Willingness To Learn New Quotes

I feel like a child. But I learn a little something every day. It's like a whole new way of living. It's a willingness to give up control. To make a commitment and have faith it'll work out.

Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors. The reactive approach — see what happens, limit damages, and learn from experience — is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the costs (moral and economic) of such actions.

If you have a willingness to carve out time to work on a skill every day, you’ll slowly make that transition from novice to expert!

The heart’s transformation is not attained through the mind—it’s attained through surrender, authenticity, forgiveness, faith, honesty, acceptance, vulnerability, humility, willingness, nonjudgment, and other characterological values that have to be learned and relearned continuously.

True potential for growth is measured by your willingness to let go of what you think you know, and embrace something seemingly contrary, thereby, challenging yourself to go higher. It is impossible to learn something new without rejecting something old.

But why bother? Why exert all this effort to focus totally on the boring prattlings of a six-year-old? First, your willingness to do so is the best possible concrete evidence of your esteem you can give your child. If you give your child the same esteem you would give a great lecturer, then the child will know him- or herself to be valued and therefore will feel valuable. There is no better and ultimately no other way to teach your children that they are valuable people than by valuing them. Second, the more children feel valuable, the more they will begin to say things of value. They will rise to your expectation of them. Third, the more you listen to your child, the more you will realize that in amongst the pauses, the stutterings, the seemingly innocent chatter, your child does indeed have valuable things to say. The dictum that great wisdom comes from "the mouths of babes" is recognized as an absolute fact by anyone who truly listens to children. Listen to your child enough and you will come to realize that he or she is quite an extraordinary individual. And the more extraordinary you realize your child to be, the more you will be willing to listen. And the more you will learn. Fourth, the more you know about your child, the more you will be able to teach. Know little about your children, and usually you will be teaching things that either they are not ready to learn or they already know and perhaps understand better than you. Finally, the more children know that you value them, that you consider them extraordinary people, the more willing they will be to listen to you and afford you the same esteem. And the more appropriate your teaching, based on your knowledge of them, the more eager your children will be to learn from you. And the more they learn, the more extraordinary they will become. If the reader senses the cyclical character of this process, he or she is quite correct and is appreciating the truth of the reciprocity of love. Instead of a vicious downward cycle, it is a creative upward cycle of evolution and growth. Value creates value. Love begets love. Parents and child together spin forward faster and faster in the pas de deux of love.

Capacity for keen observation • Exceptional ability to predict and foresee problems and trends • Special problem-solving resources; extraordinary tolerance for ambiguity; fascination with dichotomous puzzles • Preference for original thinking and creative solutions • Excitability, enthusiasm, expressiveness, and renewable energy • Heightened sensitivity, intense emotion, and compassion • Playful attitude and childlike sense of wonder throughout life • Extra perceptivity, powerful intuition, persistent curiosity, potential for deep insight, early spiritual experiences • Ability to learn rapidly, concentrate for long periods of time, comprehend readily, and retain what is learned; development of more than one area of expertise • Exceptional verbal ability; love of subtleties of written and spoken words, new information, theory, and discussion • Tendency to set own standards and evaluate own efforts • Unusual sense of humor, not always understood by others • Experience of feeling inherently different or odd • History of being misunderstood and undersupported • Deep concerns about universal issues and nature, and reverence for the interconnectedness of all things • Powerful sense of justice and intolerance for unfairness • Strong sense of independence and willingness to challenge authority • Awareness of an inner force that “pulls” for meaning, fulfillment, and excellence • Feelings of urgency about personal destiny and a yearning at a spiritual level for answers to existential puzzles

I hope I have conveyed to you the single most important discovery that neuroscientists have made since I became a brain surgeon: your brain’s health is within your own control. Your willingness to engage in lifelong learning, social engagement, and a childlike openness to new experiences will define your brain’s fate.

I realized a few days ago I didn't know what love was. To me love was helpless, suffocating, painful. It wasn't until [she] came that I realized that love was strong, that it meant standing up for yourself, saying things nobody wanted to hear. I also know it means giving of yourself because it makes somebody else happy. I don't know if I love [her]. For a while I was sure I didn't, but now I'm not sure. I know I need her, that I can't imagine living the rest of my life without her. Is that love? I think it's part of it. I know I want her. She comforts my spirit and body as nothing ever has. That's a part of love, too. I also know I'm never as happy as I am when I'm with her." "You sound like you're obsessed." "Maybe that's also part of love. I don't know, but I'm going to learn. It's embarrassing sometimes. I feel like a child. But I learn a little somethign every day. It's like a whole new way of living. It's a willingness to give up control. To make a commitment and have faith it'll work out." "It sounds like you've gone crazy" [. . .] "Maybe that's part of it, too. Whatever it is, it's something I want more than I ever thought possible. And [she] is the only one who can teach me. I'm not giving her up, no matter what it costs me." "Hell [. . .] You are in love with her.

