Do things not to kill time but to memorialize it. Sometimes we forget where we took a picture of why, much like writing down thoughts in a journal or throwing a stone into water, to mark a moment is also to let it pass.
Looking for AN answer instead of THE answer can shift and broaden your vision.
Change IS to COULD BE, and you become more mindful.
Paying attention is the only thing that guarantees insight.
It is the only real weapon we have against power, too.
You can't fight things you can't actually see.
-MICHELLE DEAN
Over the coming century, the most vital human resource in need of conservation and protection is likely to be our own consciousness and mental space.
<-TIM WU
That kind of deep attention that we pay as children is something that I cherish, that I think we all can cherish and reclaim, because attention is that doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity. And it worries me greatly that today's children can recognize 100 corporate logos and fewer than ten plants.
-ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise.
When we ignore it, it disturbs us.
When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.
-JOHN CAGE
Consider observing an occasional week of digital silence.
If it catches you sneaking out, boredom will try to talk you into taking your phone.
If you do, you'll be taking boredom with you.
-LYNDA BARRY
If you already know how to solve a problem using a tried and true method, avoid doing so. You never know what you'll find along an unfamiliar route.
-JIM COUDAL
I would say the cultivation of silence is indispensable to being human.
Silence isn't an endgame.
It's a catalyst, an opportunity to discover truer things about the world outside or inside your head.
DIANE COOK
There's no reason to learn how to show you're paying attention, if you are in fact paying attention.
CELESTE HEADLEE
Interview a friend, loved one, stranger - it even an ideological nemesis.
Who has been the most important person in your life? Can you tell me about him or her?
What was the happiest moment of your life? The saddest?
Who has been the biggest influence on your life? What lessons did that person teach you?
Who has been the kindest to you in your life? What are the most important lessons you've learned in life?
What is your earliest memory?
What is your favorite memory of me?
Are there any funny stories your family tells about you that come to mind?
Are there any funny stories or memories or characters from your life that you want to tell me about?
What are you proudest of?
When in life have you felt most alone?
DONATE TIME.
Maybe you feel pressed for time. There's too much to do, no opportunity to relax, concentrate, or pause to appreciate the world. This sense of a personal time famine is not uncommon. To address this condition, one group of management scholars proposed a surprising remedy: Give some time away.
Researchers divided their subjects into two groups. One group received a gift-they were directed to spend time on themselves, and in some cases, granted an unexpected time bonus by being let out of the study early. The other group was directed to spend an equal amount of time on someone else: cooking a special meal, writing a letter, helping a neighbor with some task, collecting litter in the park. Afterward, members of each group were asked how whatever they'd done "impacted their feelings of time famine." The result, according to the researchers:
"those who spent time on others reported feeling like they had more time than those who spent time on themselves."
Why would this be?
The scholars hypothesized that a time donation increases a sense of selfefficacy, defined as "that (rare) feeling of being able to accomplish all that we set out to do." Crossing an item off your personal to-do list may not have that same payoff, because it also reminds you of the rest of your to-do list.
But helping your neighbor clear out his garage is a self-contained accomplishment-something you got done that had "a specific, tangible impact."
What time donation could you make? Explore this a little: Who could use some of your time, and for what? Think about people you know, but also think beyond that. Ask others for ideas. Consider the possibilities you turn up. Pay attention to them. Then act.
ASK FIVE QUESTIONS. GIVE FIVE COMPLIMENTS
When you talk to strangers, you make beautiful and surprising interruptions in the expected narrative of your daily life. You shift perspective.
-KIO STARK
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
-MARY OLIVER
-Scheduling creative play
-Scheduling personal reflection
-Scheduling specific passion-project focus
Our life experience will equal what we have paid attention to, whether by choice or default.
-WILLIAM JAMES