We’re two weeks into 2019. One twenty-sixth of the year has already gone by … How are your New Year Resolutions going? If that’s a slightly uncomfortable question for you to answer, here’s a couple of things that might help. Do a ‘Past Year Review’ instead of making Resolutions.(And no, it’s not too late to do one for 2018!) Then tie it in with a question from Seth Godin. Or try making small, incremental changes
In no particular order, my top ten reads from 2018 are: “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu and Ursula Le Guin Ursula Le Guin is one of my absolute favourite writers, and she died in January 2018, so reading her interpretation of this classic made perfect sense to me. It’s important to note this isn’t a ‘translation’, per se. Le Guin’s self-stated task was to capture the original meaning, but also the original poetry of
“You never know how hard it will be. You never know when it will end. You can’t control it, you can only adjust. And no-one gets through it on their own.” Angel Nava Lopez, Tarahumura school teacher Rarajipari is a game played by the Tarahumura tribe of Mexico, brought to the world’s attention by Christopher McDougall in his fantastic book, ‘Born To Run’. The game is played by two teams, with a wooden ball about
Is there anything you’ve always wanted to learn? Maybe a language? A musical instrument? Or how to build a website? One of the things that holds most of us back is the idea that the thing we want to learn is too big – when you’re just starting out, it can seem overwhelming. You’re probably familiar with the old joke about how to eat an elephant … the answer is ‘one bite at a time’.
After hearing his TED talk, I became very interested in what Tristan Harris was doing at the Centre for Humane Technology. Essentially, he is one of a growing number of tech experts who are concerned about the impact technology – particularly social media – is having on us both as individuals, and society as a whole. With research showing that ‘pull to refresh’ features activate the same part of our brains as fruit machines, it’s easy to see
When we are confronted with a challenging situation, our first instinct is to just make it go away as quickly as possible. The tendency is to look for the quickest and simplest solution, but this may not always be the best idea. Our greatest successes usually come when we can move to what Shane Parrish calls ‘Second-Order Thinking’ – the ability to dig a bit deeper, and consider the broader implications and longer-term consequences of our
Emails can sometimes seem like a waste of time. Almost by accident, most of us end up subscribing to a bunch of stuff we never actually read. I’ve taken the time in the last few months to unsubscribe from the rubbish, and so my inbox today was a particularly rich source of inspiration. In the order I received them, today I was sent: The Best of Brain Pickings 2017 Maria Popova’s site is a real
I recently signed up to a series of emails from Mike at Fevered Mutterings called “You’re So Not Bored” where he gives you ideas for things to do when you are bored. One of them is to find out everything you can about the day you were born … Up until yesterday, about the only thing I knew about October 23rd was that being born today puts me on the cusp of Libra and Scorpio.
Two years ago, I spent a brilliant couple of days in Iceland. A friend of mine is heading out there soon, and asked me about what I’d done, and where I’d been … it occurred to me that a quick guide to Iceland might be useful to a few other people out there as well, so – assuming you’re flying in to Keflavik, and staying in Reykjavik – here’s what I’d suggest … » Hire
Several weeks ago, I went to a jam session and played with a couple of local musicians I’d not worked with before. It must have been OK, as they asked me to help out supporting the brilliant Hannah White last night. Organised by the local hospital radio station, Sunshine Radio, the gig took place at one of my favourite local venues. Steve (piano), Paul (bass) and I (drums) played a 45-minute support slot where we
Weekly [digital] email to help navigate the [analogue] world …
Weekly [digital] email to help navigate the [analogue] world …
