Lost in the Crowd

Quite some words of wisdom from David Brooks today.

Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. They were often showered by good fortune, but relied at crucial moments upon achievements of individual will.

Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.

Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.

It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong.

It leads to creativity. Individuals who can focus attention have the ability to hold a subject or problem in their mind long enough to see it anew.

Our Bodies

I will come up with the link and with the credits but I just want to go ahead and get this posted tonight.

"If someone gave you a car and told you that that was the only car you would have for the rest of your life, you would take the best care of that car that you possibly could. Think of your body as that car, and take good care of it because you only get one.”

Andromeda, Yogi Berra and the Meaning of Life

”… what science tells us is that we are but one among hundreds of millions of species that evolved over the course of three and a half billion years on one tiny planet among many orbiting an ordinary star, itself one of possibly billions of solar systems in an ordinary galaxy that contains hundreds of billions of stars, itself located in a cluster of galaxies not so different from millions of other galaxy clusters, whirling away from one another in an accelerating expanding cosmic bubble universe, that very possibly is only one among a near infinite number of bubble universes.”
~Michael Shermer

It seems that I have found yet another way to search for speeches in Google. I looked for "commencement speech" and "Yogi Berra" and got a ton or search results. The conclusion is obvious, the man is quoted a lot. I am still trying to find his original speech at St. Louis University. In the meantime, I though I came out empty handed tonight but then I found "The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything" the commencement speech from May 23, 2008 by Dr. Michael Shermer. I am not going to post it on the Graduation Wisdom site but it definitely has a few things going for it. It's the first graduation speech I read that helps putting things in perspective by talking about the sky and the Universe - one of my favorite ways to forget about problems and all. Here are his words:

”I am deeply moved, for example, when I observe through my eight-inch telescope in my backyard the fuzzy little patch of light that is the Andromeda galaxy. It is not just because it is lovely, but because I also understand that the photons of light landing on my retina left Andromeda 3 million years ago, when our ancestors were tiny-brained hominids roaming the plains of Africa.”

The pic is Andromeda, as found at the Astronomy Picture of the Day –a great site I first heard of back in 1999, can’t believe they still keep posting a picture every day - not that they'll ever run out of stars or galaxies to feature. It's a good habit to start your day, from time to time, by looking at a picture from the Universe and give it a moment to pause over.

Finally, here is the Yogi Berra quote that made this little discovery possible...

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is."

The Antidote to Death is Life

A recent article from the New York Times/Health written by an oncology nurse has a very graphic narration of a sudden death in the hospital and the way the hospital staff tried everything to save the patient. It is a very raw description which makes a gripping impression on the reader. As a result, the advice that ends the article sounds way less like a platitute and much more like a motto to live by.

My patient died looking like one of the flesh-eating zombies from “28 Weeks Later,” and indeed in real life, even in the world of the hospital, a death like this is unsettling.
What can one do? Go home, love your children, try not to bicker, eat well, walk in the rain, feel the sun on your face and laugh loud and often, as much as possible, and especially at yourself. Because the only antidote to death is not poetry, or drama, or miracle drugs, or a roomful of technical expertise and good intentions. The antidote to death is life.

The One Who Is Not Busy

I recently ran across a great article that really struck a cord with me so much so that I re-read it three or for times already. Is has a Zen like flavor and it talks about a not busy self that we can get in touch with if we just try. We need to understand, Norman Fisher writes, that there is no such thing as multitasking; we can only accomplish one thing at a time. Business is a state of mind, a creation of our brain, not a fact. Regardless of how much or how little we have to do, in the end we'll just do what we always do, live this moment of our lives.

I also liked how he advises us to regard time for what it is, a tool to keep our lives organized. I started thinking about it and now, mostly in situations when I am late I try to relax myself and accept the situation as opposed to get stressed out about it.

One other take away from the article, when you get all worked up, softly tell yourself a couple of times "not busy". You will recognize that it is your thoughts and your feelings that make you feel pressured, not the task itself. It will help calm your mind and this in turn will help you get the tasks done. And if they do not get done, it's not the end of the world even though your mind tries to tell you otherwise.

What I've learned

"No one is going to invite you to the table; you have to take the initiative" says Betsy Myers in this excellent Newsweek article. "Ninety-nine percent of the time it isn't personal. People aren't sitting around thinking how they can exclude you."

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor

From Ted Talks -- This is a very well delivered presentation based on a powerful personal story. Listen to learn how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.