Have you ever felt preassured by the future or the society you live in?

Well, i did. I do, actually, every day.

vale la pena leerlas

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
— Dr. Seuss

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
— Albert Einstein

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
— Robert Frost

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
— Oscar Wilde

"Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away."
— Robert Maynard Hutchins jajajaja genial genial genial!!!

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."
— Friedrich Nietzsche

"Without music, life would be a mistake."
— Friedrich Nietzsche

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."
— Malcolm X

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

— Maya Angelou

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square hole. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
— Apple Computer Inc.

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
— John Lennon

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."
— Elbert Hubbard AKWARD...

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

bff?

People change so we can learn to let go....que triste vivir esa frase...que triste saber que las personas que quisiste por tanto tanto tiempo cambian, y de alguna manera dejan de ser esas personas que conoces.

the art of living

Hm..tanto tiempo sin escrbir...ultimamente estuve subeidno palabras de otros...

pero bueno aca estoy de nuevo....sin poder dormir de tantas cosas q tengo en la cabeza...tampoco puedo escribir de tantas cosas q estoy pensando...pero estoy bien eh!

Hoy un amigo me propuso q haga un curso que se llama EL ARTE DE VIVIR, que supuestamente te cambia la manera de ver la vida, es un antes y un despues de ir al curso.

Me hizo pensar...que cosa, no? tener que recurrir a un curso en donde en 3 dias te enseñan todo lo que tenes que saber para ser feliz, realizarte, sentirte bien con vos mismo, cuando no deberiamos aprender esto nosotros, con nuestras experiencias? No deberiamos descburir por neustros propios medios el arte que es vivir? Porque si, es un arte...una obra de arte, individual a cada uno de nosotros, cada uno con sus pinturas sus colores , sus pinceles y su hoja en blanco...y no nos olvidemos de las ideas...porque que pintura se podria hacer sin la idea de lo que queres pintar?

Asi que les propongo a ustedes que se tomen dos minutos, 3, 4, 5..lo q necesiten y piensen como pintarian su vida si tuviesen la oportunidad de hacerlo? Como les gustaria que queden expuestas en un museo las experiencias que ustedes tuvieron? Por ejemplo a mi me gustaria que sea una pintura la cual la gente la mire y diga :"Wow, esta chica sabe perfectamente lo que quiere y hace todo lo posible para tenerlo y aparte...ES FELIZ!"...asi es como queiro que la gente me vea..como quiero q la gente que conoci durante mi vida me recuerde...

Ayer me paso algo muy lindo..hablando con un amigo de la infancia y de la familia me dijo que era demasiado buena, que por mas que hace años que no nos vemos, el siempre se acuerda de mi por esa cualidad, que le parecia una persona muy buena... y que mas lndo que te digan que se acuerdan de vos por lo beuna que sos? La verdad, me puso muy contenta saber que alguien piensa asi de mi. :)Obviamente que a los dos minutos mi cerebro estaba con todas las luces taladrandome la cabeza con que es una ridicules...peor bueno...aveces hace bien ignorarnos un poco, no?

EEENN fin...volviendo a los museos de la vida...no dejen que nadie, ni un curso les diga como tienen que pintar su arte...equivoquense y empiezen de nuevo si es necesario...pero no dejen de ahcerlo...porque en serio que esta bueno descubrir el arte de vivir....

(still waiting for me to realise that...cof cof...)

