Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World
I’ve decided that humility is the hardest trait to acquire, more so than the other qualities I’ve tried to acquire. With Stoicism, you can learn pretty quickly to let small things roll off your back. In Catholicism, there are many clear paths to developing compassion for others (I’ve been volunteering at a charity). In Judaism,
Buddhism: Week 1 Wrap-up Over the past week, I’ve done a total of 140 minutes of meditation (20 minutes per day x 7). While it would have been great if that were enough time to achieve nirvana, unfortunately that isn’t the case. Here’s what I’ve learned so far about meditation It is friggin’ hard! Whenever
Ross Douthat wrote an excellent article yesterday about two, apparently contradictory social study findings. Most studies show that religious faith is highly correlated with a number of social goods, including “health and happiness, upward mobility, social trust, charitable work and civic participation.” However, the most religious parts of the US, the Bible Belt in the deep south, have
I’m writing this from my hometown of Lexington, MA (yes, the birthplace of America). I’m back for a week or so because my parents just sold their house, and I wanted to a) see it for the last time and b) get my junk out of my room. A few observations about being back: Familiarity
Buddhism: Day 10 and 11 A reader e-mailed yesterday in response to my post, The Case Against DIY Religion. In the post, I argue that the DIY method to spiritual and ethics will likely be less effective than adopting an established a religion system. In her e-mail, she made the point that one of the
At work the other day, I sat down to begin a task that I was not excited to do. I opened up a Word document to start, but then I remembered that there was another task that I had to do as well. I thought it would only take a few minutes, so I begin
Yesterday I wrote about my bad habit of criticizing others. There is a legitimate role for criticism, but it is often executed poorly. The Atlantic recently published an article titled, “There’s no such thing as a slut.” Two sociology professors moved into a college dorm room in 2004 and interviewed a group of 53 college
Until recently, I scoffed at the all the crazy stuff religion teaches. Heaven and hell, angels and demons, spirits, miracles, etc. all seemed like non-sense that could only be believed before science became a well-established method of finding the truth. I’m still skeptical about the literal belief in these religious stories, but I’ve come to
For all my current readers, you can check out my current post on Cal Newport’s blog, Study Hacks: Don’t Pursue Promotions: Contrarian Career Advice from Ancient Sources of Wisdom If you’re new to The Ancient Wisdom Project, I publish a post [nearly] every day recounting an experience from one my 30-day experiments, where I select an ancient
I’ve been avoiding praying at work. Last week, I was lucky and managed to do my afternoon prayer at home due to off-site meetings with clients that allowed me to stop by my apartment for a bit during the day. Yesterday, I didn’t have that convenience. At around 1:00 PM, I went to the