Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Mindfulness

How to Be Happy, per Cicero

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How to Be Happy

The Roman statesman and orator Cicero wrote, “A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.” (Fully, “We make blessedness of life depend upon an untroubled mind, and exemption from all duties.”)

As the other stoics did, Cicero claims that happiness relies on the internal—we must ultimately rely on ourselves for happiness. The happiest person is “the one who depends on himself only.”

For the stoics, tranquility is to be found by stopping to stress about things we can’t control—by narrowing our focus, looking inward, and eliminating the many uncontrollable passions.

The Bhagavad Gita (2:64-65; from Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s exposition) reiterates that such a mode of conduct characterized by the tranquility of mind is the means of spiritual realization:

A man of disciplined mind, who moves along the objects of the sense, with the senses under control and free from attachment and aversion, he attains purity of spirit. And in the purity of spirit, there is produced for him an end of sorrow; the intelligence of such a man of pure spirit is soon established (in the peace of self.)

Idea for Impact: It’s the state of mind that conceives of whether we’re happy. Therefore, we must strengthen our minds and become fulfilled humans.

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Co-Workation Defeats Work-Life Balance

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Workation Defeats Work-Life Balance

There’s a new workplace “wellness” movement, and travel agencies are touting it big-time.

“Workation” or “work on holidays” (WoH) invites employees to lug their work laptops along to their holiday spots, find decent Wi-Fi, and peg away full-time for a few days.

At first glance, untethering from the physical office and conventional business hours seems like a liberating lifestyle perk. But co-workations are a further erosion of work-life balance, and they’re bad for business. Here’s why.

Co-Workations subvert the very purpose of a holiday: to check out, disconnect, and recharge the batteries. Co-Workations means getting work calls at four in the morning if you’re not in the same time zone as the rest of your team. Instead of feeling overworked, stressed, and deadline-obsessed at your cubicle, co-workations encourage you to feel overworked, stressed, and deadline-obsessed while lounging in a hammock surrounded by a bunch of people gaudily enjoying themselves by not working.

A practical way to encourage employees to set boundaries between their personal and professional lives is by simply not asking them to work while on vacation. Many people don’t have the self-discipline for the “psychological detachment” that’s indispensable to rest and refresh.

Idea for Impact: Inviting—empowering even—employees to check in on their work responsibilities is a slippery slope. There’s an expectation that they are more generous with their personal time and acquiesce to being badgered on days off. Besides, when senior managers don’t truly take a vacation, they set a cultural precedent for how others should use their time away from their desks.

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Our 10 Most Popular Articles of 2022

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Top Blog Articles of 2022 Here are our most popular exclusive features of 2022. Pass this on to your friends; if they like these, they can sign up to receive our RSS feeds.

And here are some articles of yesteryear that continue to be popular:

We wish you all a healthy and prosperous 2023!

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“Fly the Aircraft First”

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Attention Prioritization: Lessons from Eastern Airlines Flight 401 Today is the 50th anniversary of the Flight 401 disaster. I’ve previously cited how the crew of the ill-fated Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011 got so single-mindedly preoccupied with tackling a nose landing gear indicator light malfunction that they didn’t pay attention to the fact that their airliner was descending gradually into the Florida Everglades.

In summary, the pilots were simply too distracted to fly the aircraft. Human factors, specifically cognitive impairments, can precipitate distractions away from vital tasks.

The incident led to a breakthrough called Crew Resource Management (CRM.) This “human nature innovation” actively orients pilots to prioritize tasks in order of operational safety. The adage “Aviate, Navigate, and Communicate (A-N-C)” reinforces the ‘fly the aircraft first’ behaviors until they’re internalized and become routine.

The top priority—always—is to aviate. That means fly the airplane by using the flight controls and flight instruments to direct the airplane’s attitude, airspeed, and altitude. Rounding out those top priorities are figuring out where you are and where you’re going (Navigate,) and, as appropriate, talking to ATC or someone outside the airplane (Communicate.) However, it doesn’t matter if we’re navigating and communicating perfectly if we lose control of the aircraft and crash. A-N-C seems simple to follow, but it’s easy to forget when you get busy or distracted in the cockpit.

Idea for Impact: “Fly the aircraft first.” Know when to set aside the seemingly important things to accomplish the more vital ones.

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Joy is the Happiness That Lasts

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Joy is the Happiness That Lasts (1 Peter 1:8--9) Early this year, we lost Thích Nhất Hạnh, the much-venerated Vietnamese monk who popularized mindfulness in the West. In one of his early teachings, The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975,) Nhất Hạnh gave simple instructions on how to reset your notions of happiness:

Our notions of happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.

There’re many things in your life that you aren’t happy about now, and you want to see them changed. Isn’t that always going to be so?

Don’t let the inclination to put off happiness until later draw you away from the positives in your life now.

