The 5 Most Insulting Gifts To Give Mom On Mother's Day

The 5 Most Insulting Gifts To Give Mom On Mother's Day 

The 5 most insulting gifts to give Mom on Mother's Day (and what to give her instead)

Let's just say if you're thinking "bidet," you need to read this.

Rick Broida   Tue, May 9, 2023

In this article:  Mother's Day Gift Ideas

Guys. Lean in a second. You're shopping for Mother's Day, right? Your heart's in the right place. You want to show her your love and appreciation. Good for you. Just one problem: You're going to screw it up. That thing you think Mom wants? No. I speak from experience: I've had a mom for 54 years and a mother of my children for 22. So learn from my mistakes and avoid the following gifts — no matter how well-intentioned — at all costs. (Don't worry; I've also shared what to get her instead.)

Most insulting Mother's Day gift #1: A traditional vacuum cleaner

Seriously? You're going to give Mom more household chores?! This is the classic Mother's Day blunder, the idea that she's just there to clean the house (and needs better tools to do it). No, dummy; why don't you get off the couch and grab a broom yourself? That would be a nice gift right there.

What to get instead: A robot vacuum

Now we're talking. It may not be the most glamorous gift, but anything that can take sweeping and mopping off the chore list is sure to be appreciated. Need help choosing one? Here's our list of the best robot vacuums of 2023. Alternately, here's a quick recommendation for a popular model that happens to be on sale:

Dreametech D10 Plus Robot Vacuum and Mop with Self-Emptying Base

Set it and forget it: The D10 Plus will automatically clean the floors as often as Mom wants, plus it can empty 45 days' worth of debris into its floor dock. Mopping requires a little more manual intervention, but it's still way easier than hauling out a bucket.   $350 at Amazon

Most insulting Mother's Day gift #2: A fitness tracker

OK, we're kind of split on this one, because it depends on the circumstances. If Mom has never mentioned a fitness tracker (such as a Fitbit), then we don't want to be there when she unwraps it. The implication: She's imperfect, she needs to exercise more, etc. Now, if she has dropped hints about wanting one of these, it's totally fine. Here's our list of the best fitness trackers to buy in 2023. But, if this is coming out of the blue, go a different way.

What to get instead: An item tracker

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/most-insulting-mothers-day-gifts-204135366.html

How Many Billionaires Are in the World?

How Many Billionaires Are in the World?

For most people, it’s hard to imagine having a million dollars, let alone a billion. However, not only has the number of billionaires increased this year, but there has also been a few shake-ups amongst the lineup of the richest people in the world. Though the heaviest concentration of billionaires is in the United States, people who have amassed a billion-dollar fortune can be found throughout the world, and the numbers may shock you.

How Many Billionaires Are There in the World in 2023?

There are 2,640 billionaires as of May 2023, according to Forbes. However, only 140 people were in the exclusive billion-dollar club back in 1987. Meaning that while achieving billionaire status is a very big deal, but it is not as difficult as it once was. Today, there are more than 19 times the amount of billionaires in the world than in 1987.

By far, most of the world’s billionaires are from the United States, however, there are several more across the globe. Here is an international breakdown of billionaires globally:

United States: 735   China, including Hong Kong: 495  India: 169  Germany: 126  Russia: 105

The Richest Billionaires in the World

Now that you know how many billionaires are in the world, you’re probably wondering who is the wealthiest. While it’s easy to group them into the same super-elite category, some billionaires are a lot wealthier than others.

Of the 10 richest people on the planet, eight reside in the U.S. and the other two are in France. Some are self-made individuals, while others are grouped under a family empire.

While the title of the richest person in the world went back and forth between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for the last few years, this year shows Bernard Arnault and his family in the top spot. Here’s a look at ten of the richest billionaires in the world:

1. Bernard Arnault and Family  Net worth: $206 billion  Location: France

Based in Paris, 74-year-old Bernard Arnault helms luxury goods company LVMH — its 70 luxury brands include Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior, Tiffany & Co. and Bulgari. His net worth skyrocketed from $72 billion in 2018 to $158 billion in 2022. His wealth grew once again to $206 billion in 2023, earning him the current top spot on the billionaires list.

