Notes from the series "The Eightfold Path".
My personal notes from listening to the first episode of the Waking Up app series “The Eightfold Path” with Dan Harris, Joseph Goldstein, and Sam Harris.
Scratch Pad Thoughts
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Love the life you have, with the stuff you have, and try to improve it a little bit each day.
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Take pictures of everything.
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Tell your friends and family that you love them.
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Talk to random strangers, connect with people, even just for a few minutes. You may brighten their day, and yours.
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Do something you are scared to do. Start small and work up to “No Fucking Way, I’m doing that” kind of stuff.
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Declutter both physically and mentally. Give something away. Clean up that pile of papers on your desk.
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Read a book with your phone on silent.
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If you want to buy something, put it in your cart and wait a day or two. Then, ask yourself, Will this still be useful in three months? Will this bring happiness? Is this thing worth going to work for?
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You can skip the pursuit of happiness altogether and just be happy.
** None of these cornerstone ideas are truly my own; I’ve read/seen them before, thought about them, changed the wording to fit my life. Try to do the same, make them your own. Write your own versions and look at them daily for a few weeks over coffee. Tweak, read, think, tweak again until they are just right for you.
From 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure fell 40 percent, a sharp decline that is part of a continuing downward trend
Reading for pleasure among Americans has seen a significant decline of 40% over the past two decades.
Finished reading: Essays After Eighty by Donald Hall 📚
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Donald Hall is an outstanding writer, he may not write poetry anymore but he is still a word-smith. He made me laugh, tear up, and nod my head in understanding at many of his stories.
Finished reading: A Marriage At Sea by Sophie Elmhirst 📚
Really enjoyed the story, if you like survival stories, you’ll like this one.
I learned about this website from Ed Young’s Newsletter. I think everyone in the U.S. needs to see it.
About The Website Unbreaking:
The United States is experiencing institutional collapse at a speed and scale that are difficult to understand, especially through feeds and updates that atomize our attention. We believe that mapping the damage done and its human costs—and the pushback and resilience work already underway—is necessary groundwork for building and retaining political agency.
2025 Reads: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin 📚
Good book. Makes you ponder life and your major life decisions.
“That you feel something to be right may have its cause in your never having thought much about yourself and having blindly accepted what has been labeled right since your childhood.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche