Today we are going to learn another rule of economics as it applies to your practical life. There exists a concept called the Law Of Diminishing Returns, which simple states that increased activity results in increasingly diminishing returns with each additional unit of input. If we were to graph, it would look something like this:

On the horizontal axis you would have any activity and on the vertical axis you would have a benefit derived from that activity.

In my undergraduate college days, I used to think that about the above law only in turns of economics: factories, production, etc. Often, I would not realize that this law applies to many, if not all of our every day activities and goals that we try to achieve in life.

Let’s take a further look.

For the longest the idea of that more is better was unchallenged. Only, recently the less is more philosophy emerged. Less is more is nothing else but the law of diminishing returns defined in very simple terms. To be exactly correct, the following statement is true: more is less, as illustrated by the graph above.

I was first introduced to the idea of less is more when I saw a video about choice on TED. The speaker said that too much choice leads to confusion, unhappiness and frustration. This part of the argument can demonstrated by the above graph as well. At a certain point the benefit derived from an activity starts to decrease. I guess, this should not strike anybody as great news, because we have always heard of people telling us that moderation is the best and that too much of anything is bad for us. Well, now you have a graph to prove it.

However, let us consider the simple and powerful implications of law of diminishing returns to our everyday lives. Let us a create a couple of graphs to together.

1. Put MONEY on horizontal axis and HAPPINESS on vertical axis. It becomes clear that at a certain point money does not bring in any extra happiness. Also, it implies that having too much money, can also decrease your overall happiness. I read about a study in the Art of Choosing, which said that people who earned $100,000 were just about as happy as those earning half of that amount. It went on further to say that the same holds true for individuals who earn over $5,000,000. Think about it.
2. Put STUFF on horizontal axis and sense of INDIVIDUALITY on the vertical axis. The same simple pattern repeats.
3. Put variety of FOOD/EXERCISE on horizontal axis and HEALTH on the vertical axis. Watch the same pattern unfold.
4. Put KNOWLEDGE on horizontal axis and UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD on the vertical axis. Same rules apply.
5. Put EXPERIENCE on horizontal axis and WISDOM on vertical axis. It also holds true.
6. Put amount of CHOICES on horizontal axis and HAPPINESS on vertical axis.

The examples could go on forever. The point is that any given activity increases a benefit only to a certain extent. After that, the benefit either rises very slowly or it even starts diminishing. Try out the above exercise for yourself and you will see how this holds true.

More importantly, what are further implications of the above graph? It means that there is an optimum amount of MONEY, STUFF, variety of FOOD/EXERCISE, KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCES, CHOICES which will cause a maximum overall benefit to us. Isn’t it amazing? To me, it is.

It limits the possibilities in this world. Well, how is that great, you might ask? Simple. We all have a limited amount of time to live on this earth and we want to optimize how we spend out time. Clearly, we cannot experience everything that this world has to offer. But, now I realized that there is no need to because of the relationship described in this paragraph. The only question that is left to answer is the following: “What is the right of amount of “activity” that we need to perform to obtain the maximum amount of “benefit”?

If we could figure that out, then we could easily know how much money we need, how much variety of food we need, how many and what type of experiences to seek, and how many choices we should offered to maintain the optimum amount of well-being. Armed with that knowledge we could truly simplify our lives and feel so overwhelmed to do more and more without realized if and how much extra benefit we are gaining from a given activity.

Even though the options and activities are endless, the way we react and experience life is limited. So who is up for the challenge to figure out how much and what type of activity we need to maintain and live the most enjoyable life possible?

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Image: gaspi*yourguide

I am very excited to share with you all yet another guest post.

This time, I wrote an article for Goodlife ZEN.

“You can find weekly, practical inspiration at Goodlife ZEN. Get a new take on life, find creative ways to make your wildest dreams come true, and become what you aspire to be.”

Warm thanks go out to Mary, who gave me the opportunity to share my thoughts on her great and inspiring blog.

5 ways to escape the escapist weekend

Here is an excerpt form the article:

“It is Thursday. You are already thinking about Friday. It is Friday morning. You are thinking about Friday afternoon. It is Friday afternoon. It is here.

What do you do?

We all look forward to weekends because it is the time for us to relax, become refreshed, and energized. Ironically enough, only a few us manage to do that. The rest of us just use the weekends to escape from our problems, troubles, work, and “reality” all together.”

Click here to continue reading…

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Image: nattu

I have been writing on a regular basis for four months now. Writing is a form of self examination, a way to express the ideas and thoughts that matter to you the most. Given enough time, you will start noticing reoccurring thoughts and ideas, which will eventually form patterns.

I would like to share one pattern that, I believe, is the root cause for people’s unhappiness in their life. It is a simple, yet powerful observation. I am not trying praise myself here. I truly believe that the following observation holds a lot of weight if fully understood.

