Mind expanding books 2

1. Why Does the World Exist? - Jim Holt
   
   
   
   It asks the question "Why is there a world when there should be nothing?" It is related to metaphysics. It is also tinged with philosophy and is quite a good read.
2. Bulfinch's Mythology - Thomas Bulfinch
   
   
   
   This book retells the Greek Myths in all their glory. Learn about Zeus, Venus, Hera and other Olympian Gods. These gods are fallible too. After reading this book, you will have a greater understanding of the Greek mythology. It is also interspersed with Roman Mythology.
3. Supernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence for Extraordinary abilities - Dean Radin
   
   
   
   Can yoga and meditation unleash our inherent supernormal mental powers, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition? Is it really possible to perceive another person's thoughts and intentions? Influence objects with our minds? Envision future events? And is it possible that some of the superpowers described in ancient legends, science fiction, and comic books are actually real, and patiently waiting for us behind the scenes? Are we now poised for an evolutionary trigger to pull the switch and release our full potentials? These and many more questions are answered in this book. It is certainly a very engrossing read.
4. Alone Together - Sherry Turkle
   
   
   
   In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It’s a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for—and sacrificing—in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today’s self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.
5. The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less - Barry Schwartz
   
   
   
   In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice--the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish--becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice--from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs--has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse.
6. The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women - Jessica Valent
   
   The Purity Myth presents a revolutionary argument that girls and women are overly valued for their sexuality, as well as solutions for a future without a damaging emphasis on virginity.
7. Prisoner's Dilemma - William Poundstone
   
   
   
   A layman's introduction to Game Theory. It is based on the work by Von Neumann. And its thoroughly interesting.
8. The Ethical Brain: The Science of our Moral Dilemmas - Michael S. Gazzaniga
   
   
   
   In The Ethical Brain, preeminent neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga presents the emerging social and ethical issues arising out of modern-day brain science and challenges the way we look at them. Courageous and thought-provoking -- a work of enormous intelligence, insight, and importance -- this book explores the hitherto uncharted landscape where science and society intersect
9. Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict - Michael Klare
   
   
   
   International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millennium, wars will be fought not over ideology but over access to dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremism stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on.
10. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing And What Can Be Done About It? - Paul Collier
    
    
    
    In the universally acclaimed and award-winning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that fifty failed states--home to the poorest one billion people on Earth--pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards.
11. The Ascent Of Money - Niall Fergusson
    
    
    
    Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance.
12. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
    
    
    
    Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.
13. The Code Breakers - David Kahn
    
    
    
    The magnificent, unrivaled history of codes and ciphers -- how they're made, how they're broken, and the many and fascinating roles they've played since the dawn of civilization in war, business, diplomacy, and espionage.
14. The Revenge of Geography - Robert Kaplan
    
    
    
    In The Revenge of Geography, Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene.
15. Justice: Whats The Right Thing To Do - Michael Sandel
    
    
    
    What are our obligations to others as people in a free society? Should government tax the rich to help the poor? Is the free market fair? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? Is killing sometimes morally required? Is it possible, or desirable, to legislate morality? Do individual rights and the common good conflict?
    
    These questions are at the core of our public life today—and at the heart of Justice, in which Michael J. Sandel shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us to make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.
16. Mind Wars - Jonathan Moreno
    
    
    
    Jonathan D. Moreno investigates the deeply intertwined worlds of cutting-edge brain science, U.S. defense agencies, and a volatile geopolitical landscape where a nation's weaponry must go far beyond bombs and men. The first-ever exploration of the connections between national security and brain research, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defensereveals how many questions crowd this gray intersection of science and government and urges us to begin to answer them.
17. The Myth of The Rational Voter - Bryan Caplan
    
    
    
    The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book. Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand.
18. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire - James Lawrence
    
    
    
    Great Britain's geopolitical role has undergone many changes over the last four centuries. Once a maritime superpower and ruler of half the world, Britain now occupies an isolated position as an economically fragile island often at odds with her European neighbors.
    Lawrence James has written a comprehensive, perceptive, and insighful history of the British Empire. Spanning the years from 1600 to the present day, this critically acclaimed book combines detailed scholarship with readable popular history.
19. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And the Psychology of Genocide - Robert Jay Lifton
    
    
    
