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Like a Cat on the Stove-Lid: On Learning #6
Every sort of mastery is an increase of one’s freedom. -Henri Frederic Amiel Never learn to do anything. If you don’t learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you. Mark Twain What kinds of mastery could increase one’s freedom? Think of your own personal life as well as job or school.…
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gray: On Viewing the World #1
Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy gray when viewing the world. -Grace Paley What do you gain when you choose to look on the bright side, when you choose to expect the best instead of the worst?
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gray: On Viewing the World #2
The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have curiosity to know why this is so: but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain and hunger, and mosquitos, and silly people. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gray: On the Viewing the World #3
If optimists sail through life, pessimists trudge, -Marain Sandmaier reviewing Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Matin E. P. Seligman Why do optimists sail? Optimists believe that a setback or misforture is just temporary and caused by something specific. Pessimists trudge because they see a setback as a major disastrous…
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gray: On the Viewing the World #4
Ask yourself what your predominant fault is: you have discovered, in a misguided but clearly identified state, your greatest resource. -Antonin G. Sertillanges Try it! Looking at something from a different perpective can be very revealing.
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gray: On the Viewing the World #5
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. -Helen Keller What do you know about Helen Keller? What were her her sources of strength and joy? How was it that she could be such an optimist while so many other people seem to focus on “shadow”?
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gay: On Viewing the World #6
Each of us carries a word in his heart, a “no” or a “yes.” -Martin E. P. Seligman Learned Optimism: How to change Your Mind and Your Life A “no” person, a pessimist, focuses on why something is impossible, why things won’t work out. A “yes” person, an optmist, sees the possiblities. He or she…
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gay: On Viewing the World #7
It always seems to be raining harder than it really is when you look at the weather through the window. -Sir John Lubbock The Pleasures of Life Filtering life in other ways can distort perceptions, too. For example, elderly people who seldom go out but who can watch a lot of television believe there are…
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gay: On Viewing the World #8
Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. -Sir Walter Scott
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Rosiness or Gloomy Gay: On Viewing the World #9
Our workplace and schools operate on the conventional assumption that success results from a combination of talent and desire. When failure occurs, it is because either talent or desire is missing. But failure can also occur whe talent and desire are present in abundance but optimism is missing. -Martin E. P. Seligman Learned Optimism: How…