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How to Be Happy, per Cicero

January 19, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

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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  5. 3 Ways to … Get Wiser

Filed Under: Health and Well-being, Living the Good Life Tagged With: Happiness, Mindfulness, Philosophy, Wisdom

3 Ways to … Get Wiser

October 18, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

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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  3. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue
  4. How Emotional Resilience Improves with Age
  5. I’ll Be Happy When …

Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Mental Models Tagged With: Attitudes, Conflict, Mindfulness, Philosophy, Stress, Wisdom

Why People are Afraid to Think

August 26, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment


Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth—more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. (Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel (1916,) pp. 178–179)

Bertrand Russell on Why People are Afraid to Think Laziness and inability usually coerce people to reject thinking. But, as Russell contends, fear is a non-obvious inhibitor of thought. Not just because meticulous reasoning is demanding but because thinking may occasion an undermining—even revaluation—of our long-held convictions about all sorts of matters—notably religion and ethics.

People reject thinking because we fear it may challenge our equilibrium—how we make sense of the world. We’ll be coerced to see the world anew. As I’ve emphasized previously, once a belief is added to our corpus of viewpoints, we indulge in “intellectual censorship.” We cling to our ideas rather than objectively reassessing and questioning them.

Idea for Impact: Life should alter you. Through conscientious thinking, your worldview can—and should—reflect that growth.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. 3 Ways to … Avoid Overthinking
  4. Nothing Deserves Certainty
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Filed Under: Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Bertrand Russell, Conviction, Critical Thinking, Persuasion, Philosophy, Thinking Tools, Wisdom

The Secret to Happiness in Relationships is Lowering Your Expectations

April 11, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Secret to Happiness in Relationships is Lowering Your Expectations

Happiness depends not on how well things are going, but on whether things are going better or worse than expected. (A case in point: under-promising and over-delivering is a sure way to build customer loyalty.)

Right-size what you can expect from others. You’d be happier to accept other people’s difficult behaviors when you expect less from them. The instant you feel disappointed because another person didn’t come through for you, remind yourself, “It isn’t for me to have those expectations on her.”

The definitive purpose of moderating your expectations of other people isn’t to give them some sort of pass. Instead, it is to help you take off your rose-colored spectacles and appreciate the being-as-is. This change of attitude helps you moderate the constant frustration—even anger—from those around you.

Idea for Impact: If you have high expectations of other people and they disappoint you, you’re giving them permission to dictate how you’ll feel. That’s a lot of power to give to others.

Wondering what to read next?

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  4. Get Rid of Relationship Clutter
  5. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue

Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Managing People Tagged With: Attitudes, Conflict, Emotions, Getting Along, Mindfulness, Philosophy, Relationships, Suffering

Can’t Expect to Hold the Same Set of Beliefs Your Entire Life

April 7, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Truth That it's Okay to Change It’s okay to challenge your core values and change.

That’s normal and healthy.

It means you’re able to ability to transcend your current worldview and have an open mind. You’re willing to learn about new perspectives. You’re eager to search actively for evidence against your favored beliefs, discover and challenge your internal biases, and change your core values if they no longer make sense.

Having the freedom to change your core beliefs and being able to reason and reconsider your positions on something is an integral part of being human, as Aristotle writes in his Nicomachean Ethics.

Don’t be more committed to the appearance of consistency than to real growth.

Don’t inadvertently buy into the values that predominate popular culture.

When you have doubts and questions and changes of heart and mind, even on fundamental issues such as faith or political orientation, don’t consider them character defects or moral flaws. You’re just exercising your ability for rational thought.

Life should alter you. It should recondition your soul and mind and refocus your lens. Time and experience—the people you meet, the ideas you stumble upon, and how you discover meaning—should all change you. On religion, say, you won’t have the understanding of yourself and of God and the world that you had ten years ago. And you can bet that the same won’t be true ten years from now.

Challenge your core values and change As a human, you grow and change. Your worldview can—and should—reflect that growth. Regardless of what you feel, think, believe, and profess today, if someday in the future you find yourself in a different place, remember: it’s okay to realign your mind—and to speak it.

Idea for Impact: Rethink everything you previously thought out. It’ll only strengthen your character.

You’ll also discover that you’re rarely offended by other people’s opinions anymore, even when they differ significantly from your own. You’ll be care far more about how people justify and rationalize those views. And you’ll get a better appreciation of the nuances—this is much more important than whether or not someone agrees with you.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. It’s Probably Not as Bad as You Think: The 20-40-60 Rule
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  3. Does the Consensus Speak For You?
  4. Care Less for What Other People Think
  5. The Power of Counterintuitive Thinking

Filed Under: Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Attitudes, Conviction, Critical Thinking, Philosophy

Buddhism is Really a Study of the Self

March 26, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Buddhism is Really a Study of the Self When you study Buddhism, you study yourself. You figure out the nature of your mind.

You focus not on some dogmatic view—the Buddha made no claims to being a prophet, and Buddhism owes its origin to no divine revelation. Instead, Buddhism emphasizes more practical matters, such as how to lead your life and how to integrate your mind.

The Buddhist path isn’t about being a proper Buddhist or comprehending the Buddhist creed. It isn’t something to believe in; it’s something to do. It’s about understanding who you are and how you can fully realize your potential—not as a Buddhist but as a human being.