Be honest with yourself. You were at your lowest and broken down. You were unsure and lost hope. You were hiding your fears until you showed them on your sleeve. You felt like everything and everyone was the hammer and you were the nail as they were beating down on you, and it was never-ending. Their empty threats had you scared and you were always running because your weakness was exposed. You were their prey. You didn’t know who to believe because of their mixed signals. You might not see it now, but you are stronger than you can ever imagine. You cannot become comfortable in your pain. You have to let the pain that you feel turn you into a rose without thorns. There are sixteen pieces on the chessboard. The king is the most important piece, but the difference is that the queen is the most powerful piece! You are a queen, you can maneuver around your opponents; they do not have the power over your life, your mind or soul. You might think you’ve been a prisoner, but that is your past’. Look in the now and work your way to how you want your future to be. Exercise your thoughts into a pattern of letting go, and think positively about more of what you want than what you do not want. Queen! You are a queen! As a matter of fact, you are the queen! Act as if you know it! You are powerful, determined, strong, and you can make the biggest and most extravagant move and put it into action. Lights, camera, strike a pose and own it! It is yours to own! Yes, you loved and loved so much. You also lost as well, but you lost hurt, pain, agony, and confusion. You’ve lost interest in wanting to know answers to unanswered questions. You’ve lost the willingness to give a shit about what others think. You’ve surrendered to being fine, that you cannot change the things you have no control over. You’ve lost a lot, but you’ve gained closure. You are now balanced, centered, focused, and filled with peace surrounding you in your heart, mind, body, and soul. Your pride was hurt, but you would rather walk alone and be more willing to give and learn more about the queen you are. You lost yourself in the process, but the more you learn about the new you, the more you will be so much in love with yourself. The more you learn about the new you, the more you will know your worth. The more you learn about the new you, the happier you are going to be, and this time around you will be smiling inside and out! The dots are now connecting. You feel alive! You know now that all is not lost. Now that you’ve cut the cord it is time to give your heart a second chance at loving yourself. Silence your mind. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. As you open your eyes, look at your reflection in the mirror. Aren’t you beautiful, Queen? Embrace who you are. Smile, laugh, welcome the new you and say, “My world is just now beginning.

To know our own self is bliss. To see themselves clearly, a person must plunge themselves into the world they inhabit. We enhance our personal perspective by acquiring knowledge of the world. The more one knows about living through vivid personal encounters in the world that they occupy, the more that a person will come to understand him or herself. Self-knowledge requires an honest accounting of a person’s experiences, frank admission of their furtive desires, and gracious acceptance of reality without surrendering their willingness to work to improve oneself and comfort other people. By attaching images to their real life experiences and secret dreams, a person learns rightly about the world. By writing about what adversities they experienced, a person can consciously go about integrating new ideas into their way of living.

Subjects’ unwillingness to deduce the particular from the general was matched only by their willingness to infer the general from the particular. This is a profoundly important conclusion. People who are taught surprising statistical facts about human behavior may be impressed to the point of telling their friends about what they have heard, but this does not mean that their understanding of the world has really changed. The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.

Core competence, as it is used by many managers, is a dangerously inward-looking notion. Competitiveness is far more about doing what customers value than doing what you think you’re good at. And staying competitive as the basis of competition shifts necessarily requires a willingness and ability to learn new things rather than clinging hopefully to the sources of past glory. The challenge for incumbent companies is to rebuild their ships while at sea, rather than dismantling themselves plank by plank while someone else builds a new, faster boat with what they cast overboard as detritus.

The whole party rose accordingly, and under Mrs. Rushworth's guidance were shewn through a number of rooms, all lofty, and many large, and amply furnished in the taste of fifty years back, with shining floors, solid mahogany, rich damask, marble, gilding, and carving, each handsome in its way. Of pictures there were abundance, and some few good, but the larger part were family portraits, no longer anything to anybody but Mrs. Rushworth, who had been at great pains to learn all that the housekeeper could teach, and was now almost equally well qualified to shew the house. On the present occasion she addressed herself chiefly to Miss Crawford and Fanny, but there was no comparison in the willingness of their attention; for Miss Crawford, who had seen scores of great houses, and cared for none of them, had only the appearance of civilly listening, while Fanny, to whom everything was almost as interesting as it was new, attended with unaffected earnestness to all that Mrs. Rushworth could relate of the family in former times, its rise and grandeur, regal visits and loyal efforts, delighted to connect anything with history already known, or warm her imagination with scenes of the past.

Over the years I have seen the power of taking an unconditional relationship to life. I am surprised to have found a sort of willingness to show up for whatever life may offer and meet with it rather than wishing to edit and change the inevitable...When people begin to take such an attitude, they seem to become intensely alive, intensely present. Their losses and suffering have not caused them to reject life, have not cast them into a place of resentment, victimization, or bitterness. From such people, I have learned a new definition of the word 'joy.' I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us. Rather than the warrior who fights toward a specific outcome and therefore is haunted by the specter of failure and disappointment, it is the lover drunk with the opportunity to love despite the possibility of loss, the player for whom playing has become more important than winning or losing. The willingness to win or lose moves us out of an adversarial relationship to life and into a powerful kind of openness. From such a position, we can make a greater commitment to life. Not only pleasant life, or comfortable life, or our idea of life, but all life. Joy seems more closely related to aliveness than happiness. The strength that I notice developing in many of my patients and in myself after all these years could almost be called a form of curiosity. What one of my colleagues calls fearlessness. At one level, of course, I fear outcome as much as anyone. But more and more I am able to move in and out of that and to experience a place beyond preference for outcome, a life beyond life and death. It is a place of freedom, even anticipation. Decisions made from this perspective are life-affirming and not fear-driven. It is a grace.

The fifteenth century of Leonardo and Columbus and Gutenberg was a time of invention, exploration, and the spread of knowledge by new technologies. In short, it was a time like our own. That is why we have much to learn from Leonardo. His ability to combine art, science, technology, the humanities, and imagination remains an enduring recipe for creativity. So, too, was his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. Florence flourished in the fifteenth century because it was comfortable with such people. Above all, Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling, in both ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.

