Marcus Tay's List: Lessons for life

• The fact is, we already know from self-help gurus what to do. Follow your dreams. Never give up. Believe in yourself. The answers to the ultimate question are often cliches, and that doesn't mean they're wrong — they're just not very helpful. What's helpful is seeing that other people are trying too, even if they're failing.
• Bronson is a fan of failure. "Failure's hard," he writes, "but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever." Bronson believes, and his stories prove, that failure is how you eliminate the wrong turns on the way to the right one.

• Happy Planet Index' - the subject of the Forum angst - is not a particularly good gauge of happiness. It considers not just personal satisfaction and life expectancy, but also how environmentally friendly we are. Singapore, together with other developed countries, stumbled on that score.

  • This happiness cover environmental friendly Singapore is as well and not just happiness of Singapore
• Singapore ranked 53rd, lower than Denmark (1st), Bhutan (8th), Luxembourg (12th), Malaysia (17th), the United States (23th) and Britain (41th), but higher than China (82nd) and Japan (90th)

  • Note, Denmark is first while 8 out of the top ten position is supposed to go to less developed countries as it is the happy planet index.
• once our basic needs are met, additional wealth does little to increase our sense of satisfaction.
• common trait shared by the happiest 10 per cent of their respondents was strong ties to family and friends.
• attitude was the key reason Denmark is the 'happiness superpower'.
• Danes also have lower expectations of life,
• live their life as the Buddha advised - in the present, not grasping some future happiness jackpot
• Perfectionists, he says, reject anything that is less than flawless and suffer because they often cannot meet their own high standards. If we wish to be happy, we should aim to be 'optimalists' instead - 'good enough', rather than perfect, in our studies, work and love,

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• best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.
• We know that it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health.
• The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won’t make them as happy — money
• people tend to take more pleasure in experiences than in things.
• One reason for this is that experiences tend to be shared with other people and objects usually aren’t.

  • If you have money to spend - spend it on experience and not things, because you share it with people.
• it will take a very large amount of money to increase my happiness by a small amount.
• with the poor, a little money can buy a lot of happiness. If you’re rich, a lot of money can buy you a little more happiness.

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• explain why, after a long day at the office, we're more likely to indulge in a pint of ice cream, or eat one too many slices of leftover pizza
• Most of us assume that self-control is largely a character issue, and that we would follow through on our New Year's resolutions if only we had a bit more discipline.
• tudents who fasted for three hours and then had to perform a variety of self-control tasks, such as focusing on a boring video or suppressing negative stereotypes, had significantly lower glucose levels than students who didn't have to exert self-control.
• people who are better at delaying gratification don't necessarily have more restraint. Instead, they seem to be better at finding ways to get tempting thoughts out of their minds.
• prefrontal cortex can be bulked up, and that practicing mental discipline in one area, such as posture, can also make it easier to resist Christmas cookies.

  • - Practise of discipline in one area can also increase overall discipline
    - Don't fight temptation with discipline, distract yourself with something else.

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• deliberate practice.
• involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

  • Definition of deliberate practice - what you should look for out in a teacher or seek to provide to others as well
• when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love — because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good.
• what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.

  • Explains why we need to choose a life path on what we love: Only then will we have the desire to be good and undertake the deliberate practice

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• The story of wealth failing to translate into extra happiness is the story of the Western world.  

   In almost every developed country, happiness levels have remained largely static over the past 50 years - despite huge increases in income.   

   What the happiness research suggests is that once average incomes reach about £10,000 a year, extra money does not make a country any happier. 

• change what you can, accept what you cannot and have the wisdom to know the difference.

• hree that worked were "three blessings" - writing down three things that went well today and why; "the gratitude visit" - writing a gratitude testimonial and delivering it personally; and "using your signature strength in a new way" - taking the signature strength test and using your highest strength in a new way.
• psychotherapy of the future may also be where you go to talk about positive emotion, your strengths and virtues, and how to build more meaning into your life.

• Decide what you really like to do and what you would like to spend your life doing. That’s more important than deciding what particular job to hold, because the employment landscape is changing radically and quickly.
• Where could I carry that out?’ and be very flexible about the milieu and venue —
• if you have any choice over where to work, when you’re considering a job, go there and talk to people. Ask yourself, ‘Is this the kind of place where I can see myself in others

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• Tell the truth, but tell it slant
• Weigh the specifics. Ask yourself whether telling the truth has real potential to improve a less-than-ideal situation
• Zero in on the other person's motive and address it.
• Tell the truth to build rapport
• people willing to disclose slightly embarrassing truths are likely to have deeper, more intimate personal relationships.

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• Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.
• religiosity correlates with higher self-control.”
• Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there’s a lot of activity in two parts of brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion,” he said. “The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control.”
• strongly religious people were compared with people who subscribed to more general spiritual notions, like the idea that their lives were “directed by a spiritual force greater than any human being” or that they felt “a spiritual connection to other people.” The religious people scored relatively high in conscientiousness and self-control, whereas the spiritual people tended to score relatively low.
• Thinking about the oneness of humanity and the unity of nature doesn’t seem to be related to self-control,”

  • Believing that there is a greater being out there or religion, does not give people self control. It is the thing that you do when in religion that gives you more self control
• self-control effect seems to come from being engaged in religious institutions and behaviors
• difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.

