Living the Good Life

Take Time to Savor Life’s Little Pleasures

September 27, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Take Time to Savor Life's Little Pleasures

Happiness researcher Meik Wiking’s The Art of Making Memories (2019) observes that the Danes are famously happy despite “horrific weather and some of the highest tax returns in the world” because they take time to savor life’s little pleasures. It’s part of Hygge (pronounced “hue-guh,”) the Danish wellness mindset that encourages a spirit of contentedness.

When life gets busy, it’s way too easy to rush through the motions without paying attention to little experiences. Our lives ultimately consist of these tiny movements, one after the other. Fresh sheets. The smell of wet earth after rain. An old favorite song at the right moment. The kindness of a stranger. We take these gifts for granted and brush by them without really breathing in their grace.

Wiking suggests that you can truly rejoice in life by training your brain to focus on the positive in your day-to-day experiences. At the end of each month, reflect on the past month by celebrating the “Happy 10.” Look through the photos on your phone, choose your favorite ten memories, put them in an album or journal, and think about why you enjoy them.

Idea for Impact: Happiness isn’t determined by circumstances. Happiness is what happens when you decide to relish joy.

Savor the beauty and richness of simple pleasures. Take a moment at the end of each day/week/month/year to appreciate what you’re grateful for.

Get Everything Out of Your Head

September 9, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When there’s so much going on in your head, you’re constantly playing mental ping-pong. All those unfinished tasks can indeed affect your ability to be present with anything that you’re doing.

Sitting down to write out all the things that are weighing on your mind can boot out the clutter. Per the Zeigarnik Effect, interrupted tasks and unfinished thoughts tend to inundate you with a constant stream of reminders. Just the simple act of capturing a task can achieve a sense of completion for the moment.

Get It All Out Of Your Head - Reduce Stress Clear off your cluttered desk, pour some tea, put on some relaxing music, light a candle, mute the phone, and write down all the things you need to pay attention to. Work stuff, home stuff, kids stuff, paperwork, school stuff, friends stuff—all the stuff! Get it all out of your head.

Writing down everything that’s occupying your mind right now won’t solve your problems, but it makes them evident. This exercise makes it a lot easier to make good intuitive choices about where you should focus now and where it’s okay that you don’t focus now.

Idea for Impact: Stop what you’re doing right now and write down everything you have in your head. Not only will this exercise put in perspective all those things you need to keep track of, but also it’s a great way to reset your day.

Do These Three Things In The Morning For A Better Day

August 12, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Do These Three Things In The Morning For A Better Day

Mornings can be challenging to get up and get going, especially when work is home and home is work. If you want to hit the ground running each day, do these three simple things to make your mornings much less frenzied:

1/ Wake up to a clean space. Waking up to a disorganized home, overflowing trash, or a sink full of unwashed dishes can really put a damper on your day. The clutter and untidiness can wind you up if you have no clean cups and plates for your breakfast or you can’t find whatever you need to get your day started. Have a more pleasant and productive morning by taking care of all these chores the night before. Organize together everything you need for the next day.

2/ Make time to exercise. Exercising first thing in the morning doesn’t just perk up your body; it also boosts your spirit and metabolism and leaves you feeling invigorated. If you aren’t a morning-exercise kind of person, try to wake up 15 minutes earlier to do a few simple stretches, pushups, lift hand weights, and pace up and down the stairs a few times. You’ll kick off your day feeling a little more vibrant and refreshed.

3/ Make a to-do list. Start your morning by identifying what your day is going to look like. This way, you’ll feel more in control of your time and get more done. Ask yourself this question, “When the day is over, and I’m getting ready to go to bed, what would I have accomplished today to give me a tremendous sense of achievement?” Prioritize things that have to be at the forefront. Planning is easiest when your mental clarity is sharpest, which, for most people, is first thing in the morning.

A simple morning habit allows you to take control of your emotional state. It sets precedence and intent for the day.