Socrates' execution must have had a profound impact on his associates. From Plato's seventh letter, for instance, we learn how it affected his assessment of the Athenian polity and, in fact, of every other polity. All human political and social arrangements, Plato concluded (Epist. 7.325d-326a), were almost beyond repair and could not be helped except by some miraculous plan and a streak of good luck. Later on, he would insist on the necessity of casting aside all existing political and social arrangements in order to undertake the task of reforming them as if on a new canvass, because those used hitherto were useless. Like an artist bent on correcting a painting full of flaws, who eventually decides to discard it, Plato envisioned the possibility of recreating society on a new foundation. His political dialogues, the Republic and the Laws, are the literary testament of his aspirations. Antisthenes, however, appears not to have sheltered such aspirations. The human world, which according to Plato was "almost beyond repair," was for Antisthenes truly beyond repair and there was nothing to do about it, except to tear it down, and Socrates' execution provided irrefutable evidence for this. Socrates had practiced what the Athenians regarded as an inviolable right- freedom of speech or the willingness to say it all-and yet, it was for this that he was punished.

As we mature we progressively narrow the scope and variety of our lives. Of all the interests we might pursue, we settle on a few. Of all the people with whom we might associate, we select a small number. We become caught in a web of fixed relationships. We develop set ways of doing things. "As the years go by we view our familiar surroundings with less and less freshness of perception. We no longer look with a wakeful, perceiving eye at the faces of people we see every day, nor at any other features of our everyday world. "It is not unusual to find that the major changes in life-a marriage, a move to a new city, a change of jobs, or a national emergency-break the patterns of our lives and reveal to us quite suddenly how much we had been imprisoned by the comfortable web we had woven around ourselves. "One of the reasons why mature people are apt to learn less than young people is that they are willing to risk less. Learning is a risky business, and they do not like failure. In infancy, when the child is learning at a truly phenomenal rate-a rate he or she will never again achieve-he or she is also experiencing a shattering number of failures. Watch him or her. See the innumerable things he or she tries and fails. And see how little the failures discourage him or her. "With each year that passes he or she will be less blithe about failure. By adolescence the willingness of young people to risk failure has diminished greatly. And all too often parents push them further along that road by instilling fear, by punishing failure, or by making success seem too precious.

It is not only in childhood that people of high potential can be encouraged or held back and their promise subverted or sustained. The year before I went to Amherst, a group of women had declined to stand for tenure. One of them simply said that after six years she was used up, too weary and too eroded by constant belittlement to accept tenure if it were offered to her. Women were worn down or burnt out. During the three years I spent as dean of the faculty, as I watched some young faculty members flourish and others falter, I gradually realized that the principal instrument of sexism was not the refusal to appoint women or even the refusal to promote (though both occurred, for minorities as well as women), but the habit of hiring women and then dealing with them in such a way that when the time came for promotion it would be reasonable to deny it. It was not hard to show that a particular individual who was a star in graduate school had somehow belied her promise, had proved unable to achieve up to her potential. This subversion was accomplished by taking advantage of two kinds of vulnerability that women raised in our society tend to have. The first is the quality of self-sacrifice, a learned willingness to set their own interests aside and be used and even used up by the community. Many women at Amherst ended up investing vast amounts of time in needed public-service activities, committee work, and teaching nondepartmental courses. Since these activities were not weighed significantly in promotion decisions, they were self-destructive. The second kind of vulnerability trained into women is a readiness to believe messages of disdain and derogation. Even women who arrived at Amherst full of confidence gradually became vulnerable to distorted visions of themselves, no longer secure that their sense of who they were matched the perceptions of others. When a new president, appointed in 1983, told me before coming and without previous discussion with me that he had heard I was “consistently confrontational,” that I had made Amherst “a tense, unhappy place,” and that he would want to select a new dean, I should have reacted to his picture of me as bizarre, and indeed confronted its inaccuracy, but instead I was shattered. It took me a year to understand that he was simply accepting the semantics of senior men who expected a female dean to be easily disparaged and bullied, like so many of the young women they had managed to dislodge. It took me a year to recover a sense of myself as worth defending and to learn to be angry both for myself and for the college as I watched a tranquil campus turned into one that was truly tense and unhappy.

