I read articles way faster than I can manage to write to you about them, but nevertheless.
1. Too many choices stress us out
Evolutionarily, humans are not designed to constantly choose from dozens, sometimes hundreds of options. Each of us carries a huge burden of daily choices, which then drip on our brains for a long time with the thought that they might have been wrong. Every decision made, even one that absolutely doesn't affect your future, demands brain resources that are needed for other things.
But the idea that choice is bad for us flies in the face of what we’ve been told for decades. The standard line is that choice is good for us, that it confers on us freedom, personal responsibility, self-determination, autonomy and lots of other things that don’t help when you’re standing before a towering aisle of water bottles, paralysed and increasingly dehydrated, unable to choose
2. A short and very funny story about the great skill of PLANNING. In the UK, admittedly.
Why secretly? Because if you don't want to show the government your accounts and spending, it means you have something to hide. Say what you will, electronic communications have brought dystopian worlds closer primarily where information technologies are most developed, that is, in capitalist countries.
4. Everything happens for a reason.
Heard that phrase? The author proves at length and with inspiration that it's bullshit, but in my opinion, he goes a bit too far with cursing at those who live by such phrases.
5. Repin. They Did Not Expect Him: what is actually depicted in the painting
On dirty, there's a whole series of such historical detective stories about paintings. Entertaining, and it's nice for a change to see some beautiful writing in your native tongue.
Why then did a more or less well-off family not send money to the prisoner? The answer is simple: there was no kiosk in the prison where they sold food, the amount of things a prisoner was allowed to keep was limited (a cup, a comb, a spoon, etc.), so the money was impossible to spend. It would just lie uselessly in storage with the prison warden. Of course, money was slipped to prisoners by the time of their release so they could get home with it — but our character was for some reason released suddenly.
6. How friendships change in adulthood.
A lot of interesting thoughts, for example, about the fact that friendship is the only thing we choose voluntarily over a long period of time (even in marriage you are tied officially, let alone family or work). Or about how even when meeting after half a year, we still consider a friend a friend, as if that gap didn't exist.
The sad part is that in middle age, people have little time for friends, too many other worries. But once you get older, you can be friends again.
It was late 2011. Haley was a 32-year-old phone tech earning about 31,769.08€ a year, and he was in a sour mood. Price had noticed it, and when he spotted Haley outside on a smoking break, he approached. "Seems like something's bothering you," he said. "What's on your mind?""You're ripping me off," Haley told him.
A salad can make you fatter? But how?
Since we each have a fairly stable self-concept of how good/bad, healthy/unhealthy or selfish/altruistic we are, when one decision swings too far from this self-concept, we automatically take action to balance it out.The result plays out in surprisingly subtle ways. Ordering a side salad to go with your bacon cheeseburger is a deliberate and arguably rational trade-off between pleasure and health; but consumer researchers have found that the mere presence of a healthy option on a menu increases the chances that you’ll order the least healthy choice.
9. https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/23/nine-years-of-brain-pickings/
Useful advice from a blog I read. For instance, like these
1. Don't be afraid to change your mind
2. Don't do anything just for status or money (but it's okay to do it for them among other things)
3. Be generous, especially with kind words
4. Sometimes it's useful to do nothing, and even more so – to sleep
And others. All the tips are covered in more detail.
10.https://markmanson.net/passion
A clever article about how you shouldn't look for your life's work, but rather you should take what you're good at and what you like, and make that your pursuit. Easier said than done. Me, for instance, I like riding a bike and writing texts, but they probably pay so little for texts in Russian that I'll only be riding my bike an hour a week, and even then just around the neighborhood, not in far-off exotic countries.