2. Elon Musk  Net worth: $169 billion  Location: U.S.

Musk’s net worth has ebbed and flowed in recent years. While still an incredible amount of money, the 51-year-old founder of six companies was worth just $24.6 billion in 2020. He is the CEO of Tesla and owns 23% of Tesla shares, between stock and options. He also owns the rocket firm SpaceX and the social media platform Twitter.

More From Your Money: Choose a high-interest saving, checking, CD, or investing account from our list of top banks to start saving today.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/wealth/how-many-billionaires-are-in-the-world/

Controlling Your Attention: The Most Important Skill of the 21st Century and How to Do It

Controlling Your Attention: The Most Important Skill of the 21st Century and How to Do It

Written By Joshua Becker ·

“In this information-rich, time-poor society, attention has become our most important resource.” —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Bruce Lee is credited with once saying, “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”

I tend to think he is right and maybe now more than ever. Especially as our attention spans, all around the world, shrink.

In a world where distractions abound, both big and small, the greatest skill we can personally hone is the control of our attention. In fact, the ability to keep focus amid ever-increasing distractions may just be the greatest determining factor of success in the 21st Century.

Our attention is the driving force that shapes our lives. It is what creates wisdom from our past experiences and helps us make the most out of the skills we’ve developed, the education we’ve experienced, and the talents we’ve accumulated.

It is our attention that puts these assets to work, allowing us to make the most of our potential.

Only with focused attention do we make the most out of these strengths. Ultimately, it’s where we direct our attention that shapes the direction of our path and how effectively we reach our goals and what we accomplish with the one life that we have to live.

This is why controlling your attention is so important.

Here’s How to Do It:

1. Simplify Your Environment.

Simplicity is the stepping stone to clarity. A cluttered environment, whether physical or digital, results in a cluttered mind.

By minimizing the unnecessary, we remove visual noise and make room for focused attention.

This doesn’t just mean owning fewer possessions, but also decluttering our online spaces.

2. Practice Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the art of being fully present. It’s a skill that trains your brain to focus on the here and now, preventing it from being hijacked by past regrets or future anxieties.

Simple mindfulness exercises can be a great starting point. So can religious rituals like prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/controlling-attention/ 

We’re Done With “Gradually”. We’ve Now Reached The “Suddenly” Part

We’re Done With “Gradually”. We’ve Now Reached The “Suddenly” Part

April 24, 2023  By Simon Black – Sovereign Man.com

By the summer of 1563, all of Britain had plunged into chaos over religion and the Reformation. King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church back in the 1530s, sparking a near civil war within the kingdom. Protestants killed Catholics, Catholics killed protestants, and extreme social tensions lasted for decades.

Universities were at the heart of this conflict; rather than focus on real subjects like science and mathematics, students and professors became radical social activists and turned their schools into ideological echo chambers. Sound familiar?

One of the few students who actually wanted to learn was a Scottish teenager named John Napier; Napier had been enrolled at the University of St. Andrews at the time, but he quickly realized that he would never learn a damn thing in that environment. So he dropped out… and started traveling in search of a real education.

No one quite knows exactly where he went or what he did. But when he returned to Scotland eight years later as a young man, Napier had become an intellectual giant.

You might not have ever heard of him, but John Napier was truly one of the great minds of his era. And modern science owes a tremendous debt to his work… in particular his development of logarithms.

If it’s been a few years since you studied math (or ‘maths’ for my British friends), logarithms are the inverse of exponential functions.

Simple example: we know that 102 (or 10 squared) = 10 x 10 = 100. So, the number 10 raised to the power of 2 equals 100.

