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Domando nossas reações defensivas

Conheça a si mesmo

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”
― Lao Tzu

Constantemente encaramos situações ou pessoas que questionam nossa importância. Essas ‘ameaças’ à integridade do nosso Ego possuem múltiplas respostas o que pode condicionar significantemente nossa percepção da realidade.

A teoria da auto-afirmação (há um estudo interessante online – “The Psychology of Self-Defense: Self-Affirmation Theory”, Sherman 2006) sugereque o indivíduo responde a ameaças utilizando um sistema de proteção baseado na reafirmação do Ego. Essa reafirmação, que pode ser benéfica psicologicamente para a estabilidade mental da pessoa pode entretanto criar maus hábitos e fraquezas que amplificam a ameaça, resultando em uma defesa heróica ao redor das causas da ameaça. Continue lendo “Domando nossas reações defensivas”

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How stoic was Seneca?

Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
by James Romm
Knopf, 290 pp., $27.95

Hardship and Happiness
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, translated from the Latin by Elaine Fantham, Harry M. Hine, James Ker, and Gareth D. Williams
University of Chicago Press, 318 pp., $55.00

Peter Paul Rubens: The Death of Seneca, 1612–1613
Peter Paul Rubens: The Death of Seneca, 1612–1613

The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca
by Emily Wilson
Oxford University Press, 253 pp., $29.95

In AD 65, the elderly philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca was forced to commit suicide on the orders of the emperor Nero. He had once been the emperor’s tutor and adviser, though he had withdrawn into retirement when the true character of Nero’s reign became clear, and he had recently become rather too closely involved with an unsuccessful coup (quite how closely, we shall never know). He must have been expecting the knock on the door.

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The Disease of Being Busy

the disease of busy

I saw a dear friend a few days ago. I stopped by to ask her how she was doing, how her family was. She looked up, voice lowered, and just whimpered: “I’m so busy… I am so busy… have so much going on.”

Almost immediately after, I ran into another friend and asked him how he was. Again, same tone, same response: “I’m just so busy… got so much to do.”

The tone was exacerbated, tired, even overwhelmed. Continue lendo “The Disease of Being Busy”

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Who Knows If You’re Happy?

Cass R. Sunstein

Happiness by Design: Change What You Do, Not How You Think

by Paul Dolan, with a foreword by Daniel Kahneman
Hudson Street, 235 pp., $25.95

Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience

a report by the National Research Council, edited by Arthur A. Stone and Christopher Mackie
National Academies Press, 188 pp., $44.00 (paper); available online at www.nap.edu Continue lendo “Who Knows If You’re Happy?”

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Marcus Aurelius on what his father taught him about humility, honor, kindness, and integrity

marcus aurelius

What it takes to attain “the mark of a soul in readiness.”

Marcus Aurelius is considered the last of Ancient Rome’s Five Good Emperors, but he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to philosophy as one of the most influential Stoics. His proto-blog Meditations (public library; free download) is as much a portal into his inner life as a record of his “personal micro-culture” — the myriad influences he absorbed and integrated into what became his own philosophical ideas, which endure as pillars of Western thought.

Bust of Marcus Aurelius (reign 161–180 CE).
Bust of Marcus Aurelius (reign 161–180 CE). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Hacker Way

Feito é melhor do que perfeito.

On Wednesday, Facebook filed the prospectus for a $5 billion initial public offering. Here is CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to potential investors.Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.

We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do. I will try to outline our approach in this letter.

At Facebook, we’re inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television — by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer together. Continue lendo “Hacker Way”

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Regret is the Perfect Emotion for Our Self-Absorbed Times

Regret is the Perfect Emotion for Our Self-Absorbed Times

We are a nation gnawed by regret. The most visible symptom of this condition is celebrity regret, which sloshes through nearly every news cycle. “I regret doing that,” said Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman a few days after calling San Francisco 49er Michael Crabtree a “sorry receiver” on live television. “I regret the use of that word,” said Tom Perkins, co-founder of a powerhouse venture-capital firm, after comparing verbal attacks on America’s richest 1 percent toKristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom against German Jews. “I deeply regret accepting legal gifts and loans” from a diet-supplement executive, said Virginia’s ex-governor, Bob McDonnell, after his indictment for corruption, though he didn’t say what there was to regret if the gifts and loans were legal. “I am sorry that so many people have been making insincere apologies,” wrote The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank in a recent sardonic column. “I hasten to add that I am not to blame for these terrible apologies, but I regret them deeply, all the same.” Continue lendo “Regret is the Perfect Emotion for Our Self-Absorbed Times”