Amitai Rosengart's Blog, page 2

Do we all need a good reason to live?

Is it really important to have a purpose? Many people will say it is. I think it is an important question that need to be asked. Do we really need it? If so, Why? Well, as many other metaphysical questions the answer is quite simple if we examine life itself. There is one thing that is certain in life, it is that it ends at a point. There is nothing good or bad in it, it is how life work. In many ways, this is what make it so valuable. Nevertheless, as life becomes longer and we become more conscious, we understand that it is not death that makes life complicated but the life itself.

The concept of purpose is rooted deep in our society. It is unclear if it came first from our need to explain why we die, or just appeared as a comfortable way to live our life. The easy adaptation of a monotheistic god by the masses has a lot to do with that. In the end of it, the whole concept of the monotheistic god is a big poetic purpose for its adopters. Not only that this unseen entity is controls everything everywhere, it demand from its followers a specific behavior, give them what to hope for and group them under a certain set of believes (which make them a community). It is comfortable and even needed as the majority of us have the need to understand life.

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In an era of individualism and self expression, a of lot of young people has come to be believe that their purpose in life is to retire. In my opinion the reason for that is more related to the fact they don’t really love what they are doing, than the actual wish to retire. There is a big difference between the two. while the first is a real crisis that make us miserable, the second is an empty dream that by itself will not promote our happiness. Just to make this point clear, dreaming about being somewhere else constantly make people more measurable than motivated.

It is an interesting period in our history, as the dominance of a monotheist god has weakened and the concept of nationalism is cracking with the rise of globalization. Not surprisingly, nationalism has arise immediately after the weakening of the god concept. It has many things in common, as it give the same needed answers to many people. Now that the nationalism is cracking down, we are left again with ourselves is a world that is to big to control and a life that is to complicated to understand. So what we do? we hope to be rich and retire. Not having any more responsibility, hoping it will solve our problem.

Interestingly enough, it has been shown by research that many old people that worked all their lives, died shortly after retirement. As a disclaimer, it is true that it is more common with man than woman, but it doesn’t change the argument. Some people get sick, some become measurable and some just die one day. There is a good reason for that.   I will argue that human need a purpose. It is a necessity. Purpose give to people the following:

A good reason to wake up in the morning.
A feeling of importance.
A meaning for the hard days. (they exist in everyone life, even the rich).
A connection to the reality, as it drive interaction.
A connection to a certain society or community.

To make it simple, it gives to life meaning. As I mentioned previously, human require meaning. Why? probably because we are a social and intellectual animal that hold the capacity of self reflection. In my experience, if you feel measurable or unhappy in your life, it is probably because you didn’t really found a purpose that will feel your life. Think about, it will make a lot of sense.

If you would like to talk with me about it privately, contact me at amitai@backtoourselves.com. If you think differently or have something to add, please leave me a comment.

Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

If you like this content and would like to get more, Please like this post subscribe to this blog or to my Facebook. Your support is giving me motivation and helps me cause. For more topics in this blog click here.

 

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Conversation about value – Your money is losing value every day

Can you actually explain to a 10 years old what value is all about? We like to think that we can. In the reality, the evolution of our monetary system and the prices of our daily products are fluctuating so often, that an honest moment of reflection will bring the majority of the people to understand they cannot explain our current system of valuation.

There is many reasons for it. I spoke about it in my previous post (Click here to read more). To make it simple, as money became an abstract concept (No, we do not hold gold in reserved to back up our current currencies….Not for at least 70 years), our capacity to grasp the concept of value becomes extremely complicated. a simple way to approach the subject, will be look at the salary of people compared to the cost of living. If we will take the minimum wage of a person as an indicator for the value of an individual worth as a measurement of his time (The value of a salary is normally reflected as the time and effort a person but in a specific task), we could expect that that the sum will represent an equal value to the cost of living. Alas, this is not the case.

The fact that a minimum wage cannot support decently a person in the majority of the countries, is the first reason we find it hard to valuate anything. A second factor is the amount of different prices we have in our market for a variety of products that are serving the same functionality. How come a Tshirt can range From 1$- 200$? How comes a table can range from 15$-10,000$?