    Nazi doctors did more than conduct bizarre experiments on concentration-camp inmates; they supervised the entire process of medical mass murder, from selecting those who were to be exterminated to disposing of corpses. Lifton (The Broken Connection; The Life of the Self shows that this medically supervised killing was done in the name of "healing," as part of a racist program to cleanse the Aryan body politic).
20. Civilization: The West and The Rest - Niall Fergusson
    
    
    
    What was it about the civilization of Western Europe that allowed it to trump the outwardly superior empires of the Orient? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, was that the West developed six "killer applications"?that the Rest lacked: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. The key question today is whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six things. If so, Ferguson warns, we may be living through the end of Western ascendancy.
21. Influencer: The Power to Change Anything - Kerry Patterson
    
    
    
    Influencing human behavior is one of the most difficult challenges faced by leaders. This book provides powerful insight into how to make behavior change that will last.
22. Big Data - Kenneth Kukier
    
    
    
    “Big data” refers to our burgeoning ability to crunch vast collections of information, analyze it instantly, and draw sometimes profoundly surprising conclusions from it. This emerging science can translate myriad phenomena—from the price of airline tickets to the text of millions of books—into searchable form, and uses our increasing computing power to unearth epiphanies that we never could have seen before. A revolution on par with the Internet or perhaps even the printing press, big data will change the way we think about business, health, politics, education, and innovation in the years to come. It also poses fresh threats, from the inevitable end of privacy as we know it to the prospect of being penalized for things we haven’t even done yet, based on big data’s ability to predict our future behavior.
23. The Fine Art Of Small Talk - Debra Fine
    
    
    
    The Fine Art of Small Talk will help you learn to feel more comfortable in any type of social situation, from lunch with the boss to an association event to a cocktail party where you don't know a soul.
24. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto - Michael Pollan
    
    
    
    Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.
25. The Sex Myth - Brooke Magnati
    
    
    
    Is there any truth to the epidemic of sex addiction? Are our children really getting sexualised younger? Are men the only ones who like porn? Brooke Magnanti looks at all these questions and more - and proves that perhaps we've all been taking the answers for granted.
26. Sexual Politics in Modern Iran - Janet Afary
    
    
    
    Janet Afary is a native of Iran and a leading historian. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality and draws on her experience of growing up in Iran and her involvement with Iranian women of different ages and social strata. These observations, and a wealth of historical documents, form the kernel of this book, which charts the history of the nation's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today. What comes across is the extraordinary resilience of the Iranian people, who have drawn on a rich social and cultural heritage to defy the repression and hardship of the Islamist state and its predecessors. It is this resilience, the author concludes, which forms the basis of a sexual revolution taking place in Iran today, one that is promoting reforms in marriage and family laws, and demanding more egalitarian gender and sexual relations.
27. One Minute to Midnight - Michael Dobbs
    
    
    
    In October 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union appeared to be sliding inexorably toward a nuclear conflict over the placement of missiles in Cuba. Veteran "Washington Post" reporter Michael Dobbs has pored over previously untapped American, Soviet, and Cuban sources to produce the most authoritative book yet on the Cuban missile crisis. In his hour-by-hour chronicle of those near-fatal days, Dobbs reveals some startling new incidents that illustrate how close we came to Armageddon.
28. The Most Dangerous Place - Imtiaz Gul
    
    
    
    Imtiaz Gul, who knows the ins and outs of these groups and their leaders, tackles the toughest questions about the current situation: What can be done to bring the Pakistani Taliban under control? Who funds these militants and what are their links to Al Qaeda? Are they still supported by the ISI, Pakistan's all-powerful intelligence agency?
29. Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers In Vietnam - Michael Lanning
    
    
    
    At the start of the war in Vietnam, the United States had no snipers; by the end of the war, Marine and army precision marksmen had killed more than 10,000 NVA and VC soldiers--the equivalent of an entire division--at the cost of under 20,000 bullets, proving that long-range shooters still had a place in the battlefield. Now noted military historian Michael Lee Lanning shows how U.S. snipers in Vietnam--combining modern technology in weapons, ammunition, and telescopes--used the experience and traditions of centuries of expert shooters to perfect their craft.
30. Churchill's Secret War - Madhushree Mukherjee
    
    
    
