Should your priority for living be happiness or virtue? Is it better to be a happy person of mediocre character, or noble and melancholic? I believe this is one of the biggest questions you can ask yourself. Not only because it guides so many life decisions, but because it changes your approach to life. The […]
Society’s Attention Deficit – Praise for Deep Thinking in the Era of Shallowness
Could the internet be making us stupider? Cal Newport suggests it might. He shares recent research that shows electronic multitasking results in poorer performance on cognitive tasks. No surprise there: being on Facebook or Twitter won’t help you concentrate. The interesting finding however, was that chronic multitaskers perform significantly worse on tasks even when they […]
How Fast are You Running to Stay in the Same Place?
In Lewis Carrol’s novella, Through the Looking Glass, there’s a wonderful dialog between Alice and the Red Queen: “Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.” “A slow sort of country!” said the […]
Mental Aikido: The Necessity of Unhappiness in the Ideal Life
I believe happiness is important, and all else being equal, the happy life is better than the unhappy one. But this doesn’t mean I believe the ideal life is free from unhappy moments. I have plenty of unhappy moments, and I think that’s okay, perhaps even necessary, to live well. Some Unhappiness is a Necessary […]
I'm a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcast host, computer programmer and an avid reader. Since 2006, I've published weekly essays on this website to help people like you learn and think better. My work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, TEDx, Pocket, Business Insider and more. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.