People lead unhappy lives because they cannot tell the difference between the means and the ends.

To be more exact, people think that some means are the ends. If we were to understand things for what they are, our lives would be much simpler. To make things clear, let us define means and ends.

I look at means as tools, which help you achieve your ends or goals. Let us assume we are building a house. House is our end, it is our goal. It is something that we want to accomplish. In order to do that, we are going to need a variety of tools: bricks, cement, wood, hammers, nails, glass, etc. Pretty simple stuff.

However, for some reason, when it comes to our personal lives, we are in the fog as to what the tools are and what the goals are. Actually, most of us are in the fog because we have no clear set goals of what we want to accomplish in our lives. That is why misinterpret some of the tools to be our goals. Only if we took the time to figure out what it is that we want to accomplish in our lives, then the distinction between means and ends would be clear.

Ends would be something that we have defined ourselves as a specific measurable and objective goal  that we want to achieve and means would be everything else.

I know it all sounds a bit complex, but let us look at two of the most common misinterpretations that people make.

“Being happy is my goal”. I disagree. Being happy should never be anyone’s goal. Happiness is just an emotion. It is an important emotion, which only tells us that whatever we are doing now is good for us and it is important to us. I believe it is a mistake to chase “being happy” as the purpose of life. Happiness is a side effect of achieving your goals that you have set for yourself. Happiness is a side effect of following your life’s purpose. That is all. If we confuse happiness to be something that we must achieve, then we automatically doom ourselves for unhappiness. Do not make this mistake. Remember and repeat the following: Happiness is a side effect of me following my life’s purpose.

“I want to be rich”. I disagree. Being rich should never be anybody’s goal. Money is just a tool that can be used to accomplish our goals. Simultaneously, it is a side effect of achieving your goals and following your life’s passion. That is where true wealth lies: in becoming what you have always dreamed of becoming. If you make being rich as one of your goals, then once you achieve this “goal”, you will feel empty and betrayed. Please do not make this mistake.  Remember and repeat the following: Wealth is side effect of me following my life’s purpose.

I can promise you that if you understand and differentiate between means and ends, you will be able to lead a rich and fulfilling life. However, if you mistake means for ends, be prepared for the unpleasant.

Which road do you want to take? Which road are you on right now?

“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder…”– Thoreau

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Image: thefost

Your life is defined by your decisions. Everyday you wake up and you make decisions. That is all life is – continuous decision making process which creates the person that you are today.

Most of the decisions are fairly simple. Every morning when you wake up, you decide what you are going to wear, what you are going to eat and what you are going to do during your day. You probably will never think about many of them twice unless you somehow managed to make a destructive decision too many times, until it developed into a destructive habit.

However, some decisions are perceived as being extremely tough.

What exactly makes a certain decision a tough one? For example, they might have a huge impact on your finances, your relationships, your career, your health, your rest and so on. A tough decision usually comes sprinkled with fear and uncertainty.You will always want to know how things turn out in the end. And you are always going to be looking for the happy ending, right? At least, I do.

Matter of fact, you are probably going to be looking for a happy ending not only for yourself, but for those around you as well. You want your decision to have a positive impact on the people you care about. So far so good? Not exactly.

Many times your concern of how your action is going to affect others is exactly what prevents you from taking the action? Am I right? Think back to some of the following scenarios: you want to quit your job, you want to end a relationship, you want to change your major, you want to confess in something you did wrong, you want to stand up for what you believe in and so on.

How many of those times did you prevent yourself from making a decision because you were thinking the following: “I can’t do that. I don’t want to disappoint this person, I don’t want to hurt them, I don’ want to break their heart” The variations are countless.

Well, I have news for you. Ideally, you should eliminate other people out of the equation when making tough life decisions.

I am making the assumption that you are a decent human being and that you are not taking a decision to purposefully hurt somebody physically, emotionally or otherwise. I am referring to situations where you are following your path in life, where you stand up for your beliefs and your values.

When you are in a tough spot, there are many variables to consider. Sometimes the answers is not clear. The best thing to do then is to eliminate as many irrelevant variables as possible. I am making an argument that other individuals in your life are one of those irrelevant variables.

Many people in life feel like they are responsible for other people’s feelings when making a decision.

I disagree.

You are not one simple bit responsible for how others feel or react to the decisions that you make in life. 9 times out of 10, others will use that knowledge to manipulate you into making a decision that favors them instead of you.

People will react the way they do. There is nothing personal in that. They are just reacting to a situation.

Furthermore, if you assume responsibility for how others feel then you will be doomed to suffer until you choose otherwise. Ultimately, you are tying your own well being to somebody else emotions. You are giving away your power to others by doing that.

