We like to make a show of how much our decisions are based on rational considerations, but the truth is that we are largely governed by our emotions, which continually influence our perceptions.
What this means is that the people around you, constantly under the pull of their emotions, change their ideas by the day or by the hour, depending on their mood.
You must never assume that what people say or do in a particular moment is a statement of their permanent desires.
Yesterday they were in love with your idea; today they seem cold.
This will confuse you and if you are not careful, you will waste valuable mental space trying to figure out their real feelings, their mood of the moment, and their fleeting motivations.
It is best to cultivate both distance and a degree of detachment from their shifting emotions so that you are not caught up in the process.

H1171134

Overprotective parents spare kids from all natural consequences.
Unfortunately, their kids often lack a clear understanding of the reasons behind their parents’ rules.
They never learn how to bounce back from failure or how to recover from mistakes because their parents prevented them from making poor choices.
Rather than learning, “I should wear a jacket because it’s cold outside,” a child may conclude, “I have to wear a jacket because my mom makes me.”
Without an opportunity to experience real­world consequences, kids don’t always understand why their parents make certain rules.
Natural consequences prepare children for adulthood by helping them think about the potential consequences of their choices.

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We used to think that the brain never changed, but according to the neuroscientist Richard Davidson, we now know that this is not true ― specific brain circuits grow stronger through regular practice.
He explains, “Well-being is fundamentally no different than learning to play the cello. If one practices the skills of well-being, one will get better at it.”
What this means is that you can actually train your brain to become more grateful, relaxed, or confident, by repeating experiences that evoke gratitude, relaxation, or confidence.
Your brain is shaped by the thoughts you repeat.
The more neurons fire as they are activated by repeated thoughts and activities, the faster they develop into neural pathways, which cause lasting changes in the brain.
Or in the words of Donald Hebb, “Neurons that fire together wire together.”
This is such an encouraging premise: bottom line ― we can intentionally create the habits for the brain to be happier.

Referenced by H1211123

Internet activist Eli Pariser noticed how online search algorithms encourage our human tendency to grab hold of everything that confirms the beliefs we already hold, while quietly ignoring information that doesn’t match those beliefs.
We set up a so-called “filter-bubble” around ourselves, where we are constantly exposed only to that material that we agree with.
We are never challenged, never giving ourselves the opportunity to acknowledge the existence of diversity and difference.
Creating a difference that others don’t have is a way to succeed in your field, leading to the creation of innovations.
In the best case, we become naive and sheltered, and in the worst, we become radicalized with extreme views, unable to imagine life outside our particular bubble.
The results are disastrous: intellectual isolation and the real distortion that comes with believing that the little world we create for ourselves is the world.

Referenced by H1211135

The best way in which innovation changes our lives is by enabling people to work for each other.
The main theme of human history is that we become steadily more specialized in what we produce, and steadily more diversified in what we consume: we move away from unstable self-sufficiency to safer mutual interdependence.
By concentrating on serving other people’s needs for forty hours a week — which we call a job — you can spend the other seventy-two hours (not counting fifty-six hours in bed) relying on the services provided to you by other people.
Innovation has made it possible to work for a fraction of a second in order to be able to afford to turn on an electric lamp for an hour, providing the quantity of light that would have required a whole day’s work if you had to make it yourself by collecting and refining sesame oil or lamb fat to burn in a simple lamp, as much of humanity did in the not so distant past.



Referenced by H1221131