------

btw...i want to take that course eitherways ...lol

1. Read a book every day. Books are concentrated sources of wisdom. The more books you read, the more wisdom you expose yourself to. What are some books you can start reading to enrich yourself? Some books I’ve read and found useful are Think and Grow Rich, Who Moved My Cheese, 7 Habits, The Science of Getting Rich and Living the 80/20 Way. I’ve heard positive reviews for The Tipping Point, Outliers and The Difference Maker, so I’ll be checking them out soon.
2. Learn a new language. As a Singaporean Chinese, my main languages are English, Mandarin and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). Out of interest, I took up language courses in the past few years such as Japanese and Bahasa Indonesian. I realized learning a language is a whole new skill altogether and the process of acquainting with a new language and culture is a totally a mind-opening experience.
3. Pick up a new hobby. Beyond just your usual favorite hobbies, is there something new you can pick up? Any new sport you can learn? Examples are fencing, golf, rock climbing, football, canoeing, or ice skating. Your new hobby can also be a recreational hobby. For example, pottery, Italian cooking, dancing, wine appreciation, web design, etc. Learning something new requires you to stretch yourself in different aspects, whether physically, mentally or emotionally.
4. Take up a new course. Is there any new course you can join? Courses are a great way to gain new knowledge and skills. It doesn’t have to be a long-term course – seminars or workshops serve their purpose too. I’ve been to a few workshops and they have helped me gain new insights which I had not considered before.
5. Create an inspirational room. Your environment sets the mood and tone for you. If you are living in an inspirational environment, you are going to be inspired every day. In the past, I didn’t like my room at all because I thought it was messy and dull. A few years ago, I decided this was the end of it – I started on a “Mega Room Revamp” project and overhauled my room. The end result? A room I totally relish being in and inspires me to be at my peak every day.
6. Overcome your fears. All of us have fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of risk… All our fears keep us in the same position and prevent us from growing. Recognize that your fears reflect areas where you can grow. I always think of fears as the compass for growth. If I have a fear about something, it represents something I’ve yet to address, and addressing it helps me to grow.
7. Level up your skills. If you have played video games before especially RPGs, you’ll know the concept of leveling up – gaining experience so you can be better and stronger. As a blogger, I’m constantly leveling up my writing skills. As a speaker, I’m constantly leveling up my public engagement abilities. What skills can you level up?
8. Wake up early. Waking up early (say, 5-6am) has been acknowledged by many (Anthony Robbins, Robin Sharma, among other self-help gurus) to improve your productivity and your quality of life. I feel it’s because when you wake up early, your mindset is already set to continue the momentum and proactively live out the day. Seth recently wrote a waking up early series which you should check out to help cultivate this habit.
9. Have a weekly exercise routine. A better you starts with being in better physical shape. I personally make it a point to jog at least 3 times a week, at least 30 minutes each time. You may want to mix it up with jogging, gym lessons and swimming for variation.
10. Start your life handbook. A life handbook is an idea I started 3 years ago. Basically, it’s a book which contains the essentials on how you can live your life to the fullest, such as your purpose, your values and goals. Sort of like your manual for your life. I started my life handbook since 2007 and it’s been a crucial enabler in my progress.
11. Write a letter to your future self. What do you see yourself as 5 years from now? Will you be the same? Different? What kind of person will you be? Write a letter to your future self – 1 year from now will be a good start – and seal it. Make a date in your calendar to open it 1 year from now. Then start working to become the person you want to open that letter.
12. Get out of your comfort zone. Real growth comes with hard work and sweat. Being too comfortable doesn’t help us grow – it makes us stagnate. What is your comfort zone? Do you stay in most of the time? Do you keep to your own space when out with other people? Shake your routine up. Do something different. By exposing yourself to a new context, you’re literally growing as you learn to act in new circumstances.
13. Put someone up to a challenge. Competition is one of the best ways to grow. Set a challenge (weight loss, exercise, financial challenge, etc) and compete with an interested friend to see who achieves the target first. Through the process, both of you will gain more than if you were to set off on the target alone.
14. Identify your blind spots. Scientifically, blind spots refer to areas our eyes are not capable of seeing. In personal development terms, blind spots are things about ourselves we are unaware of. Discovering our blind spots help us discover our areas of improvement. One exercise I use to discover my blind spots is to identify all the things/events/people that trigger me in a day – trigger meaning making me feel annoyed/weird/affected. These represent my blind spots. It’s always fun to do the exercise because I discover new things about myself, even if I may already think I know my own blind spots (but then they wouldn’t be blind spots would they?). After that, I work on steps to address them.
15. Ask for feedback. As much as we try to improve, we will always have blind spots. Asking for feedback gives us an additional perspective. Some people to approach will be friends, family, colleagues, boss, or even acquaintances, since they will have no preset bias and can give their feedback objectively.
16. Stay focused with to-do lists. I start my day with a list of tasks I want to complete and this helps make me stay focused. In comparison, the days when I don’t do this end up being extremely unproductive. For example, part of my to-do list for today is to write a guest post at LifeHack.Org, and this is why I’m writing this now! Since my work requires me to use my computer all the time, I use Free Sticky Notes to manage my to-do lists. It’s really simple to use and it’s a freeware, so I recommend you check it out.
17. Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). I’m a big fan of setting BHAGs. BHAGs stretch you beyond your normal capacity since they are big and audacious – you wouldn’t think of attempting them normally. What are BHAGs you can embark on, which you’ll feel absolutely on top of the world once you complete them? Set them and start working on them.
18. Acknowledge your flaws. Everyone has flaws. What’s most important is to understand them, acknowledge them, and address them. What do you think are your flaws? What are the flaws you can work on now? How do you want to address them?
19. Get into action. The best way to learn and improve is to take action. What is something you have been meaning to do? How can you take action on it immediately? Waiting doesn’t get anything done. Taking action gives you immediate results to learn from.
20. Learn from people who inspire you. Think about people you admire. People who inspire you. These people reflect certain qualities you want to have for yourself too. What are the qualities in them you want to have for yourself? How can you acquire these qualities?
21. Quit a bad habit. Are there any bad habits you can lose? Oversleeping? Not exercising? Being late? Slouching? Nail biting? Smoking? Here’s some help onhow you can quit a bad habit.
