As we’ve been asked to “stay home” in the current crisis, there’s been an interesting response. Some people haven’t listened. It isn’t interesting because it’s happening. Some percentage of people will try to rebel against any guideline, particularly the type that doesn’t pose a visible threat. The interesting thing is how out of touch the …
The following snippets are some of my favorite takeaways from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, Nature. They can be found here, along with my favorite passages from other books and essays that I’ve recently read: http://brandonbartneck.com/favorite-book-takeaways/. From Nature… “…the simple perception of natural forms is a delight.” “To the attentive eye, each moment of the year …
Epectitus makes the case that there are three layers of philosophy: How we should act Why we should act in this why Proof that layer (2) is in fact adequate reasoning for why we should act in a certain way In practice, layer (1) in obviously the most important. The primary reason for thinking about …
Mark Wahlburg made headlines by providing food for nurses in a Detroit-area hospital over the weekend. It’s a generous action meant to help some of the brave people who we’re all relying on to help us make it through these challenging times. You could, however, argue that there’s some self-interest involved. The simple fact that …
Planning and thinking is great, but they can only take us so far. Eventually, we have to actually take action. Particularly in situations in which we have many at-bats (which is most situations in the real world), it’s often better to just take our shot. The simple process of trying our best, putting ourselves out …
When things get tough, the natural reaction is to focus on ourselves. What do need to do to stay healthy? How are we going to survive? How do we keep ourselves entertained? But what if we turned that around? What if instead, we thought about how we can play our part in the bigger picture, …
The following snippets are some of my favorite takeaways from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, Self Reliance. They can be found here, along with my favorite passages from other books and essays that I’ve recently read: http://brandonbartneck.com/favorite-book-takeaways/. From Self Reliance… To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private …
One of the key challenges in highly uncertain times is that we’ll never know whether we made the right decisions. Boeing’s 737 Max has had several crashes due to software problems, but no engineer would’ve been viewed as a hero if they put their foot down and stopped production before it started. They would’ve looked …
A sudden change in routine gives us a unique opportunity. Rather than impulsively following the same patterns that we’ve gotten used to, we’re forced to change things up. Likely the current restrictions will eventually subside and things will get back to “normal” (or at least close), but we don’t necessarily need to automatically fall back …
With the right mindset, nearly anything can be spun into a positive. But we don’t have to rely on positive thinking alone. If we look in the right places, we might find that there are more concrete factors playing to our advantage. Exercise during the “social distancing” movement is a good example. With my gym …