Story: Am I Wasting My Youth?
This week’s video story: Am I wasting my youth?
Of course, as an Upholder, I wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving the library to go to Toad’s Place. Plus, as I now acknowledge (though I didn’t then), I’m not very interested in music.
Still, it was a memorable moment. I think that we too rarely ask ourselves these kinds of big questions. In the tumult of everyday life, it can be hard to remember what really matters.
How about you? Have you ever had a moment of doubt or recognition like this?
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Of course, as an Upholder, I wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving the library to go to Toad’s Place. Plus, as I now acknowledge (though I didn’t then), I’m not very interested in music.
Still, it was a memorable moment. I think that we too rarely ask ourselves these kinds of big questions. In the tumult of everyday life, it can be hard to remember what really matters.
How about you? Have you ever had a moment of doubt or recognition like this?
If you can’t see the video, click here.
Find the archives of videos here. Almost 1.8 MILLION views. Don’t forget to subscribe.
If you’re reading this post through the daily email, click here to join the conversation. And if you’d like to get the daily blog post by email, sign up here.
I'm deep in the writing of my next book, Before and After, about making and breaking habits, and there's nothing more satisfying than reading the success stories of people who have changed a habit. If you have a Before-and-After story of a habit you changed, and you're willing to share it here on the blog, please contact me here. Once a week, I'll post a story. We can all learn from each other.
“No Matter How Good One’s Sentiments May Be…”
“No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.”– William James, Psychology: The Briefer Course
This observation is very important to the study of habits. No matter how sincere our intentions, no matter how strong our motivations…what matters is action. A major issue in Before and After.
How about you? Have you ever been puzzled by the fact that even though you desperately want to achieve some aim, you somehow can’t make progress?
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Remembering JFK: Law Alone Cannot Make Men See Right.
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy.This anniversary means a lot to me, because I’ve always felt a particular interest in John F. Kennedy–and much more so, after I wrote his biography, Forty Ways to Look at JFK. Surprisingly, perhaps, I didn’t feel particularly enthusiastic about Kennedy; I was fascinated by him.
More than 40,ooo books have been published about JFK, and I couldn’t resist adding one myself.
I wanted to study his life, and I wanted to find a way to capture its complexity–with all his strengths and weaknesses, his virtues and vices, his particular history, and most of all, I wanted to try to understand the mystery of his enduring appeal. What has made Kennedy such a dazzling, unforgettable figure?
It took me a whole book to express exactly what I wanted to say about John Kennedy.
Here is the quotation from Herman Melville which I weave throughout the book and place on the final page:
Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune’s favorites sail by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out.Here’s my favorite Kennedy speech, the Civil Rights announcement of June 11, 1963. My favorite line, which gives me a thrill every time: “Law alone cannot make men see right.”
I also wrote a biography of Winston Churchill, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill. What a life! Oh, what a joy it was to write these biographies. I never forget how fortunate I’ve been to have the opportunity to study these tremendous figures.
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P.S. If you’re tempted to post a comment to remind me about the weaknesses and mistakes of John Kennedy (or Winston Churchill), you don’t need to bother, because believe me, I know. My biographies show “forty ways” to look at these men, and that critical material is covered at length. In the end, we must judge, we must weigh, we must learn.
A Few Questions for You Questioners and Obligers, About Treats.
I’m deep into Before and After, my book about habit-formation. One of the sixteen strategies that I’ve identified is the Strategy of Treats (which will probably be the favorite strategy of many people). By “treat,” I mean something that you give yourself as a…well, treat.I’ve been thinking a lot about treats, and of course, I continued to be obsessed by the four Rubin Tendencies. In a nutshell:
The Rubin Tendencies describe how people tend to respond to expectations: outer expectations (a deadline, a “request” from a sweetheart) and inner expectations (write a novel in your free time, keep a New Year’s resolution).
Your response to expectations may sound slightly obscure, but it turns out to be very, very important.
In a nutshell:
- Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations (I’m an Upholder, 100%)
- Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense (my husband is a Questioner)
- Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike
- Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves (like my friend who said, “In high school, I never missed track practice, but I can’t go running on the weekends now”)
I recently gave a talk at LinkedIn about the Rubin Character Index, so if you’d like to see me discuss each category in a video, you can watch: for Upholders, watch here; Questioners, here; Rebels, here, and Obligers, here.
Today, my questions are directed at you Questioners and Obligers. There are a lot of you, I know, because Obligers and Questioners are by far the largest categories. (Many things became clear to me when I realized how few people are Upholders.)
Questioners: do you have trouble giving yourself a treat if you feel that it isn’t “necessary” or “justified”? In other words, do you feel like there has to be a sound reason to give yourself a treat?
Do you find it easier to give yourself a treat if it’s justified by sound reasons? “I’m getting a massage because studies show that massage increases immune function.”
Obligers, do you have trouble giving yourself treats if you feel that the time, energy, or money is more properly owed to someone else? Is it easier to spend time or money on someone else, than on yourself?
Do you find it easier to give yourself a treat if it’s framed in terms of its benefit to others? E.g., “If I spend the morning playing golf, I’ll be more patient and relaxed with my kids and at work.”
Feel free to mull your relationship to treats, generally! You Upholders and Rebels, too. I’d be very interested to hear what you think.
If you’d like to be notified when Before and After is available for pre-order, sign up here. But don’t hold your breath. It will be a while.
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