22. Cultivate a new habit. Some good new habits to cultivate include reading books (#1), waking up early (#8), exercising (#9), reading a new personal development article a day (#40) and meditating. Is there any other new habit you can cultivate to improve yourself?
23. Avoid negative people. As Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. Wherever we go, there are bound to be negative people. Don’t spend too much of your time around them if you feel they drag you down.
24. Learn to deal with difficult people. There are times when there are difficult people you can’t avoid, such as at your workplace, or when the person is part of your inner circle of contacts. Learn how to deal with them. These people management skills will go a long way in working with people in the future.
25. Learn from your friends. Everyone has amazing qualities in them. It’s up to how we want to tap into them. With all the friends who surround you, they are going to have things you can learn from. Try thinking of a good friend right now. Think about just one quality they have which you want to adopt. How can you learn from them and adopt this skill for yourself? Speak to them if you need to – for sure, they will be more than happy to help!
26. Start a journal. Journaling is a great way to gain better self-awareness. It’s a self-reflection process. As you write, clarify your thought process and read what you wrote from a third person’s perspective, you gain more insights about yourself. Your journal can be private or an online blog. I use my personal development blog as a personal journal too and I’ve learned a lot about myself through the past year of blogging.
27. Start a blog about personal development. To help others grow, you need to first be walking the talk. There are expectations of you, both from yourself and from others, which you have to uphold. I run The Personal Excellence Blog, where I share my personal journey and insights on how to live a better life. Readers look toward my articles to improve themselves, which enforces to me that I need to keep improving, for myself and for the people I’m reaching out to.
28. Get a mentor or coach. There’s no faster way to improve than to have someone work with you on your goals. Many of my clients approach me to coach them in their goals and they achieve significantly more results than if they had worked alone.
29. Reduce the time you spend on chat programs. I realized having chat programs open at default result in a lot of wasted time. This time can be much better spent on other activities. The days when I don’t get on chat, I get a lot more done. I usually disable the auto start-up option in the chat programs and launch them when I do want to chat and really have the time for it.
30. Learn chess (or any strategy game). I found chess is a terrific game to learn strategy and hone your brainpower. Not only do you have fun, you also get to exercise your analytical skills. You can also learn strategy from other board games or computer games, such as Othello, Chinese Chess, WarCraft, and so on.
31. Stop watching TV. I’ve not been watching TV for pretty much 4 years and it’s been a very liberating experience. I realized most of the programs and advertisements on mainstream TV are usually of a lower consciousness and not very empowering. In return, the time I’ve freed up from not watching TV is now constructively used for other purposes, such as connecting with close friends, doing work I enjoy, exercising, etc.
32. Start a 30-day challenge. Set a goal and give yourself 30 days to achieve this. Your goal can be to stick with a new habit or something you’ve always wanted to do but have not. 30 days is just enough time to strategize, plan, get into action, review and nail the goal.
33. Meditate. Meditation helps to calm you and be more conscious. I also realized that during the nights when I meditate (before I sleep), I need lesser sleep. The clutter clearing process is very liberating.
34. Join Toastmasters (Learn public speaking). Interestingly, public speaking is the #1 fear in the world, with #2 being death. After I started public speaking as a personal development speaker/trainer, I’ve learned a lot about how to communicate better, present myself and engage people. Toastmasters is an international organization that trains people in public speaking. Check out the Toastmaster clubs nearest to you here.
35. Befriend top people in their fields. These people have achieved their results because they have the right attitudes, skill sets and know-how. How better to learn than from the people who have been there and done that? Gain new insights from them on how you can improve and achieve the same results for yourself.
36. Let go of the past. Is there any grievance or unhappiness from the past which you have been holding on? If so, it’s time to let it go. Holding on to them prevents you from moving on and becoming a better person. Break away from the past, forgive yourself, and move on. Just recently, I finally moved on from a past heartbreak of 5 years ago. The effect was liberating and very empowering, and I have never been happier.
37. Start a business venture. Is there anything you have an interest in? Why not turn it into a venture and make money while learning at the same time? Starting a new venture requires you to be learn business management skills, develop business acumen and have a competitive edge. The process of starting and developing my personal development business has equipped me with many skills, such as self-discipline, leadership, organization and management.
38. Show kindness to people around you. You can never be too kind to someone. In fact, most of us don’t show enough kindness to people around us. Being kind helps us to cultivate other qualities such as compassion, patience, and love. As you get back to your day after reading this article later on, start exuding more kindness to the people around you, and see how they react. Not only that, notice how you feel as you behave kindly to others. Chances are, you will feel even better than yourself.
39. Reach out to the people who hate you. If you ever stand for something, you are going to get haters. It’s easy to hate the people who hate us. It’s much more challenging to love them back. Being able to forgive, let go and show love to these people requires magnanimity and an open heart. Is there anyone who dislikes or hates you in your life? If so, reach out to them. Show them love. Seek a resolution and get closure on past grievances. Even if they refuses to reciprocate, love them all the same. It’s much more liberating than to hate them back.
40. Take a break. Have you been working too hard? Self-improvement is also about recognizing our need to take a break to walk the longer mile ahead. You can’t be driving a car if it has no petrol. Take some time off for yourself every week. Relax, rejuvenate and charge yourself up for what’s up ahead.
41. Read at least 1 personal development article a day. Some of my readers make it a point to read at least one personal development article every day, which I think is a great habit. There are many terrific personal development blogs out there, some of which you can check here.
42. Commit to your personal growth. I can be writing list articles with 10 ways, 25 ways, 42 ways or even 1,000 ways to improve yourself, but if you’ve no intention to commit to your personal growth, it doesn’t matter what I write. Nothing is going to get through. We are responsible for our personal growth – not anyone else. Not your mom, your dad, your friend, me or LifeHack. Make the decision to commit to your personal growth and embrace yourself to a life-long journey of growth and change. Kick off your growth by picking a few of the steps above and working on them. The results may not be immediate, but I promise you that as long as you keep to it, you’ll start seeing positive changes in yourself and your life.

Qe pasa cuando lo que no soportas es a tu propia cabeza? Cuando lo unico que te saca el sueño son tus propios pensamientos y tus propias historias inventadas?

Yo no me soporto mas

1. If you have to choose between buying something or spending the money on a memorable experience, go with the experience. The things you own can’t make you as happy as the things you do.

2. First impressions are all about value. We’re all hardcore value processors even before “Hello” comes out of our mouths. The subjective evaluation we make when meeting someone new includes–to put it bluntly–what’s in it for us.

3. The “money illusion”—the tendency to allow the nominal value of money (amount of currency) to interfere with the real value (value of goods the money can buy)—is all in your head. Think about what you can buy with your bucks, not just how many you have in your wallet. Most of don’t process the effects of inflation.

4. Playing video games could be an unlikely cure for psychological trauma.Researchers at Oxford University hypothesized that playing Tetris after witnessing violence would sap some of the cognitive resources the brain would normally rely on to form memories. Memory research suggests that there’s about a 6-hour window immediately after witnessing trauma during which memory formation can be disrupted.

5. All of us spend time riding the moral self-regulation see saw. Feelings of negative self-worth can predispose us to acting morally in an effort to fill up the self-worth bank account. If the account is already full, we might be predisposed to choosing not to act morally, or just not act at all.

6. If you’re preparing for a specific challenge, make sure you prep for that challenge and not just ones like it. Title says it.

7. If someone is trying to sell you something, be extra careful to keep your psychological distance. People not emotionally engaged, were significantly better at identifying liars and thus were harder to fool with the old flim flam sales routine.