The inverse of that is to say that the ‘base 10’ logarithm of 100 = 2. Or in mathematical terms, 100 log10 = 2

Napier devised an entire system of logarithms. And this was actually a tremendous leap forward in mathematics, because logarithms made it so much easier for scientists and researchers to calculate solutions to complex problems.

One of the many important applications to come out of Napier’s work is the concept of ‘logarithmic decay,’ which models many real world phenomena.

The idea behind logarithmic decay is that something declines very, very slowly at first.

But, over a long period of time, the rate of decline becomes faster… and faster… and faster.

If you look at it on a graph, logarithmic decay basically looks like a horizontal line that almost imperceptibly arcs gently downwards. But eventually the arc downward becomes steeper and steeper until it’s practically a vertical line down.

Image     https://cdn.sovereignman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screenshot-from-2023-04-24-11-33-13-1024x336.png

Logarithmic decay is like how Hemingway famously described going bankrupt in The Sun Also Rises-- “Gradually, then suddenly.”

In fact logarithmic decay is a great way to describe social and financial decline. Even the rise and fall of superpowers are often logarithmic in scale. The Kingdom of France in the 1700s infamously fell gradually… then suddenly.

We can see the same logarithmic decay in the West today, and specifically the United States.

The deterioration of government finances has been gradual, then sudden. Social conflict, censorship, and the decline in basic civility has been gradual, then sudden. Even the loss of confidence in the US dollar has been gradual… and is poised to be sudden.

Back in 2009 when I started Sovereign Man, I spoke a lot about ideas that were highly controversial at the time.

I suggested that Social Security’s trust funds would run out of money. That the US government would eventually be buried by its gargantuan national debt. That the US dollar would eventually lose its international reserve dominance. That inflation and social conflict would rise.

The main thesis, quite simply, was that the US was in decline. And whenever I spoke at events, I used to talk about logarithmic decay, saying:

“As a civilization in decline, you never really know quite where you are on the curve. You could be way over here on the horizontal line, at the very beginning of the decline… or you could be standing on the precipice about to hit the vertical slide down.”

Well, now we have a much better idea of where we are on that logarithmic decay curve. Because these ideas about the national debt, inflation, social security, social conflict, etc. are no longer theories. Nor are they even remotely controversial.

Just last week, US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said in a speech that “America’s debt is a ticking time bomb”. Social Security’s looming insolvency is now openly discussed in Washington and regularly reported in the Wall Street Journal.

We’ve all seen with our own eyes (and even experienced) inflation, social divisions, and censorship.

And as for the dollar, we continue to see a multitude of cracks in its dominance. Most notably, Saudi Arabia is considering a plan to sell oil not just in US dollars, but also in Chinese yuan.

Plus the international development bank of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) announced earlier this month that they will start moving away from the dollar.

Is it any surprise? The US government is weeks away from defaulting on its national debt over the latest debt ceiling debacle. And yet the guy who shakes hands with thin air refuses to negotiate a single penny in spending cuts to help reduce trillions of dollars in future deficit spending.

The whole world is watching in utter disbelief at the astonishing level of incompetence that has infected the highest levels of America’s once hallowed institutions, including news media, big business, and the government itself.

America-- and the West by extension-- really are on the precipice of that logarithmic decay curve… the part where the horizontal line becomes a vertical line down.

It has taken years… even decades to reach this point, gradually. We’re now at the “suddenly” part.

Now, it’s important to note that the outcome is far from inevitable. Plenty of declining superpowers in the past have pulled themselves out of a tailspin, at least temporarily.

Aurelian’s reforms helped re-establish Rome’s dominance in the late 200s after nearly a century of chaos. The declining Ottoman Empire recovered substantially during the Tanzimat period in the 1800s. King Charles III of Spain made many successful reforms to revive his crumbling empire in the 1700s.

There are many historical precedents for recovery, so all is not lost. But at the moment there is little evidence to suggest any major change on the horizon.

I’m not saying this to be alarmist. Quite the contrary, in fact. Because one of the key pillars of our thinking here at Sovereign Man is that, despite the ineptitude of our governments, we as individuals have the tools, power, and freedom to solve these problems for ourselves… and even prosper doing so.

