Another thing lost in the mindless haste of the modern world is time to reach a proper understanding before taking action

In all the topics discussed on the subject of making our world a better place, one that rarely occurs is time: the necessity of giving yourself time to allow change and development to take place. Time is an essential component in any change involving human beings. Despite all the rush in today’s world, and the constant demands for the gratification of desires now, almost any progress people make in their lives takes far longer than they typically allow for.

One of the worst aspects of modern life is the constant hurry. Not only does it create stress and tension, it goes a long way to making people seem dumber than they are. If you want to get your brain going, slow down and give it some time and space to work.

Time to consider the facts fully

The first requirement is time to explore, to inquire into the facts, to think, to reflect and to internalize fresh ideas. Everyone has the experience of thinking they know something, only to find they’ve forgotten it after a few days. Our brains are not like bags we can stuff with facts and ideas and expect them to stay there. They’re more like boxes full of holes that let a great portion of whatever we put inside escape quickly. New thinking is “liquid” and easily runs out through the holes. Only by repeating the learning and thinking experience several times can we make what we are trying to remember “sticky” enough to stay behind. Continued

Maybe today’s financial crisis has an unexpected upside

That, at any rate, is the view of Terence Blacker, writing for Britain’s newpaper The Independent (“Reasons to be cheerful about the credit crunch”).

He cites a number of potential upsides: people realizing once again that a house is somewhere to live, not an investment opportunity or a source of never-ending income; less constant yakking about making money; a sense of disgust at some of the incomes of top executives; less indulgence in conspicuous spending; even a greater appreciation of what we all have today. Continued

“What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.” — Leo Buscaglia

Maybe it’s finally time to rescue the concept of ‘the pursuit of happiness’ from the hands of the so-called self-help gurus. That’s the message in an article in Huffington Post by Roger Fransecky (”Happiness Is A Choice“).

Starting from considering the popularity of a Harvard course in positive psychology, the article explores the study of well-being — not the traditional topic of psychology, which has tended to be more interested in mental problems than how to enjoy life more. Continued

People may be born with intelligence, but that may not mean they keep it

Balmain Working Mens’ Institute
photo: J Bar

In the debate about what makes a country or a society competitive in the world, it would be interesting to know how much a decline in educational standards counts for. We tend to assume that children are usually better educated than their parents, since standards are rising constantly. What if this is not so in a country — say in the US?

Clive Crook, writing in the Financial Times reports this fact and is clearly of the opinion that it should be more widely reported and discussed than it has been so far:

A startling and profoundly important fact about the US economy has received surprisingly little attention. The educational quality of the country’s workers is starting to decline – not just relatively (because other countries are catching up and moving ahead) but also, for the first time, in absolute terms. Over the coming years, baby-boomers departing from the labour force will have better educational qualifications than the younger workers replacing them. If the ultimate source of an economy’s ability to grow and prosper is its human capital, the US is in trouble . . .

Between 1940 and 2000, the educational standard of people entering the US labor market rose markedly. While fewer than 5 per cent of the population had at least a four-year college education at the start of this period, more than 30 per cent did so by the end.

When the educated Baby Boomers retire

However, the children of the post-war Baby Boomers now have fewer post-graduate degrees than their parents’ generation. What happened? Have they lost interest? Does a good degree count for less in getting a job?

Whatever the immediate reason, there has been no such decline, it appears, in countries like South Korea, Japan, Canada and Russia. In fact, in many other countries, the proportion of people aged 25-34 with at least a college education is now as high as, or higher than, in the US — and still climbing. When the US Baby Boomers leave the labor force, as they are already starting to do, a good proportion of the educational attainments of the country will leave with them. Continued

McCain’s adviser had it about right

An important adviser to US presidential hopeful John McCain was reported last week as saying that the U.S. had become a nation of whiners. Naturally, there was a fuss and the guy’s remarks were disowned by McCain. And while that shows how politically inexpedient they were, it doesn’t prove that they were wrong.

If you follow the media and listen to people talking around you, I believe you’ll also come to the conclusion that the most typical sound in our society today isn’t muzak, or TV commercials, or the latest pop blockbuster. It is indeed whining.

We’re talking ourselves into a recession. Not just a ‘mental recession’ but a real one. One that will truly hurt a great many people. Some have already lost their jobs. Some have lost their homes. All this is undoubtedly real. But what got us here has mostly been a failure of intangible things: trust, confidence, willingness to offer credit, belief in the soundness of certain investments. In that sense, we are in a mental recession: a recession primarily caused, not by tangible problems of supply and demand, but by the panicky reactions of thousands of dealers and speculators in the world’s stock markets. Continued

Is loyalty always admirable? Is faith always a virtue? Perhaps not.