Think about it this way. If other people truly cared for you, then they would just let you be and be considerate of what you are doing. Instead, if they are reacting in a manipulative way (crying, being upset, sad, needy, angry, etc) chances are they are not even thinking about what is best for you, but only looking out for their own best interest.

For the sake of illustration let us examine a common situation which I experienced over and over again in college.

I always signed up for classes early in the morning so I could get my day started early. However, my roommates did not have classes until later in the day. Given that fact, they would go out and come back really late: 2AM or 3AM in the morning.

The problem wasn’t that they were going out; it was that I could not rest properly because of loud noise at 4AM. For a long time I tolerated it, thinking: “It’s okay, they want to go out; they have a right to do so. After all they are paying rent too!” However, after a while I realized that I was not getting proper rest and was tired all of the time. Things just didn’t fit. Eventually, I realized that I was not the problem and that my roommates were simply being disrespectful of my rest and just had their best interests in mind.

I eventually started confronting them to the point where it became a serious problem and I ended up moving out.

Even though, the above situation is not as serious it still send the same message: if you want to empower yourself, eliminate other people out of the equation when making tough decisions in life.

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Image: nerovivo

Situation

We are taught many things in school: math, sciences, history, art, languages and so on. Simply put, most educational systems teach us about the world outside of us. Yet, unfortunately, we are left to explore the inner workings of the world inside of us alone. That can be very frustrating.

To release some of that frustration and shed some light on our inner world, today I am going to explore the topic of emotional intelligence. I am going to attempt to accomplish that by examining what emotions really are; and I am going to tell you how to use your own emotions to improve your life.

What are emotions?

Unconventional View

To understand what emotions are, we have to first understand what human beings are. However, since it is too complex of a question to be answered in this article, for simplicity’s sake let us just assume that humans are just complex self-aware machines. In order for these “machines” to properly function in this world, it comes equiped with a navigation, guidance and control system – emotions or feelings.

Emotions exist to help us understand the world around us, they motivate us to do one things and not the other, they helps us form habits and so. In its simplest sense, emotions provide us with useful information to help us make decisions. It is my belief that it is the only purpose of emotions and nothing else.

Conventional View

Yet, it is my understanding, that most people just feel the emotions. That is, they do not do anything else with their emotions, at least consciously. It is to say that emotions run other people’s lives for them: it moves people away from pain and towards pleasure. Sometimes, it so happens that the pattern above drives people into indecision, depression, loneliness, stagnation and general dissatisfaction with life.

Why and how does it happen? The answer is fairly straight forward: every emotion is a from of drug and drugs are addictive. Emotions chemically alter our natural state of being causing us essentially to experience an alternative reality.  There is nothing wrong with that, unless we start forming destructive habits to satisfy a variety of cravings for emotions  ranging from feeling happy, to angry, to sad, to helpless or hopeless. Yes, you have read it correctly – people can and do get addicted to extremely negative and destructive emotions. Unconsciously repeating a certain pattern of actions that cause a particular emotion conditions our mind to think that it is the new normal state of being and our brain will do everything in its power to get there.

At that point, some people will make the attempt and go see a doctor who will them what they are feeling and why, while paying a nice chunk of change. It is a gloomy situation, but, sadly, it is a reality for many people. But it does not have to be that way and I will show how to harness your emotions use them in a constructive fashion.

Why Educate Yourself

Before we go any further, let’s us take a peek of what awaits your if you commit yourself to understanding your own emotions. The benefits of emotional intelligence  can include any of the following:

• better decision-making;
• healthier mind and body;
• increased levels of energy;
• increased efficiency;
• increased sense of self-worth;
• ability to be in control of your life;
• etc.

How to Make Use of Your Own Emotions?

If you follow the direction bellow you will be able to get the most of your emotions:

1. Become aware of your own emotions. Sounds simple and you might even think: “Hey! I know when I am happy, sad, upset, depressed, angry, etc.” It would be my inclination to challenge that statement. It mostly has to do with self-deception, environmental influences, various natural sate of being altering substances (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, etc.).  Being aware of an emotion means being able to identify the emotion for what it really is and acknowledging that you are feeling the emotion as you are experiencing it. You can read more about  become more aware here.
2. Do not identify with your emotions. It means to understand that you are experiencing the emotion, but being able to watch it from an outsider’s point of view. Another expression that is commonly used is  being detached.  It sounds vague, but the following comparison should help. Imagine that the emotion is strong river flowing by you. You can either just watch that river go by and recognize it for what it is (not identify yourself with the emotion) – a river; or you can jump in the river and give in to currents and let it take you along with it (becoming identified with the emotion).
3. Analyze and understand where the emotions came from and why you are experiencing them. My professor once told me, that in order to really understand what is going on, you have to ask “why” five times. So ask yourself :”Why am I experiencing this emotion?” five times, each time uncovering a new layer of causation, until finally you will know why.
4. Make an informed decision about a certain situation, which will help you lead a healthy life not to mention the increased awareness of your inner world.

