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Shoshikantetsu

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Re: Shoshikantetsu

#111

Post by zoogeny »

> What I ended up landing on was focusing on making the "original intent" small enough that I had no excuses to not complete them.

This is something I am aiming for myself. It is very common for me to feel motivated and to make big plans to change my life. Then I fail to adhere to my plans and it creates anxiety and depression.

I recently started rising at dawn every single day. When I decided to make the change I limited myself to only that change. Despite wanting to change 100+ things about my life I focused just on this one idea - to set an alarm for sunrise and to get straight out of bed.

It is such an easy premise that I really have no excuse to fail at it.

My current idea is that focusing on a single virtue is a key to a productive life. No more "7 highly effective habits" or "12 rules" or whatever. Just one thing: get up at sunrise. Easy to remember, easy to verify compliance, difficult to achieve.

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#112

Post by wirthjason »

jaqalopes wrote: post #76

Having a high say-do ratio has always been important to me I've never encountered this idea, but as soon I read it I suddenly see it everywhere. My roommate who tells me he'll clean the kitchen then doesn't; my cousin who says he'll come to dinner then cancels. My best friend who says she'll start going to the gym and never does. My world is awash in people who say the most wonderful things and then don't do any of t…

People say things all the time that they never intend to do.

To go with the theme I’ll add another common Japanese concept: tatemae / honne. In short, what you say vs what you really do/feel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae

I heard it best explained by an old Japanese teacher. Say you bump into an old high school friend on the street. You have a quick chat and at the end he says “we should get together some time”. He doesn’t really mean he wants to get together. That’s tatemae.

If he says “we should get together some time, how’s next Tuesday at 7?” That’s honne.

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#113

Post by kevinmorio »

I've recently developed a new habit of celebrating my daily accomplishments as wins, no matter how small they may be. This simple practice has had a remarkably positive impact on my mindset. Last week, I wrote down the following:

> When it came to today's running session, I felt already exhausted and unmotivated, my mind constantly telling me that I was not feeling well and nagging me to skip the run. But I bit the bullet and did it. And what's the result? This was the best run I've had in months cutting my personal best by more than 3 minutes! Lesson learned: Our mind is pretty bad at assessing our body's capabilities. Don't let your mind limit your possibilities!

Similar to OP's experiment of doing 30-minute productive sessions for 7 days, I create weekly SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). For example

- Goal: Get better at cooking => Action: Try out two new recipes on Tuesday and Thursday.

- Goal: Add comment section to blog => Action: Spend 30 minutes after lunch from Wednesday - Friday

By expressing my goals in this way, I keep myself accountable and on track. I also feel more motivated and focused on achieving them.

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#114

Post by Orthanc »

mashygpig wrote: post #96
dejawu wrote: post #39

A similar idea that resonated with me is CGP Grey's suggestion to replace resolutions with themes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGuFdX5guE Rather than set a lofty goal you're more likely to give up on (leaving you having accomplished nothing), simply look for ways in which you can do/be better than you were before.

Amusing to see this in the thread as, inspired by CGP Grey, my theme for the year is "be intentional" so this post particularly stood out to me.

And now I'm here reading your comment, small world. Good luck with your theme!

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#115

Post by KTallguy »

yqinyn wrote: post #97
KTallguy wrote: post #74

My favorite yojijukugo is from Chinese, despite the fact that I barely speak it. 自強不息, or “Pushing forward to better yourself without ceasing,” I think? Maybe there’s a better way to put it? Another poster mentioned 点滴穿石 which is my second favorite. It puts things in perspective quite well.

Be careful when you use "自強不息" though. I have never seen any native speaker who is also a sane person use it in daily life without sounding sarcastic. This word does mean what you say, but it probably one of the overused, insincere, and meaningless words in government speeches. It's like people roll their eyes when tech giants says "make the world a better place" for the past 30 years. But instead of 30 years, this c…

Thanks, that’s exactly the kind of context I was looking for! I had no idea…

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#116

Post by solarmist »

NalNezumi wrote: post #58
creakingstairs wrote: post #37

Sharing some Korean Yojijukugos (originating from China) 위록지마(謂鹿止馬) wii rok ji ma To point at a deer and call it a horse. Used for suck ups who says agrees to things that are clearly not right. 읍참마속(泣斬馬謖) ub cham ma sok To behead Ma Su (name) while crying. In the Romance of Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang had to behead his favourite general Ma Su as he wept because Ma Su ignored the given command resulting in losing the…

>위록지마(謂鹿止馬) wii rok ji ma To point at a deer and call it a horse. Used for suck ups who says agrees to things that are clearly not right. Adding a little bit of context to this: This seems to be the same origin as the Japanese word baka: 馬鹿 which means stupid and is the combination of the word Horse（馬） and deer (鹿). It has a quite funny background story[1] from ancient China: >Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but w…

This is the origin of the Japanese insult “baka” as well.

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#117

Post by watersb »

I got into four-word proverbs (Yojijukugos), like the one described here, when I was brainstorming some names for a new collection of quad-CPU workstations. Fifteen years ago, such beasts were new to us.

A friend and co-worker gave me a book that was a collection of Yojijukugos for English speakers. I will try to dig it up, it’s in storage at the moment.

But it got me thinking of traditional English-language Yojijukugos, some of which are mentioned in the great comments here. They probably go back thousands of years to Classical (5th Century BCE) Greek Aesop. Who probably didn’t speak 21st Century English.

.

- “[killing] Two birds, [with] one stone”

- “[A] stitch [in] time saves nine” — Literally, refers to losing count when stitching a crochet pattern: if you drop a stitch, you have to unwind back to the place before the error, because the yarn has no backspace key. But of course it’s a reminder that doing things at the right time can save a lot of work later.

- “[a] Bad week [for] quitting glue” - Lamenting the wisdom of kicking a dangerous habit of inhaling toxic substances, just when things are getting very strange and stressful. First appeared in the 5th Century BCE feature film “Airplane”, but refers to this past week’s collapse of banks SVB and Signature Bank. (This guy Aesop really knew how to look ahead.)

- “Same stuff, different day” - we’ve all seen this before.

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#118

Post by bharath28 »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #108
hyperjeff wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A high say-do ratio would be bad. A high do-say works.

I tried this for awhile (3-4 months) and it was extremely effective. Two rules. 1) I only talked about what I did 2) I only talked about things that occurred in the last It biases you for action.

I’m curious - did you stop? Why? What did not work about this?

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#119

Post by travisjungroth »

jollyllama wrote: post #94
nordsieck wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like a distinctly modern phenomenon Probably not a modern phenomenon. Except in so far as it's a lot easier to "hear" people say things much more easily now.

"Confucius said: 'The ancients were hesitant to speak, fearing that their actions would not do justice to their words.'"

If Confucius said the ancients didn’t do it then his contemporaries definitely did do it.

Re: Shoshikantetsu

#120

Post by nerpderp82 »

bharath28 wrote: post #118
nerpderp82 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried this for awhile (3-4 months) and it was extremely effective. Two rules. 1) I only talked about what I did 2) I only talked about things that occurred in the last It biases you for action.

I’m curious - did you stop? Why? What did not work about this?

First off, it was kinda hard. I am old and have lots of knowledge.

I went through some time where I didn't have much to pull from, so I found myself "being silent". Basically when talking with friends and bs'ing, I'd have to keep my mouth shut on the _should_, go do it and the next time show what I worked on.

It means getting off soshmeeds (like hn) and doing some sht, documenting it enough to explain it. I restarted from the comment I typed yesterday. :)

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