Idea for Impact: Learn to find joy in tiny triumphs. Joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens. Joy is the happiness that can be steady. Joy is the happiness that lasts. And that’s what you really want.

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It’s Time to Tune In: Give the Gift of Listening

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It's Time to Tune in: Give the Gift of Listening

The cacophony of our fast-paced life inhibits listening. We need our interlocutors to “cut right to the chase,” to “get right to it” so we can move on to whatever else is urging our attention.

Listening goes beyond just hearing what people say. Most of the time when someone is chatting with us, we are talking in our heads about what we’ll say next! Indeed, we don’t even let them finish their thoughts before sharing something about our experiences or offering our perspective on what they have to say.

Idea for Impact: This holiday season, commit to giving the gift of listening. Focus on them when they talk to you. Don’t interrupt or shift the conversation to yourself. Give them your full attention. Listening starts with an openness and willingness to truly follow another person’s story without premise or getting sidetracked by what’s going on in your own head.

This is maybe the greatest gift we can give another human being—our undivided attention. To listen without judgment or agendas. Nothing makes us feel more human and more important than feeling listened to—even accepted.

Be a shoulder. Be a friend. Be an ear to someone who needs it. Tune in. Connect and empathize. Make the other person feel valued and important, and you might learn something and develop as a human being.

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Lilies and Leeches

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Lilies and Leeches: Surround Yourself with Those Who Elevate You You may have heard of the notion of lilies and leeches. The lilies are the people—and situations—that bring out the best in you. The leeches just grind you down.

Learn to say ‘no’ to relationships or situations that don’t work for you. Life’s too short to waste time on anything that can suck your happiness and energy. Avoid those emotional leeches, productivity leeches, and financial leeches.

Idea for Impact: A little-cited key to a rewarding life: choose to surround yourself with those who elevate you. With those who are caring, supportive, and nonjudgmental, and who make you feel loved, appreciated, and respected.

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Are You Ill-Prepared for Being Wrong?

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Are You Ill-Prepared for Being Wrong? We spend so much of our lives being right that, I wonder if, we’re ill-prepared for being wrong.

Since childhood, we’ve been inured that being right is more acceptable than being wrong. Being wrong feels so unpleasant—repulsive even—that we instill a series of strategies to salvage ourselves when we are exposed as being wrong. We learn to trip from our forked tongues explanations, justifications, excuses, and blames for our errors and oversights.

What’s worse, we develop a deep-seated impulse to shirk responsibility and accountability for our actions. We become loath to change our beliefs or behaviors because change takes effort. We envisage change as a challenge to our identity. In the words of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, “People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot. They wake up and re-analyze things and change their mind. If you don’t change your mind frequently, you’re going to be wrong a lot. People who are right a lot want to disconfirm their fundamental biases.”

Idea for Impact: What’s lost in all this is that being wrong is not only a central feature of being human. It’s one of the most potent ways of learning. Admitting we were wrong—and conceding we’ll be wrong again—can be so liberating and welcoming.

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3 Ways to … Eat Healthy

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How to Eat Healthy Mindful eating for wellbeing isn’t just about what foods to eat but also about establishing and maintaining a healthy relationship with food.

  1. Slow down and really be present while you eat. Mindful eating is best achieved when your focus is on the meal. Put your phone or book elsewhere and just focus on your food’s taste, smell, texture, and look. You’ll enjoy the food so much more when you savor it. Wolfing down your food leads to overeating because your brain doesn’t realize it’s had enough to eat.
  2. Honor your hunger and fullness—relearn what it feels like when you’re hungry and full. Don’t overeat or eat the wrong things because your environment triggers your appetite. Change your environment, so it works for you rather than against you.
  3. Use smaller plates. The larger the portion size, the more you’ll eat. Aim to eat healthy most of the time and allow some wiggle room. There’re no ‘bad’ foods, and identifying foods as ‘off-limits’ only makes you want them more. Practice portion control if you step off your diet for a special occasion.

Idea for Impact: Building wellness begins with really paying attention. Change behavior with simple nudges.

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3 Ways to … Get Wiser

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How to Get Wiser Wisdom is generally about discernment—the ability to embrace a quieter state of mind and make judicious choices based on experience.

  1. Be open to new points of view and constantly reassess your understanding. Dispute everything you assume you ‘know for sure’ and reconsider every question you think you’ve resolved. In the words of Bertrand Russell, ‘fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.’ Aim to understand—not judge—the nuances of an issue by seeing the world not as black and white but in shades of gray.
  2. Choose who you spend time with—they’ll shape your future more than anything else. To broaden your horizons, engage with people other than those from your own background—you’ll never challenge your own opinions if you don’t open yourself up to people who have a different attitude than yours.
  3. Act wisely. Be honest with yourself—and with others. When confronted with life’s challenges, appeal to your wisest self and act as wisely as possible, focusing on purpose over pleasure and balancing self-interest and the common good.

Idea for Impact: Wisdom begets wisdom.

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