A little bit about the books that I love — 2021
Atomic Habits
https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
To build better habits, there are Four Laws of Behaviour Change:
Make it obvious
Make it attractive
Make it easy
Make it satisfying
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
https://www.ynharari.com/book/21-lessons-book/
If you want reliable information, pay good money for it. If you get your news for free, you might well be the product.
Homo sapiens is just not built for satisfaction. Human happiness depends less on objective condition and more on our own expectations. Expectations, however, tend to adapt to conditions, including to the condition of other people. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvement in conditions might leave us as dissatisfied as before.
The most important thingsI realized was that the deepest source of suffering is in the patterns of my own mind. When I want something and it doesn’t happen, my mind reacts by generating suffering. Suffering is not an objective condition in the outside world. It is a mental reaction generated by my own mind. Learning this is the first step toward ceasing to generate more suffering.
To change the world, you need to act, and even more important, you need to organize. If you really care about something — join a relevant organization.
If you are seriously interested in getting answers, I would recommend committing to a practice of inner exploration, accepting that it usually takes years — rather than days and weeks — to start getting real answers. The practice can be meditation, but it can also be therapy, art, or even sports. You will never get answers by just reading books, discussing theories, and contemplating thoughts.
Designing Your Life
https://designingyour.life/the-book/
A well-designed life is a life that is generative — it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise. You get out of it more than you put in. There is a lot more than “lather, rinse, repeat” in a well-designed life.
Life design is intrinsically a communal effort. If you find yourself standing alone in front of the mirror, trying to solve or figure out your life, waiting to make a move until you are clear about the correct answers, you are going to be waiting a long time.
A perfectly planned life that never surprises you or challenges you or tests you is a perfectly boring life, not a well-designed life.
Keep Sharp
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Keep-Sharp/Sanjay-Gupta/9781501166730
The five pillars of Brain Health:
~Move~
- Keep a regular physical routine
- Avoid prolonged sitting
- Exercise for at least 150 minutes a week
- Take the stairs
- Break a sweat every day~Discover~
- Pick up a new hobby
- Learn new skills
- Find your purpose in life
- Delay retirement
- Stay engaged~Relax~
- Sleep for 7 hours nightly
- Stick to a sleep schedule
- Don’t multitask
- Meditate daily
- Be grateful and forgiving
- Write a journal~Nourish~
- Eat in moderation
- Aim for seven different-colored foods every day
- Always be hydrated
- Reduce portions
- Avoid caffeine after lunch
- Don’t eat 3 hours before bed~Connect~
- Have a diverse social network
- Enjoy close ties to friends and family
- Participate in social activities centred around challenges
- Take a walk with a friend
The God Equation
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555753/the-god-equation-by-michio-kaku/
Mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics. And that beauty is symmetry.
Gravity does not pull, space pushes. Gravitational attraction is an illusion.
Homo Deus
https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/
The glass ceiling of happiness is held in place by two stout pillars, one psychological, the other biological. On the psychological level, happiness depends on expectations rather than objective conditions. We don’t become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon. Dramatic improvements in conditions, as humankind has experienced in recent decades, translate into greater expectations rather than greater contentment. If we don’t do something about this, our future achievements too might leave us as dissatisfied as ever.
Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives, and to reinvent themselves repeatedly.
To attain real happiness, humans need to slow down the pursuit of pleasant sensations, not accelerate it.
Think Like A Freak
https://freakonomics.com/book/think-like-a-freak/
Why do so many frown so sternly at the idea of having fun? Perhaps out of fear that it connotes you aren’t serious. But best as we can tell, there is no correlation between appearing to be serious and actually being good at what you do. In fact an argument can be made that the opposite is true.
But wouldn’t it be nice if we all smuggled a few childlike instincts across the border into adulthood? We’d spend more time saying what we mean and asking questions we care about
Outliers
https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/malcolm-gladwell/outliers/9780316040341/
Those three things — autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward — are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.
Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.
Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.
Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.
Range
https://davidepstein.com/the-range/
First act and then think. We discover the possibilities by doing, by trying new activities, building new networks, finding new role models. We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.
Mental meandering and personal experimentation are sources of power, and head starts are overrated. Start planning experiments. Approach your own personal voyage and projects like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, willing to learn and adjust as you go, and even to abandon a previous goal and change directions entirely should the need arise.
It is difficult to accept that the best learning road is slow, and that doing poorly now is essential for better performance later. It is so deeply counterintuitive that it fools the learners themselves
Humans: A Brief History Of How We Fucked It All Up
https://tom-phillips.com/portfolio/humans-a-brief-history-of-how-we-fcked-it-all-up/
Evolution gets results not by planning ahead, but rather by simply hurling a ridiculously large number of hungry, horny organisms at a dangerous and unforgiving world and seeing who fails least.
There’s a thing called ‘choice-supportive bias’, which basically means that once we’ve committed to a course of action, we cling onto the idea that it was the right choice like a drowning sailor clinging to a plank.
Brief Answers To The Big Questions
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/600621/brief-answers-to-the-big-questions-by-stephen-hawking/9781984819192
Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult may life seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.
Physics Of The Future
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/89413/physics-of-the-future-by-michio-kaku/
The destiny of computers is to become invisible, that is, to disappear in the fabric of of our lives, to be everywhere and nowhere, silently and seamlessly carrying out our wishes. Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.
By 2100, our destiny is to become like the gods we once worshipped and feared. But our tools will not be magic wands and potions but the science of computers, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and most of all, the quantum theory
The Time Keeper
https://www.mitchalbom.com/books/time-keeper/
Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.