  • You must really want to be religious intrinsically to get the benefits of being religious.
• eplicating some of the religious mechanisms that seem to improve self-control, like private meditation or public involvement with an organization that has strong ideals.

  • How to get the benefits of religion without being religious.
• “Sacred values come prefabricated for religious believers,”

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• American psychologist Ed Diener of the University of Illinois has shown that once our basic needs are met, additional wealth does little to increase our sense of satisfaction. High education, IQ or even youth are not prerequisites for happiness.
  
• happiest 10 per cent of their respondents was strong ties to family and friends.
• nlike their fellow Scandinavians, Danes also have lower expectations of life,
• The Pursuit Of Perfect, psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar argues that the pursuit of perfection is the biggest obstacle to happiness. Perfectionists, he says, reject anything that is less than flawless and suffer because they often cannot meet their own high standards. If we wish to be happy, we should aim to be 'optimalists' instead - 'good enough', rather than perfect, in our studies, work and love,

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• here are far too many people who look like they have their act together but have yet to make an impact.
• You know who you are. It comes down to a simple gut check: You either love what you do or you don't. Period
• Our economy is so vast that we don't have to grind it out forever at jobs we hate. For the most part, we get to choose. That choice isn't about a career search so much as an identity quest. Asking The Question aspires to end the conflict between who you are and what you do. There is nothing more brave than filtering out the chatter that tells you to be someone you're not. There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice. Asking The Question is nothing short of an act of courage: It requires a level of commitment and clarity that is almost foreign to our working lives.
• first assumption to get busted was the notion that certain jobs are inherently cool and that others are uncool.
• Work=Boring, but Work+Speed+Risk=Cool
• Your calling isn't something you inherently "know," some kind of destiny
• The funny thing is that most people have good instincts about where they belong but make poor choices and waste productive years on the wrong work.
• MONEY Doesn't Fund Dreams
• It turns out that having the financial independence to walk away rarely triggers people to do just that. The reality is, making money is such hard work that it changes you. It takes twice as long as anyone plans for. It requires more sacrifices than anyone expects. You become so emotionally invested in that world -- and psychologically adapted to it -- that you don't really want to ditch it.
• The shortest route to the good life involves building the confidence that you can live happily within your means
• Instilled with a sense of purpose, your spending habits naturally reorganize, because you discover that you need less.
• The right question is, How can I find something that moves my heart, so that the inevitable crap storm is bearable?
• Using the brain to solve this problem usually only leads to answers that make the brain happy and jobs that provide what I call "brain candy." Intense mental stimulation
• Intensity comes across as a pale busyness , while passion is meaningful and fulfilling.
• Your money is good anywhere, but respect and status are only a local currency. They get heavily discounted when taken elsewhere. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and opportunity can lock you in forever
• ind one that enforces a set of beliefs that you can really get behind. There's a powerful transformative effect when you surround yourself with like-minded people. Peer pressure is a great thing when it helps you accomplish your goals instead of distracting you from them.
• u'll be a lot happier if you aren't fighting the value system around you
• first psychological stumbling block that keeps people from finding themselves is that they feel guilty for simply taking the quest seriously. They think that it's a self-indulgent privilege of the educated upper class. Working-class people manage to be happy without trying to "find themselves," or so the myth goes
• most debilitating obstacle to taking on The Question is the fear that making a choice is a one-way ride, that starting down a path means closing a door forever.
• "Keeping your doors open" is a trap. It's an excuse to stay uninvolved
• Her need to look brilliant was what was keeping her from truly answering The Question
• What is freedom for if not the chance to define for yourself who you are?
• status system has evolved that values being unique and true even more than it values being financially successful.
• you don't like The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question, maybe it's partly because you don't like your answer.

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• Participants were instructed to relax with their eyes closed, focus on their breathing, and acknowledge and release any random thoughts that might arise.
• ey were tested a second time, their neural activation patterns had undergone a striking leftward shift in frontal asymmetry — even when their practice and training averaged only 5 to 16 minutes a day.

• Zeigarnik effect teaches is that one weapon for beating procrastination is starting somewhere...anywhere.
• The Zeigarnik effect has an important exception. It doesn't work so well when we're not particularly motivated to achieve our goal or don't expect to do well. This is true of goals in general: when they're unattractive or impossible we don't bother with them.

• Time is the resource on which we’ve relied to get more accomplished. When there’s more to do, we invest more hours. But time is finite, and many of us feel we’re running out, that we’re investing as many hours as we can while trying to retain some semblance of a life outside work.
• • Rest allows people to work better
• Human beings aren’t designed to expend energy continuously. Rather, we’re meant to pulse between spending and recovering energy.
• t during the day we move from a state of alertness progressively into physiological fatigue approximately every 90 minutes. Our bodies regularly tell us to take a break, but we often override these signals and instead stoke ourselves up with caffeine, sugar and our own emergency reserves — the stress hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol.
• Working in 90-minute intervals turns out to be a prescription for maximizing productivity.
• best performers typically practice in uninterrupted sessions that last no more than 90 minutes. They begin in the morning, take a break between sessions, and rarely work for more than four and a half hours in any given day.
• To maximize gains from long-term practice,” Dr. Ericsson concluded, “individuals must avoid exhaustion and must limit practice to an amount from which they can completely recover on a daily or weekly basis.”
• ell, you renew that matters most in terms of performance. Even renewal requires practice. The more rapidly and deeply I learned to quiet my mind and relax my body, the more restored I felt afterward.

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