     As journalist Madhusree Mukerjee reveals, at the same time that Churchill brilliantly opposed the barbarism of the Nazis, he governed India with a fierce resolve to crush its freedom movement and a profound contempt for native lives. A series of Churchill's decisions between 1940 and 1944 directly and inevitably led to the deaths of some three million Indians. The streets of eastern Indian cities were lined with corpses, yet instead of sending emergency food shipments Churchill used the wheat and ships at his disposal to build stockpiles for feeding postwar Britain and Europe.Combining meticulous research with a vivid narrative, and riveting accounts of personality and policy clashes within and without the British War Cabinet, Churchill's Secret War places this oft-overlooked tragedy into the larger context of World War II, India's fight for freedom, and Churchill's enduring legacy. Winston Churchill may have found victory in Europe, but, as this groundbreaking historical investigation reveals, his mismanagement facilitated by dubious advice from scientist and eugenicist Lord Cherwella devastated India and set the stage for the massive bloodletting that accompanied independence.
31. God Created the Integers - Stephen Hawking
    
    
    
    Bestselling author and physicist Stephen Hawking explores the "masterpieces" of mathematics, 25 landmarks spanning 2,500 years and representing the work of 15 mathematicians, including Augustin Cauchy, Bernard Riemann, and Alan Turing. This extensive anthology allows readers to peer into the mind of genius by providing them with excerpts from the original mathematical proofs and results. It also helps them understand the progression of mathematical thought, and the very foundations of our present-day technologies. Each chapter begins with a biography of the featured mathematician, clearly explaining the significance of the result, followed by the full proof of the work, reproduced from the original publication.

These are what I think are mind expanding.

I'll add more as I remember.

What have been the most influential books which increase awareness and/or understanding of how the world operates?

 The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins


Here's a list of books I've come across that fit this bill in my own idiosyncratic areas of interest:

International conflict

• Man, the State, and War by Kenneth Waltz
• Theory of International Politics by Kenneth Waltz. Waltz is arguably the greatest mind in international relations in our lifetime. These are two amazing books about how international relations really work. Absolutely required reading.
• History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Other than Waltz, the other book to read.
• The Gathering Storm: first volume of Winston Churchill's WWII memoirs. This book is awesome.

Non-US cultures

• Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution. Wow this is an amazingly insightful story of the Cultural Revolution, told first hand.
• From Beirut to Jerusalem by Tom Friedman: This book is a little out of date now, but an incredible overview of Middle East history and cultural conflicts. One of my favorite 100 books.

American politics

• Presidential Power by Richard Neustadt. Amazing overview of White House politics.
• Congress: The Electoral Connection by David Mayhew.
• Congress and The Bureaucracy by Douglas Arnold.
• The Brethren by Bob Woodward. Great Supreme Court overview.
• Federalist Papers. Very readable (surprisingly). Great recap of all the big issues behind the making of the U.S. Constitution.

Game theory and economics

• Strategy of Conflict by Thomas Schelling. My favorite overview of game theory. Has lots of practical examples.
• A Course in Microeconomic Theory by David Kreps. Not easy for non-economists, but good.

Other

• Real and Functional Analysis by Serge Lang. If you're trying to understand analysis, this is pretty great.
• A First Course in Probability by Sheldon Ross.
• Stickney and Weil: Financial Accounting. Really lucid overview of accounting. You can teach yourself with this book.

Most of these topics (Middle East politics, Cultural Revolution, real analysis, accounting) are about fields/topics which are really difficult to grasp as a beginner. Each of these books put a giant smile on my face re: illuminating a black box that I cared about.


 Wow, what a great question!  It suddenly occurs to me that I've spent the last ten years of my life answering just this question...

I've found the following books particularly useful in trying to understand the world.  (And I'm an independent teacher, so I get to talk about many of these books all the time — I live a good life!)

Starred (*) books are my very favorites.


HUMAN HISTORY
What are the broad strokes of cosmic / human history?

• The Cartoon History of the Universe I, II, and III, and The Cartoon History of the Modern World I and II, by Larry Gonick.
• Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity, by David Christian (Great Courses DVD series).

Why did Europeans conquer the world?

• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond.

Why did Abrahamic monotheism conquer the world?

• The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, by Rodney Stark, or
• The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion, by the same.
• The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright.
• Paul among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time, by Sarah Ruden.

(My apologies that all of these but Wright's book concern Christianity exclusively.)

