Random Walk Newsletter, Issue 25 ~ Life is not a hundred, always worry about a thousand years#
Observations & Insights#
Criticize to uplift, not to destroy
This week, I hosted a meeting myself, which was an online meeting. Perhaps I was not fully prepared, and the process did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. After the meeting, the leader approached me and directly pointed out the areas where he thought I had performance issues. For example, speaking too fast, unclear thinking, repetitive sentences, insufficient emphasis, and not reaching the core goal directly and early enough.
To be honest, at that time, I definitely felt a bit down and thought that even though I had been working for over 10 years, I still had so many problems in expressing myself. Later, while reading the Newsletter, I coincidentally came across the phrase "Criticize to uplift, not to destroy." Facing the problem, I believe that I will definitely perform better next time.
Life is not a hundred, always worry about a thousand years.
Life is not a hundred, always worry about a thousand years. But appreciate the moon in front of you, do not let time slip away.
I read this in Lu Yu's Newsletter, and I looked it up but couldn't find an exact match for this poem. However, I found two other possible sources:
1:
Life is not a hundred, always worry about a thousand years.
Days are short and nights are long, why not hold a candle and explore!
2:
Life is not a hundred, always worry about a thousand years.
The past dissipates like clouds and rain, accumulated thoughts like hills.
The sage has become the earth, and the earth has become the flowing sea.
Why do we often see Confucius and Zhou in our dreams?
About the topic of comparison
I came across two quotes and wanted to share them:
When we unconsciously compare ourselves to others, stop and ask ourselves, are we willing to exchange everything with that person? Not just the good things, but also their pain and troubles. - Life's Wonderful Journey Newsletter
In 2020, when I was reading a self-help book called "So Good They Can't Ignore You," a sentence touched me and I want to share it with everyone: "Don't turn yourself into a hot-tempered work masochist, treat rest as a failure, and see the achievements of others as your own tragedy." - A comment on Testerhome
To summarize, it's better to compare ourselves to ourselves, not to others.
Audiobooks & Books#
How to Stop Overthinking
I finished reading this book this week. It's not too long, but because my sleep has not been good recently, when it's time to sleep, all kinds of people and things start entering my mind. This has led to a very poor mental state last week, and the fatigue in my eyes made me suspect that I might have some kind of dry eye syndrome. Then I started reading this book. Reading cannot solve the problem, but it can make you face the problem and decide what to do. It's not up to the book, it depends on the individual.
Regarding overthinking, the author starts with a metaphor: "The 'lion' that has been causing you so much anxiety from beginning to end may just be a 'stone'."
The book mentions the reason for anxiety - the brain's negative bias: The brain tends to perceive threats and has a stronger reaction to negative information compared to positive information.
The rest of the book mostly talks about how to deal with anxiety and mentions some specific methods, such as imitating eye movement patterns, clapping hands, taking walks, etc. All of these methods have one purpose, which is to shift attention to other things. Later, it inevitably mentions flow state, meditation, and other currently popular topics.
During the period when I had trouble sleeping, I started trying meditation again. One day, during my lunch break, I listened to a meditation course on my headphones, and I actually had the deepest sleep I had in a while.
From this, I came to a conclusion that whether something is useful or not also depends on your current state. I had tried meditation many times before and always felt like I was just thinking about my breathing, why is it so taxing on my intelligence. But this time, the experience was truly different, so I ended up paying for the app.
That's all for this issue of the Newsletter. If you have any questions, feel free to email me. Thank you for reading.