Simple example: Social Security’s trust funds will run out of money within a decade, and this will be a huge problem for literally tens of millions of people who depend on the progam.

However there are numerous tools available to solve this problem; a more robust and powerful retirement structure like a self-directed, solo 401(k) plan, for example, allows you to set aside up to $73,500 per year for your retirement.

Similarly, if you expect a government with deteriorating finances to raise taxes (which they almost always do), you can take completely legal steps to reduce what you owe.

If you anticipate inflation continuing, you can arrange your investments to capitalize on the surge in real assets, like minerals, energy, and productive technology.

You can also take steps to diversify geographically, even internationally, to reduce risks to your family’s freedom.

These solutions barely scratch the surface of the plentiful options at your disposal. All it takes is a sensible understanding of the problem… plus the willingness to take action.

And rational, informed action is always a better option than despair.

To your freedom,  Simon Black, Founder   Sovereign Man

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/were-done-with-gradually-weve-now-reached-the-suddenly-part-146899/

Coolidge’s Fiscal Triumph

Coolidge’s Fiscal Triumph

By: Amity Shlaes and Rushad Thomas

Don’t be fooled by recent reports that deficits are narrowing. The federal debt is on course to skyrocket over the next decade. Recovery or recession, it seems, Americans and their government don’t care much about the federal debt. We certainly aren’t paying our debt down. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf even noted recently that “payments by the government have been quite low.”  Could America ever find a leader who might cut our debt? There’s reason for hope. We at least have a model from history. There was once a president who stared down big government and won the battle for control of the debt. That president was Calvin Coolidge.

The thirtieth president was a rare treasure; a politician who didn’t just talk the talk, but actually walked the walk when it came to fiscal discipline. In 1923, the year Calvin Coolidge entered the White House, the Federal Government spent $3.14 billion. By 1928, his last full year in office, the Feds spent $2.96 billion. Calvin Coolidge, a president who left office more than eighty years ago, is the last chief executive to have cut the size of government.

In outlining his philosophy of governance in his 1925 inaugural address, Coolidge said “I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.” Coolidge understood that tax revenues represent the hard work and toil of the American people. It was his sacred duty as their president to ensure that the money they sent to Washington was responsibly managed.

He also understood that debt led to inflation, which he abhorred. Responsibility and money he deemed intertwined. “Inflation is repudiation. Deflation is assumption,” he told an audience in Chicago in 1922.

Coolidge was consumed by a desire to cut down on government spending. In a 1924 talk he remarked that “the budget idea, I may admit, is a sort of obsession with me. I believe in budgets. I want other people to believe in them…Do you wonder, then, that at times I dream of balance sheets and sinking funds, and deficits, and tax rates, and all the rest?”

Coolidge wasn’t kidding when he said he obsessed over budgets. Not only did he meet just about every week with his budget bureau director, General Herbert Lord, to discuss the government’s budget, he also campaigned to lower spending in the White House. When the White House Cook Ms. Riley reduced her annual purchases to $9,116.39 in 1927 from $11,667.10 the year before, Coolidge wrote a terse but laudatory note: “very fine improvement.”

The budget wasn’t the only area where Silent Cal starred. “30” insisted that the government continue to pay down the massive debt that was accumulated during the First World War. By 1919, the year after the Great War ended, outstanding Federal debt had ballooned to $27.4 billion from $14.6 billion in 1918.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://coolidgefoundation.org/news/coolidges-fiscal-triumph/

11 Mottos to Live By

11 Mottos to Live By

Marjorie Kondrack  |  Apr 21, 2023 HumbleDollar

LIVING BENEATH OUR means is one of the best habits to develop if we want a secure retirement. Like many others, I learned this sort of thrift from my parents and grandparents, who lived through the Great Depression and, by necessity, had to avoid waste.