10 Practical Strategies to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills and Unleash Your Creativity In today's rapidly changing world, the ability to think critically and creatively has become more important than ever. Whether you're a student looking to excel academically, a professional striving for success in your career, or simply someone who wants to navigate life's challenges with confidence, developing strong critical thinking skills is crucial. In this blog post, we will explore ten practical strategies to help you improve your critical thinking abilities and unleash your creative potential. 1. Embrace open-mindedness: One of the cornerstones of critical thinking is being open to different viewpoints and perspectives. Cultivate a willingness to listen to others, consider alternative opinions, and challenge your own beliefs. This practice expands your thinking and encourages creative problem-solving. 2. Ask thought-provoking questions: Asking insightful questions is a powerful way to stimulate critical thinking. By questioning assumptions, seeking clarity, and exploring deeper meanings, you can uncover new insights and perspectives. Challenge yourself to ask thought-provoking questions regularly. 3. Practice active listening: Listening actively involves not just hearing, but also understanding, interpreting, and empathizing with the speaker. By honing your active listening skills, you can better grasp complex ideas, identify underlying assumptions, and engage in more meaningful discussions. 4. Seek diverse sources of information: Expand your knowledge base by seeking information from a wide range of sources. Engage with diverse perspectives, opinions, and ideas through books, articles, podcasts, and documentaries. This habit broadens your understanding and encourages critical thinking by exposing you to different viewpoints. 5. Develop analytical thinking skills: Analytical thinking involves breaking down complex problems into smaller components, examining relationships and patterns, and drawing logical conclusions. Enhance your analytical skills by practicing activities like puzzles, riddles, and brain teasers. This will sharpen your ability to analyze information and think critically. 6. Foster a growth mindset: A growth mindset is the belief that your abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Embracing this mindset encourages you to view challenges as opportunities for growth, rather than obstacles. By persisting through difficulties, you build resilience and enhance your critical thinking abilities. 7. Engage in collaborative problem-solving: Collaborating with others on problem-solving tasks can spark creativity and strengthen critical thinking skills. Seek out group projects, brainstorming sessions, or online forums where you can exchange ideas, challenge each other's thinking, and find innovative solutions together. 8. Practice reflective thinking: Taking time to reflect on your thoughts, actions, and experiences allows you to gain deeper insights and learn from past mistakes. Regularly engage in activities like journaling, meditation, or self-reflection exercises to develop your reflective thinking skills. This practice enhances your critical thinking abilities by promoting self-awareness and self-improvement. 9. Encourage creativity through experimentation: Creativity and critical thinking often go hand in hand. Give yourself permission to experiment and explore new ideas without fear of failure. Embrace a "what if" mindset and push the boundaries of your thinking. This willingness to take risks and think outside the box can lead to breakthroughs in critical thinking. 10. Continuously learn and adapt: Critical thinking is a skill that can be honed throughout your life. Commit to lifelong learning and seek opportunities to expand your knowledge and skills. Stay curious, be open to new experiences, and embrace change.

Crystal Renn, arguably the most successful and recognizable plus-size model in recent memory, told the New York Times, “They see a roll, and they say, ‘Ooh, a roll!’ And they focus on it.”It isn’t diversity that the women’s magazines and high-fashion auteurs are after; it’s shock, amazement, attention, and a lot of self-congratulatory back-patting for their progressiveness and willingness to buck the oppressive norms that they themselves are responsible for shaping and enforcing.

I’ve learned that for every condition in our lives, there’s a need for it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have it. The symptom is only an outer effect. We must go within to dissolve the mental cause. This is why willpower and discipline don’t work. They’re only battling the outer effect. It’s like cutting down the weed instead of getting the root out. So before you begin the New Thought Pattern affirmations, work on the willingness to release the need for the cigarettes, the headache, the excess weight, or whatever. When the need is gone, the outer effect must die. No plant can live if the root is cut away. The mental thought patterns that cause the most dis-ease in the body are criticism, anger, resentment, and guilt. For instance, criticism indulged in long enough will often lead to dis-eases such as arthritis. Anger turns into things that boil, burn, and infect the body. Resentment long held festers and eats away at the self and ultimately can lead to tumors and cancer. Guilt always seeks punishment and leads to pain. It’s so much easier to release these negative thinking patterns from our minds when we’re healthy than to try to dig them out when we’re in a state of panic and under the threat of the surgeon’s knife.

Habits: People like to imagine that they will "rise to the occasion." They taught us in the Teams that people rarely do. What happens, in fact is that when things get really hard and people are really afraid, they sink to the level of their training. You train your habits. And if a critical moment does come, all can be is ready for it...By relying on habits, we free our minds to focus on what matter most...We should be, in part, beginners for our entire lives. Beginning anew refreshes the habit of learning...if every few years we dedicate a part of ourselves toa new endeavor, we find that we are mined of how we grow, we are reminded that we can grow, and we are reminded of how we profit from growth. Or, we decay...To learn resilience, children must be exposed to hardship. If they haven't built a habit of resilience and earned some self-respect by then, the adult pain they meet probably won't strengthen them. It will likely overwhelm them...There's one sure way to build self-respect: through achievement. A child who learns to tie her own shoe grows in confidence...Self-respect isn't something a teacher or a coach or a government can hand you. Self-respect grows through self-centered success: not because we been told we're good, but when we know we're good...In trying to protect too much, kind people can inflict great cruelty...Resilience - the willingness and ability to endure hardship and become better by it - is a habit that sinks its roots in the soil of security. The child who is always protected from harm will never be resilient. At the same time, the child who is never loved will rarely be resilient...you don't have to serve your habits. Your habits can serve you. They can strengthen and reinforce the kind of person you want to become. You have power over your habits. That also means you're responsible for your habits.

The New Testament reading for the day was 2 Corinthians 10:12-17 in which Paul talks about the danger of comparing ourselves to others and measuring ourselves against their accomplishments. His antidote for this all-too-human tendency was to learn to stay within the limits of his own life and calling. He says, “We, however, will not boast beyond limits, but will keep within the field that God has assigned to us, to reach out even as far as you. For we were not overstepping our limits when we reached you. . . . We do not boast beyond limits, that is, in the labors of others; but our hope is that, as your faith increases, our sphere of action among you may be greatly enlarged” (2 Corinthians 10:13-15). Until that very moment I had never realized that Paul used the word limits three times in just a few verses and that he seemed to be very clear about the limits and boundaries of his calling. He knew the field God had given him to work, and he knew better than to go outside it. He knew that there was a sphere of action and influence that had been given to him by God, and he would not go beyond it unless God enlarged his field. Paul seemed to grapple honestly with the reality of limitations in several different ways in his writings, and, in fact, this seemed to be part of his maturing as a leader who was both gifted and called. When he wrote about not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought (Romans 12:3), he was making a very general statement about limiting our grandiosity and pride by cultivating a realistic sense of our essential nature. He was talking about being willing to live within the limits and the possibilities of who we really are. As he matured, he revealed a very personal understanding that his deep struggle with a thorn in the flesh was a gift that was given to him to limit his own grandiosity and keep him in touch with his humanness. In 2 Corinthians 4 he talked about what it is like to carry the treasure of ministry in fragile, earthen vessels. He wrote poignantly from his experience of his own human limitations and his conviction that it is precisely in our willingness to carry God’s luminous presence in such fragile containers—without pretending to be anything more than what we are—that the power

