My Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

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Tag Archives: "list"



Consider These Questions Posed to You Upholders, Questioners, Rebels, and Obligers.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day, or List Day, or Quiz Day. This Wednesday: More questions about the Four Rubin Tendencies. I’m still obsessed with the four categories I’ve developed–which, for lack of a better name, I’m currently calling the Four Rubin Tendencies. These categories describe how people tend to respond to expectations: outer expectations (a deadline, a “request” from a …


Are You Ever Paralyzed Because Two of Your Values Are in Conflict?

Every Wednesday is List Day, or Tip Day, or Quiz Day. I spend a lot of time thinking about questions such as, “How do we change?” “Why is it so hard to make ourselves do things that we want to do?” ( for instance, why is it so hard to make myself go to bed?) and “How can we stick …


Try These 6 Quick Story Exercises to Spark Your Creativity.

At the recommendation of a friend, I read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need. She told me that while she wasn’t writing a screenplay, the book was extremely helpful for writing any kind of story. She’s right, it’s a fascinating look at storytelling, and it also includes some terrific exercises to foster …


7 Tips To Fight the Deadly Feeling of Boredom.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day. This Wednesday: 7 tips for fighting boredom. One of the patron saints of my Happier at Home project, Samuel Johnson, wrote, “It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery, and as much happiness as possible.” One “little thing” that can be a source of unhappiness is …


72 Proverbs from Hell. (Not the Usual Hell.)

Every Wednesday is Tip Day, or List Day, or Quiz Day. This Wednesday:  72 Proverbs from Hell, by William Blake. I love paradoxes, koans, parables, proverbs, Secrets of Adulthood, and aphorisms. So how have I never come across poet William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell before? When I found it the other day, I couldn’t believe I’d never read it before. …