Is modernity good for us?

• The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond.

What is "marriage"? Where did it come from? Where is it going?

• Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz.

How should we see America?

• A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn AND
• A History of the American People by Paul Johnson.

(Zinn is a radical of the Left, and Johnson of the Right. These books really need to be read next to each other — I had read them both independently, but it wasn't until I taught a class that used them both together that I saw how obscenely silly both perspectives could be at points.)

Why did al-Qaeda strike on 9/11?

• Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, by Michael Scheuer.

I should balance this out with other books, but I haven't read 'em yet. This book, however, was crucial for my own understanding — Scheuer actually takes bin Laden's words seriously, something I hadn't seen done before.

How should we understand the Black–White racial divide?

• Race Matters, by Cornel West AND
• Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? by Thomas Sowell

(These authors couldn't disagree with one another more. Read them together!)

Should we hope, or despair?

• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, by Steven Pinker*
• The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet, by Ramez Naam.*
• Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human, by Joel Garreau
• Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, by Robert Wright.

THE WORLD NOW
Why are some people rich? Why are some people poor?

• Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, by Charles Wheelan.*
• Economix: How Our Economy Works (and Doesn't Work), in Words and Pictures, by Michael Goodwin.
• A Framework for Understanding Poverty: A Cognitive Approach, by Ruby K. Payne.

(Wheelan represents a center-Right perspective, and Goodwin a center-Left. Payne is very controversial, though I haven't yet found a substantive reply to her thesis — if anyone knows of one, please point me to it!)

Why are we suckers to advertisers?

• Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, by Geoffrey Miller.

What are we eating?

• Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer.
• In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan.

Why don't buildings fit people's needs?

• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, by Christopher Alexander et al.

THE HUMAN MIND
Why are humans so weird?

• How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker
• Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind, by Gary Marcus.
• The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, by David Brooks.*

Why is it so danged hard to be happy?

• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by Jonathan Haidt.*
• The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic, by Jonathan Rottenberg.

(Haidt's work here is my favorite book — deserving of multiple re-readings!)

Why do people do horrible things?

• Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, by Roy Baumeister.*
• Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight, by M.E. Thomas.

(Baumeister's understanding of human cruelty is deeply challenging, and has been life-changing for me.)

How are some people so danged talented?

• The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How., by Daniel Coyle.

(I have most of my students read chapter 4 of this book: "The Three Rules of Deep Practice." I've read a lot of books on expertise studies, and none distill the findings as well as well as this chapter.)

Why do rational people disagree with one another, violently?

• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt.
• Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, by Terence Ball and Richard Dagger and/or Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader, edited by the same.
• The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker.*
• God is Not One: The Eight Religions that Run the World, by Stephen Prothero.
• The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, by James W. Sire.*

(The topics here differ: some are about religion, some about politics, some philosophy, and some all three! Sire's work is my second-favorite book, though I sharply disagree with its thesis. Pinker's book is the one I wish all undergraduates would read.)

Why does American education struggle to not suck?

• Getting It Wrong from the Beginning: Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget, by Kieran Egan.
• Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform, by David Tyack and Larry Cuban.

(In my perspective, Egan is our most under-read educational thinker. His other books — which don't fit your question — are also golden.)


NATURAL SCIENCE
What's this whole universe-thing, swirling around us?

• The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, by Natalie Angier.

What's this whole evolution thing? (Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?!)

• The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, by Richard Dawkins and/or
• Why Evolution is True, by Jerry A. Coyne.

Here are some of the books that have most shaped my understanding of the world:

• Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes - I used to think that we were all rational beings, and that people generally did things for good reasons. (I know. I was young.) This book helped me see how the primate dominance dynamic is part of our genetic heritage, and a major way we operate in the world. It goes well with the following book:
• Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre - This book is nominally about theatrical performance and creating realistic scenes. But its section on status transactions is a clear, well-analyzed explanation of how the primate dominance dynamic plays out in moment-to-moment interactions between people.
• Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology - Imagine a tiny robot, a free-running vehicle. By observing its behavior, what can we imply about it? And what do its simple mechanisms and our reactions to them tell us about ourselves?
• Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings - This has helped me recognize and accept the extent to which my mental models are just models, that the world will never be completely in my grasp. And that's fine.
• Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge - Legendary scientist E. O. Wilson looks at the relationship between the different spheres of human knowledge.
• The Selfish Gene - A fascinating take on evolution and how to interpret it. And as a bonus chapter, he coins the modern term "meme". In 1976!
• Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals - As an atheist, my morality was never dependent on religion, but it wasn't until this book that I really understood the roots of human morality.
• Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence - It's popular in some circles to think of violence as an aberration, that if we all were started out right, we wouldn't have violent urges. This book helped me see that violence is part of my nature, and that I'll always have to be careful of that.

small changes you've made resulting in a big difference in your life

What a great thread this has been to read. So my first recommendation would be to sit down and read through the answers, ...ALL of them. There's a ton of great stuff here!