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Moreover, the cost of living in our society is constantly growing, while our Money worth diminish on a yearly basic. In fact, not only that the minimum salaries are not growing proportionally to the cost of living, inflation creates a reality in which the same amount of money earned by an individual worth less each year. It is easy to notice, while the cost of rents, properties and products are rising constantly the inflation is killing our currency creating a mechanism of a double lost. Those are are all part of the reasons we are losing our capacity to understand the concept of value. Many people are becoming poor not because they are not working or contributing enough, but because their income and worth is not longer valuable as the market rise.

By losing the capacity to valuate things around us, we are losing our capacity to evaluate our time and our worth. By doing so, we become weak in front of the system that we are living in, lost in an ocean of random pricing. This reality is crumbling our society as it create a separation between the seller to the consumers. Giving the first an ultimate power of the price of our income and the price of the products we buy. In a previous conversation about our economy (Click here), I demonstrate how a system in which the majority of the people work for a cooperation and spend their income in another cooperation creates a enslaved and weak society.

I truly believe that understanding where value come from, will allow people to evaluate better the life around them and get control on their lives. Which will create a stronger society that can march into general prosperity. It is fundamental as our incapability to understand the topic affect everything in our lives, including how we see ourselves psychologically. Value is a real concept that used to represent capacity and practicality. as it change and becomes abstract, so our real capacity to control our life and to peacefully prosper.

In my next posts I will get deeper into what value is all about and how we can recreate a society in which real value is given based in constructive principles.

Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

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Are you ready for the next European economical crisis?

In the last decades, economical crisis’s has become part of our reality. Somehow, we are always surprise when it hit us. It is quite a remarkable fact, as we are allocating millions of dollars yearly to prevent and predict those events. In our current system, we have central bank, state institutions, economics and governments that are all supposedly in charge of making sure it will not happened. Nevertheless, it start to look like the next economical crisis is inevitable.

In the way I see it, those economical crisis should be categories as natural disasters. They happened fast, affecting the majority of the low and middle class drastically,  destroying the life of endless citizen and normally takes years of recover (if ever possible). My theory in the subject is that the big institutions, our governments and the rich are well aware of it way before it comes. Moreover, this layer of our society have the confidence that whatever come, they will be safe or saved. After all, bank and cooperation’s are saved by the government. In the worst case scenario, a specific company will bankrupt leaving  the rich with their riches, ready to move to their next investment. (just look at our recent history for countless real life proves).

It is unnecessary to mention, that the cost of saving this cooperation’s, banks and riches is payed years ahead by the low and middle class, in form of taxes under the justification of national debts or recession. It is a paradox, the people that get hit the harder by mistakes that are not theirs, are the one to pay for its consequences. The middles class lose their jobs, their saving disappear, their money devaluate itself together with their security, confidence and comfort. In this cases, the low class just becomes poorer which promise they will stay that way. 

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Now lets be smarter than we’ve been previously. We can learn from the past and prepare ourselves for the future. Does the next economical crisis is around the corner? The answer is yes and it is closer that you may think. In wonderful book called “Manias, Panics and Crashes” by Robert Z. Aliber and Charles P Kindleberger (Click for book review), a theory in the subject is presented. The book is showing that economical crisis’s never stop, they just move around the globe. We are unaware of it, as it will create panic. Which is exactly the same reason we are not aware of the crisis that is coming to hit us now. In the book, a few clear criteria are presented which appear before any economical crisis. I will lay them down and show the current European condition.

An unreasonable increase in house prices is created – Based on publications, Eurozone house prices rise at the fastest rate in 11 years. House prices in the first quarter of 2018 were 4.5% higher than in the same quarter a year earlier. (Slovenia led the way with a 13.4% rise). Click her for the full article  












An euphoria is created in the market between investors that shift to investments to the local market– recent publications had been showing that investors around the world are optimistic about the European market, ignoring the fact that the ECB  just slashed the European growth forecast.  Click here for article – Optimism article 1, 2, 3.
A catalyst need to appear to create the burst of the crisis – There is many things that can evolve to be the catalyst that will launch the crisis. The Italian new government, the Bretix, trump new import/export reform (the “Trade war”) or just one the local big banks that can just collapse are all part of a long list. Just google the next European economical crisis and find endless article in the subject.

The bottom line is clear, the next economical crisis is around the corner. This time, Europe is even less prepare to handle with it than the last time, as it did not manage to recover yet. Moreover, the political fragility at the moment is not a good and comforting sign for the future in case I’m right. What can we do about? Well, at the moment not a lot. From the other side, when it comes we can demand that the solutions that will be implemented will demand the rich, bank and cooperation’s to take responsibility, for the sake of creating a better future for the middle and low class. After all, it is their doing and it should be their responsibility.

Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

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Book review: “The internet of money” By by Andreas Antonopoulos

My favorite quotes:

“Bitcoin isn’t a digital currency. It’s a cryptocurrency. It’s a network-centric money. I really like the idea of a network-centric money. A network that allows you to replace trust in institutions, trust in hierarchies, with trust on the network. The network acting as a massively diffuse arbiter of truth, resolving any disagreements about transactions and security in a way where no one has control.”

“There are 2 billion people who have no bank accounts at all. There are another 4 billion people who have very limited access to banking. Banking without international currencies, banking without international markets, banking without liquidity. Bitcoin isn’t about the 1 billion. Bitcoin is all about the other 6 1/2. The people who are currently cut off from international banking. What do you think happens when you suddenly are able to turn a simple text-messaging phone in the middle of a rural area in Nigeria, connected to a solar panel, into a bank terminal?”

“This isn’t about nation-states anymore. This isn’t about who adopts bitcoin first or who adopts cryptocurrencies first, because the internet is adopting cryptocurrencies, and the internet is the world’s largest economy. It is the first transnational economy, and it needs a transnational currency.”

Rate: 8/10

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Cryptocurrency is becoming part of our reality. It is still in its early stage of adaptation. Like any new technology, it can be divided to real life application and the actual innovation behind it. I’m part of the crypto community for quite a while. I find it fascinating and challenging. Back in the days, starting to understand what this revolution is all about, was extremely complicated. (I have no relation to computing). after all, as any new extremely innovating. Today, as blockchain is entering every aspect of our lives, it is a great moment for any person to start getting into it. At least understand it better.

In his book Andreas Antonopoulos, manage to do the impossible. In a 123 pages he manage to explain in simple world what is standing behind bitcoin and block chain. He does it in simple worlds, with funny and light analogies that make such a complicated subject look almost to easy to grasp. He have a certain repetitive pattern, which I found a bit exhausting. but I believe that if it is the first time you approach the subject it will be a necessity.

I truly recommend this book to any person that want to learn more about the technology behind bitcoin and the future application it can bring us. For those of you that are already deep into it and did not read it (Which I find hard to believe), This short book can only deepen your understanding and potentially give you a different perspective on the industry.

If you are searching to buy this book click on the link below:

The Internet of Money

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Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

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Constructive education – Critical thinking

Critical thinking is the key to create a better education. The concept of Constructive education has been developed broadly in my blog. It is one of the most important subject that need to be address by our society, if we are searching the create a better future for our children’s. In the end of it, there is two factors that will allow our next generation to bring our society to prosperity – a good socio economic system and personal capacity. Addressing those two subject separately is important and urgent, as I believe our current society is  in a general crisis that put this vision in danger.

For more conversation about our current socio economic society and some possible solution click here.

In this post I would like to address what I think lay in the core of any education system that is searching to give the right tool to our current children’s. In the bottom line it is called critical thinking. When speaking with people about my thoughts in the subject, this subject looked obvious to many. Nevertheless, it is not implemented in our current system. As we are evolving to be a technological multi culture society, our capacity to evaluate our source of information and its legitimacy diminish. Moreover, as politic becomes driven by self interest and cooperation’s are aggressively educating us to idol consumerism, the need for critical thinking is more important than ever.

So what are exactly the criteria of critical thinking? In my personal opinion it can be easily define as followed:

The capacity to evaluate information based on a self standard.
the capacity to not take for granted any information as it is.
The capacity to admit ignorance.
The capacity to doubt and ask for more information in front of any authority.
The capacity to be self aware of one self and its effect on his surroundings.
The capacity to get critics from others.
The capacity to take responsibility on actions and mistakes.

Some will say that a population of kids with critical thinking will create chaos, as they will ask more questions than what we can answer on. I believe it is exactly the opposite. The fact that we cannot answer on some questions or feel uncomfortable to tackle some issues is one of the main reason our society is in such a degraded stage. Questions as “why the world doesn’t make sense?”, “Why our politician are not serving their people?”, Why are we paying so much tax and getting so little in return?” “Why are we paying tax to cover a national debt created by banks and cooperation’s?” and so on are exactly the question that need to be tackled if we are searching to create prosperity.

