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The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

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Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#11

Post by akovaski »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7
dsugarman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 hours is not enough sleep

It is for some people, and it isn't for others, which is why this kind of generic advice is amazing if it fits you exactly, and awful if it doesn't. I can function on six hours, but not well. I also can't easily take 15 minutes to meditate in the morning, because I have a two month old baby I have to help care for in the mornings. This somewhat limits my ability to meditate and exercise.

I don't really understand how your baby makes it difficult to take 15 minutes to meditate, because I would imagine you were sleeping in increments longer than 15 minutes. So why is this? Is the baby waking up when you wake up?

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#12

Post by djloche »

levemi wrote: post #2

That table layout is really bad on a large screen, at some point there's a nice max for a font and I really don't need giant fonts or text as images. That image is gigantic [1]. And that header hiding animation is so annoying. Why do you do this. :( [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/marquee-test-akiaisur2rgicbmpehea/W...

Unfortunately, this appears to be the trend. With mobile/tablet driving ad revenue growth, desktop visitors appear to be on their way to being an ignored/forgotten segment.

Fortunately, a quick hop into dev tools fixes the problem. For the primary paragraph content, switching from the current 22px down to 16px makes this read so much easier.

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#13

Post by allisthemoist »

Called Paths to Power, it emphasizes the importance of neutrality: The world is not fair or unfair. It simply is. The more you can suspend judgment, the more you can learn and grow your power.

Not to be cynical about this approach, but having studied some of these concepts from a Mahayana Buddhist perspective, the idea of utilizing the perspective of Beginner's Mind to "grow your power" is a gross misappropriation and misunderstanding of the entire framework. In fact, within the traditions that originally conceived of these approaches, attachment to power, fame, and/or wealth is seen as the root cause of suffering and mental disenfranchisement and the very conceptualization that is to be let go [0].

Perhaps I need to look into this course a bit more to understand their approach but it seems that this is right in line with what many Buddhist scholars have worried - i.e., that these ancient traditions will be misunderstood and reformed in a way that may have wholly unhealthy effects on those who practice it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths#Second_truth...

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#14

Post by pavel_lishin »

akovaski wrote: post #11
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is for some people, and it isn't for others, which is why this kind of generic advice is amazing if it fits you exactly, and awful if it doesn't. I can function on six hours, but not well. I also can't easily take 15 minutes to meditate in the morning, because I have a two month old baby I have to help care for in the mornings. This somewhat limits my ability to meditate and exercise.

I don't really understand how your baby makes it difficult to take 15 minutes to meditate, because I would imagine you were sleeping in increments longer than 15 minutes. So why is this? Is the baby waking up when you wake up?

> Is the baby waking up when you wake up?

It's more accurate to say that I wake up when the baby wakes up - I hear her start to stir because she's hungry/awake, and that rouses me.

But yeah, she also tends to wake up when one of us does in the morning, unless we're very quiet, since she's just about slept out at those times.

I tend to also let my wife sleep in and take care of the kid in the morning, since she takes care of her all day, and half of the night. It seems unfair to dump the kid on her in the morning, too, while I exercise and meditate.

> I would imagine you were sleeping in increments longer than 15 minutes

Some bad nights, you'd be surprised.

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#15

Post by billmalarky »

everyone wrote: post #10

Why you shouldn't trust successful people's advice.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k7jeQQdqPA

To me that video is not making the absolute claim that the clickbait title suggests (their words not yours of course). The actual video seems to suggest to the viewer to be wary of _only_ looking at the winning perspective and being subjected to survivorship bias. That is, there's nothing wrong with hearing advice from successful people, but make sure to get input from unsuccessful people as well to get a more complete picture.

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#16

Post by phil21 »

sidi wrote: post #6

The power of positive thinking has to be one of the most undervalued capital. I would really like to see if there are any counter examples to this thinking that have worked for others.

I've been called negative before. For good reason :)

I tend to see the problems with things. The stuff that is good enough, why spend time thinking about? Seems boring to me - it's already done, lets move on.

I actually somewhat don't like being labeled as "negative person" since the actual result in my thinking is usually very positive outcomes. I improve things and make them better. How could I do that if I didn't identify what is wrong with something? The new webapp you wrote for me might be 95% awesome, but I'm going to probably be immediately drawn to the 5% that sucks just by the nature of who I am and that's what I'll be focusing my energy on to improve.

This worked well for me in my personal life for some time. Identify bad habits, get rid of them. However it can be a grind and I think folks that think the way I do are much more prone to depression and negative feedback loops that result in isolation (largely out of perhaps a frustrated idealist point of view). That's when it get's dangerous.

As in all things in life I think it's about balance. As I get older, I absolutely see and believe in the power of positive thinking. I just think some people can take that a bit (or a lot) too far and use it as an excuse to delude themselves.

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#17

Post by everyone »

billmalarky wrote: post #15
everyone wrote: post #10

Why you shouldn't trust successful people's advice.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k7jeQQdqPA

To me that video is not making the absolute claim that the clickbait title suggests (their words not yours of course). The actual video seems to suggest to the viewer to be wary of _only_ looking at the winning perspective and being subjected to survivorship bias. That is, there's nothing wrong with hearing advice from successful people, but make sure to get input from unsuccessful people as well to get a more comple…

True, I think in this case you could argue that the title is warranted as it is exceedingly common in our society to examine and emulate successful people whereas it is exceedingly uncommon to do the same for (or even be aware of the existence of) unsuccessful people

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#18

Post by jamiepenney »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #14
akovaski wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand how your baby makes it difficult to take 15 minutes to meditate, because I would imagine you were sleeping in increments longer than 15 minutes. So why is this? Is the baby waking up when you wake up?

> Is the baby waking up when you wake up? It's more accurate to say that I wake up when the baby wakes up - I hear her start to stir because she's hungry/awake, and that rouses me. But yeah, she also tends to wake up when one of us does in the morning, unless we're very quiet, since she's just about slept out at those times. I tend to also let my wife sleep in and take care of the kid in the morning, since she takes…

I've been getting up earlier so I have some time before my kid wakes up. He's adjusted to my earlier schedule now so all that's happened is I'm doing his breakfast at 6:30 instead of 7. Hard to keep quiet in a 2 bedroom house where the shower is right next to his room unfortunately.

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#19

Post by kevinskii »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #14
akovaski wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand how your baby makes it difficult to take 15 minutes to meditate, because I would imagine you were sleeping in increments longer than 15 minutes. So why is this? Is the baby waking up when you wake up?

> Is the baby waking up when you wake up? It's more accurate to say that I wake up when the baby wakes up - I hear her start to stir because she's hungry/awake, and that rouses me. But yeah, she also tends to wake up when one of us does in the morning, unless we're very quiet, since she's just about slept out at those times. I tend to also let my wife sleep in and take care of the kid in the morning, since she takes…

I would have wondered the same thing 3 years ago: Can it really be that hard to find 15 minutes to meditate when you have a young kid? It turns out that, yes, it can.

Re: The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

#20

Post by mbrock »

allisthemoist wrote: post #13

Called Paths to Power, it emphasizes the importance of neutrality: The world is not fair or unfair. It simply is. The more you can suspend judgment, the more you can learn and grow your power. Not to be cynical about this approach, but having studied some of these concepts from a Mahayana Buddhist perspective, the idea of utilizing the perspective of Beginner's Mind to "grow your power" is a gross misappropriation an…

What if you use that power to help other beings, though?
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