Not only did our forebearers survive the Great Depression, but also the Second World War came right on its heels. These were years of conserving materials—such as metal, rubber, paper and food—to support the war effort.

My mother saved a food ration book from the war that still had some stamps in it. When she shopped, she had to hand the grocer stamps when buying meat, sugar, butter, cooking oil and canned goods. The number of stamps handed over depended on the scarcity of the item purchased. For instance, if bacon was 35 cents a pound, you might have to give the grocer seven stamps.

Once the stamps were used up for the month, people couldn’t buy any more of that food until new stamps were issued the following month. I wonder how many young people today know that, in this land of abundance, food was once rationed, and that thrift in itself can be a source of remarkable household revenue.

Mom also saved a booklet from the war years that gives information about saving or conserving just about everything—food, clothing, house furnishings, appliances, utilities, cars, even insurance. People found artful ways to scrimp on just about everything. Nothing was wasted.

We could all benefit from the advice in this little booklet. Here are 10 of the more memorable passages that appeared at the bottom of the booklet’s pages:

Willful waste makes woeful want.

te nothing. Hoard nothing. Use everything.

Spend what you must and save what you can.

He that eats and saves sets the table twice.

Waste nothing. Hoard nothing. Use everything.

Spend what you must and save what you can.

He that eats and saves sets the table twice.

 To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2023/04/11-mottos-to-live-by/

When in Rome

When in Rome

Dennis Friedman  |  Apr 21, 2023  HumbleDollar

My wife and i visited Italy this year. We flew to Venice, where we stayed three days, and then hopped a train to Florence, where we spent the next five days. After that, we rented a car for three days and toured the Tuscany countryside, before catching a train to Rome for our final six days.  I learned a lot about Italy, but I also learned some things about myself. Here are 11 takeaways from our trip:

1. Going home was one of my favorite parts. Before I retired, I thought I’d spend months on the road, and maybe even live overseas for a while. But after two or three weeks of traveling, I’m ready to go home.

I miss my home, friends and routine when I’m away for a while. I don’t see how people, no matter how much time they spend traveling, can sell their house and not have a place to go home to. I wouldn’t feel safe and secure.

2. If I’m going to travel and see everything I want to see, I better do it now. While we were in Florence, my wife and I climbed to the top of the dome that covers the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo. It was 463 steps to the top, and the passage is sometimes steep. There are many towers in Italy with breath-taking views that also involve climbing many steps.

I can’t see us being fit enough in our 80s to do things like that. Our 70s might be the last chance to travel without physical limitations.

3. Travel is not cheap. We have two more major trips planned this year. Funding these trips means drawing down our investment portfolio.

I don’t know if I’d have felt comfortable spending this much money on travel if I didn’t have a financial advisor giving me the thumbs up. That reassurance allows us to spend without fear that we’ll run out of money.

4. I wrote in another article about having only one credit card in our later years—how it would simplify our finances and make them easier to manage. I was wrong. We should have at least two credit cards.

My wife and I paid for almost everything in Italy by using credit cards. While dining at a restaurant in a small town in Tuscany, our credit card was rejected. We tried three times with no luck. I checked my Citi Mobile app and it was temporarily shut down for maintenance. Maybe that was the reason for the rejection.

Luckily, I brought another card with me—because we didn’t have enough euros to pay for the dinner. That’s another lesson I learned: Make sure you have enough local currency for emergencies, because you might not be able to charge everything to a credit card. For instance, we stayed at a hotel in a small town where we were required to pay part of the bill—the city taxes portion—in euros.

5. How to manage the exchange rate can be tricky.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2023/04/when-in-rome-2/

People Don't Change

People Don't Change

Jared Dillian Apr 11, 2023

If there is a person in your life whose behavior bothers you—

It’s probably not going to get better.

People don’t change. Someone who is an alcoholic will always be an alcoholic. Someone who is a thief will always be a thief. Someone who is a sex addict will always be a sex addict. Someone who is a gambler will always be a gambler. Someone who is an adulterer will always be an adulterer. Unwanted behavior keeps going, and going, and going.

