The Secret of Eternal Happiness (Robin Sharma)

Find out what you truly love to do and then direct all your energy towards doing it

Robin Sharma, The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari, p. 55

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Remembering to be mindful is the great challenge - Christina Feldman

Mindfulness is neither difficult nor complex;
Remembering to be mindful is the great challenge

 

Christina Feldman

Keywords: Mindfulness, Meditation, Wisdom, Christina Feldman

Read On: Christina Feldman on Stillness and Insight and Dependent Origination

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Frankl on the last of the human freedoms

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way

Viktor Frankl

Too much information: David Fontanta

A single issue of the New York Times contains more pieces of information in its pages than an educated 18th-century man or woman would have met with in a whole lifetime

 David Fontana (Mediation Week by Weke, p. 16)

On the relationship between philosophy and psychology

We need both philosophy and  psychology.

Psychology without philosophy lacks wisdom.

Philosophy without psychology lacks science.

We need to integrate the best of philosophy and science
We need to develop  wisdom-informed science. and science-informed wisdom.

Tim LeBon

The 80/20 Rule (Pareto)

 

The Pareto Principle and how to manage time better

80% of the results are derived by 20% of activities.

 80% of activities yield only 20% of the results .

Which activities make up your most productive 20%?

Which activities are least productive?

The essence of time management - M.Neenan & W.Dryden

The essence of time management is knowing what your values and goals are in life and making the optimum use of your time to achieve those ends

Michael Neenan and Windy Dryden

Life Coaching - a Cognitive-Behavioural Approach (p. 58)

Neenan and Dryden provide one more motivation for becoming more aware of your values and goals in life.

"Flowers and butterflies and children dancing in the sun are good". Richard Robinson

Yet it is very strange if the layman needs Oxford philosophers to tell him that milk and cheese are good, that flowers and butterflies and children dancing in the sun are good, that love and joy and companionship and laughter are good. Is there really anyone who is in the unpleasant condition of not caring about anything and wishing he did care about something?

Richard Robinson An Atheist's Values 1.1

We have all got light and dark inside us. (JK Rowling)

 

We have all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the power we chose to act on. That's who we really are.

 

J.K. Rowling (Sirius Black in the film of Harry Potter in The Order of the Phoenix)

Detect this moment's meaning (Frankl)

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
VIKTOR FRANKL

Frankl's 3 possible ways to find meaning in life

 

As early as 1929 I had developed the concept of three groups of values, or three possible ways to find meaning in life - even up to the last moment, the last breath. The three possibilities are

1) A deed we do, a work we create

2) An experience, a human encounter, a love

3) When confrontonted with an unchangeable fate (such as an incurable disease), a change of attitude toward that fate. In shich cases we can still wrest meaning from life by giving testimony to the most human of all human capacities: the ability to turn suffering into human triumph.

 

VIKTOR FRANKL Recollections, page 64.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space (Unknown)

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and happiness.

 

UNKNOWN - quoted by Stephen.  R. Covey in "The  7 Habits of  Highly Effective People." Often misattributed to Viktor Frankl.

Choices not abilities - Albus Dumbledore

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"

 

J.K. ROWLING The Chamber of Secrets, 333

Nothing is mightier than wisdom (Socrates)

Nothing is mightier than wisdom

SOCRATES

 

Happiness through Compassion (Dalia Lama)

 

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

THE DALIA LAMA

 

For a good brief guide on  how to practice,compassion, see zenhabits

The whole world of friendship (Herman Hesse)

When the ways of friends converge, the whole world looks like home for an hour

HERMAN HESSE

 

Quoted in Mark Vernon's The Philosophy of Friendship.

 

Mark Vernon's book is a recent, intelligent and accessible exploration of friendship, taking its cue from Aristotle's distinction between three kinds of friendships - those based on utility, friendship and a genuine admiration and caring for each other. Mark Vernon also has a podcast on Aristotle's theory of friendship

 

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Anger and the mean (Aristotle)

Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the
right purpose and in the right way - that is not easy.

ARISTOTLE , The Nicomachean Ethics


This quotation is given at the start of Dan Goleman's Emotional Intelligence.
It seems to me that what Aristotle is talking about would be described better as "emotional wisdom"

An example of using anger wisely is Betty Williams, one of the Irish Peace Women in the 1970s.
Her anger at seeing at first hand the death of 3 children in the Irish violence was channelled into co-founding the Community for Peace People
Williams and co-founder Mairead Corrigan were awared the Nobel Peace Price in 1977.

How to reach the palace of Reason (R.S. Peters)

The palace of reason is entered through the courtyard of habit.

R.S. PETERS Ethics and Education (1966, 314)


Article on Aristotle and Weakness of will by David Carr

The true value of time (Lord Chesterfield)

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Lord Chesterfield was Philip Stanhope.
His Letters to his son can be viewed online.
A short summary is contained here

Memento mori is an art form designed to remind us that we are mortal.
Vanitas by Harmen Steenwijck (c. 1640) is one of many examples - skulls, candles annd timepieces being typical contents of such still life pictures.