Once again, I have to warn you that is no easy task and requires dedication and hard work and it might take years to fully master it, but even the longest of journeys start with the firs step. And, remember, you are not alone in your quest.

What Can The Reader Expect Next?

Next article will examine happiness for what it is using the concepts discussed in this article and I will show how chasing happiness can lead to the ultimate unhappiness in life.

Basic Premise

It has been drilled into the people’s mind in America that capitalism is the way of life. That money is the answer to all of the lives problems. The main reason why it happened is  because people are so easily programmable and they seldom test the “truths” presented by others. And that is very unfortunate.

Wealth and Happiness

Acquisition of wealth as A PURPOSE OF LIFE is a terrible terrible thing to believe in. Acquisition of wealth as a means to and end to achieve something bigger than yourself in life is more understandable. At least to me. Money is just one of many resources in your life. Just one, and concentrating on acquisition of one resource and neglecting other areas of your life is ignorant at the very least. And that ignorance is costing us lives, lost hope, health and self-respect.

The System

With the risk of sounds like a conspiracy believe, I am going to say the following - America is run by very few smart individuals who don’t buy into the things that they they sell to the public. Those individuals  can see the bigger picture, while everybody else carries their load by working a 9-5 fulfilling other people’s dreams in life. Those few smart individuals/groups of individuals have been able to set up this amazing network of businesses that feed of each other and generate wealth for each other while abusing people in the process.

The  Network

That network is huge and expansive, it is so big that sometimes it is difficult to step far away enough to recognize it. The chase of profits has turned people away from themselves and made them slaves to everybody else in the system.

Where does this network exist? It exists in almost every industry you could possibly imagine: Education, Health, Food, Pharmacy, Lawyers, Accountants, Military. But let us not forget the obvious ones such as Pornography, Illegal Drugs, Guns and Human Trafficking.

How Does the System Function?

How does the system work? It is quite clever. FIRST, you start with brainwashing people by telling them that by pursuing YOUR OWN interests, you will maximize the society’s interests. THEN, you convince people that money is equivalent to happiness. After that is accomplished, most of the work is done. People go off chasing money, chasing an illusion, which leads them to ignore basic needs as family, love, health, exercise, good nutrition, rest and spirituality. You are so busy making money and pursuing an illusion that will eventually destroy you, there is no way you can have to really relax, there is no way there is time for you to take of your body, there is no way you can have normal relationships, there is no way you have to run away and spend time with yourself, there is no way you have to for any of those things – simply because you are too busy making money for everybody else.

Then, you have fashion and modeling industry and the rest of the society telling you that you are not good enough and that money leads to happiness. That makes you have a reduced sense of self worth, your confidence drops, but since you have no time for anything else, but making money, here are couple of things for you to satisfy those basic needs of self-love.

The Quick Fix

Here are the solutions for most today’s problems:

• If you feel sad or depressed – go eat some junk food, see a doctor and get and some pills.
• If you feel not pretty – we have make up/ plastic surgery to cover your “defects”
• If you feel lonely and you can’t seem to find a long lasting romantic relationship – here is porn for you.
• If you feel sick – take a pill.
• Etc.

Take A Pill

And once you finally develop some sort of mental disease because of your reduced self worth, but yet, since you don’t have time to take care of it on your own, go see a doctor, who will give your pills. And eventually after developing some disease from eating that fast food because you are busy chasing money, you go see a doctor who can charge you even more money and give you more pills. If you are overly obese, just take a pill, don’t worry about exercising, just take a pill!

That’s that cancer of America – easy quick fix, because making money for others is more important than ever and there is just not enough time for taking care of yourself.

The Epidemic

And there you have it. Since young age people are bombarded with with crappy food, self-worth reducing magazines until you eventually develop mental and health issues for which America never really provides any real solution. They always treat the symptoms not the disease. Food industry feeds pharmaceutical industry, alienation feeds the porn and alcohol industry as well as internet and so on and so forth until you start to realize that nobody really cares to help others since they are so concerned about their own issues and getting the money to solve those problems.

The Solution

How do you get out of this cycle? I do not know the exact answer, but I do know that it starts with self-awareness and recognizing things for what they are. The next step is to education yourself about making the right choices and looking past advertisement, past illusions to find the real solutions for the problems that you might be facing.

Yet, one thing a person must understand is that taking care of yourself in the long term will not be easy. It will require a lot of effort, self discipline and hard work.