81–90 of 94 posts
What would you do if you found out, right now, that you have exactly 2 years left to live? Nothing more, nothing less. Exactly two years, and then you'll die in your sleep. What would you do with those 2 years? PS: "I'll train myself not to sleep" is not a good answer.
What would you do if you found out, right now, that you have exactly 2 years left to live? Nothing more, nothing less. Exactly two years, and then you'll die in your sleep. What would you do with those 2 years? PS: "I'll train myself not to sleep" is not a good answer.
FWIW, I don't think I'd do much different than I currently do (Which I think is a reasonably good sign). Would you?
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Very interesting point. I think one has to be aware of one's inbuilt limitations; it's not possible to be doing meaningful stuff all the time as you'll burn out. Hence it might be better to simply aim for a somewhat meaningful life; choose a goal you think is worthwhile and do something towards it every single day. Over time, if it's making progress and bringing you a measure of happiness you can slowly tweak your li…
Supporting an underpriveleged childs college education for 4 yeas in engineering or medical school is meaningful work. Its costs only $2000. Give a bit every month and your doing meaningful (really meaningful) work. http://www.ffe.org Whatever you do is meaningful as long as it helps someone.
I do not believe that writing a check each month would make you feel that you were doing anything meaningful (after all, many people are capable of writing a cheque).
A darker story: I was out of state, at a friend's house party, a few years ago and the discussion got non-superficial late in the night, as it sometimes does. His friends were talking about a friend who was not there. Some time prior, this woman had an argument with her mother that escalated into all-out shouting, petty criticisms, damning accusations, anger. The last thing she yelled to her mother was "F * y !!" The…
The Buddha tells me I will not be punished for my anger, but by my anger.
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Supporting an underpriveleged childs college education for 4 yeas in engineering or medical school is meaningful work. Its costs only $2000. Give a bit every month and your doing meaningful (really meaningful) work. http://www.ffe.org Whatever you do is meaningful as long as it helps someone.
Not to comment on the merits of this particular charity, but the important part is the feeling of doing meaningful work rather than the meaningfulness of the work per se. Part of this is feeling that you are contributing something unique to the cause yourself. I do not believe that writing a check each month would make you feel that you were doing anything meaningful (after all, many people are capable of writing a c…
All I can say is to try it and see how it makes you feel. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
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Supporting an underpriveleged childs college education for 4 yeas in engineering or medical school is meaningful work. Its costs only $2000. Give a bit every month and your doing meaningful (really meaningful) work. http://www.ffe.org Whatever you do is meaningful as long as it helps someone.
Unless they go on to have a meaningful life, why is helping them meaningful? I don't mean to be argumentative, I'm just curious.
All I can say is to try it out and see how you feel. You can support families in Africa for $10 a month.
If you want theory then you could try the following books: 1. "The Art Of Happiness" - (Interviews with Dalai Lama). 2. "A New Earth"
Reminds me of "Instantes" by Jorge Luis Borges: If I were able to live my life anew, In the next I would try to commit more errors. I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more. I would be more foolish than I've been, In fact, I would take few things seriously. I would be less hygienic. I would run more risks, take more vacations, contemplate more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers. I would go to…
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For some reason this comment bothers me, mostly because it's something that I do. I will often interrupt a beautiful moment with some irrelevant fact or correction. I notice that I always apologize for it, either politely like you did, or just in my head. Man to man, let's be honest, is it worth it?
I guess it depends how much of a Borges fan you are. For fans like myself, seeing "Instantes" attributed to Borges is like seeing "Twilight" attributed to Shakespeare. Actually, "Instantes" started life as a Reader's Digest (prose) article in 1953. Over time, it was transcribed by several anonymous scribes, rendered in free verse, and attributed to different authors. I remember seeing it published in an Argentinian n…
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If you really want to understand why it's difficult to lose weight, and "hack" your body like you hack on computers, I highly recommend a book called Ultrametabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman. In the last 3 months I've lost 20 pounds, just by doing mainly these 3 things: 1. Eat breakfast every day, and make sure it has protein. 2. Eat only whole grains and no refined flour, pasta, and avoid simple carbs. 3. Eat plenty of fat…
This is the diet that humans evolved on, whole grains, fresh vegetables, fruits, and lean meats. I don't think that humans could evolve on whole grains because these only became available with the invention of agriculture sometime between 10 and 20 K years ago. Also, some studies link the spread of agriculture to the huge drop in human health. That's why I personally removed all grains from my diet completely. As for…
edit: I read your links and found them very interesting. I think one of the problems that agricultural societies in general have is that they started milling their whole grains into flour. The articles mention tooth decay as a problem of modern agricultural societies. Flour is a huge problem because it is easily processed and turns into sugars quickly, growing bacteria that causes tooth decay.
As long as you stick to whole grains, and not "crushed" or milled grains, you should be ok. Brown rice instead of white rice, buckwheat, quinoa, wild rice, amaranth, and a host of others. The important part is not to break or remove the outer shell or husk of the grain. The husk has most of the vitamins and fiber in it anyway.
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I am also trying to lose a few pounds. I started calorie counting stringently over the last weeks. I keep track of everything I eat in excel. I started at 167 and I'm now at 161 3 weeks later (I'm 23 & 5' 9"). I've started taking flaxseed oil, a regular one-a-day vitamin pill and some extra vitamin C and D (1000 IU), acai with antioxidants and some fiber with psyllium husks (helps control hunger at times... expands l…
You don't need to be so restrictive on your caloric intake. I still eat about 2000 calories a day (I'm 6'1" and 168 pounds now, was 188 when I started). You just need to eat the right calories. The hardest thing for me was cutting out the bread and pasta. I can still eat bread, but only "sprouted wheat" bread, which you can find at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. Also, I eat real eggs (about 2 for breakfast scrambled wi…