Jumpstart Your Dream Life

Are You Stuck in a Rut? Here Are the Signs.

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Sometimes it’s hard to notice when we’re stuck in a rut. You could go through the dull, numbing pain of everyday activities and not feel any desire to change anything. After all, as humans we have the amazing ability to adapt and cope with nearly any situation.

The downside though, is that we get used to things that make us unhappy. Ideas or places we used to resist eventually become the same things we cling onto, not out of need or want, but out of familiarity.

Here are some signs that you may be in a rut.

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5 Types of Music That Will Increase Your Productivity, According to Science

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Music has a way of permeating through empty corners and filling up environments with substance. It can help you relax, make you well up in tears, or feel alive. But can it make you more productive?

We use music to set the tone of our environment and our mood, whether we’re unwinding after work or throwing a party. But in an age when many of us spend our time staring at a computer screen, music has also become a mode of escape from outside distractions or dull tasks.

So how useful is music when it comes to focusing on your work?

Let’s take a look at the science behind music and productivity.

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Why Are Some People Luckier Than Others?

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Timothy Dexter was an incredibly eccentric person and businessman. He was also incredibly lucky.

Born in Massachusetts on January 22, 1747, Dexter had neither schooling nor money. He began life as a farm laborer alongside his father before becoming an apprentice to a Boston leather dresser at 16.

Five years later, Dexter completed his apprenticeship and moved to Newburyport, where he had his first stroke of luck. There, he met and married a wealthy young widow and purchased a large mansion using her money.

Dexter quickly became unpopular amongst his neighbors, who saw him as an ill-educated and unrefined man that married into money. Undeterred, he set out to increase his fortune by purchasing a number of large ships and launching an international trade business. When his neighbors heard the news, they purposely gave him bad business advice in the hopes that he would lose his fortune and move away.

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Every Day is a Test

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It was the first day of class.

We sat quietly, listening to the professor explain the syllabus. He raised the required textbook up in one hand and the workbook in the other, telling us that we needed to purchase them from the bookstore.

I had enrolled into Spanish class as an elective and found myself sitting with about 15 other students. As he spoke about the things we were going to learn, someone’s hand shot up. The professor put down his books and peered at the student. “Yes,” he said in a firm voice.

She put down her hand and asked the question that sat on everyone’s minds. “When is the first test?”

The professor gave her a stern look and shook his head. “No.” After a pause, he replied: “Every day is a test.”

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To Get More Out of Life, Choose to Do Less

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In 1998, Google was put up to a large task: to create a search engine that would be used by people all over the world.

They weren’t the first company to launch a search engine. Far from it. In the previous years, numerous other companies had launched various search engines that were already being used.

It wasn’t long before Google’s search engine became a leader in the industry, though. Users remarked on how easy it was to use Google for internet search. The homepage was so simple, so clean, and it delivered exactly what people wanted.

On the surface, the design looks incredibly basic. There are only a few things on the page, and its design almost seems like a no-brainer. But underneath that simple design was a lot of planning, systems, and just saying “no.”

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How Late Should You Be Drinking Your Daily Coffee?

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Imagine it’s a Monday morning. You wake up to the beeping of your alarm and slowly open your eyes. After lying in bed for a few more minutes, you slowly get up and rub your eyes.

Groggy and bleary-eyed, you get dressed and prepare yourself for another start of the week. You glance at the clock and realize that you’re running late, so you leave for the office ASAP.

When you arrive, you turn on the computer and put down your things before heading to the kitchen. Now, here’s a question: what drink do you make for yourself?

If you chose coffee, well, you’re in good company.

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The 3 Stages of Truth: How The Earth Became Round

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Have you ever started something new, only to be met with resistance from others?

Whenever we seek change at any level, there are those who will be opposed to it. Change can be hard to accept, even if it’s for the better. This applies to many aspects of our lives, whether we want to improve a part of our life or to creating something innovative for society.

Skeptics will always be around. People who refuse to let the things, people, and places around them change. People who mock something that feels novel, simply because it’s easier to stay with whatever feels comfortable and familiar.

This has led me to believe that truth, and any positive change, goes through multiple stages before it’s accepted. According to 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

Let’s take a closer look at the 3 Stages of Truth.

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Feeling “Weird” is Simply Part of the Process to Reaching Success

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Whenever you do something out of the ordinary, it feels weird. There are moments of self-doubt and times when you ask yourself, “Should I be doing this?”

In these times, it’s tempting to drop everything and fit in with the norm. To stop sticking out like a sore thumb and get back in line with everybody else who’s following the rules.

Well, before you do that, let me tell you a little history about the computer you’re using right now…

Steve Wozniak’s Homemade Computer

It was the spring of 1975 when Steve Wozniak first attended the Homebrew Computer Club, an early hobbyist group that focused on computing devices. Inspired by the exchange of ideas, Wozniak recounted in his book iWoz how he immediately went home to work on what would become the Apple I computer.

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Unintended Consequences: How Destroying a Pest Resulted in Famine

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If you were a farmer and local wildlife were gnawing away at your crops, what would you do to fix the problem?

In 1958, Chinese leaders had just launched the Great Leap Forward, a movement that aimed to boost the economy through large industrial and agricultural changes. One of the first campaigns to be launched in this initiative was the Four Pests Campaign.

Leader Mao Zedong initiated the campaign after concluding that four pests – mosquitoes, flies, rats, and sparrows – were blighting crops and needed to be eliminated. Sparrows especially were blamed for their love of eating grain seeds.

With this conclusion, the population was called upon to kill these pests. Scarecrows and red flags were put up to frighten away the sparrows, while firing zones were set up for shooting sparrows.

One citizen recorded in his diary that people “banged [their] gongs, drums, washbasins, and anything else that could make loud noises. The sparrows were forced to keep flying until they dropped dead from fatigue.”

However, after thousands of sparrows were killed, the crops started dwindling, rather than increasing. By 1960, scientists discovered that sparrows’ diets were composed of three-quarters insects, and only one-quarter grains. So Mao replaced the sparrow with bed bugs on the list of four pests in hopes of improving the situation.

But it was too late.

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Are Books Superior to TV? How They Affect Our Minds in Different Ways

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There’s a perception that books are good, while TV is bad. Spend a day curled up with a book and you’re an intellectual, but spend a day watching your favorite show and you become a couch potato.

Similar to how candy gives you cavities and sun tanning is bad for our skin, it’s common knowledge that reading books is good for you. It increases your knowledge and makes you think. Watching television on the other hand kills off brain cells.

But why is that? Why can’t watching TV be just as educational as reading a book? For example, does watching the show Game of Thrones lower your intelligence, while reading the books does the exact opposite?

After all, there are all sorts of books. Some good, some poorly written. The same applies to shows as well. Is the situation as simple as categorizing books as good and TV as bad?

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