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There is something magical about children’s. they want to know more and they dare to ask. It is us that are unwilling to feel uncomfortable in our ignorance that are taking from them the tools they need to build themselves a better future. Many adult people can feel quite uncomfortable facing children’s that are more knowledgeable and capable than themselves. Nevertheless, our shame should not be inflicted on their future.

Critical thinking is the basic of Constructive education. It is the philosophical approach that will create strong foundation and will allow our children’s to flourish. Understanding this principal and its consequences is the guideline that lead me to write and evolve the concept of constructive education. As I mentioned in my previous posts in the subject. Seeds of constructive education start to appear everywhere. It is a positive movement that requires a mass adoption, which will allow it to dictate our new standard. Education is one of the main responsibilities we hold as adult and parents toward our young generation. It is time to stop educating our children’s based on our fears, ignorance and concerns and start establishing an education that is built based on our straight, knowledge and belief in future prosperity.

If we want our children’s to be better than us, we need to show them they can and give them the tools for it. As our awareness becomes global and our communities growth, new opportunities arise. Humanity is standing in a time and place in history that allow us to evolve to places we could never dream of before. It is our next generation that will determine the direction we will decide to walk to. It is our responsibility today to give them the tools to prosper tomorrow.

Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

If you like this content and would like to get more, Please like this post subscribe to this blog or to my Facebook. Your support is giving me motivation and helps me cause. For more topics in this blog click here.

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Conversation about Value – Did we lost our capacity to create value?

In a world in which money evolve to be our main mean of survival, a deep conversation about value is needed. As it separate the rich from the poor, the successful from their peers and affect directly the future possibilities of any individuals. Looking on any western society will bring any kid to the conclusion that our current society work an a strange set of principals when it comes to valuation. One of the main reason for that is that the current concept of value and its measurement is in the realm of the abstraction, detached from its original concept. I believe that the majority of the people cannot explain to a 10 years old kid, why an Iphone cost more than a monthly rent, why a shirt can cost more than a meal and why hard work do not give you enough money to live well. unfortunately, there is some good reasons for that.

It is visible that in a world in which money dominate our existence, the fact that it is by itself and abstract tool has created a complicated mechanism that can be misunderstood. After all, if the purpose of money is to give value to real objects while by itself it is no longer exist in a materialistic form, a practical gap can be created separating the  tool of valuation from its original purpose. Moreover, if our abstract money give value to solid objects (as food, housing, cloths etc), while the same money give value to abstract concept (As time, intellectual properties, future value etc), it is normal that a confusion and lack of clarity will be created.

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As we are living from one economical crisis to another, while our currency lose its value on a yearly basis. The capacity of an individual to maintain a reasonable life by working becomes harder each year. This is something that we all feel and we are all well aware of. This evolution of money affect many aspect of our lives. Many people do not make children’s as they do not manage to maintain themselves economically, the capacity of a person to socialize diminish as he/she are missing the free time and The capacity of people to take an active part in their politics diminishes as they lack the time and peacefulness to understand it. Money which used to be a form a reward and tool to give real value to work and capacity, became the main obstacle for a decent life for the majority of the people on earth.

While it is true that one of the main reasons for the lack of money in our current society is partly due to the way our current socio economic system is build (For more information about this subject Click here), I truly believe that the fundamental problem of our current situation is coming from our lack of capacity to understand the ideas and reasons behind value. Due to that, I’m certain that if we are searching to understand better our economy and aiming to create a better future, a deep conversation about value is required.

It is value, that determine our wage, the cost of commodities around us and the services we use. As money become abstract and nations have debts measured in Billions and Trillions, it is not surprising that we lost the capacity to understand what value is all about. This is a mental stage that make us weak in front of our employers, governments and cooperation’s. By understanding why something worth this price we will be able to see if it is to expensive. and only after we can evaluate the prices of our commodities we will be able to evaluate our time, which is our salaries. It is not an easy subject, but it is not complicated one. In my next posts, I will go deeper into this subject. Hopefully, it will give to some of us some clarity and will help us create a better society.

Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

If you like this content and would like to get more, Please like this post subscribe to this blog or to my Facebook. Your support is giving me motivation and helps me cause. For more topics in this blog click here.

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Book review: “Zero to One” by Blake Masters and Peter Thiel

My favorite quotes:

“ZERO TO ONE EVERY MOMENT IN BUSINESS happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.”

“In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.”

“In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work (if this describes your company, you should quit now).”

