Matthew McConaughey | 5 Minutes for the NEXT 50 Years of Your LIFE

The 100 Percent Rule That Will Change Your Life | Benjamin Hardy | TEDxK...

Why most people struggle when it comes to losing weight or getting rid of bad habits? Is there a chance to get unstuck from unnecessary fallbacks and permanently change our bad habits? In this TEDxTalk, Benjamin shares the secret on how making a radical change is not only possible but required to live a life of integrity, meaning, and purpose. Benjamin Hardy has been the #1 most-read writer on Medium.com since late 2015. His work has been read by over 50 million people and has been featured on Forbes, Fortune, Psychology Today, and many others. He has grown his email list from 0 to nearly 400,000 followers in the past 3.5 years without any paid advertising. He is the author of the internationally bestselling book, Willpower Doesn’t Work.

Don't just exist but live - maximise life's most precious commodity- Find out How in Seneca's book - 'On the shortness of Life'

On The Shortness of Life

This was written almost 2000 years ago (around ad 49) by the great stoic philosopher Seneca the younger and it has great lessons for everyone on what is important and what is not. 

You should definitely read it. It is not long. I have put a put interesting points and links to summaries and the full text below. Enjoy!

Don't just exist but live - maximise  life's most precious commodity

'You have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile death will arrive, and you have no choice in making yourself available for that'

You think you will live for ever and waste time

'You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don't notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply - though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire. You will hear many people saying: 'When I am fifty I shall retire into leisure; when I am sixty I shall give up public duties.' And what guarantee do you have of a longer life? Who will allow your course to proceed as you arrange it? Aren't you ashamed to keep for yourself just the remnants of your life, and to devote to wisdom only that time which cannot be spent on any business? How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived! '

Most people waste life with no direction. They are just tossed about by external events and end up going nowhere

,For suppose you should think that a man had had a long voyage who had been caught in a raging storm as he left harbour, and carried hither and thither and driven round and round in a circle by the rage of opposing winds? He did not have a long voyage, just a long tossing about,.

You have control of your life, don't blame your parents or your environment. You can change who you are and how you respond.

'We are in the habit of saying that it was not in our power to choose the parents who were allotted to us, that they were given to us by chance. But we can choose whose children we would like to be'

Guard your time

'Be careful of others who sabotage your time.How many days are left to you and not taken by others?

How many days has that defendant stolen from you? Or that candidate?....Or that influential friend who keeps people like you not for friendship but for display? Mark off, I tell you, and review the days of your life: you will see that very few - the useless remnants - have been left to you.'

Don't waste time on useless tasks

'dedication to useless tasks'

Have goals

'Many pursue no fixed goal, but are tossed about in everchanging designs by a fickleness which is shifting, inconstant and never satisfied with itself. Some have no aims at all for their life's course, but death takes them unawares as they yawn languidly'

Organise and plan your day. A good way to do this is a daily journal

'But the man who spends all his time on his own needs, who organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day'

  

Live in  the moment

'But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours'

Summary

Value your time and don't waste it. Most people know this but don't do this. Common sense is not common practice

Don't put things off. Live in the present.

Do not waste time on trivial worries.

Plan and organise your time.

LInks 

Link to summary: https://dailystoic.com/on-the-shortness-of-life-seneca/

Link to summary: https://jamesclear.com/book-summaries/on-the-shortness-of-life

Link to full book:  https://epdf.tips/on-the-shortness-of-life-penguin-great-ideas.html

Link to full book: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life

How to make stress your friend | Kelly McGonigal

Do you want to live longer? Do you want to deal better with stress. Listen to this talk by Kelly McGonigal to find out how.

Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.



So what should you do to live longer and be able to deal with stress. You should do the following  3 things.

1.Rethink your view to stress from being bad to something good that is making your body energised and ready for action. Stress actually has some benefits as it releases oxytocin which:
      i)Makes you more social.
     ii)It is anti-inflammatory
    iii)It repairs your heart

2.Care for others

3. Go after meaning in your life.

Rethink you view of Stress

Your belief changes your world and now has been shown to save your life.

An 8 year study of 30,000 people showed that people who did not view stress as harmful had the lowest risk of dying.

Another study analysing people under a stressful situation (the social stress test) would have blood vessels constricting normally but they wouldn't constrict if they viewed stress as a sign that their body was energized and preparing to meet a challenge. So you should think of the stress response as helpful, as it is preparing you for action.

Makes you social

Oxytocin is a neuro hormone. People don't realise it is a stress hormone pumped out by pituitary gland. It has been called the cuddle hormone. It makes you crave contact, seek support, increase empathy and make you help people.

Anti-inflammatory
Oxytocin is anti -inflammatory

Strengthens you heart
Oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal form any stress induced damage

Caring for others

A study of 1000 adults with ages ranging  form 34 to 93 showed that people who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress related increase in dying. Caring created resilience

Go after meaning

Go after meaning is more important than avoiding discomfort.