Don’t Quit Your Job Just Yet

June 28, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Don't Quit Your Job Just Yet

As the pandemic subsides, many people are quitting their jobs after being summoned back to the office. A common motive is a life and career reorientation.

During the pandemic, many people started examining work in the context of meaning in life. Isolated from co-workers and customers, they started to feel like their jobs became just the work itself. Some are burned out and dread retreating to the daily life of distractions, commutes, and long office hours—often at the expense of flexibility and family and personal wellbeing.

Overall, people have used the space and time to reflect upon their lives and explore their life priorities. They’ve aspired to take some time off and figure out what they really want to do. Now, they feel like they can afford to take risks and try something new. The money they’ve saved up from lower everyday expenditures during the pandemic can tide them through the transition time.

If you’re thinking of taking a break from work now, don’t quit your job just yet. Give your employer a chance to address your concerns and preferences. Discuss your ambitions for change. Most managers are willing to make the necessary changes and explore hybrid work alternatives. Even if your current situation doesn’t fully jibe with your life’s goals, you could find a suitable sweet spot.

Idea for Impact: Don’t quit until you’ve established yourself in the future path. If you want to take some time off, have a plan ready. If you have the itch to become an entrepreneur, first get your stakes on a side hustle.

Don’t sacrifice that steady paycheck until you’re well positioned for what you want to do next. It usually takes you a lot longer than you think to find a new job, become self-employed, or prepare for a meaningful sabbatical.

A Train Journey Through Philosophy: Summary of Eric Weiner’s ‘Socrates Express’

June 24, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Journalist and author Eric Weiner’s The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers (2020) is a travelogue, memoir, and self-help book all rolled into one. It’s a distillation of the teachings of 14 great philosophers.

The “Express” isn’t just part of a catchy title. Each chapter starts with a wisdom-seeking train journey that Weiner took to locations where past great philosophers lived, worked, and thought (or are studied.) This introductory vignette orients Weiner’s study of these philosophers’ concepts: how to wonder like Socrates, see like Thoreau, listen like Schopenhauer, have no regrets like Nietzsche, fight like Gandhi, grow old like Beauvoir, cope with hardship like Epictetus, and so on.

The insights resonate with a fresh vibrancy for our problems today. Gandhi (on “how to fight”) believed that individuals who resorted to violence did so from a failure of imagination. Gandhi’s most significant fight was the fight to change the way we fight. He taught that a perpetrator of violence, “unwilling to do the hard work of problem-solving, he throws a punch or reaches for a gun.”

Weiner packs just enough background details on the philosophers’ life stories and how their intellectual traditions are rooted in the context of their times. Stoicism, for example, evolved when ancient Greece’s city-states were facing sociopolitical uncertainty.

The slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus distilled Stoicism to its essence with the dictum, “Some things are up to us, and some are not up to us.” Weiner writes, “Most of what happens in our life is not up to us, except our internal reactions to those events. The Stoics have a word for anything that lies beyond our control: “indifferents.” … Their presence doesn’t add one iota to our character or our happiness. They are neither good nor bad. The Stoic, therefore, is “indifferent” to them.”

Indifference, thus, is an empowering philosophy. With outward events, we are less powerful than we think, but with our reactions, we’re much more powerful.

There’s a scene in the movie Lawrence of Arabia where Lawrence, played by Peter O’Toole, calmly extinguishes a match between his thumb and forefinger.

A fellow officer tries it himself, and squeals in pain. “Ouch, it damn well hurts,” he says.

“Certainly it hurts,” replies Lawrence.

“Well, what’s the trick, then?”

“The trick,” says Lawrence, “is not minding that it hurts.”

Lawrence’s response was Stoic. Sure, he felt the pain, yet it remained a raw sensory sensation, a reflex. It never metastasized into a full-blown emotion. Lawrence didn’t mind the pain, in the literal sense of the word: he didn’t allow his mind to experience, and amplify, what his body had felt.

