Leo Babauta
The Little Book of Contentment
I haven't read this book yet, The Little Book of Contentment by Leo Babauta. I intend to later tonight when I have an hour to myself. I'm a fan of his and like his approach to life as articulated on his website Zen Habits.
Why did he write this book?
"One of the most important things I’ve learned in the last 7 years has been how to find contentment.
It’s been a long journey, but I’ve enjoyed it. I struggled with feeling bad about my body, feeling insecure about myself, doubting my abilities to make it without an employer, doubting myself as a writer, not believing I had discipline or the ability to change my habits.
And all this led to other problems: I sought happiness and pleasure in food, beer, shopping, distraction, TV. I procrastinated, I let my health get bad, I smoked, I was deeply in debt, unhappy with my work, never exercised, and ate lots of junk food.
Not a pretty picture. But if I’d never been in that place, I wouldn’t understand how to get out of it. And so I’m grateful I was there. I’ve learned a lot, about myself and about how to find happiness in who I am, what I have, who I’m with, what I do, and all that’s around me.
And now, I’d like to share that with you.
I’ve written a free book called The Little Book of Contentment: A guide to becoming happy with life & who you are, while getting things done. I share it with you today, in hopes that it will help a few of you, or maybe many, who struggle with being happy with yourselves and your lives. It’s a more common problem than you might imagine, and if I can help just a little, that would be amazing.
I hope you like the book."
He has made the book available as a free download in all electronic versions. Click here to download and read the full post as well
Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior
For all you Dan Ariely fans, here's a treat. Duke University is offering A beginner's guide to irrational behavior, free on Coursera. The course starts today, is eight weeks long, and from what I can make of it, well worth all the time and effort you spend on it.
I just signed up for it.
Allow me a bit of chest thumping. I'd interacted with him on email end 2010. The outcome of that interaction was a lovely essay, The truth about cheating that I published in my earlier stint at Forbes India.
And Confucius said...
Ashamed to be an Indian citizen
Picture published in Mumbai Mirror
Woke up to heart breaking story in The Mumbai Mirror. This baby ought to be in an incubator. But he's in an icebox made of thermocol and kept warm by a 60 watt bulb.
The newspaper reports: "TheThe boy's parents sold off their belongings, including a TV set, and managed to fund the treatment for 20 days. However, they got their baby discharged after they could no longer afford the hospital fee of Rs 8,000 per day, and approached BMC-run KEM and Nair hospitals, where the authorities turned them away citing long waiting lists for neonatal ICU admissions.
The couple also has an eight-year-old daughter, Charmi. The boy's father, Ramesh Chauhan, 35, who works at an artificial flower store in Crawford Market and earns Rs 9,500 a month, said that the KEM authorities told him that there were 750 applicants already waiting for admissions, while the Nair Hospital's waiting list had 274 patients."
Pardon my language. But what the fuck are we doing as a nation? The other day I woke up to an almost gleeful sounding headline: India set to challenge US for election-spending record
"Indian politicians are expected to spend around $5 billion (2 billion pounds) on campaigning for elections next month - a sum second only to the most expensive U.S. presidential campaign of all time - in a splurge that could give India's floundering economy a temporary boost.
India's campaign spend, which can include cash stuffed in envelopes as well as multi-million-dollar ad campaigns, has been estimated at 300 billion rupees (2.9 billion pounds) by the Centre for Media Studies, which tracks spending."
Where does this country's heart lie? What are its set of priorities? All of the jokers in politics can outspend every other nation when it comes to grabbing power. And yet not have enough to save the life of a baby. This is why I feel ashamed to be an Indian at times.
What are your morals like?
My results based on the Moral Foundation Questionnaire
What are your moral foundations? It is an interesting question and one I find compelling. An ongoing study tries to provide some insights into yourself on the back of questions you choose answers to from a drop down menu on www.yourmorals.org. This chart up there, tells me how I stack up against the average liberal or conservative. The green bar represents my moral foundations, blue for the average liberal and red for the average conservative.
On a scale of one to five, this test tells me I place a very higher premium on not harming anybody and fairness, have moderate loyalty, no respect for authority, and veer towards the puritanical.
What does that say about me?
When all the tests that are part of this study are stacked up, the answers around who I am and what I stand for, I was surprised. I always thought I'd average out as liberal.
But I find myself at various points given various situations. There is a capitalist in me, a socialist, a liberal, an autocrat, a conservative. All put together, there is enough fodder in here in chew on.
I take this scale reproduced above seriously because its co-creator is Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist who teaches ethical leadership at the Stern School of Business.
I first got acquainted with his work when I chanced upon his absolutely delightful The Happiness Hypothesis. Reviewers called it one of the best books to have emerged out of the Positive Psychology movement. I am no authority to comment on that. But I can say it offered me sharp insights into ancient wisdom across all traditions. I think it a mandatory book on all shelves.
I think everybody ought to give these tests a try and then spend time reflecting on what they're about.