Well, hello there! Hope you have had a great week so far… here’s some reading stuff to spice it all up a bit in case it is necessary.
This past week I have been thinking a lot about how one can improve one’s life quality & just living a worthy life. We’re attending a bar mitzvah this week, and I’ve been supporting my husband with his speech at it. In the process, I started to reflect upon what I wished myself that someone had told me when I entered adulthood, and in this process, I stumbled upon the concept of “Musar” (also spelt Mussar), which is a Jewish spiritual practice that gives concrete instructions on how to live a meaningful and ethical life. Mussar is virtue-based ethics — based on the idea that by cultivating inner virtues, we improve ourselves. It is a belief that our inner drives, wounds and appetites often manifest as the Yetzer Hara (the Evil Inclination), actively preventing us from behaving as we know we should. One Mussar teacher, Rabbi Elya Lopian (1876-1970), described Mussar as “teaching the heart what the mind already understands.”. Somehow I found this concept of Mussar fascinating - and it made me think about what rituals or practices I do daily to improve and become better...as a person and just better at living life. What about you? Do you do anything?
If you got this from a friend and want to subscribe, here's the link. Also, if any of the links are paywalled and if you don't want to pay for a subscription, try opening the link in incognito mode in your browser. This works if the website has a "soft" paywall. If that doesn't work, you can access the website using a different browser on the same device, or use a different device altogether.
Quote of the week:
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
— Roald Dahl
The author talks about becoming a “magician”: someone who is so highly competent at what they do that their actions seem magical, similar to Arthur C. Clarke’s third law (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.).
”One of my heuristics for growth is to seek out the magicians and find the magic. Often without noticing, your progress in aspects of life or all of it unconsciously becomes linear. […] The ‘describe the version of you that seems impossible right now’ trick I described above is largely an attempt to bypass that part of my brain that dismisses the work of magicians as crazy and starts allowing it to make the necessary shifts required to become the kind of magician I am envisioning”.
and
Meeting magicians is the first step to becoming one – when you are attempting to learn implicit knowledge that by definition you don’t understand, it is important to have a bunch of examples in front of you to feed your brain’s pattern recognition systems. This will start to change your worldview without the controlling ‘you’ explicitly approving or denying every new belief or framework. Magicians or their work often seem to have a subconscious glow that I am drawn to, particularly if they use a type of magic that I recognise is on my critical path and thus something I’m currently seeking.
This fits perfectly well with the read of the week!
2. Are you having hard time making a decision? Consider the two door rule.
3. How to Remember What You Read by FS Blog
I don’t know about you but I’ve realized that if I don’t take the time to actually analyze and digest things that I have read (by writing a summary or taking notes or smt like this), then I forget most of the things I’ve read. This is an interesting read to improve ones memory..
“Consuming information is not the same as acquiring knowledge. No idea could be further from the truth. Learning means being able to use new information. The basic process of learning consists of reflection and feedback. We learn facts and concepts through reflecting on experience—our own or others'. If you read something and you don’t make time to think about what you’ve read, you won’t be able to use any of the wisdom you’ve been exposed to.”
4. Why People Feel Like Victims: Getting to the core of today’s social acrimony.
A fascinating study on how we perceive ourselves as victims, build identities on top of that perception, and the unlikely consequences.
Especially this part stuck with me":
“What can we do to overcome victimhood?
It begins with the way we educate our children. If people learn about the four components of victimhood, and are conscious of these behaviors, they can better understand their intentions and motivations. They can reduce these tendencies. But I hear people say that if they don’t use these feelings, if they don’t act like victims, they won’t achieve what they want to achieve. And that’s very sad”.
5. Book of the week: Turning Pro Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work by Steven Pressfield
The amateur tweets. The pro works.
That pretty much sums the book up for me. It is a great read and reminder that you don’t need a fancy course to start writing or doing whatever you would like to do. You just need to sit down and do the work.
The amateur and the pro are Pressfield’s metaphors for people who either run from their fears or face them. It’s a choice that everyone has to make every day.
This short and intense read will challenge your attitude to work & life for your own good 🙌.
See you next week!
//Rox
Ab Aeterno #3
please continue writing :) I'll be around too.