While you weren’t “born shy,” you were born dependent. As an infant, you relied on your parents for all your personal care. But as you grew older, the natural progression was toward independence, toward the separateness of adulthood. If you are experiencing problems with dependence now, it is in part because the people you depend on are enabling you to depend on them. You ask for their help, consciously or unconsciously, and they give it to you. They may tell themselves it’s easier to do something for you than to risk your negative, even agitated, response at being denied. They play into your own denial of the problem by rationalizing their objections. Just as you maintain that it’s not that big a deal for your lab partner to handle the oral report, your lab partner, knowing you get anxious when you have to address large groups, may tell herself the same thing. Think about how you might have learned dependence. Did your parents exhibit a willingness to rescue you from new or stressful situations? Do you remember your response? If your parents taught you to avoid stress and anxiety because they would “take care of it,” you began to believe it was easier to rely on them than to risk failure on your own.

What does it take to learn something optimally and in the shortest time possible? Again, talent may contribute. The willingness to put your head down, embrace the work, and persist until your struggles yield something— that surely determines an important portion of how you learn.

This is what happens when you take a “big through small” approach. There are still dips, but they are shallower and shorter lived. Failing is learning; there will inevitably be setbacks. New skiers fall over. New musicians hit the wrong note and new language learners struggle to find the right word. A willingness to fail fast and often results in learning sooner. There is no such thing as a failed experiment. There is learning.

Psychologists find that admitting we were wrong doesn’t make us look less competent. It’s a display of honesty and a willingness to learn. Although scientists believe it will damage their reputation to admit that their studies failed to replicate, the reverse is true: they’re judged more favorably if they acknowledge the new data rather than deny them.

An improvement comes through openness and willingness.

Consider criticism as a companion on your journey of progress. It serves as a clear indication that you are actively engaged in your work. Criticism is a testament to your willingness to step outside the boundaries of comfort and explore new horizons. It signifies that you are brave enough to expose yourself to the challenges that come with growth and learning. Rather than fearing criticism, fear the absence of it. A lack of criticism suggests a lack of risks taken, a lack of growth, and complacency with the status quo. Embrace criticism wholeheartedly, for it is a powerful catalyst for improvement. Let it fuel your passion and drive to reach greater heights. Embrace the transformative power of criticism and embrace the opportunity to evolve and excel.

Caretaking in a relationship is not flowers or date night—necessary as these are, they are the equivalent of a new color painted on your walls. Delightful, but not structural. Structural is unloading the dishwasher when it’s your partner’s turn, or making sure whoever gets home last from work is greeted with dinner. It’s learning about mushroom hunting or musical theater or rugby because your spouse loves it. It is talking about the best of your partner in public, not the worst. It’s listening to stories we have heard a hundred times before as if they are new. Often, it is just listening, period. My father always washed the car by hand before he took my mother out on a date, even after they were married. He would say he wanted it clean “for his girl.” That is the part she remembered, not where they went or what they did. As psychologist John Gottman, who has studied countless married couples, will tell you, it is the presence of respect and an abiding willingness to support each other, more than romance, that indicates whether a marriage will last. Couples that exhibit these qualities tend to stay together, creating the marital equivalent of firmitas.

Our entire relationship with God will change when we are able to recognize that repentance is not the discipline meted out to us when we get it wrong; repentance is the lifelong venture of accepting Christ’s willingness to help us shape our heart in his image. It is a positive engagement with the learning process, not recurrent periods in a penalty box…[Repentance is] continuation of the journey, picking ourselves up and moving forward, energized and renewed by the certainty of God’s abiding love and encouragement.

Even better is to deliberately set out to learn new skills. If you show passion and enthusiasm, all the better. The simple step of giving an older person a pet to take care of instills more willingness to live. The fact that the brain is being affected makes a difference, but we need to remember that neurons are servants. The dissecting knife reveals changes at the level of nerve projections and genes. What really invigorates an older person, though, is acquiring a new purpose and something new to love.

I believe in the reality of ideas in themselves. Imagination is my most coveted possession. I think the theories we develop to describe Nature are really couched attempts to understand the limits of our own consciousness. As such I think looking within ourselves and meditating on the silence we find there is the best way to understand the reality around us. I think we as a creative and inquisitive species thrive when we all share our unique explorations and communicate with each other with empathy and a willingness to learn something new. I think it is openness that leads us to love, of ourselves and each other. And I think everyone has a part of Truth to share, but communication is tricky, so it's good to be encouraging of others so that we can be brought to see in a new and equally worthwhile light. I think the value of artists is that they've taken it upon themselves to master mediums of communication. That's what I wish to do, but I'm still an apprentice.