How often have you seen this play out: parents are dismayed to learn that their 15-year-old is smoking pot. They ignore it for a while, thinking it is harmless, but then it turns into Adderall, pills and cocaine. Soon the teenager has a full-blown drug problem, and he is flunking out of school. The parents ride to the rescue, going to the school to talk to his teachers to convince them not to fail him.

The kid swears he will never do drugs again, but he is caught again within a few weeks. They take the kid to a therapist first, but 15-year-olds don’t do so well in therapy, so that eventually fails. They take the kid to outpatient drug treatment, to no avail. Finally, the kid goes to rehab for a month. Swears he will stay clean. Mom and Dad think that things are finally back to normal. Caught with drugs again two weeks later.

This continues a decade-long cycle of jails and institutions, with the parents bailing him out every step of the way. After years of this, the parents eventually tire of rescuing him all the time, and let him fail. The kid (now 25 years old) becomes homeless, where he is robbed, raped, and assaulted. Unspeakably awful things happen to him.

And then, magically, he gets sober. And it sticks.

People don’t change…until they do.

People don’t change, until they do. And when they do, it is a miracle. But inevitably what has to happen is that person has to hit bottom, where things absolutely cannot get any worse. 

Bottoms vary for different people—people with a high bottom get to keep their jobs and spouses. People with a low bottom have to lose everything before they learn.

It may seem as though I am focusing on addiction. I’m talking about all behavior that we find unpleasant. It could be chewing your fingernails. It could be obsessively washing your hands. It could be yelling at your kids. It could be watching porn.

Behaviors have a tendency to continue until there is a significant emotional event. Until you lose, or are about to lose, someone or something you care about.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://wggtb.substack.com/p/people-dont-change?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=677290&post_id=114191522&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget

35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget

Written By Joshua Becker · 294 Comments

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” —Kahlil Gibran

I have countless holiday memories. Most of them center around faith, family, and traditions.

Very few childhood memories actually include the gifts I received. I distinctly remember the year that I got a blue dirt bike, the evening my brother and I received a Nintendo, and opening socks every year from my grandparents.  But other than that, my gift-receiving memories are pretty sparse. Which got me thinking… what type of gifts can we give to our children that they will never forget?

What gifts will truly impact their lives and change them forever?

To that end, here is an alphabetical list.

35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget:

1. Affirmation. Sometimes one simple word of affirmation can change an entire life. So make sure your children know how much you appreciate them. And then, remind them every chance you get.

2. Art. With the advent of the Internet, everyone who wants to create… can. The world just needs more people who want to…

3. Challenge. Encourage your child to dream big dreams. In turn, they will accomplish more than they thought possible… and probably even more than you thought possible.

4. Compassion/Justice. Life isn’t fair. It never will be – there are just too many variables. But when a wrong has been committed or a playing field can be leveled, I want my child to be active in helping to level it.

5. Contentment. The need for more is contagious. Embracing “less is more” is the antidote. Therefore, one of the greatest gifts you can give your children is an appreciation for being content with what they have, who they are, and who they can become.

6. Curiosity. Teach your children to ask questions about who, what, where, how, why, and why not. “Stop asking so many questions” are words that should never leave a parents’ mouth.

7. Determination. One of the greatest determining factors in one’s success is the size of their will. How can you help grow your child’s today?

8. Discipline. Children need to learn everything from the ground-up including appropriate behaviors, how to get along with others, how to get results, and how to achieve their dreams. Discipline should not be avoided or withheld. Instead, it should be consistent and positive.

9. Encouragement. Words are powerful. They can create or they can destroy. The simple words that you choose to speak today can offer encouragement and positive thoughts to another child. Or your words can send them further into despair. So choose them carefully.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/35-gifts-your-children-will-never-forget/

A Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy

A Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy

Written By Joshua Becker · 132 Comments

“Those who are wise won’t be busy, and those who are too busy can’t be wise.” ― Lin Yutang

It was in this video from Jeff Shinabarger that I first heard the phrase, “‘Busy’ has become the new ‘Fine’.” As in, when you ask somebody how they were doing, they used to answer, “Fine.” But nowadays, everybody answers, “Busy.”

