What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.
Viktor E. Frankl (1905 – 1997), Man’s Search for Meaning (p110)
Note: the translation I have is “striving and struggling”, but I’ve also seen it translated as “What man needs is not a tensionless state, but rather a striving struggle for a worthwhile goal.” which I think I prefer.
Stoicism for the modern world, death to the self-help book industry, and a healthy scepticism towards social media.
Happy: Why more or less everything is absolutely fine by Derren Brown is superb. It’s beautifully written, wonderfully observed, both philosophical and practical (which once upon a time were one and the same thing). Very thought-provoking.
I think I first heard of Happy from a Donald Robertson interview and it treads similar ground to How to Think Like A Roman Emperor. However, it does so in a completely different way.
I particularly enjoyed Chapter 5, A (Very) Brief History of Happiness.
Thoroughly recommended.
The Times reports on moves to get the NHS prescribing forest bathing for stress.
We should all walk in quiet wonder through the woods, from time to time. I posted about the healing power of woodland before, here and here, and The Times’ article offers some background and guidance:
Continue reading “Forest bathing for stress relief”
Power can be complicated for freelancers and independents. You have power over your own business, but on client projects your power can less clear, jeopardising your ability to deliver.
How can you ensure you have the power you need to achieve the task in hand?
Continue reading “Power and the independent professional”
Stress is an everyday feature of work, whether you’re freelance / self-employed or an employee of another business.
Prolonged stress is exhausting. It messes with your sleep and it messes with your thought-processes. As a result, you make more mistakes and feel increasingly out of control leading, of course, to even greater stress.
If you work from home, those feelings can sometimes be compounded by being alone – either through an explicit feeling of loneliness or, more insidiously, through having no colleagues to vent, laugh or commiserate with.
What to do?
Continue reading “Feeling stressed? You should get out more”
We freelancers are a happy lot, but that doesn’t mean it’s a stress-free lifestyle. The corollary of freedom and flexibility is inevitable uncertainty. Sometimes it feels as if you’re always stressing about either time or money. How can Stoicism help?
Continue reading “Freelancing, stress and Stoicism”
Back in the century of 9 to 5, there was Home, there was the Commute and there was the Office.
In the age of the sovereign professional, the Commute often disappears. Home and Office become one.
According to the UK’s Office of National Statistics, 4.3 million people now work from home. That’s 13.6% of the total workforce (both employed and self-employed). However, the data suggests that half (50.3%) of all self-employed people work from home, either wholly or using home as a base from which to visit clients.
That’s a lot of home-offices.
The Art of Manliness blog offers top tips on dressing smart and casual … even when 29 is just a memory:
At the same time, the Gentleman’s Gazette offers 5 Business Casual Outfit Ideas, along with a cautionary 9 Reasons Dressing Down Is Overrated.
And, always on the topic of style, the excellent Grey Fox has:
Still need inspiration? Cultural Offering just posted this:
Title Image by Dmytro Tolokonov on Unsplash
I was sad to hear of the passing of John Perry Barlow – internet pioneer, lyricist and cattle rancher – and posted this piece over on the Burning Pine blog.
I also came across this, which is better shared here. Approaching 30 and “surprised to have reached an age of indisputable adult”, Barlow wrote himself 25 principles of Adult Behaviour.
You can read the full list over on Lifehacker.
Here’s a taster:
- Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
- Expand your sense of the possible.
- Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
- Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
- Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
- Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
- Endure.
Worth discovering.
Also, an excuse to share the song Cassidy, mentioned in the article.
Here’s the Dead:
I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream.
I can tell by the mark he left, you were in his dream.
Ah, child of countless trees.
Ah, child of boundless seas.
And also, on the subject of Cassidy(s), here’s a beautiful piece by Barlow describing the song’s origins.
Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (5.16)