Herrera — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:20:04 +0000

The biggest fear is fear itself. No human is without fears; even in the deepest recesses of our souls, some fear is lurking. And this is not bad, quite the opposite. Fears mean limitations of the mind. Just as our body is a limitation of physical matter, our mind also means an unknown territory, a frontier to our capabilities. When these boundaries are not imposed by a disease or a syndrome, that is when it is purely and exclusively a fear. The problem with these limitations is that they may get to function as a constraint. Sometimes fear becomes a barrier, which prevents us from moving forward. However, when you overcome fears, you get higher. When you get over your fears you grow as a human being, you break that boundary, entering a new world of possibilities.

The problem is when fear is fear itself. That’s when people get stuck. They avoid facing life because of the fear of being afraid. In other words, we are avoiding self-growth, we don’t move forward. At the outset, fears might seem as high as huge fortress walls, impossible to access. However, beyond fears, there is a new world containing hides greatness, happiness, and more importantly, life. We should think if we want to live avoiding the bitterness of fears, or to live our lives at their fullest. Because unfortunately, life truly begins from the moment our fingers crush the huge rocks that make up the great fortress of fears; that’s when we really begin to live.

Think about it, spend a few minutes of your time to think if you stopped living in fear of being afraid. Think about which side of the fortress you are. Surely there is still enough time to pass through the walls.

An exercise for building up mental discipline

Herrera — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:00:56 +0000

This is a neat exercise for developing mental discipline, a follow-up to our post about the power of a disciplined mind: choose a very sentimental piece of music which evokes a strong emotional response within you. Play it and let your feelings mix with your emotions. Just go with the flow emotionally. Surrender to the song and truly surrender to the emotions that the music makes you feel. Now play it a second time and, as before, go with the song. After a few moments, separate yourself from the flow of emotions. Watch them from the perspective of distance and watch how your emotional body is being manipulated by the music. Now listen to it a third time and resist the feeling of involvement with music. Refuse to engage with emotions that arise when handling your emotional body music. The fourth time you hear the piece, alternate between surrendering and not surrendering to the feelings of the music. Work on getting that power of choice. It is you who determines whether to surrender or not to the music. Now choose other equally sentimental pieces and practice your ability to participate or not in the emotional side of the song. As you practice this skill, take careful note of how this mechanism works.

On Problems

Herrera — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:53:58 +0000

Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Reason and Sensibility

Herrera — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:01:59 +0000

Intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible; reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless. Even the possible can be senseless.

Max Born

What we are going to make of our lives

Herrera — Sat, 21 May 2011 23:23:52 +0000

My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we win out.

Ronald Reagan

Emerson

Herrera — Sat, 14 May 2011 02:12:31 +0000

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

R. W. Emerson

Life, Money & Development » Mind

5 quotes to live by

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