You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind.
Timothy Leary
I love this perspective. Being flexible in light of new information is a key to growth and is likely to lead to a more interesting and fulfilling life.
I’m changing my mind about Timothy Leary. To me, he’s no longer just a hallucinogenic drug weirdo any more, but a pretty smart guy. 😆 Staying’ young, folks.
Good ol’ Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist who gave us a pyramid and a hammer, is at it again with some pretty sensible insights.
This time he’s riffing on Aristotle’s function argument about what the heck we’re even doing here. Basically, we’re here to be useful.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.
(Apparently he was an old-school fan of the “he/him/man” pronoun. 🤷🏻♂️)
It’s one thing to find your purpose — and those who do so should consider themselves fortunate. But the real trick is to actually do something about it.
It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
Thank you for the reminder, Mazzy. Can I call you that? Because here’s another Mazzy who found her purpose.
This Abraham Maslow fellow doesn’t just have a pyramid, he also has a hammer. Here is the popular phrasing of Maslow’s Hammer.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Maybe Maslow
I love this saying. People often “hammer away” at something the wrong way, wasting time and failing to learn a new skill.
It’s easy to make this mistake.
As a software engineer, I’ve seen this 1000 times. “Well, we have a bunch of web servers, and we need a mobile app, so… let’s make our mobile app using web tech!” At first, it seems to make sense. But you end up with a crappy app, lots of extra work, and maybe even some unhappy developers who leave because they care about their career too much. They want to use Xcode because that’s a great tool for making apps.
(But beware, Xcode could become your next hammer. 🤷🏻♂️)
I accidentally subscribed to this visual book insights app called Lucid. It promised “Read faster. Remember more.” so I had to try it. 🤷🏻♂️
Neglecting to cancel my free trial (oops!), I now have a full year of this service, so I might as well get the most out of it.
So this is my first “super summary” (a summary of the summary) for books I find interesting. You can see if you’re interested in reading the real thing. (audiobook | “book” book).
👉 Luckily, we can take some useful lessons from monks without actually being Christian or abstinent. 😜
A monk has an inward focus and moves past pain and anxiety, leading to a happier and more meaningful life.
A monk focuses on core issues, long-term vision, and strives to find meaning. This is in contrast to a “monkey” mind, which is distracted, overwhelmed, and focusing on temporary fixes.
Our core values define who we are and the meaning of our life. Our values should come from within rather than from other people’s influence.
We need to figure out what we’re all about so that we can focus our priorities and goals.
👉 This fits with some things the Savvy Psychologist said about values and meaning.
👉 This section reminds me of the idea that people’s criticism often says more about themselves than the person they are criticizing. 🧐
If you think of others negatively, you think of yourself negatively.
To break this cycle: identity your negative thoughts towards others, stop, and reframe them in a more empathetic, specific, and helpful way.
If you think of others more positively, you think of yourself more positively and make better choices.
👉 I like this section because I learned a while back that decisions driven by fear generally do not turn out well. 😱
Identify your deepest underlying fears. Acknowledge these fears and embrace them.
Then detach from your fears to make smart, independent, intentional choices.
👉 Despite this book calling for an early morning routine, I’m personally finding a relaxing nighttime routine especially useful. 😴
Wake up early to give yourself time to have a positive boost to your day. Use this time to be grateful, read & learn, meditate, and exercise.
Get to bed early and plan how you will conquer the next day.
👉 I love this section because of the wolf analogy. 🤩
In each of our minds are two wolves battling with each other for control. One wolf is consumed by fear, anger, insecurity, and ego. The other is driven by love, kindness, humility, and positivity.
You can feed one of them (yes the good one!) by giving it your time and energy.
This internal battle is normal, and we should view it as external to us. Use meditation to observe your mind and better understand what might be triggering any negative thoughts.
Reframe negative thoughts in a positive way, changing problems and fears into positive actions.
John Cleese gave this speech back in the 1990’s about creativity. Apparently he was a bit of a student of the topic. 🤷🏻♂️
His main point was that creativity is not something that you have or don’t have. And it is not related to traditional intelligence.
Creativity is a mood – an open, curious, and playful way of operating. He calls this playful, creative state “open mode”, whereas we normally go through life in “closed mode”, basically trying to get stuff done.
To be fully effective, a creative person needs to juggle both modes well. After all, you’ve got to find the creative flow and keep your projects on track to actually get sh*t done.
This creative “open mode” is subconscious and requires de-focusing in a way. In other words, you can’t force creative breakthroughs. It is in this relaxed open mode where the creative magic happens. You just need to allow yourself the time and other factors to let yourself be creative.
This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious.
One reason I liked improv class was that it forces you into this open, playful mode (even when you are terrified).
Hopefully, when creativity is applied consistently over time, then great things can happen. 🤓
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