Goldilock

What Is the Goldilocks Rule?Learning how to stay motivated means designing habits that draw you in, rather than repel you. One of the best-known strategies for keeping behaviors interesting is working at a level of just manageable difficulty. This idea is referred to as the Goldilocks Rule, which states that degrees of difficulty must be just right to attain peak motivation. You must start a new behavior by making it easy. Making a new behavior easy to perform and maintain is necessary and helps you stay focused even when motivation is challenged. But once a behavior has reached the habit line, you must increase the boundary of difficulty in small… Read More

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Sandwich Generation

The sandwich generation refers to middle-aged individuals who are pressured to support both aging parents and growing children. The sandwich generation is named so because they are effectively “sandwiched” between the obligation to care for their aging parents—who may be ill, unable to perform various tasks, or in need of financial support—and children, who require financial, physical, and emotional support. The trends of increasing lifespans and having children at an older age have contributed to the sandwich generation phenomenon, as it has more societal acceptance for adult children to live at home or return home as with boomerang kids. It is estimated that about one in seven Americans between the… Read More

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La Sape (Congo)

La Sape (also known as The Society of Ambianceurs and Elegant People) is a subculture centered on the cities of Kinshasa and Brazzaville in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of Congo respectively. The name comes from the French slang word sape, which means “clothes” or “dressed up.” La Sape aims to show elegance and style within fashion, similar to predecessors before. People who participate in the movement are called sapeurs. Congolese people are known for taking pride in their appearance, yet La Sape takes the art of looking good to the next level. Papa Wemba, the famously dapper Congolese rumba singer credited with popularizing the sapeur look,… Read More

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Quiet: the power of introvert

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”—Mahatma Gandhi This quote is an excellent reflection of the author’s focus in the book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,” by Susan Cain. The author discusses her view that introverts are highly undervalued, particularly in leadership positions. She holds the belief that extroverts are rated as “smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable,” and that introversion is considered a “second-class personality trait”. Quiet is the book for introverts, focused on their more subtle, but important, powers in a world that favors extroverted traits. This post features a review, quotes, and resources to provide insight and… Read More

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Why we sleep

Do you ever wonder how important sleep is for our mental health? Sleep is one of the first things we sacrifice when assignments pile up or deadlines approach. Being reasonable people, however, we bargain with ourselves; once this (and that) is done, we will finally rest and catch up on missed sleep. Unfortunately, our time asleep is not a resource that can be managed in this way. We should be especially concerned with the damage caused by a lack of sleep. The damage is both mental and physical, short and long term. Matthew Walker’s book “Why We Sleep” has changed my attitude towards sleep. Its message is simple: seven to… Read More

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