“CREATIVE MONOPOLY means new products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator. Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.”

Rate: 10/10

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In the current world of business, we evolved to follow a very closed minded set of belief toward success. Those principals preached in schools and universities for decades, has become part of our fundamental way of thinking. Sentences as “Competition is healthy”, ” monopoly’s are bad”, ” if you want to create something new, make a better version of the existing” and “If you are searching for a good investment search for the next Google or Facebook” are all part of the reasons the majority of the businesses of our time fails in the first 3 years.

As a person that is reading a lot of books, I happened to read quite a lot of literature on businesses. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the business, self help, economy and politics book are repeating themselves with small variations. Long ago a Albert Einstein has defined insanity as ” Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. I heard many people saying this sentence still, nobody understand its practice. After a long period of searching, I finally found something different.

This book is a unique and an enlightening peace of work. Peter Thiel and Blake Masters has created one of the most important books ever written for any person that is searching to practice business, innovation, investment and entrepreneurship. The book is written fluently with real world example, that facilitate practicality. On a personal level I will recommend it to any person that is part of the bureaucratic society.

If you are searching to buy this book click on the link below:

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future [image error]

 

Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

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Small targets toward happiness – it is all about the way, not the destination

Life is all about the process, not the destination. I find this rule to be one of the most important lesson I learned on my way to happiness. It is so fundamental that we tend to forget it or ignore it. Alan Watts once said: “Life is like a concert, you don’t come to listing to the last note, you come to enjoy the process”. Life is a process, a personal one. In the end of it, we are the only one that are watching the course of our own life. We live it, remember it and make it what it is. It is the life and its path that is the essence of happiness, the fact that we are here and the fact it finishes at a point. I’m sure it is not the first time you hear this concept. Nevertheless, it never really generate you the understanding needed to become happier. So what does the actual difference.

As I wrote in my previous post, in our current society, we have a tendency to be concentrated in everything except what’s happening now. It a side effect of becoming global and adapting the latest technologies. In many ways, this habits are exactly the reasons for the separation of ourselves from our own lives. we dream big, communicate toward the void of the internet concentrating the results instead of enjoying the process. Lets get into it and understand how it affects us an a personal level

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Big dreams or big concerns are in the majority of the cases not directly affecting your life. In the good case, they could affect it in the far future and in the bad case it will never happened or it is somebody else dreams. From the other side, your life are full of events that are actually affecting your actual life. Everyone have good events and things he can be thankful for, while it is inevitable to have some problems in life and things we would like to change. (If you think there is nothing good in your life, it is because of how you choose to see life and not because it doesn’t exists….different conversation). In general, concentrating in abstract future have a very serious consequences which is that you’re not here right now. Which make you miss the good events and make you unprepared to find solution for your actual problems. 

As we are a social being, we have the need for social interaction, not virtual one. In the reality, we are all surrounded by people. In the majority of the cases good people. If one feels that this sentence is not true, he/she can just go out and surround himself with more people. This people around you are living a very similar life to yours, which mean they probably have the same experiences and life difficulties. In many cases, they are around you because the like it and would like to interact with you from their side. As we attach words as “sharing”, “Engagement” and “Friends” to social media, we forgot how to apply it to real life. We are all searching to be understood and to be part of a group. This is easier done that what the majority of the people think. It requires only to actually concentrate in the person in front of you. But really doing it. Without thinking about your phone, your dreams, your concerned about a far future or about the next TV show you want to see.

The way I manage to do it, is to stop concentrating in long term plan, big dreams and virtual ideas. Concentrating in the people around me and make small targets for short time period. In that way I’m forced to concentrate on my path and not think about my destination.  In the reality, if every step that you do is in the right direction, you will finish by arriving to the right destination without thinking about it. Small targets refer to small achievements. not small because they are not important, but because they are achievable immediately. It reinforce one self esteem, feel the life with real experiences and bring back motivation to live the life on a daily basic.

Small steps, small targets and small moments are what makes our live beautiful. Try it. It is so easy to practice that we sometimes forget how important it is. It works for me I truly believe it can work for you.

Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

If you like this content and would like to get more, Please like this post subscribe to this blog or to my Facebook. Your support is giving me motivation and helping me cause. For more topics in this blog click here.

 

 

 

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Small targets toward happiness – Why we find it hard to be happy?