Socrates Express won’t be the most exhaustive philosophy book we can access. Moreover, as we read through, it’s helpful to have some prior appreciation for what we’re reading. For philosophers we’ve studied best, Weiner’s prose will reiterate the key findings. (That was Gandhi, Epictetus, Thoreau, Confucius, and Aurelius, for me.) The other chapters will seem comparatively less insightful.

Ultimately, Weiner reminds what we should be really looking for isn’t knowledge but wisdom. The difference, he says, is that, while information is a jumble of facts and knowledge is a more organized clutter of facts, wisdom is something else altogether. Wisdom “untangles the facts, makes sense of them and crucially, suggests how best to use them.” Put succinctly, “knowledge knows. Wisdom sees.”

Weiner’s prose meanders, it ventures down sidetracks, it stops frequently, it staggers, and it distracts. And it never arrives anywhere. And that’s the whole point. “The Socrates Express” begins in wonder—as does philosophy. The journey never ends—the quest for wisdom is ongoing. By the end, if, at Weiner’s prompting, philosophic thought has done its best, the curiosity of the journey has evoked remains.

Recommendation: Read Eric Weiner’s Socrates Express. It’s an engaging reminder that many philosophical systems are not just academic abstractions whose real meaning is lost in the minutiae.

Weiner’s prose invites us to start “questioning not only what we know but who we are, in hopes of eliciting a radical shift in perspective.” Socrates Express is a reminder that philosophy ultimately isn’t a cure-all for our current or future woes. Instead, philosophy is worthwhile because it builds immunity against negligent judgments and unentitled certitude. And it’s as relevant today as it’s ever been.

Mottainai: The Japanese Idea That’s Bringing More Balance to Busy Lives Everywhere

June 7, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

You don’t have to be a Japanophile like me to be familiarized with the notion of Mottainai. Take a brief trip to Japan and observe the culture, and you’ll become acquainted with the expression that’s deeply embedded in the way of life there. Depending on the context, you’ll hear mottainai as either the admonition “don’t waste” or the assertion “too precious to waste,” when, say, you spill rice.

In recent times, conservationists such as Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai have applied that phrase to inspire humankind to reduce, repurpose, reuse, and recycle. “If we are wise like nature, we would practise the mottainai spirit. The earth practises mottainai. It reuses and recycles. We even get recycled when we die. We go back into the soil,” Maathai has said.

What the Japanese Can Teach Us About Cleanliness

Mottainai: What the Japanese Can Teach Us About Cleanliness Over in Japan, tidying up is a bee on the bonnet. Cleanliness is a moral virtue, and cleaning is an act of spiritual practice—indeed, a means to purify the soul. In Shinto, good spirits can dwell in clean environments, and you’ll frequently observe Japanese people cleaning their homes and offices.

Ever since the post-war reconstruction, the Japanese have also encouraged upkeep and conservation. They tend to make the most of limited resources and avoid wastefulness. Their culture dissuades the idea of trashing things.

Moreover, the concept of animism in Shinto encourages reverence for objects—from teapots to katana. There’s even an old Japanese parable about a spirit ghost named “Mottainai Obake” who haunts children who treat things wastefully.

Inner Peace Starts with the Cleanness of Our Inner and Outer World.

Knackered for the physical space, the Japanese are devoted to efficient household goods and gift-giving (albeit with lavish gift-wrapping.) Their zeal for getting organized has led to a cottage industry of clutter counselors and storage experts who’re celebrated in television shows and consumer magazines as out-and-out innovators.

In this cultural context, Nagisa Tatsumi’s 2003 book Suteru Gijyutsu (“The Art of Throwing Away”) caused a national sensation with its bold proposal. Tatsumi challenged the Japanese to rethink their attitude to possessing things and to have the courage and conviction to get rid of all the stuff they really don’t need.

Tatsumi goaded people to let go of the things that are tying them down:

Possessing things is not good in itself. We have to consider whether they’re necessary, whether they’re used. And if something’s unnecessary, we should get rid of it. This is the essence of the Art of Discarding. Once you appreciate that you don’t have to keep what’s unnecessary, you’ll be better able to use what is necessary with proper care.

