There is just too much stuff in our lives nowadays. Victorian era maximalism got turned up to 11 thanks to globalization and hyper-capaitlaism. Odds are you have useless items around you right now that you thought at one time was a good idea. Well, here’s a better idea: get rid
Continue readingTag: Mind Space
Things Are Good: The 7 Common Points in Self-Help Books
“There’s always room for one more self-help book” said every publisher ever. On the other hand, there are too many books and not enough time to read them all (especially if you read self-help books). Having never read one, I was interested in what all the fuss is about then
Continue readingThings Are Good: You Should Replace Should With Could
Some new research hints that you should change how you think about issues and what to do. Often we think about things we should do and what we ought to do is ask what we could do. Asking yourself, for example, “What should I do with my life?” tacitly implies
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Checklist for Rational Thinking
There exists a Center for Applied Rationality (as opposed to unapplied rationality?) and they have set out to make the world more rational. Their approach is questionable, as it’s unclear as to what form of rationality they are openly proselytizing. Regardless, they do have a neat checklist to help people
Continue readingThings Are Good: Live in the Now, Plan for Your Future Self
There are many things that make one happy, but what if our fundamental approach is wrong? Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert looks into other ways of thinking about happiness and the overall take we have on our self. “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Dan Gilbert
Continue readingThings Are Good: Lucid Dreamers Demonstrate Better Awareness When Awake
People who can lucid dream are able to transfer skills acquired for lucid dreaming into the waking world. In fact, this skill makes lucid dreamers more aware and cognizant than non-lucid dreamers. Lucid dreaming is essentially the ability to be aware of and in some cases manipulate dreams as they
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Hippocratic Oath for Bankers
Bankers destroyed the economy and in too many countries those responsible walk free despite the damage they wrought. Iceland jailed bankers at fault in their country, but what can we do to ensure that bankers behave in the future? Doctors take the hippocratic oath in order to practice medicine, now
Continue readingThings Are Good: Walk It Off, Structured Downtime for Productivity
Working all day is hard – so don’t do it. In many desk jobs one doesn’t need to be there from 9-5, indeed we can be more productive by not being there. More evidence keeps cropping up that we are animals that need exercise and a diversity of daily experiences.
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Good City is an Environmentally Friendly One
The urban environment can benefit from more, well, environment. More research is coming out that proves something that many urbanites already know: where there is green there is more peace. Cities with good access to nature and have more trees spread throughout the urban space are better places to live.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Hard Choices Are Easy
Ruch Chang shares her philosophy on making hard choices – the key is to change the approach. Here’s a talk that could literally change your life. Which career should I pursue? Should I break up — or get married?! Where should I live? Big decisions like these can be agonizingly
Continue readingThings Are Good: Supermarket Loves Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables
Just because it’s not good looking doesn’t mean it tastes bad. Growers take their odd-looking fruit and usually sell it to juice, soup, or canneries instead of grocery store. One grocery store chain in France decided to take the produce usually rejected by consumers and make something fun out of
Continue readingThings Are Good: Addiction Therapy Applied to Car Use
It’s no secret that as a global society we are addicted to automobile use. It’s also no secret that cars are literally killing us (just starting the engine causes harm) and the way we have built cities to cater to drivers has damaged society from our health to our social
Continue readingThings Are Good: BBC Drastically Improves Science Coverage and Debate
The BBC is finally doing something that all media organizations should do – don’t let crazy people derail important debates. For this entire millennium mass media organizations have invited reality-denying people to debates on issues like climate change. This causes the issue to not actually be talked about. No more
Continue readingThings Are Good: Being Intellectually Stimulated Can Delay Dementia
More and more studies seem to be coming out that all conclude that keeping your mind active can be helpful to all sorts of health issues. Speaking more than one language and certainly help and so can just keeping your mind intellectually stimulated through various tasks: Examples of activities the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Abolish The Week
People who aren’t slaves to the 9-5 world (or worse the 8-8 crowd) may not understand the tyranny of the week. Those poor folks who are forced by their managers and bosses to slave away at set hours and times. Sometimes the best time to do something may not be
Continue readingThings Are Good: Watch Sustainability Illustrated
Alex Magnin is an illustrator who likes making the world a better place and over the last six months he’s been illustrating sustainability. The video above is about explaining sustainability with science and is a good example of what the sort of videos he illustrates. The videos are 4-7 minuets
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Young Adults Are More Than Alright
Baby Boomers are just like their parents – they complain about all the problems they think the youth are causing (as if it’s the youth fault the planet is experiencing irreversible climate change and the economy was maladjusted a few years back). The older generations often accuse younger people to
Continue readingThings Are Good: Restorative Justice and Neuroscience
In this TED talk, Daniel Reisel examines how neuroscience backs up the (already obvious) reasons that restorative justice works better than punitive justice.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Documentary on Finland’s Education System
Finland has one of the best education systems in the world and repeatedly ranks amongst the top 3. Why? Basically Finland’s education system is diametrically opposite to how education in North America. Kids are allowed to play, homework is scarce, and teachers are treated with respect. Via Reddit.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Smart People Trust Others
Oxford University researchers have concluded that the more intelligent a person is the more likely they are to trust other people. This is assumed to be the case because smarter people have a better at determining what sort of people they want to be around and self-select to be around
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