But I decided to take it one step further and create a list of the most highly-rated TED talks.
Which is not hard to do using their Youtube channel statistics. So, here it is. The list of most highly-rated TED talks:
Throughout last couple of years I’ve been collecting my personal favorite quotations from various inspirational people in my Evernote. As a result I got quite a long list of sayings which I personally consider to be one of the smartest, wittiest, daring and positive at the same time.
Moscow, 2008.
So, I thought why not to share them with you? Assuming I have a lot in common with my readers, you might enjoy them too. If you don’t then you might just skip the post and excuse me for wasting your time. Otherwise, here is the collection:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.” ~ Mark Twain
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” ~ Michelangelo Buonarroti
“Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn’t be about the money.” ~ Tim O’Reilly
“Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.” ~ Frank Tyger
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to always tell the difference” Reinhold Niebuhr, Kurt Vonnegut
Cyprus, 2008.
I’ve been thinking about covering this topic in my blog for a long time and eventually decided to do it. Firstly to structure it all for myself and secondly to share some thoughts and interesting articles & videos which I collected for last couple of years. As a result, this post is quite long and wordy, so don’t open up the full article if you’re not really interested in such kind of philosophical issues and get bored easily by them. In this case you might think that this is just an unpractical gobbledegook.
I actually find the combination of how important and how ambiguous this issue is quite puzzling. Very high percentage of people respond to the question about meaning of their lives with “to be happy” answer. And very few of them actually have any particular idea what this happiness is, how to achieve & feel it. Even in their individual case, not universally.
Recently, I’ve stumbled upon the video of debates with a very intriguing topic “Is the pursuit of happiness making us miserable?” and enjoyed watching it a lot. Hopefully, you will as well:
Quite an interesting book which summarizes ideas of economics of happiness (happynomics), sustainable development, ecological footprint and others. Sometimes it’s a little bit ideological: anti-consumerism, anti-credit, anti-FED, etc. But still there are lots, lots of interesting and familiar ideas. Both on individual level and on the level of world economy and national economy. I personally read it because it’s closely connected with my area of interest in terms of Ph.D. paper. But I’m sure it’s worth reading even if you did not have a particular interest in these specific topics. Overall, it’s an insightful book with fresh ideas.
2. Man’s search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, torrent.
Appeared to be much more of a non-fiction type than fiction compared to what I expected. Less of a personal story of Auschwitz and more of a scientific paper and a quick look on the 20th century history of psychotherapy. From Freud’s “will to pleasure” to the “will to power” and then to Frankl’s logotheraphy and “will to meaning”. If you’re into psychology or in the current search for meaning in your own life, I’m sure you’re going to enjoy this one, it’s a classic.
Currently reading: What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis (torrent), Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson and Crack the Case by David Orkhall. Another one that I still cannot finish is awesome On Writing Well by William K. Zinsser.
Did you read anything worthy recently? Care to share?
BTW! Question from twitter: how are you searching for books (both, audio and ebooks) if neither isohunt.com nor ebdb.net helps?
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
This weekend I’ve spent a couple of hours watching “Philosophy – Guide to happiness” series on youtube with my girlfriend. Most of them were quite interesting, so I decided why not to share a few on my blog?
We often think of philosophy as something too vague, up in the clouds and too far from reality. Creators of videos below tried to fix it by grasping the essence of the famous philosophers’ ideas, drawing the parallel with their own destinies and projecting them to our daily life.
Yes, sometimes it means simplifying or even over-simplifiyng. And sometimes conclusions sound a little too banal, obvious and seemingly well-known. But still there are interesting insights and learnings to be applied in real life.
I don’t know for sure if watching these videos and attempt to apply the ideas from them will make you a happier person, but it is certainly worth watching and trying. What is surprising is that how little the world changed during last couple of thousand years and how these teachings are still vital nowadays.
I embedded the videos, so you won’t have to google them. There are 6 philosophers discussed, 3 videos for each one.
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”
~ Aldous Huxley, English writer
Choosing a place to live as a part of lifestyle design
In the era of globalization more and more people realize that they aren’t bounded by the city or even the country they were born in. On average we travel more, tarlk and meet people from other parts of the world more and get to know other cultures more. Technology, Internet, blogging, global careers or location independent entrepreneurship – all of these are factors contribute to it. But once we’ve realized that in the long-term we are pretty much free to decide where to live we face another challenge. And this is how we can possibly make a choice like this?
I, personally, think that a place that can be called “the best for everyone” simply doesn’t exist. Besides, probably there is no one single place which is “best for you”. But certainly there are places which you would or will enjoy more and less, there are places where you’ll have more opportunities for self-realization and those where list of opportunities is shorter. So, what can help one to make the decision?
ZZE.ST is the blog where I share my personal insights, experiences, lifehacks and researches that made my life more fun & interesting and will probably do the same to you.
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Moscow, 2008.
