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If you are discouraged and have forgotten your purpose in life, breathe.

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:20:36 +0000

Breathe.

Of course. I breathe all the time.

Breathing can transform your life.

Wrong. It’s not breathing that will transform your life.
Sorry, I’ll cut the crap. Leo Babauta at Zen Habits has written a great post on breathing. I recommend you read it in full. But first, breathe.

f you feel stressed out and overwhelmed, breathe. It will calm you and release the tensions.

If you are worried about something coming up, or caught up in something that already happened, breathe. It will bring you back to the present.

If you are discouraged and have forgotten your purpose in life, breathe. It will remind you about how precious life is, and that each breath in this life is a gift you need to appreciate. Make the most of this gift.

If you have too many tasks to do, or are scattered during your workday, breathe. It will help bring you into focus, to concentrate on the most important task you need to be focusing on right now.

If you are spending time with someone you love, breathe. It will allow you to be present with that person, rather than thinking about work or other things you need to do.

If you are exercising, breathe. It will help you enjoy the exercise, and therefore stick with it for longer.

If you are moving too fast, breathe. It will remind you to slow down, and enjoy life more.

So breathe. And enjoy each moment of this life. They’re too fleeting and few to waste.

Text by Zen Habits
Photo by LunaDiRimmel

- The manly satisfaction of taking things apart and seeing how they work

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:33:27 +0000

Our teacher in the ancient art of manliness, Brett McKay (and his wife), tells us to learn a manual skill. Because there’s no woman in manual. This is our job. Well, I’m no handyman. I thought. Until I read his long list of “some skills you may wish to consider learning.” For every suggestion I got more excitet; done that – did that last year – did that a lot when I was young! Wow, I’m a handiman! Hold on while I show this to my wife!

But the article got me thinking. Who, besides me, will motivate my sons to learn a manual skill in this digital age? Probably none. And even though I have learned and practiced a lot of manual skills in the past, I must admit that most of my work is now on computers. How are my sons going to appreciate craftmanship if they never see me build a shelf? Or learn the pleasure of fixing things?

Thanks for the tip, Brett. And thanks for explaining the silence of men in this great way:

The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, who has no real effect in the world. But craftsmanship must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away.

via 30 Days to a Better Man Day 23: Learn a Manual Skill | The Art of Manliness.

photo by Let Ideas Compete.

“Cars are one of the few opportunities left for men to compete for dominance”

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:25:06 +0000

Roy Tanck wrote an interesting post on cars and why we may never have an “Atom” car. You know, like the Intel Atom processor that’s just powerful enough for the most common needs and is light, cheap and uses little energy. While women may find an “Atom” car fascinating, guys would never. It’s like he says in the title: “Testosterone may be the biggest polluter of all”

I think it’s terribly clever that Tesla opted to create a sports car before doing a sedan model. It might just convince people that electric cars can be exciting. But the more important issue is probably that, apparently, we need cars to be exciting. I’m not a psychologist, but it seems that cars are one of the few opportunities left for men to compete for dominance. And we’re hormonally programmed to compete. We want our car to be faster and more expensive than our neighbor’s. Not safer or more fuel-efficient. That’s why even Tesla’s roadster isn’t as energy efficient as it could be. It’s built for speed. Speed means power, and power means energy.

via Testosterone may be the biggest polluter of all | Roy Tanck’s weblog.

“You don’t need to understand women to get laid”

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:35:33 +0000

I don’t know who Roosh is, but he claims to know a thing or two about getting laid. One thing he says, is that “You don’t need to understand women to get laid.” According to him it’s a better strategy to try and try again until you get it right.

Instead of thinking, “I want to learn more about them because I want to get good at fucking them,” try this instead: “I’m going to try a lot of different things until I find out what works to get good at fucking them.”

Do you see the difference? One is dependent on understanding them and the other in dependent on your effort. One leads to a road of mental masturbation and the other leads to a road of unprotected sex. I gauge a woman’s response to things, but I don’t make a conscious effort to determine the why of a woman’s actions of behavior. Who cares?

I said something wrong and I made the girl cry. I’m not sure why. But we ended up fucking anyway. Do I have to change anything? Nope. Everything is fine. Carry on.

I told a girl that I liked her on the first date, after she told me the same. We had rough sex that night. Did I do anything wrong? Nope. I got what I wanted. Grand.