Excellence: What It Is and How to Achieve It

We’re taught that ancient literature is great art, but that it doesn’t have anything to do with living our lives. The truth is that literature which has stood the test of time is great art exactly because it is about living our lives.

The best of these ancient works attempted to answer one question: How should you live your life? And that makes sense. After people move on from the question, how are we going to find food and shelter, they finally have the time to ask, how should we live our lives? Read the Rest of This Article »

How and Why to Pick a Spiritual Practice

In this age of technology and materialism, when many wonder what tomorrow will bring, the resurgence of spirituality is a normal phenomenon. For centuries, people have turned to religions or other belief systems for support and understanding. Yet it never resulted in a better world on a global level. An improved personal life perhaps, but not a better planet. So one can wonder why, after centuries of religious or spiritual teachings on love, forgiveness, presence or service, the world situation has not improved spiritually; why acts of sharing and forgiveness are the exception, not the norm. We can guess that the big majority of people weren’t ready for these teachings, that the failure to bring peace, love or the end of suffering on earth is the failure of humanity.

After all, the spiritual realm did its job, didn’t it? So why are people not listening? Read the Rest of This Article »

5 Fertile Thoughts for Personal Growth: Thinking about Thinking

Personal growth depends to an unknown extent on our ability to be aware of, and think about, our thoughts, feelings and behavior. However if we don’t ‘do internal work’, think deeply about this vast uncharted area, we are certainly going to lead a life that is more lifeless and robotic.

If we lead our life as if the world is only outside of us, repeating patterns of behavior, with no self-reflection, what is effective for us at one point in our life cycle, sooner or later, loses it’s effectiveness.

Below are five ideas to fertilize thinking about our internal worlds: Read the Rest of This Article »

Everyone is a Philosopher: Mindset Matters

“Success is dependent on effort.” –Sophocles

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” –Aristotle

One reason that philosophy is important to understand and use is that everyone is a philosopher.[1]

Far from being the ivory-tower, irrelevant proceeding limited only to those that like it piled-higher and deeper[2], everyone is a philosopher, just as everyone breathes, eats, and has thoughts.  We might even say that we hold this truth to be self-evident (just as they did in the Declaration of Independence), that everyone is a philosopher.  Furthermore, we know this because each person has to make sense of the world is some way.  In fact, just a bit of open discussion with any person will reveal what their beliefs are.  By delving just a little bit deeper, we can readily find out what their philosophy of life is, and how it operates in their life.  This is but one essential aspect of the fine art of philosophical counseling, more commonly known and marketed as life coaching.  Of course, psychologists call it psychotherapy. Read the Rest of This Article »

How to Find Peace of Mind in the Modern World

In my opinion this is the biggest problem we face as “modern” people. We might have flashy gadgets and shiny cool things, but in the end when it comes down to peace of mind we have nothing.

I know for me at least whenever I used to come home for the day; I used to always be 90% tense and 10% anxious for reasons I couldn’t understand. I had a house, family, friends and blessings I could never count. I just didn’t understand.

I was stuck in a never ending loop of distress and lack of peace.

So then how did I overcome that? Read the Rest of This Article »

15 Must Read Lessons from Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.

He is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle’s writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Fifteen lessons from Aristotle: Read the Rest of This Article »

Are You a Realist?

If one man tells you a horse, he’s insane

if three men tell you you’re a horse, there’s a conspiracy

If ten men tell you you’re a horse, you need to buy a saddle.

- Chinese proverb

 

I stared in disbelief at my Regional Manager. I could no longer hear the words coming from his mouth because all my attention was turned inside in a torrent of abuse aimed at him, the company, the industry, and of course, myself.

How could this be happening to me? How could I be turned down for the management development program when it had been de facto promised to me if I hit certain goals. Goals that had all been reached and most smashed.

As my brain scrambled to make sense of what was happening I heard him say one final thing  before the meeting came to a close and I was suddenly out in the cold, both figuratively and literally: Read the Rest of This Article »

Is That All There Is?

Image courtesy of Reckon

Many years ago a pop singer named Peggy Lee recorded a song titled, “Is That All There Is?”  She sang about how her life had turned out, ending each verse with the plea: “Is that all there is?”

Unfortunately those words could sum up the lives of millions of people today whose lives have not fulfilled the promise they felt as children.  Our romantic relationship (if we even have one) is okay, but “is that all there is?”   We go to work (if we do) but the excitement about our jobs (if there ever was any) seems to have dimmed.  We get by financially (if we do) but there never seems to be enough.  And life in general is okay (we don’t need a therapist), but life would be so much more fulfilling if only….  Is that all there is?

I’d like to suggest that there is a simple explanation why this feeling is so common and that there is a simple solution also. Read the Rest of This Article »

Letting Go To Succeed

Everyday I take a break from my work when I get to the point of being tired of what I am doing, and I usually go play basketball. The breaks that I enjoy the most are when I am alone on the court. Uninterrupted. I shoot, shot after shot. I enjoy trying to perfect my shot. I have an inner desire to become gifted. I have come to the point where I know what I need to do to consistently make shots, but I just don’t consistently do what I need to do.

The rim lets me know how I am doing. I love having it’s instant feed back. The loud clang of the rim challenges me to become better, and the soft swish of the net rewards me.

But today, I realized that the rim’s instant feed back is unnecessary. Read the Rest of This Article »

Is It Better To Single-Task or Multi-Task?

photo credit: Dakimapics

There are no shortage of ‘experts’ that claim to know the secret of maximum productivity. At first someone will swear that the only way to really get things done is to multi-task: more done, less time. Then immediately someone will counter that it’s far simpler, more effective and rewarding and ultimately more ‘zen’ to do one task at a time: single-tasking. Read the Rest of This Article »

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