Oops! "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results." Basic Text, p. 23 Mistakes! We all know how it feels to make them. Many of us feel that our entire lives have been a mistake. We often regard our mistakes with shame or guilt—at the very least, with frustration and impatience. We tend to see mistakes as evidence that we are still sick, crazy, stupid, or too damaged to recover. In truth, mistakes are a very vital and important part of being human. For particularly stubborn people (such as addicts), mistakes are often our best teachers. There is no shame in making mistakes. In fact, making new mistakes often shows our willingness to take risks and grow. It's helpful, though, if we learn from our mistakes; repeating the same ones may be a sign that we're stuck. And expecting different results from the same old mistakes—well, that's what we call "insanity!" It just doesn't work.

Another factor contributing to a new associate’s willingness to work long hours is that it’s the price you pay to get interesting work with significant responsibility. Large firms just won’t entrust you with important matters before you’ve had a lot of quality experiences and exhibited a sufficient level of dedication. Frankly, to large firms the word “dedication” has just one, hidden meaning: “tremendous personal sacrifices.” Cruel as it seems, as a new associate you have to decide at some point what your priorities are: your career, or your personal and family life. If you choose your life outside of work, you’ll find yourself rejecting additional work, and your reluctance to accept it will brand you as “lacking dedication” – and your career will suffer accordingly. Clients also contribute directly to the massive hours new associates have to work, by making demands for legal services that require immediate attention. You may have a client, for instance, who needs you to move for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) on its behalf. Or a client may ask you to substantially revise a brief shortly before a court deadline. With emergencies like these, you have to work hard, and you’ve got to work right now – and that can have a devastating effect on your personal and family life. You may be called upon at a moment’s notice to cancel evening or weekend social plans you might have made, vacations you’ve long anticipated, and even holiday celebrations. Life at a large firm means learning to accept these incidents as occupational risks.

When you seek to know all of the answers, your life then becomes limited by that which you already know. When you seek to ask deep and relevant questions, your life is only limited by the extent of your courage and willingness to learn and to try something new.

Now, it’s easy to admit in principle that you have blind spots. But humility will cause this recognition to make a noticeable difference in your actual interactions with people. It will lead to more clarifying questions, more pursuit of common ground, more appreciation of rival concerns, more delay in arriving at judgments. In life and theology, it is usually not sheer ignorance that causes the most intractable problems but ignorance about ignorance: not the unchartered territory but the stuff that is completely off your map. This is one reason why humility is so important. Humility teaches us to navigate life with sensitivity to the distinction between what we don’t know and what we don’t know that we don’t know. This encourages us to engage in theological disagreement with careful listening, a willingness to learn, and openness to receiving new information or adjusting our perspective. Pride makes us stagnant; humility makes us nimble.

For a third of their day they seemed to freely give what was in them to be given, whatever passion woke them each morning and just spilled over. From what Charlie saw, those passions included building things, growing things, teaching, dancing, learning. People seemed to almost become themselves simply by offering what they loved doing most. Another third of their day dedicated time for growing, strengthening the body, the mind, the heart. All over the city, people gathered together in groups talking, eating, training, learning history, planning futures, accepting all the things others had to give. The method of erudition struck him as similar, in many ways, to Howard, where classrooms and schedules could not contain learning. And there was so much to learn, new things and old, equaled only by a willingness to teach. Spirituality, in the last third of their days, played a formless role in the lives of the Mobile people. Some prayed on their knees to gods in the earth. Some shook runes in their palms and dipped bones in blood to access the lessons of the dead. Some stood face up at the bases of obelisks, their serene expressions brightly painted in the light of the sun. Charlie acknowledged the spirituality in everything, an awareness of magic and gods and spirits. But no defined religion. The people of Mobile dreamt. They meditated. They communed with something higher, seemingly capable of sensing the subtlest energies.

Psychologists find that admitting we were wrong doesn’t make us look less competent. It’s a display of honesty and a willingness to learn. Although scientists believe it will damage their reputation to admit that their studies failed to replicate, the reverse is true: they’re judged more favorably if they acknowledge the new data rather than deny them. After all, it doesn’t matter “whose fault it is that something is broken if it’s your responsibility to fix it,” actor Will Smith has said. “Taking responsibility is taking your power back.

Community First Community is a fundamental societal unit. From Sol’s r/Fitness subreddit to yoga classes to family to the group of friends we game with in the middle of the night, communities are a place where we can connect, learn, and have fun. For minimalist entrepreneurs, communities are the starting point of any successful enterprise. That doesn’t mean you should run out and find a community to join just for the purpose of starting a business. It means that most businesses fail because they aren’t built with a particular group of people in mind. Often, the ones that succeed do so because they’re focused on a community that a founder knows well. That process can’t be rushed because it comes from authentic relationships and a willingness to serve, both of which take time to uncover and develop. You may even have to learn a new language—or at least some insider lingo. Communities used to be limited by geography, but it’s never been easier to connect to people with whom you share something in common, whether it be an interest, a favorite artist, or a belief system. But a community isn’t a group of people who all think, act, look, or behave the same. That’s a cult. A community is the opposite. That’s what I discovered when I moved from San Francisco to Provo and got out of the Silicon Valley bubble. For one of the first times in my life, I saw that the best communities are made up of individuals who might be otherwise dissimilar but who have shared interests, values, and abilities. It’s a group of people who would likely never hang out with each other in any other situational context, and it often encompasses virtually every identity, including, yes, politics.

