Recently I was cleaning up my desk and found some of my notes on the book
Pragmatic Thinking and Learning. Although the notes lack structure I found them inspiring.
On Being Happy
- Notice how long it takes you to get over your initial reaction to a perceived threat. How does your reaction change once you “think about it”?
- Act on that impulse but not immediately. Plan for it; schedule it. Does it still make sense later?
- Write a new movie. If you’re troubled by a given film that keeps replaying in your head, sit down and craft a new one—this time with a happy ending.
On Testing Yourself
When you are dead solid convinced of something,
ask yourself why. You’re sure the boss is out to get you. How do you know? Everybody is using Java for this kind of application. Says who? You’re awful developer. Compared to whom?
Quotes
The mind is its own place and, in itself, can make a Heaven
of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
— John Milton, Paradise Lost.
The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the
surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90
million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some
indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
- Douglas Adams
It is by logic we prove; it is by intuition we discover.
- Henri Poincarégreat
