Just shooting the breeze
The act of accomplishing a thing should be enough.
Why do people need the prestige to be satisfied?
Isn’t the act of accomplishing something, of creating something meaningful enough?
Take NBA legend Kobe Bryant for instance.
In the early years of his professional career, he wanted all of the lights to shine on him.
He wanted credit for every success his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, achieved. Continue reading “Is Prestige Necessary?”
What do you control?
I started practicing stoicism when the pandemic happened a few years ago.
During that time, the whole world shut down and there was a lot of uncertainty. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen and I was worried about my future. I was anxious.
But then I came upon The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and after reading a few of the daily meditations, I learned that I shouldn’t give attention to things I don’t control.
The world events that were going on during the Covid pandemic? I can’t control them.
But I can control my thoughts and feelings about them.
So, why would I allow myself to be weak and fixate on the negatives when I can focus on more productive thoughts?
This lesson on control has extended far past the events of the pandemic. Continue reading “Here’s The One Stoic Principle That’s Helped Me The Most”
Basketball is a great activity to help you be more mindful.
Stress is something everybody deals with as everyone has hard times in life.
The majority of the time, however, stress and anxiety build up because of what we think will happen, not what will happen.
As the great stoic philosopher Epictetus said:
“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”
Despite being a successful NBA player, DeMar DeRozan still deals with mental health issues.
It is extremely difficult to be drafted into the NBA.
It is even more difficult to have a long and fruitful career.
And it is even more challenging to become a star in the league.
DeMar DeRozan did all three.
He was drafted by the Toronto Raptors in 2009 with the ninth overall pick and didn’t have a high ceiling. Though scouts believed he had a ton of potential, they also didn’t see him unlocking it.
And in his rookie season, he proved them right. He struggled against the best in the world and averaged just under 9 points a game. He also didn’t provide much else.
By the time the offseason came around, he knew he had to improve if he wanted to stick around the NBA for a while. So, he took on the challenge of being a professional and devoted himself to basketball. He trained day in and day out. He made working on his basketball skills and conditioning a daily habit.
The following season, the effects of the training kicked in. He nearly doubled his points per game by averaging 17.2 points. He also averaged 3.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1 steal -all improvements from the previous campaign.
After seeing the successful results of the deliberate training, he continued to put in the work every offseason thereafter.
Eventually, DeRozan became an All-Star. But more importantly, he was leading the Raptors to the playoffs perennially while also helping them secure the top seeds in the Eastern Conference.
But while he was on this journey, he faced some difficult times. He dealt with depression and anxiety and didn’t openly talk about it until he was a few years into his career. Continue reading “Successful People Can Struggle With Mental Health Too”
Here’s the science behind one of the greatest pranks anyone can pull.
Have you seen any of those invisible danger prank videos online?
I came across one the other day and these pranks are hilarious. Essentially, someone (the pranker) would pretend that something scary or dangerous was around them by frantically acting out and thus, making their victim scared as well.
One of the reasons why these are so funny is because of how the person getting pranked reacts. They’re just in a frenzy for no reason. Continue reading “The Science Behind Invisible Danger Pranks”
Here’s the best advice I’ve received on how to deal with my anger.
I have always been a short-tempered person.
Ever since I was a young child, when someone or something ticked me off, I would burst into an angry fit.
For example, if I couldn’t beat a level in a game by the third try, I screamed and hit the table.
Or if I couldn’t solve a math problem, I screamed and swore at my textbook and (very occasionally) threw it against the wall.
And after every fit, my mom told me I had to get rid of my anger. I didn’t know how or exactly what this meant, but I tried it anyway.
It was my mom telling me to do something, after all.
However, it didn’t work. I still got angry and I still erupted. Continue reading “It’s Okay To Get Angry: Wisdom From a Roman Emperor”
The bystander effect is a psychological effect. It’s a theory that claims people are less likely to help someone when there is a crowd present.
So, I was walking around a national park a few weeks ago and I saw this lady slip on some ice. She was maybe in her late 50s to early 60s.
She laid on the ground for a while and I wondered if she was ok. There were a lot of people around, but no one walked over to her to check. I considered doing so, but there was this resistance that kept reeling me back.
I just thought to myself that there are so many other people around -people that were most likely more qualified than me to help her. So, I just stood there looking at her.
And as time ticked away, people just imitated me as they stood in place and observed her from afar. No one went over to check on her
This experience, which is very likely fiction (it is), is a social psychological theory called the Bystander Effect. Continue reading “What is the Bystander Effect?”
The Milgram Experiment was a social psychological study conducted by Stanley Milgram in 1961 at Yale University. It was an examination of obedience in men.
With it, he wanted to test the limits of obedience in men. He wanted to know how far men were willing to go to obey an authority figure.
Milgram wanted to know if they were willing to disrupt their personal conscience for the sake of obedience. Continue reading “What is The Milgram Experiment?”