Another great, informative and fun read from Mark Manson. I always learn something new from his writings. It is well researched too. He adds references in the footnotes section of his post as proof.
Our aversion to pain and struggle in any capacity has become so ingrained in everything we do that it’s compromising our ability to learn, grow, and function as healthy and stable adults. It shocks and appalls me that companies and products that are supposed to help this issue are only making it worse.
You don’t build psychological resilience by feeling good all the time. You build psychological resilience by getting better at feeling bad.
There he goes again with his counter-intuitive logic. Except, it does make sense to me.
Interesting read on why you should quit the news, with some history lesson thrown in as well. This one is a lengthy read (45 minutes estimate), so best to read this on your lunch break or after work.
Well, that’s easy. The goal of the news is to motivate you to keep consuming news.
This is something that I only realized the past few months when I tried decreasing my consumption of news. Now I can't stop noticing it. If you look at how they structure the presentation of news in like the morning news shows, they do it in a way to keep you hooked on news.
Same thing on news websites. They want you on their website as long as possible, nudging you to click links left and right so that you stay even longer on their site. If their job was to inform, they've done it, but do they have to try and hold my attention all day? That's the part that gets to me.
Finished reading this book this morning, so I thought I'll share my thoughts on it.
Why did I pick up this book?
I was browsing for books at Target and saw this one with a big 30% off sticker on it. I was mainly looking for books about contentment. A book that can teach me how to be content and appreciate what I already have. When I saw this one I thought it might be an interesting read. I honestly did not think much of the book, but was pleasantly surprised once I started reading.
What did I like about this book?
The lessons and principles that the author shares in this book are awesome. They all sound like common sense advice once you read it, however if it was that easy, everyone would be living their best life. It is not that easy and this book reminds you why and what you can do about it.
There are a few fronts on which our attention is being assaulted. First off, there’s just a massive surplus of stuff to pay attention to. And the more crap there is to pay attention to, the more difficult it is to choose what to focus on—not to mention stay focused on it!
So, the first and most important goal of an attention diet should be to consciously limit the number of distractions we’re exposed to. Just as the first step of a nutritional diet is to consume less food, the first step of an attention diet is to consume less information.
– Mark Manson
Digital Minimalism is making it's way around the web and I like Mark Manson's take on it. I think calling it The Attention Diet is also a clever idea. If you have not read Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism book, this post can serve as some kind of head start to cutting out digital distractions and taking back your attention.