This is a perfectly enjoyable and enriching book. One of her first insights is to just let herself be herself. It’s a principal she calls “just be Gretchen.” Don’t try to be this idealized version who you think you should be. Don’t try to force yourself to like Jazz or Opera because your “sophisticated” just like what you like and be who you are authentically. I kept thinking Brene’ Brown should really read this book!
Digital nomadism continues its steady rise in most western countries. It consists of a mobile lifestyle that encompasses corporate remote workers, freelancers and entrepreneurs. Laptops, smartphones, wi-fi connections, coworking spaces, coffee shops and public libraries are some of the key components of this new work culture.
Brene Brown, like all of us, really struggles with being her authentic self. This book, which is part memoir and part research, offers some valuable insights about braving the wilderness of authenticity. Remember how George Bailey gets shown what the world would be like if he’d never been born in It’s A Wonderful Life. Braving The Wilderness kind of let me see a little more of what the world would be like if I wasn’t a white privileged guy totally OK with dancing to the beat of drums only I may hear.
Fast Company
Fungi purported to have healing properties are making their way into drinks & beauty products. Indeed, the mushroom market is expected to hit $50 billion in the coming years . . .
Stamets is adamant that with more trials currently being conducted, the greater public will eventually discover antioxidant powers of the mushroom. In fact, he is planning a clinical study on lion’s mane to further investigate its alleged ability to regenerate neurons and affect neuropathy.“It’s one of our rising stars right now,” he says of that particular mushroom. “We’re all getting older, we all face potential dementia and other neuropathy. So this is something that we’re very much focused on–these foods being beneficial.”
I stopped reading this about a third of the way in. I really enjoyed his TED Talk but in this book, he’s like the speaker who makes his point and then keeps speaking and speaking. I felt like he wasn’t just content with making his point. He wanted to settle every little intellectual score with every other position and make sure that his readers understand he is not only right but that having any other position than his was utter foolishness.
Now despite not finishing the book and not enjoying his style — both obviously subjective points of view. I do want to share with you what is literally the last paragraph I read because I found it insightful and intriguing. Bordering, perhaps, even on being profound. And was the moment I knew I was better just better off putting this book down because I didn’t want him to keep going on and spoil this moment for me.
“The idea that the world is better than it was and can get better still fell out of fashion among the clerisy long ago. In The Idea of Decline in Western History, Arthur Herman shows that prophets of doom are the all-stars of the liberal arts curriculum, including Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Cornel West, and a chorus of eco-pessimists. Surveying the intellectual landscape at the end of the 20th century, Herman lamented a “grand recessional” of “the luminous exponents” of Enlightenment humanism, the ones who believed that “since people generate conflicts and problems in society, they can also resolve them.” Steven Pinker. “Enlightenment Now.”
(New York Times)
NEW HAVEN — On Jan. 12, a few days after registration opened at Yale for Psyc 157, Psychology and the Good Life, roughly 300 people had signed up. Within three days, the figure had more than doubled. After three more days, about 1,200 students, or nearly one-fourth of Yale undergraduates, were enrolled.The course, taught by Laurie Santos, 42, a psychology professor and the head of one of Yale’s residential colleges, tries to teach students how to lead a happier, more satisfying life in twice-weekly lectures.
“Students want to change, to be happier themselves, and to change the culture here on campus,” Dr. Santos said in an interview. “With one in four students at Yale taking it, if we see good habits, things like students showing more gratitude, procrastinating less, increasing social connections, we’re actually seeding change in the school’s culture.”
BUT WAIT!! THERE”S MORE!!! What would you pay for a course of this quality? 500 Dollars! 1000 Dollars! 10,000 Dollars! Well you can have this course for FREE!
Coursera’s rolling enrollment is here
Course Description:
“The Science of Well-Being” taught by Professor Laurie Santos overviews what psychological science says about happiness. The purpose of the course is to not only learn what psychological research says about what makes us happy but also to put those strategies into practice. The first part of the course reveals misconceptions we have about happiness and the annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do. The next part of the course focuses on activities that have been proven to increase happiness along with strategies to build better habits. The last part of the course gives learners time, tips, and social support to work on the final assignment which asks learners to apply one wellness activity aka “Rewirement” into their lives for four weeks.
Brain Pickings
“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”
Dean’s List 