Tatsumi’s book sold 1 million copies in six months and quickly got translated into Korean and Chinese. Indeed, it was the book that inspired Marie Kondo, the reigning queen of decluttering.

Tatsumi’s Book Inspired the Current Obsession with Decluttering

In Suteru Gijyutsu, Tatsumi cheerfully explores the many psychological snags that make people reluctant to discard things.

Take the “keep it for now” syndrome, such as with the advertising leaflets that used to be inserted in the weekend newspaper. Tatsumi advises, “You think, ‘There may be something on sale that I might find useful. But I am too busy to go through them now. So I am going to keep them for now and look at them later.'” That mindset merely contributes to the piles of garbage.

Recommendation: Skim Suteru Gijyutsu, written in 2003. It was translated as The Art of Throwing Away only in 2017, a year before Tatsumi’s death.

Tatsumi’s message is simple yet profound. She guardedly reminds readers of the stark reality that everything is a waste. No matter what you buy, no matter how much you use it, no matter how much you love it, no matter if you keep it or recycle it or donate it … it’s still waste. It will still end up in a landfill someday. By learning to discard, you will reclaim space, free yourself from “accumulation syndrome,” and pave the way to rediscovering joy and purpose in a less-cluttered life.

Idea for Impact: Take back control, gain space, free yourself from “accumulation syndrome,” and find new joy and purpose in your less-cluttered life Take Tatsumi’s motto to heart: “If you have it, use it. If you don’t use it, don’t have it.”

Perfect—Or Perfectly Miserable?

May 22, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How Mandy Patinkin Overcame Perfectionism The American actor Mandy Patinkin has a reputation as a “self-oriented” perfectionist. He’s one of those who impose exacting standards on themselves and engage in rigorous self-evaluation.

In this interview for The New Yorker, Patinkin reveals how he overcame this tendency:

My children watched me be too hard on myself for years. They’d come to performances, concerts. Then they’d hear their father criticizing it afterwards. One day, my son Gideon and I are walking down the street on the Upper West Side and he wants to talk about his life. He’s talking about bad nights, good nights, et cetera. And he says, “I watched you suffer for so many years over things that I could never understand what you were suffering about, because I was there and I saw it and it was great. I watched you suffering, and I learned that it was meaningless, that it had no worth, it was for nothing.” And I started to weep. My sons knew that it was never worth it.

Idea for Impact: If you tend to fixate on undue self-standards, ask yourself, “To what end?” Recalibrate your expectations. Don’t let your perfectionist tendencies hold you back.

‘Follow Your Passion’ is Really Bad Career Advice

May 17, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One of Our Greatest Literary Stylists Was a Full-time Business Executive

Wallace Stevens - Insurance Executive Wallace Stevens, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated poets, was a full-time insurance executive for The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company. The son of a wealthy lawyer, Stevens attended Harvard, where he became recognized on campus as a prolific and multitalented writer. He moved to New York City to become a poet. His father was a lover of literature but was also prudent. He disapproved of Stevens’ literary aspirations and directed his son to cease writing and study the law.

Stevens eventually caved to his family’s pressure and went to New York University Law School. He practiced law at several New York firms for more than a decade before becoming an insurance lawyer and executive.

Stevens wrote most of his poetry on his daily two-mile walks to and from work: “I write best when I can concentrate, and do that best while walking.” He would take slips of paper in his pockets and jot down words. His secretary would type them up for him.

Despite the job demands, Stevens produced a fantastic body of imaginative work in his spare time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1955 for Collected Poems (1954.)

