What would you still try, if you knew you would fail?
Despite having no plans to write a novel, I love reading advice for authors—maybe because it helps me understand what I love about my favorite books. Recently I was recommended Story Genius by Lisa Cron, which walks you through the stages of building a compelling novel around a compelling character arc, and I got to […]
Three Good Decisions
I have a hard time remembering things that went well. It’s much easier for me to call to mind mistakes I’ve made: times I dropped the ball, or tried and failed to do something that matters to me. This is definitely a phenomenon many people experience (negativity bias), but at least in my case there’s […]
How to hope
Pessimism comes naturally to me. Choosing between optimism and pessimism is like asking whether I would rather be disappointed or pleasantly surprised; it just sounds safer to choose the latter. But over time, pessimism takes its toll on my mood and health, and I’ve been advised many times to be more hopeful. Until recently, I’ve had […]
Multiplying Joy
I do not enjoy public speaking. This may sound odd coming from someone whose chosen profession involves regularly getting up in front of a crowd of students several times a week, but somehow that feels different. When I’m teaching, I’m the expert. By getting up and speaking, I am merely fulfilling the role that everyone […]
Closing mental parentheses
On our drive back from seeing the solar eclipse last year, Clara and I listened to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, a short book in which Timothy Pychyl outlines why we procrastinate, why it’s a problem, and what to do about it. Most of his advice is solid and helpful, but in chapter 6, “The Power of Getting […]
The Commonplace Book #4: “Scroll down / Scroll up”
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may have seen some of my commonplace book posts, where I take a short piece of clever writing, try to understand how it works, and make my own version. Today’s piece of writing is this poem I saw making the rounds on social media, which […]
That which cannot be pursued
I’m fascinated by cases where, in order to achieve something, it’s better to focus on something else instead. Here’s Viktor Frankl’s take on success and happiness: “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; […]
Curating contentment
I remember hearing somewhere about a guy who resolved never to buy a bottle of wine costing more than $10—not because the more expensive wine didn’t taste better, but because he didn’t want his own taste to develop to the point that he had to buy expensive wine if he wanted to enjoy it at all. Clara […]
Worry less, care more
I remember growing up reading a cross-stitch poem on my parents’ wall: Who hath a friend with whom to share hath double cheer and one-half care. The sense of “care” used here, and in similar sayings like “not a care in the world”, really seems more like what I’d call “worry”, and not so much that […]
Why we experience regret
I got a traffic ticket for jaywalking once. (I didn’t realize it was actually illegal to cross on a don’t walk, even if there were no cars coming… hence my careful reading of that section in the Minnesota driver’s handbook when we moved here.) It was not a big deal—the cop takes your information, you […]