Part of the process is Apple’s overall corporate strategy: What markets does it target, and how does it target them? Part of it is keeping abreast of new technology developments and being receptive to new ideas, especially outside the company. Part of it is about being creative, and always learning. Part of it is about being flexible, and a willingness to ditch long-held notions. Part of it is about being customer-centric. And a lot of it is trying to find the simplest, most elegant solution through an iterative, generate-and-test design process. Innovation at Apple is largely about shaping technology to the customer’s needs, not trying to force the user to adapt to the technology.

The work of seizing back what has been taken from within us by centuries of female repression and early, often brutal childhood conditioning is a long, laborious process, requiring faith and vigilance and the willingness to learn by trial and error. It is our female-animal instincts that have been denied and suppressed then replaced by false, externally imposed rules and ideas about ourselves and the world. We have lost the instinctive knowing that belonged to us by biological birthright in the millennia that preceded the development of patriarchal culture and male dominance. It is not a question of returning to the past but one of reawakening the instinctual senses and the empowerment needed to act on what our bodies know to be true.

she had to make use of another vital aspect of self-esteem, “self-assertiveness,” defined by Branden as “the willingness to stand up for myself, to be who I am openly, to treat myself with respect in all human encounters.” Since many of us were shamed in childhood either in our families of origin or in school settings, a learned pattern of going along with the program and not making a fuss is the course of action we most frequently choose as a way to avoid conflict.

They involve knowing where you want to go and how you’re going to get there, as well as having the willingness to do the work and the ability to communicate to the people you care about that the journey you want to bring them on is worth the effort. They include the capacity to shift gears when the journey hits a roadblock, and the ability to keep an open mind and learn from your surroundings to find new ways through. And most important of all, once you get where you’re trying to go, they demand that you acknowledge all the help you had along the way and that you give back accordingly.

You can do the same. You can choose to see yourself as one of the fastest learners in the world. Once you do so, begin to evaluate yourself based on: How fast you can learn, and How willing you are to appear ignorant and face ridicule as you learn new skills. When your identity becomes tied to your willingness to learn, you’ll stop trying to look good, and you’ll let go of your desire to appear smarter than you are. Instead, you’ll humble yourself, knowing this is the best strategy to learn fast and achieve any goal you want.

Going to therapy and talking about healing may just be the go-to flex of our time. It is supposedly an indicator of how profoundly self-aware, enlightened, emotionally mature, or “evolved” an individual is. Social media is obsessed and saturated with pop psychology and psychiatry content related to “healing”, trauma, embodiment, neurodiversity, psychiatric diagnoses, treatments alongside productivity hacks, self-care tips and advice on how to love yourself without depending on anyone else, cut people out of your life, manifest your goals to be successful, etc. Therapy isn’t a universal indicator of morality or enlightenment. Therapy isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that everyone must pursue. There are many complex political and cultural reasons why some people don’t go to therapy, and some may actually have more sustainable support or care practices rooted in the community. This is similar to other messaging, like “You have to learn to love yourself first before someone else can love you”. It all feeds into the lie that we are alone and that happiness comes from total independence. Mainstream therapy blames you for your problems or blames other people, and often it oscillates between both extremes. If we point fingers at ourselves or each other, we are too distracted to notice the exploitative systems making us all sick and sad. Oftentimes, people come out of therapy feeling fully affirmed and unconditionally validated, and this ego-caressing can feel rewarding in the moment even if it doesn’t help ignite any growth or transformation. People are convinced that they can do no wrong, are infallible, incapable of causing harm, and that other people are the problem. Treatment then focuses on inflating self-confidence, self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-love to chase one’s self-centered dreams, ambitions, and aspirations without taking any accountability for one’s own actions. This sort of individualistic therapeutic approach encourages isolation and a general mistrust of others who are framed as threats to our inner peace or extractors of energy, and it further breeds a superiority complex. People are encouraged to see relationships as accessories and means to a greater selfish end. The focus is on what someone can do for you and not on how to give, care for, or show up for other people. People are not pushed to examine how oppressive conditioning under these systems shows up in their relationships because that level of introspection and growth is simply too invalidating. “You don’t owe anyone anything. No one is entitled to your time and energy. If anyone invalidates you and disturbs your peace, they are toxic; cut them out of your life. You don’t need that negativity. You don’t need anyone else; you alone are enough. Put yourself first. You are perfect just the way you are.” In reality, we all have work to do. We are all socialized within these systems, and real support requires accountability. Our liberation is contingent on us being aware of our bullshit, understanding the values of the empire that we may have internalized as our own, and working on changing these patterns. Therapized people may fixate on dissecting, healing, improving, and optimizing themselves in isolation, guided by a therapist, without necessarily practicing vulnerability and accountability in relationships, or they may simply chase validation while rejecting the discomfort that comes from accountability. Healing in any form requires growth and a willingness to practice in relationships; it is not solely validating or invalidating; it is complex; it is not a goal to achieve but a lifelong process that no one is above; it is both liberating and difficult; it is about acceptance and a willingness to change or transform into something new; and ultimately, it is going to require many invalidating ego deaths so we can let go of the fixation of the “self” to ease into interdependence and community care.

Again, no preparation required. Everyone who’s present can do this. All we need is a willingness to share something God taught us or that we learned through studying Scripture.