A Paycheck Comes First

Artists of all kinds have kept their jobs their entire lives. Among just the writers,

T. S. Eliot did some of his best work while employed at Lloyds Bank in London.
Two-time Poet Laureate Ted Kooser was also an insurance executive for much of his career. He would get up early, write poems for an hour and a half, and then go to work.
Pulitzer winner A. R. Ammons was a sales executive at his father-in-law’s scientific glass firm.
Richard Eberhart, another Pulitzer winner, worked at the Butcher Polish Company, his wife’s family’s floor wax business.
Poet Laureate James Dickey started his career at an advertising agency to “make some bucks.” A copywriter, he worked on the Coca-Cola and Lay’s Potato Chips accounts. He famously said, “I was selling my soul to the devil all day… and trying to buy it back at night.”
William Carlos Williams was a doctor in New Jersey practicing pediatrics and general medicine.
Novelist Henry Darger was a custodian at a Chicago hospital.
Harvey Pekar was a VA Hospital clerk in Cleveland. He held this job even after becoming famous. Until he retired in 2001, he declined all promotions.
Jules Verne was an agent de change (a broker) on the Paris Bourse. He woke up early each morning to write before going for the day’s work.
Novelist Jodi Picoult worked at an ad agency and a financial analyst, a textbook editor, and an eighth-grade teacher. She wrote her first novel when she was pregnant with her first daughter.

Follow Your Passion is Really Bad Career Advice

Disregard the Inspirational Mumbo Jumbo

Each of these authors had ambitions to be a writer but didn’t think they could earn a living at it initially. They started working as a means to an end. At the same time, they plodded away at writing, honing their craft, trying to appeal to readers, and refusing to stop trying because of their ambition and passion.

The boilerplate career advice “Do what you love and the money will follow” is aspirational but hardly practicable. Plenty of people are passionate about their craft, but few people can turn those passions into an actual paycheck.

Many people want to “do what they love” and specialize in, say, 17th-century Metaphysical poetry, get disheartened when there aren’t a lot of job positions available in that field, let alone that narrow area of expertise.

Pursue a passion but as a hobby. Work at it, and until you can find people who’ll like your work well enough to pay you for what you love to do, get a day job that’s acceptable and pays reasonably well. A steady professional income will take the pressure off. You’ll still be pursuing what you love, and, hopefully, someday, you can make a full career of it.

For now, though, let the money follow, if only from a different source.

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a Passion, But Don’t Expect to Make it a Career Right Away

Follow Your Passion - Disregard the Inspirational Career Advice To follow a passion, go get a day job. Think of it as your side gig. Then make time to cultivate your passions. When you’re good at something that people are likely to want, the money will come.

Despite the well-meaning counsel to follow your passion, the truth is, it’s easier to pursue your passion and achieve your dreams if you can afford to work free. Until then, seek the peace of mind that comes from being able to pay your bills and attaining financial stability.

Think Your Way Out of a Negative Thought

April 29, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Think Your Way Out of a Negative Thought

The human mind can become more blinkered in times of emotional turmoil.

The reasons for negative thoughts aren’t always logical, but challenging the stimuli with the following probing questions can help you reappraise the situation and distance yourself from the negative thoughts.

What am I concerned about?
Is this thought mine or someone else’s that I’ve picked up on?
Do I believe this thought?
Is this thought accurate?
Is this thought realistic?
Are the barriers and threats really insurmountable?
What’s the worst that can happen?
Am I too harsh on myself?
What can I learn about this thought?
What belief is attached to this thought?
How can I reframe this thought to be more realistic and pragmatic?
How can I cheer myself up as I would a friend?
What’s an affirming baby step that I can take now to pick myself up and rectify this situation?

Idea for Impact: How you think about a condition influences how you feel about it. Often a thought-out, levelheaded analysis of the situation can unshackle the mind’s echo chamber and nudge you to think your way out of a problem and look beyond it.

Three Lessons from Clayton Christensen’s ‘How Will You Measure Your Life?’

March 22, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Each term, on the last day of his management class, Harvard strategy professor Clayton M. Christensen had the habit of asking his students to apply the principles of management business to their personal lives.