An Antebellum era (pre-civil war) family Bible.
Image via Wikipedia

Loyalty has long been prized by leaders of every kind, from business moguls to politicians and church leaders; to be disloyal is typically seen as an obviously negative trait. Yet too much emphasis on loyalty can cause real problems, like stifling dissent, dulling people’s willingness to tell the truth and blunting their creativity. If no one is willing to rock the boat by pointing out problems or suggesting new ideas, how many opportunities, mistakes or instances of questionable practice will be missed? When does loyalty become misplaced?

It’s a problem of balance. Too much disloyalty is disruptive and destroys trust. Too much loyalty — especially of the unquestioning kind — means important questions may be ignored or suppressed until it’s too late. Should you put loyalty above ‘outing’ misbehavior or dishonesty? Should you stay loyal to a polticial party, a candidate, or a point of view even if you now believe they have it all wrong?

What about patriotism? Is ‘my country, right or wrong’ an admirable attitude — or one that prevents nations from making the changes they need to protect the very values they claim to stand for? What if my country is wrong? Isn’t it more loyal, in the true sense, to stand up and say so, than keep my mouth shut out of misplaced qualms about what others may think? Continued

It seems the canny cephalopods are brighter than you think

Slate Magazine has a fascinating article summarizing research on the brain power of the octopus (“How Smart Is the Octopus?”). Why, I’m not sure, but it makes for more fun reading than all the articles at the moment prophesying doom and collapse for the economies fo the Western world. Besides, on this showing, an octopus seems smarter than a good many people I’ve met.

Not only can octopuses learn, they can process complex information in their heads, and behave in equally complex ways. On available evidence, a good many people seem incapable of learning quite simple things, like not taking on debt they can never pay off or investing their life savings in some get-rich-quick scheme pushed by a slick salesperson. If you look at the media, it’s quite evident that they assume their mass audiences aren’t able to absorb or process complex information of any kind, and are willing to exist on an endless diet of simple lies and titillating trivia. As for complex behavior, the banks — who claim to employ the best and brightest — seem to have learned their business strategies from watching sheep and lemmings. Continued

In tough financial times, the traits of the chronic under-earner carry as heavy a penalty as those of the continual over-spender

Continental Congress Lottery Ticket
Source: Wikipedia

Over-spending is never a good idea and we’ve heard a great deal recently about the ways that people have been tempted into spending far too much by cheap and easy credit. Cutting back on your spending is certainly one way to cope with the financial downturn; one that many people are obviously taking, given the howls of anguish from industries facing lower sales. But what about under-earning? What if you find yourself in continual financial straits, not because you spend too much because you don’t earn enough?

Writing in BusinessWeek, Michelle Conlin suggests that “for every obscenely piggish ceo pay package, there’s legions of underearners crawling all over Corporate America. ” She bases her article on the book by Jerrold Mundis, Earn What You Deserve: How to Stop Underearning & Start Thriving. There’s also Barbara Stanny’s book, Overcoming Underearning: Overcome Your Money Fears and Earn What You Deserve.

In summary, under-earners may do great work, but they rarely get the financial recognition they deserve for it, mostly because they don’t believe their employers will pay them more. A few have the idealistic idea that money goes only to people who compromise their essential humanity or sell out their creativity to get it. Many simply won’t take responsibility for the problem or are too fearful to stand up for themselves. Continued

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea. . . especially if it’s the only one you have.”

Ideas are like wrench sets. If you have too small a set, you can be sure that you’ll never have the one you need when the lawn tractor breaks down. Obsessive people buy huge wrench sets with every possible size, imperial and metric, just in case. Smart ones buy an adjustable wrench or two.

Ideas are much the same. When you need one, it’s usually too late to take the time to find it. And, unlike that vast case of wrenches, your mind can’t hold that many ideas or random bits of information without forgetting most of them. You need the mental equivalent of an adjustable wrench.

That’s a concept: a way of looking at something that can be adjusted to provide the precise answer you need in specific circumstances. Human minds are bad at holding lots of disconnected ideas and bits of learning, but first-rate at recalling and using concepts. Continued

Are happiness and achievement truly a case of cause and effect?

Photo credit: D B King

For all the people out there who strive constantly to increase their productivity and add to their achievements (and they are legion) there’s no more challenging question that to prove the link between what you get done and whether or not you feel happier afterwards.

The general assumption is that achieving some goal creates happiness, but is it correct?

That’s the area explored in a recent article by Jonathan Mead called “The Cult of Productivity & the Art of Purposeless Living.” In challenging the convention links between these two aspects of life (Achievement causes happiness), he points to the way so many people today become obsessed with doing more, making more money, being a better person and a host of similar goals — all harmless, even laudable, in themselves, but all capable of causing a great deal of unhappiness when they become obsessive. Continued