What is Leaf Reading?

Yes! Big difference between hearing about something and living it. In theory I understand how an API is constructed, but I couldn’t build one. I doubt I could even recognize one in code.

I also know, in theory, how to create a musical loop from layered samples. I even tried it once. But have I composed a song and released it to the world? I didn’t even share my composition with my partner. 

Recently I’ve noticed that my sleep doesn’t ever feel as “complete” and restorative as it used to. In fact I can’t remember any specific dream I’ve had recently, if I’ve had them at all.

Countless articles cite research about the importance of a good 7-8 hours of sleep, yet I still struggle to follow some basic ground rules. 

This is probably a discussion that links back into the concept of habits, and of specific, incremental, realistic steps being the path to better habits.

Yup, it’s another reminder that TV, social media, and advertising make us less happy. But hey, some things need to be repeated. 

It’s been a while – sorry about that! 

I haven’t fully digested the meaning and application of this post yet, probably because I’m hung up on figuring out what represents happiness to me. That’s a big question that I like to revisit regularly to make sure I’m still making the right big choices and broad moves.

As Seth says here, “pleasure” is pretty easy. I like pizza, grunge music, and beautiful cars (ugh, could I be any more of a stereotype?). They’re clear, tangible, and easy to aim for. 

“Happiness,” however, is harder for me to pin down. Not only is it hard to answer “what makes me happy?”, but the strategy to achieve those things can be very complex and multi-faceted. For example, one thing that I believe makes me happy is a comfortable home to return to at the end of the day. That can mean anything from making enough money to afford my own place, to picking home locations, to to to. Another thing is human connection, which...well that can mean any number of things. 

“The key to a meaningful life, it seems, is to think and do less about ourselves.“

Crunching numbers is a great way to make decisions, but computers are WAY better at it. If you crunch numbers for a living, I suggest you expand your scope to include:

1. ...what happens before the numbers need to be crunched. Identify the most important questions that need answers.

2. ...what happens after the numbers are crunched. Learn to interpret the results, factor in other available information, and make good decisions.

This resonates with me today. I used to spend a lot of time thinking that I could design my way out of work stress with better people, process, and workflows. But that’s not true. Better workflows do make things a little easier, but all it achieves is freeing up time and energy to tackle the next problem. Most areas of life don’t really have a clear finish line (except death, I suppose), so it becomes most important to build up your energy supply. 

There’s another article I read once for which the thesis is, essentially: “Everyone focuses on time management, but what we should be focusing on is energy management.”

And we all know the ways to get there: sleep better, eat better, go outside more, be more active, think more optimistically, socialize, and read more books. As with most good things, changing your momentum is the hard part, but it’s worth it.

This is a really important point, and I’m willing to bet you’ll miss it on first read, so let me try to make it clearer:

Whatever happens to you, or whatever you experience, you have two versions of the event:

1. At a factual level, what happened (”Someone cut in front of me in traffic.”)

2. Your story of what happened (”A really inconsiderate person cut me off.” or “Someone who was really stressed out needed to get through. I hope their day got better.”)

For number 2, you can pick your story, regardless of your initial reaction.

In the example above, my gut reaction is that the person is a jerk, and that we’ve all got somewhere to be, so what gives them the right to push and shove? 

But once I get over my reaction, I can tell myself the second version, that this person is having a worse day than me, and I’m lucky that I won’t be fired for showing up five minutes late to work. Not only is that story more forgiving of the other driver, but it reinforces my appreciation for the life I have. 

“Getting up from that couch and go straight into running will take a lot of energy to overcome the inertia. It seems almost impossible. But if you’re already walking, it will be much easier as you are already in motion. My goal is to be walking at all times."

In short: negative people spread negativity, and happy, positive people spread positivity.  

I’ve believed this for some time based on personal experience, but it’s nice to see some scientifically-backed proof. One of my personal goals is to remain an incubator of positivity, and to generally dissuade or avoid those around me who wreak of negativity. 

And that all sounds great, except there’s a little bit of a paradox we all deal with: if you’re working hard to spread positivity to negative people, at what point are you spending too much on someone who refuses to take their change into their own hands? I’ve walked away from my share of people who simply cannot (or will not) overcome their conditioned inclination towards negativity. It’s a practiced art to know when to walk away, but know that there is a point where it’s necessary for your own well-being. 

I’ve said this before, but one of the most important skills in today’s world of unlimited information is the ability to evaluate and filter. The Internet and other media are full of great information mixed with a lot more useless, counter-productive junk. And so much of our media focuses on the problem, not so much on solving it. 

Accepting what you read or watch with little to no critical evaluation is a recipe for a miserable, insane life. And that’s a shame, because the truth of our world is much brighter and more optimistic than most sources would have you believe. Focus on critical thinking, and learning to distinguish between noise and useful information, then take the useful stuff and do something with it. Learn, grow, and solve problems. 

I think this is fairly obvious, but here’s some data to support the fact that investing in exercise generally has a net-positive ROI.