“Don’t reserve your best business thinking for your career,” he would push them to ask the difficult questions and pursue purpose and meaning in their careers and their personal lives.

Toward the end of his life, after suffering a stroke and contracting cancer, Christensen published a Harvard Business Review article, which he expanded as How Will You Measure Your Life (2012.) This New York Times bestseller struck a chord with many business leaders, especially in favor of Christensen’s reflections on pursuing fulfillment.

Lesson #1: Don’t over-invest in work or under-invest in relationships.

Christensen talks about various motivators at work and encourages you to think about how you want to be remembered. He argues that ultimately your most significant sources of joy in life will be your family and your close friends. Devote time to these relationships, and they’ll enrich your life:

The relationships you have with family and close friends are going to be the most important sources of happiness in your life. But you have to be careful. When it seems like everything at home is going well, you will be lulled into believing that you can put your investments in these relationships on the back burner. That would be an enormous mistake. By the time serious problems arise in those relationships, it often is too late to repair them.

Lesson #2: Don’t lose track of the essential things. Allocate resources appropriately.

Christensen recalls some of his business school classmates entered the school with a noble cause—many of them wanted to change the world. But when they graduated with student debt, they took jobs for money to pay off their debts. And that was just going to be a temporary thing. But, over time, they got caught up in their careers, making money and chasing possessions. Their original pursuit of the noble cause petered out and, along the way, they lost track of what was important in their lives.

Christensen encourages building and implementing strategies in your career and your personal life to achieve your goals. The underlying tenet of that success is how you allocate your time, money, and other resources. How you spend these resources will determine your life’s outcomes.

How you allocate your resources is where the rubber meets the road. Real strategy—in companies and in our lives—is created through hundreds of everyday decisions about where we spend our resources. As you’re living your life from day to day, how do you make sure you’re heading in the right direction? Watch where your resources flow. If they’re not supporting the strategy you’ve decided upon, then you’re not implementing that strategy at all.

Lesson #3: “Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.”

Three lessons from Clayton Christensen's 'How Will You Measure Your Life?' Christensen tells a story from his college days when he played university basketball. His team worked hard all season and made it to the finals of some big tournament. The championship game was scheduled on a Sunday. For Christensen, a deeply religious Mormon, playing on the Sabbath (the “seventh day”) was against his religious beliefs.

Christensen did not comply with the coach’s demand to break the Sabbath statute “just this one time” for the big game. Christensen did not want to violate his religious principles. His team won the tournament anyway.

Because life is just one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over and over in the years that followed. … Many of us have convinced ourselves that we are able to break our own personal rules “just this once.” In our minds, we can justify these small choices. None of those things, when they first happen, feels like a life-changing decision. The marginal costs are almost always low. However, each of those decisions can roll up into a much bigger picture, turning you into the kind of person you never wanted to be. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal-cost analysis, you’ll regret where you end up. It’s easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time.

Idea for Impact: Intentionally choose the kind of person you want to become. Commit to that path.

Read Clayton M. Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life (2012.) It’s not a long book—perhaps overly worded in parts—but it’s a intense and thought-provoking book.

Christensen and his co-authors don’t provide answers. Instead they present guiding principles that make you put things in perspective and help you become intentional about building a contented life. The parallels between running a successful business and running life are worthwhile.

Living the Good Life

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What the Japanese Can Teach Us About Cleanliness

Inner Peace Starts with the Cleanness of Our Inner and Outer World.

Tatsumi’s Book Inspired the Current Obsession with Decluttering

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

One of Our Greatest Literary Stylists Was a Full-time Business Executive

A Paycheck Comes First

Disregard the Inspirational Mumbo Jumbo

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a Passion, But Don’t Expect to Make it a Career Right Away

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Lesson #1: Don’t over-invest in work or under-invest in relationships.

Lesson #2: Don’t lose track of the essential things. Allocate resources appropriately.

Lesson #3: “Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.”

Idea for Impact: Intentionally choose the kind of person you want to become. Commit to that path.

Wondering what to read next?