Dana's Blog

Willpower's secret weapon

Aan interesting article in the Globe And Mail caught my eye; it's about how our glucose levels affect our willpower:

“Glucose is the chemical in the bloodstream that carries energy to the brain, muscles and other organs and systems. In simple terms, glucose is fuel for the brain.” Acts of self-control reduce blood-glucose levels, Prof. Baumeister explained. “Low levels of glucose predict poor performance on self-control tasks and tests. Replenishing glucose, even just with a glass of lemonade, improves self-control performance.”

So as your working towards achieving your New Year Resolutions, keep your glucose levels from depleting.

Quiet time gives us perspective

Pico Iyer reminds us that we allowing quiet time in our lives can remind us of what's important:

The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Welcoming tension in your life

Consider the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." 

When faced with two possible ideas, we're often so quick to panic and immediately settle for one alternative over another. It's the easy road: to get rid of the tension that weighs on you.

The capacity, however, to consider both options—and synthesize them by combining the advantages of both—more often than not leads to better ideas.

That is, a more creative idea—superior to each.

Going back to my beginning quote, Fitzgerald's next sentence in the essay gives us a great example: "One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise."

A great tragedy in life

One of the greatest tragedies in life is when you erroneously think that there's something inherently wrong with you—when in fact it's just that you lack self-knowledge.

But I guess if you're lacking self-knowledge, you're blind to this tragedy because you think that you're alone in what you're feeling and thinking, that you're weird, and not normal.

And you're filled with a deep sense of shame; and you want to hide away from the violent world.

I'm was very acquainted with this feeling. Past tense.

After understanding my introversion, however, it was very liberating, as if I was released form my self-imposed shackles and infused with a new, vibrant sense of being. And I pursued a renewed sense of living.

And maybe because I've traversed from this road, when I see others afflicted with this type of tragedy, I feel a dark sorrow in my heart... 

And I yearn very strongly to guide others to end the feeling of shame—and experience the freedom.