Why we find it hard to be happy? From a very early stage of our lives we all had to answer of very abstract questions as, “what would you will to do when you’ll be an adult?”, “What are your dreams?” and “If you had all the money in the world what would you do?”. While it is true that long term planing can help us finding direction, this kind of occupation can be extremely toxic. Why? Because it is sending an individual mind to the realm of the unrealistic future and detach him form the actual reality, which is now.

Living in our current western society can be very complicated. We have evolved to live an abstract life. We are constantly busy with our phone, getting endless information from far lands about endless subjects. We communicate with the majority of our friends trough social media, dreaming to be like people we don’t actually know. Using money we cannot touch and concern about event that will maybe happened in the near future. Moreover, we are passing hours in front of television following series that are far from representing the real life and we became hunted by time, as we are trying to stay young and we are afraid to die (At a point in the far future).

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All of those factors are playing a big role in our capacity to maintain a happy life. I believe that we all heard at least once a sentence that goes like this – “Concentrate in the now and create real friendship to promote happiness”. It is easier said than done. Moreover, I find that those kind of sentences are to general to actually serve any body that is searching for good answers.Moreover, this sentence many times already describe our lives, even if we are far from happiness.  In the end of the day, you can only be in the now as you can only ever be here and some virtual friendship are real as the conversations are real and they actually exist somewhere. Let’s take the moment to understand it a bit better. Even if a person is dreaming to become rich or having a better job, he is doing so by concentrating in the fact that at the moment he is not there, which is concentrating in the now. When you’re talking with a friend on social media, sharing pictures, videos and chatting the conversation is real. So what can we do to promote our happiness?

Well, It took me a very long time to understand it fully. But amusingly enough I realized that it is not that the sentence above was wrong, it was just incomplete. Here is how I would phrase the “Core sentence for happiness” – “Concentrate in what is happening to you now, be thankful for the good things and try to see how to improve the immediate problems, while creating real and deep conversation and life experience with the people around you”. As you can notice, the world “Friend” has been deleted from my sentence. Not because friends are not important, but because in a Facebook era the word friend has lost its meaning.

It is hard to be happy when things can always be better and the media is constantly showing us people living a better life. Additionally, being concentrate is virtual sharing and friends on social media makes us feel small and lonely, as we are setting alone in a room communicating with the big world. It makes us lose the notion of our own existence and disconnect us from the actual life around us.

I believe that understanding the problem is the first and most important step toward finding a solution. In my next post we will talk about my solution and how you can practically use it in your life. It is “my way” not because I have some ownership on it, but because I’m using it in my life…….and it works.

Share you thought with me in the comment section and express your opinion. Awareness and open conversation are the key for the creation of a better future.

If you like this content and would like to get more, Please like this post subscribe to this blog or to my Facebook. Your support is giving me motivation and helping me cause. For more topics in this blog click here.

 

 

 

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Book review: “Antifragile” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

My Favorite quotes:

“If you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don’t do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something. Obvious decisions (robust to error) require no more than a single reason.”

“The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.”

“The best way to verify that you are alive is by checking if you like variations. Remember that food would not have a taste if it weren’t for hunger; results are meaningless without effort, joy without sadness, convictions without uncertainty, and an ethical life isn’t so when stripped of personal risks.”

“Let me be more aggressive: we are largely better at doing than we are at thinking, thanks to antifragility. I’d rather be dumb and antifragile than extremely smart and fragile, any time.”

Rate: 10/10

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Have you ever asked yourself, how come millions of dollars are paid every year to professional people for the sake of predicting our economical future and we are still surprised when they come? How come there is more unemployment in sectors that required degrees than in the taxi sector? Why we are so afraid of changes while we all know that they are necessary for progress? You will get all the answers to those questions in this book.

Following the publication of his best seller “Black swan”, Nassim Nicholas Taleb has managed to surpass itself in this incredible book. His capacity to pass complicated ideas in simple words, are one of the things I find the most admirable about this author. Moreover, the ideas behind this book are extremely revolutionary and contradicting our current mind set, nevertheless instead of showing resistance to his ideas I find myself laughing all along the book.

The ideas behind the book has changed a lot the way I see the world we are living in. It gave me a different perspective on our current society, which I find to be important in the current state of monopolized flow of information. The practical implications of the concept of antifragility are massive. I will recommend any person that feels he want to understand better what is wrong in our current mind set to take the time and have a read.

If you search to purchase the book:

Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder [image error]

 

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