More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
By relinquishing our notions about what fun should feel like, we open ourselves up to seeing tasks in a new way.
Fun and play don’t have to make us feel good per se; rather, they can be used as tools to keep us focused.
‘We fail to have fun because we don’t take things seriously enough, not because we take them so seriously that we’d have to cut their bitter taste with sugar.
Bogost tells us that ‘fun is the aftermath of deliberately manipulating a familiar situation in a new way’.
We can use the same neural hardwiring that keeps us hooked to media to keep us engaged in an otherwise unpleasant task.
‘First, pay close, foolish, even absurd attention to things.’
Operating under constraints, Bogost says, is the key to creativity and fun.
‘The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.’
Fun is looking for the variability in something other people don’t notice.
It’s breaking through the boredom and monotony to discover its hidden beauty.
It just has to hold our attention.
People who did not see willpower as a finite resource did not show signs of ego depletion.
Just as we don’t ‘run out’ of joy or anger, willpower ebbs and flows based on what’s happening to us and how we feel.
Addicts’ belief regarding their powerlessness was just as significant in determining whether they would relapse after treatment as their level of physical dependence.
The important thing is to take responsibility for our actions without heaping on the toxic guilt that makes us feel even worse and can, ironically, lead us to seek even more distraction, in order to escape the pain of shame.
Instead of accepting what the voice says or arguing with it, remind yourself that obstacles are part of the process of growth.
We can cope with uncomfortable internal triggers by reflecting on, rather than reacting to, our discomfort.
We can reimagine the task we’re trying to accomplish by looking for the fun in it and focusing on it more intensely.
People who are more self-compassionate are more resilient.
Our most precious asset – our time – is unguarded, just waiting for someone to steal it.
Instead of starting with what we’re going to do, we should begin with why we’re going to do it.
Values are not end goals; they are guidelines for our actions.
If we chronically neglect our values, we become someone we’re not proud of – our life feels out of balance and diminished.
Ironically, this ugly feeling makes us more likely to seek distractions to escape our dissatisfaction without actually solving the problem.
