Seneca on being in the present

Both [fear and hope] are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.

Foresight, the greatest blessing humanity has been given, is transformed into a curse. Wild animals run from the dangers trey actually see, and once they have escaped them worry no more. We however are tormented aloke by what is past and what is to come.  A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhapiness to the present.

From Seneca Letters From a Stoic , Letter V

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In Psychology, what is meant by Flow?

Flow  is

the enjoyable  and performance-enhancing experience of being totally absorbed in what you doing.

Flow is what Martin Luther King experienced when he had a dream...

It's what Usain Bolt experiences when he is "in the zone"

 It's what chess masters feel when totally absorbed in the game.

Flow is also, according to Martin Seligman, a key component of flourishing. 

Today's Personal Development Questions

Where or when do you most experience flow? 

Were there flow activities you used to experience which you could experience again?

What could you do today to experience some flow?

Read on: 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow

Tim LeBon Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology (Chapter 7)

Paul Gilbert on the nature of compassion

Compassion is a sensitivity to suffering with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent that suffering.

Paul Gilbert, psychologist and founder of CFT (Compassion Focussed Therapy)

Bertrand Russell on the need for a balance between boredom and excitement in a good life

All great books contain boring portions , and all great lives have contained uninteresting stretches

Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

Winston Churchill on Courage

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarentees the others.

Winston Churchill quoted by Gordon Brown in his book on Courage.

One of Daniel Kahneman's Favourite Quotations - How his system 1 (fast thinking) functions

"Her favourite position is beside herself and her favourite sport is jumping to conclusions"

Comedian Danny Kaye speaking about a woman he dislikes

Quoted in Thinking Fast and Slow, chapter on  "A Machine for Jumping to conclusions" 

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St Francis de Sales answering the question "How often should one meditate?"

Half an hour's meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.

St Francis de Sales 

William Hazlitt on how to win friends and influence people

Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

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George Eliot on positivity

“Wear a smile and make friends; wear a scowl and make wrinkles.  What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?”

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Michael Fordyce on the value of knowing about happiness

I don’t think anyone would question the fact that if you were going to hire an engineer to build a bridge for you, you would hope that he was up to date on all engineering factors and formulas and therein so on and so forth and the more knowledge he had about his craft or his skill, the better the eventual his bridge would be. In every area of life, we take that as just a basic gut assumption; that the more information you have the better decision you make, the better bridge you can build, the better building you can create or whatever.

Happiness is apparently no different. The more you know about it, the better able you are to find it.

https://happyecho.com/fundamental-fourteen-valhap-the-secret-fundamental/

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Psychologist David M. Clark on the best way to think about theories

"We think of theories as rather like bedtime stories: they may be true or they may not be. Mostly they are not, it turns out. So the first thing you have to do with a theory is test it; see if you can get any good evidence for it."


David. M Clark
Gresham College Lecture 2006
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/social-anxiety-and-its-treatment
(retrieved 25/08/2014)

George Eliot on the other side of empathy

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence

George Eliot, Middlemarch

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