For most of human history, we shared a strong belief in the supernatural. This anchored our spiritual life and helped us answer some of lives most painful questions; such as what is the purpose of my life and what awaits me after I die. Nowadays we have lost this belief and there is no point … Continue reading Finding Purpose
Tag: Happiness
The Merits of Slack
There are two meanings we generally assign to the word slack. First, we can understand it as a form of laziness or being negligent. If we say a company has slack safety procedures, we express that these are insufficient and that not enough attention and effort is dedicated to these. There are few merits in … Continue reading The Merits of Slack
Wholesome Goals for Every Day
I've discussed a number of practices that may aid in the path to enlightenment. Each of these, I believe is valuable and worthwhile to pursue; however, in their sum, they are quite an undertaking to accomplish, and it is very difficult to practice each of them daily. I, for once, fail at that miserably. Thus … Continue reading Wholesome Goals for Every Day
Practice: Healing Compassion
I have already written about a practice centred on the powerful emotion of compassion. However, today I came across an interesting variation of a practice on compassion (in the book Happiness by Matthieu Ricard): one that reflects our own suffering onto others, and helps us heal from our own suffering. This practice works as follows: … Continue reading Practice: Healing Compassion
My Life Goals
I have recently been asked what goals I have for my life. I think I am someone who deeply cares about leading a purposeful life and the very purpose of this blog is finding such. However, I don't think I have recently articulated what my life goals are and I believe this to be a … Continue reading My Life Goals
What Makes Me Happy?
I am currently reading the book 'Happiness' by Matthieu Ricard and a small exercise is presented at the end of the first chapter. The exercise is to think about what gives us pleasure and happiness. This question got me contemplating for quite a while. It appears I am not thinking very often about whether I … Continue reading What Makes Me Happy?
Look Within
Look within; within is the fountain of all good. Marcus Aurelius We often go about our lives in a robot-like way. We do what is prescribed by our biological, social and cultural programming; seek social confirmation, seek good-looking mates, seek power, seek wealth, and we do so without thinking about it. Sometimes this leads us … Continue reading Look Within
Jewellery
Ornaments are an important part of nature. Flowers use them to attract bees. Birds use them to attract mates. Frogs use them as protection from predators. It is therefore not very surprising that jewellery, face painting, tattoos and other ornamental devices are one of the many things which are shared by all know human cultures. … Continue reading Jewellery
Pleasure, Joy and Happiness
One of the marks of an expert is the knowledge of vocabulary within a specific domain and the ability to apply this vocabulary effectively and precisely. Listing to two engineers talk about the construction of a bridge, we would not understand much of their conversation, as long as we not happen to be a structural … Continue reading Pleasure, Joy and Happiness
Practice: Love
One of the most precious gift we have been given is our ability to love. Our love may encompass the big and small, our love may encompass the beautiful and ugly, our love may encompass ourselves and everything around us. Think about the many layers of your love; the romantic love for someone special, the … Continue reading Practice: Love