8. Turns out, saying you’re sorry really is important—and not just to you.Receiving an apology makes the recipient feel better by affecting his or her perception of the wrongdoer’s emotions. Knowing that the other person agrees that what he/she did was the wrong thing to do reaffirms our view of the world as just and predictable.

9. We can become bored with just about anything, but there may be a way to reverse the habituation blues. Trying to remember the variety of things you’ve experienced will revive you appreciation for the things you encounter more commonly.

10. If you’re a man and find yourself in an argument with your significant other, choose your words very carefully. In the heat of stressful conflict, your brain is commanding the release of a stress-chemical cocktail comprised of proteins that can deal major harm to your health. This study suggests that how rational or emotional your communication is directly corresponds with the levels of those chemicals in your body and the damage they can do.

And here’s my list:

1. Bigger Rewards Boost Tobacco Quit Rate While about 70 percent of U.S. smokers say they want to quit, only about 2 to 3 percent do so in any given year. This study had volunteers assigned to get additional cash for quitting received $100 for completing a smoking-cessation program; $250 more if they had stopped smoking in the first three months; and $400 more if they were still nonsmokers six months after that. After nine or 12 months, nearly 15 percent of the incentive group had quit, compared with 5 percent of those not receiving the bonuses.

2. Young Children Think Gender-related Behavior is Inborn Researchers surveyed more than 450 Americans from diverse racial-ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds who were 5 years old to college age. They find that young children think about gender in the same way they think about species of animals. They believe, for example, that a boy’s preference for football is innate, as is a girl’s preference for dolls, just as cats’ behavior is innately different from dogs’.

This study also found that it’s not until children are at least 10 that they treat gender and species concepts as distinct from one another, as adults do. At that age, they also understand that environment plays a role in gender-related behaviors. Another similar study, has also found that babies as young as 6 months prefer toys that are stereotypically related to their gender (girls with dolls, boys with trucks), probably based on visual appearance because the babies lacked motor skills to actually “play” with the toy.

3. The Inner World Of Conspiracy Believers I’m not sure how many people will find this either surprising or relevant, but with all the conspiracy theories that have emerged recently (and endless list including swine flu and the birther movement) I found this study interesting. I actually have friends who are conspiracy theorists and I try to keep up with their world…. and that’s all I’ll say about that.

As I read about this study I thought my head was going to fall off from nodding in affirmation.Using 9/11 conspiracies, researchers got a partial glimpse into the world of conspiracy believers. They critically depend on “selective skepticism.” Conspiracy believers are highly doubtful about information from the government or other sources they consider suspect. But, without criticism, believers accept any source that supports their preconceived views. Conspiracy thinkers share an optimistic conviction that they can find “the truth,” spread it to the masses and foster social change.

Often, the proof offered as evidence for a conspiracy is not specific to one incident or issue, but is used to justify a general pattern of conspiracy ideas. Conspiracy believers frequently speak with likeminded individuals giving support to the notion that conspiracy thinkers constitute a community of believers, who take a cynical stance toward politics, mistrust authority, feel generally suspicious toward others and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook. Arguments advanced by conspiracy theorists tell you more about the believer than about the event.

4. Nonverbal Communication of Race Bias on TV Influences Viewers’ Own Bias The election of President Obama should mean we’re well on our way to overcoming racism right? Not so fast. Today’s racial biases are much more subtle though. Even though viewers may be unable to consciously report observing them, patterns of nonverbal behavior that appear on popular television programs influence racial bias among viewers. According to the study, “Nonverbal behavior that communicates favoritism of one race over another can be so subtle that even across a large number of exposures, perceivers are unable to consciously identify the nonverbal pattern. Nevertheless, exposure to nonverbal race bias can influence perceivers’ race associations and self-reported racial attitudes.”

5. Why Powerful People, Many of Whom Take a Moral High Ground, Don’t Practice What They Preach Mark Sanford, Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer – and those are just recent sex scandals. How many political, financial, other boondoggles can we name? Researchers find that power and influence can cause a severe disconnect between public judgment and private behavior, making people in power stricter in moral judgment of others – while being less strict of their own behavior. (umm, Stanford prison experiment anyone?)

In contrast, a fifth experiment demonstrated that people who don’t feel personally entitled to their power are actually harder on themselves than they are on others, which is a phenomenon the researchers dubbed “hypercrisy.” The tendency to be harder on the self than on others also characterized the powerless in multiple studies.