Idea for Impact: “Who am I?” is a pivotal question of Buddhism. The Buddhist path encourages you to awaken to liberation.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Three Lessons from Clayton Christensen’s ‘How Will You Measure Your Life?’
  4. Treating Triumph and Disaster Just the Same // Book Summary of Pema Chödrön’s ‘The Wisdom of No Escape’
  5. Leaves … Like the Lives of Mortal Men

Filed Under: Living the Good Life Tagged With: Buddhism, Legacy, Life Plan, Life Purpose, Meaning, Mindfulness, Philosophy, Virtues

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.

'Socrates Express' by Eric Weiner (ISBN 1501129015) 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.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Gandhi on the Doctrine of Ahimsa + Non-Violence in Buddhism
  2. Was the Buddha a God or a Superhuman?
  3. Treating Triumph and Disaster Just the Same // Book Summary of Pema Chödrön’s ‘The Wisdom of No Escape’
  4. If You Want to Be Loved, Love
  5. What Is the Point of Life, If Only to Be Forgotten?

Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Mental Models Tagged With: Ethics, Gandhi, Philosophy, Questioning, Virtues

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.

'The Art of Discarding' by Nagisa Tatsumi (ISBN 0316558923) 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.”

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Marie Kondo is No Cure for Our Wasteful and Over-consuming Culture
  2. The Simple Life, The Good Life // Book Summary of Greg McKeown’s ‘Essentialism’
  3. I’ll Be Happy When …
  4. Change Your Perfectionist Mindset (And Be Happier!) This Holiday Season
  5. Thinking Straight in the Age of Overload // Book Summary of Daniel Levitin’s ‘The Organized Mind’

Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Clutter, Discipline, Japan, Materialism, Mindfulness, Perfectionism, Philosophy, Simple Living

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.

'How Will You Measure Your Life' by Clayton M. Christensen (ISBN 0062102419) “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.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Buddhism is Really a Study of the Self
  2. What Do You Want to Be Remembered for?
  3. What Is the Point of Life, If Only to Be Forgotten?
  4. A Train Journey Through Philosophy: Summary of Eric Weiner’s ‘Socrates Express’
  5. Change Isn’t Just Possible—It’s the Way Life Works

Filed Under: Living the Good Life Tagged With: Legacy, Life Plan, Life Purpose, Meaning, Philosophy, Questioning

People Feel Loved in Different Ways // Summary of Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages

February 15, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The ‘Five Love Languages’ is this notion that people express love differently, and people feel loved in different ways. The term was familiarized by Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate (1992.)

'The 5 Love Languages' by Gary Chapman (ISBN 080241270X) Chapman identifies the types of expression and perception as in an interpersonal relationship as the five “love languages:” (1) words of affirmation, (2) quality time, (3) receiving gifts, (4) acts of service, and (5) the physical touch.

The Five Love Languages gives several case studies to show that your sweetie will feel loved when you express love in a language that is natural to her. If love is expressed in a different language, she’s unlikely to receive your message of love.

  • Each of us has a primary love-language (and often secondary and tertiary ones.) Couples seldom share the same preferences. Learn to speak the language of your sweetie. You may be showing your love regularly, just not in the way your sweetie wants to receive love.
  • Chapman believes love-language-preferences tend to be fixed throughout our lives.
  • To help identify your love-language, focus on the way you most frequently express love. Often, what you give is what you need. “We speak and understand best our native language.”
  • Determining which love-language your sweetie speaks can be challenging. If in doubt, just ask. Try out different ways of expressing your love and be sensitive to what gets a better response.
  • Be more observant of your partner’s preferences. Get better at reading them—be mindful of how your partner may be showing you love. “People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”
  • Even in close relationships, individuals are afraid to ask what they want. They feel vulnerable—or don’t want to appear needy.
  • All individuals have a “love tank” that needs to be topped up frequently by their loved ones in different ways.
  • Exploring the love-languages with your sweetie can spark a more in-depth conversation.
  • Become fluent in all the five love-languages. The framework can also improve and illuminate all kinds of other relationships—with parents, children, friends, and perhaps employees (professionally and platonically, of course.)

Relationships are a Lot of Work - the Five Love Languages (Credit: Renate Vanaga at Unsplash) Recommendation: Quick-Read through Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. It’s a convenient formulation, and it’s simple, and it’s relatable. You may find the book’s tone a tad preachy and hinting at Evangelical Christian attitudes (Chapman is a Southern Baptist pastor and holds a Ph.D. in adult education.)

Nonetheless, The Five Love Languages is a practical approach. This framework isn’t a cure-all to marital and relationship issues, but it is a stepping-stone toward breaking communication barriers.

Chapman’s guidance is convenient given that most people aren’t comfortable expressing their likes and dislikes. And, in return, they hate struggling to guess their partners’ likes and dislikes.

Idea for Impact: Relationships are a lot of work. Prioritize your loved ones. Doing nothing is not one of the five love-languages.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm on the Art of Love and Unselfish Understanding
  2. Each Temperament Has Its Own Language
  3. If You Want to Be Loved, Love
  4. A Trick to Help you Praise At Least Three People Every Day
  5. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Attitudes, Communication, Conversations, Feedback, Getting Along, Meaning, Philosophy, Relationships, Virtues

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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