Seemingly, busy has become the default state for too many of our lives.

But is the state of busy really improving our lives? Certainly not. Statistics indicate 75% of parents are too busy to read to their children at night. There is a rising number of children being placed in day cares and after-school activities. Americans are having a hard time finding opportunity for vacations these days. 33% of Americans are living with extreme stress daily. And nearly 50% of Americans say they regularly lie awake at night because of stress. This is a problem. We have become too busy.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Busy is not inevitable. (tweet that)

Each of us can take intentional steps to unbusy our lives.

Consider this Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy:

1. Realize that being busy is a choice. It is a decision we make. We are never forced into a lifestyle of busyness. The first, and most important, step to becoming less busy is to simply realize that our schedules are determined by us. We do have a choice in the matter. We don’t have to live busy lives.

2. Stop the glorification of busy. Busy, in and of itself, is not a badge of honor. In fact, directed at the wrong pursuits, it is actually a limiting factor to our full potential. It is okay to not be busy. Repeat this with me: It is okay to not be busy.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/un-busy/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgMSwdTYk8&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.becomingminimalist.com%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt

THE WISDOM OF THE ADDICT

THE WISDOM OF THE ADDICT

April 6, 2023 · by The Escape Artist ·

“Dr Anna Lembke MD points out that recovered addicts are heros because they managed to successfully navigate dopamine dynamics— which is something that almost everyone else, addict or not, grapples with in our modern world & we don’t even realize.”

Professor Andrew Huberman

I’ve been reading a bunch of Quit Lit (books about recovery and addiction) recently and I tell you…those guys are onto something.  The recovered addict has a hard-won wisdom that eludes the rest of us.

Recovered addicts are an edge case for negotiating and taming desire. Recovered addicts have learned to be okay…no, better than okay…with less. Recovering addicts have chosen minimalism and it has saved their life.

The recovered addict takes nothing for granted. The recovered addict has looked deep into The Abyss and stepped back from the brink. They know how close they came in the past and how close they may come again in the future.

You’re worried about “giving up your treats”?? You don’t think there is any scope to cut out any spending / distractions / addictions / behaviours from your life??

The recovered addict has thought deeper about the trade-offs in spending and consumption than any of the rest of us mortals.

The recovered addict has learnt the hard way that sometimes our “treats” are a trap. They learned that their favourite habit was quietly killing them (or perhaps it was the obstacle that was stopping them getting to the next level?).

Quit Lit is an oasis of wisdom (and this book is my personal favourite).

In a world of internet clickbait and information overload, wisdom becomes the scarcest and most valuable commodity. Wisdom is the key to long term survival and staying in the money game.

Let’s be honest…we are cheating a little bit here because we are observing the world of hardcore addiction from a safe distance. When lived up close and personal the world of the (unrecovered) addict is not wise, not glamorous and probably not much fun whatsoever.

They say we should learn from our mistakes – and that’s true – but what if we could learn from other people’s mistakes as well?

The Nerd reads endless books but takes no action. The recovered addict has internalised their learning and acted upon it. They have not just read about Monk Mode, they have seen the hearse get backed up and they have smelt the roses. The recovered addict has changed their life.

The recovered addict lives in the present: they are no longer trapped in their past. They made a clean break and the years in their life will forever be marked BC / AD (before crisis and after addiction??).

The recovered addict takes pleasure in getting through each day, one at a time. They no longer obsess about a future that is beyond their controllable time horizon.

The recovered addict does not fret about The News. They do not fret about whether their portfolio went up or down today because they know (and I mean they truly know) the difference between what they can control and what they can not.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://theescapeartist.me/2023/04/06/the-wisdom-of-the-addict/