Authors concluded that “Ultimately, patterns of hypocrisy and hypercrisy perpetuate social inequality. The powerful impose rules and restraints on others while disregarding these restraints for themselves, whereas the powerless collaborate in reproducing social inequality because they don’t feel the same entitlement”. Power really does corrupt.

6. How We Support Our False Beliefs A study giving substantial support for a cognitive theory called ‘motivated reasoning,’ suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe. In fact, for the most part people completely ignore contrary information notes the study’s author.

Interviewing folks who believed that the Iraq war was justified by events of 9/11, researchers found that no evidence could dissuade subjects from their belief in the Saddam – Twin Towers links. The sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.

Going against the notion of propaganda-driven misinformation, it seems that people have emotional attachments that get wrapped up in our personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter. This might also help explain things like reasons some people form false beliefs about the pros and cons of health-care reform, among many other things. So be mindful of how you form your views on the world, as this proves a challenge to having a successful democracy.

7. Achieving Fame, Wealth, and Beauty are Psychological Dead Ends Think having loads of money, fetching looks, or the admiration of many will improve your life — think again. Sometimes these things can actually make you less happy. Pursuing goals is important and attainment can have positive consequences, but that’s not true for all goals. Despite cultural emphasis on wealth and fame, pursuing these does not contribute to having a satisfying life and can even be unhealthy.

The paradox is that reaching materialistic and image-related milestones does little to satisfy deep human requirements and actually contributes to ill-being; despite their accomplishments, individuals experience more negative emotions like shame and anger and more physical symptoms of anxiety such as headaches, stomachaches, and loss of energy.

The things that make your life happy are growing as an individual, having loving relationships, and contributing to your community. Individuals who value personal growth, close relationships, community involvement, and physical health are more satisfied as they meet success in those areas. They experience a deeper sense of well-being, more positive feelings toward themselves, richer connections with others, and fewer physical signs of stress.

Craving material gains can lead to preoccupations with “keeping up with the Joneses”—upward social comparisons that breed feelings of inadequacy and jealousy. Unlike the lasting benefits of caring relationships and hard-earned skills, the thrill of extrinsic accomplishments fade quickly; all too soon, the salary raise is a distant memory and the rave review forgotten.

8. How To Create Less Selfish Societies – Let People Behave as They WishWanna know how to create a more unselfish society? It turns out the secret ingredient is to let people behave as they wish. (Note that it is a more unselfish society – not totally altruistic)

Researchers studied human behavior in light of the famous Prisoners Dilemma(if you screw someone over you reap major rewards and the other person gets none, but if you cooperate the shared rewards are likely to be greater – but uncertainty about who’s trying to screw who over makes cooperation difficult).

When situations are pre-arranged for people to be cooperative through restrictive behavior (like in a Communist society or with governance of central planning), unselfishness and individuality seems to be suffocated because relationships might be unwanted.

Conversely, when individuals carried more control over their social contracts and contacts cooperation and appreciation for individuality is fostered. Even if individuals do not actively pursue higher diversity in social contacts and behave according to their own narrow-minded preferences cooperation still blooms.

9. Emergencies Inspire Crowd Cooperation Forget those “every man for themselves” scenarios from big budget Hollywood movies, research shows thatin a crisis crowds often behave in remarkably cooperative and selfless ways. With the temperature rising and information lacking, you and your fellow passengers stop feeling like strangers and start to feel united in your predicament.

An aggregate of individuals becomes and acts as a psychological crowd when there is a cognitive redefinition of the self from a personal to a social identity. This suggest that in liberating us from the restrictions of individuality the psychological crowd is a crucial adaptive resource for survival in mass emergencies and disasters.

Even though the study was published in August, it obviously carries renewed implications. Our political scene however, seems to panic violently after even a near-crisis.

10. Creating God In One’s Own Image For many religious people, the popular question “What would Jesus do?” is essentially the same as “What would I do?” Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, researchers found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs. They use their own beliefs as a starting point, which colors their final conclusions about what God wants.

Researchers even manipulated people to change their views on God by getting them to read a speech that either supported or went against their (and God’s) stated position. The task shifted people’s attitudes towards the position in their speech, either strengthening or moderating their original views, and altering their estimation about what God’s attitude was.

People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want. The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.