And so we visit the past as tourists. Sometimes this is literally so, when we take in Colonial Williamsburg and Plymouth Plantation, or travel around to Civil War battlefields. But it is also true in a metaphorical sense. The past has become a strange and distant country, full of odd people and mysterious customs. And thought seeing how these people built their homes or raised their children can broaden the mind, most of us don’t go back home determined to learn how to use an axe or a hickory stick. Knowledge about those strange customs might be interesting, but it is not essential–it does not change our way of doing things. In the end we will always prefer our own land in the present. At the end of the tour there is an air-conditioned car and a comfortable hotel room waiting, complete with cable television and refrigerated food. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with enjoying the past this way–it can be a lot of fun, in fact. But it could be so much more. The thousands of people who visit Boston and have only a few days to walk the Freedom Trail, visit Fenway Park, and eat a lobster dinner cannot even scratch the surface of what the city is really like. They have not inhaled the comforting mixture of exhaust fumes and roasted cashews that hangs in the city subways on humid summer days, or learned to love the particular slant of the New England sun on a winter afternoon. The same would be true of a Bostonian on a day trip to Chicago, Tokyo, Budapest, or Khartoum. The visit would be exciting, but would not make them cosmopolitan. Becoming something more than a casual time-tourist requires a willingness to be challenged and changed, just as living in India or Ghana or Peru will upend any American’s assumptions about money and wealth. (pp 26-27)

Too often, people look at failed ventures as proof they shouldn’t accept new challenges in the future. But that’s not a helpful way to look at the situation. Just because you were rejected or you failed to meet your goal, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have tried. At the end of the day, ask yourself, “Did my willingness to accept a new challenge sharpen my skills?” Perhaps you learned more about courage, or maybe you sharpened your social skills.

Like married life itself, wife-dressing is pretty basic. It requires frank understanding of yourself, a healthy attitude toward your new responsibilities, a willingness to learn from experience, and a buoyant elation about being alive.

Fearlessly embrace new technologies, learn new things, and demonstrate a willingness to invest in yourself.

Introduction Raised in the cloistered world of Brooklyn’s Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman struggled as a naturally curious child to make sense of and obey the rigid strictures that governed her daily life. From what she could read to whom she could speak with, virtually every aspect of her identity was tightly controlled. Married at age seventeen to a man she had met for only thirty minutes and denied a traditional education—sexual or otherwise—she was unable to consummate the relationship for an entire year. Her resultant debilitating anxiety went undiagnosed and was exacerbated by the public shame of having failed to serve her husband. In exceptional prose, Feldman recalls how stolen moments reading about the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott helped her to see an alternative way of life—one she knew she had to seize when, at the age of nineteen, she gave birth to a son and realized that more than just her own future was at stake. Questions and Topics for Discussion 1. The heroines in the books Deborah read as a girl were her first inspirations, the first to make her consider her own potential outside of her community. Which literary characters have inspired you? 2. As a girl, with two absentee parents and an outspoken nature, Deborah was systematically made to feel different or “bad.” How did the structure of Satmar Hasidic culture make her feel such shame, and how did this shame serve to subjugate her? 3. When Deborah learns that King David—a revered historical figure who supposedly did no wrong—is a murderer and a hypocrite, she writes, “I am not aware at this moment that I have lost my innocence. I will realize it many years later.” What is the line between innocence and willful ignorance? How did Deborah’s ability and willingness to question authority and think for herself change the course of her life? 4. The cloistered Satmar community is located on the outskirts of New York City, one of the most racially, spiritually, and culturally diverse places in America. How do aspects of the outside world enter Deborah’s consciousness, and how do you think these glimpses of life outside her insular community affected her development?

Switch from a Performance Focus to a Mastery Focus There’s a way to keep your standards high but avoid the problems that come from perfectionism. If you can shift your thinking from a performance focus to a mastery focus, you’ll become less fearful, more resilient, and more open to good, new ideas. Performance focus is when your highest priority is to show you can do something well now. Mastery focus is when you’re mostly concerned with advancing your skills. Someone with a mastery focus will think, “My goal is to master this skill set” rather than “I need to perform well to prove myself.” A mastery focus can help you persist after setbacks. To illustrate this, imagine the following scenario: Adam is trying to master the art of public speaking. Due to his mastery goal, he’s likely to take as many opportunities as he can to practice giving speeches. When he has setbacks, he’ll be motivated to try to understand these and get back on track. His mastery focus will make him more likely to work steadily toward his goal. Compare this with performance-focused Rob, who is concerned just with proving his competence each time he gives a talk. Rob will probably take fewer risks in his style of presentation and be less willing to step outside his comfort zone. If he has an incident in which a talk doesn’t go as well as he’d hoped, he’s likely to start avoiding public speaking opportunities. Mastery goals will help you become less upset about individual instances of failure. They’ll increase your willingness to identify where you’ve made errors, and they’ll help you avoid becoming so excessively critical of yourself that you lose confidence in your ability to rectify your mistakes. A mastery focus can also help you prioritize—you can say yes to things that move you toward your mastery goal and no to things that don’t. This is great if you’re intolerant of uncertainty, because it gives you a clear direction and rule of thumb for making decisions about which opportunities to pursue. Experiment: What’s your most important mastery goal right now? Complete this sentence: “My goal is to master the skills involved in ___.” Examples include parenting, turning more website visitors into buyers, property investment, or self-compassion. Based on the mastery goal you picked, answer the following questions. Make your answers as specific as possible. How would people with your mastery goal: 1. React to mistakes, setbacks, disappointments, and negative moods? 2. Prioritize which tasks they work on? What types of tasks would they deprioritize? 3. React when they’d sunk a lot of time into something and then realized a particular strategy or idea didn’t have the potential they’d hoped it would? 4. Ensure they were optimizing their learning and skill acquisition? 5. React when they felt anxious?