Everybody is different - but some other (small) things that have been recommended to me over the years, than have made (big) differences in my life are:

• If you sweeten your coffee or tea, start using honey.
• Stop drinking soda. Period.
• Start drinking more water - as much as you possibly can.
• A cup of 185° hot water every morning instead of coffee will do miraculous things in many aspects of your life, in addition to adding years (maybe even decades) to it.
  12 Unexpected Benefits of Drinking Hot Water
  6 Reasons Why You Should Drink Warm Water
• If you must drink alcohol, don't do it during the week.
• For maximum overnight metabolism, and a better nights rest - don't eat for 2-3 hours before bedtime. If you're really hungry, drink a bottle of water.  This is an old and well accepted recommendation, but it's a lot harder than you might think.
• Get allergy tested every few years (by an allergist). You'd be surprised at the "healthy" foods that may be sabotaging your system (mine include healthy things like lettuce, bananas, garlic, and soy). Eliminate those things from your diet.  I say every few years, because they will change. You'll sleep better, you'll have more energy, you won't get sick as often, headaches will become a thing of the past, and pounds will start melting away (even without exercise).
• Buy a good bathroom scale, weigh yourself every morning, keep a log (especially if you've done any/all of the above).
• Make your bed every morning.
• Pick out your wardrobe each night for the following day, and set it out before you go to bed.
• If you make a pot of coffee each day, always get it ready the night before.
• Never go to bed with a sink full of dishes.
• Fold and put away your laundry as soon as it comes out of the drier. Don't live out of a laundry basket. Believe me - it really changes your outlook.
• Leave your bedroom blinds in a way that you will wake to sunlight coming in your windows (obvious exception being if you do not work a typical day shift). In either case, your body responds positively to sunlight.
• With tasks, projects, chores, bills - do NOT follow the 'first-in-first-out' rule. Organize them according to when they're due, and always be working on what's due next. One day you'll wake up and realize that you have nothing to do (or bill to pay) for weeks to come. This also makes 'putting out fires' a lot less stressful.
• Keep your inbox clean. If it's done, file it. The only thing in mine are those things which are not yet resolved, handled, or addressed. Find a system of organization that works for you (your business/your industry).  For me, it's hundreds of folders/subfolders in Outlook.
• Never send an email when your emotions on the topic are elevated. If you're on the fence about a strongly-worded email, always (and I mean ALWAYS) save it and re-read it in the morning.  This one is a biggie - thank me later.
• Get rid of NEW clutter. Unsubscribe from any/all mailing lists that aren't relevant or absolutely necessary.
• Get rid of OLD clutter. Clean out the junk drawer, the attic, the garage, the den, the closet, and the shed. Either have a garage sale, or donate it. If you haven't touched it or looked at in in a year or more, seriously ask yourself how necessary is it to keep.
• Also (regarding clutter), the phone pic that you took of the grocery list 6 months ago - do you still need it? How about the 6 out-of-focus pics of your child's performance you took before getting that one perfect one? Go through your digital archives (pics, docs, videos, etc.) and delete whatever isn't necessary. As an added benefit, you'll relive some great memories going through them.
• You are your children's idol. Don't disappoint them. And when you do (which you will), admit it to them. Apologize.
• Make time for your kids. Read with them, play with them, color with them.  It doesn't matter what you do with them - as long as you spend time with them.
• Hug them often, and tell them you love them. Look them in the eyes when you do.
• Listen to your kids.  Just, ...listen!
• By the way: your children will instinctively, subconsciously, and uncontrollably seek out a relationship identical to the one that you have with your spouse - remember that!
• Facebook: get out of the habit of scrolling endlessly through your news-feed. If you must have an account (yes, I know - there are lots of good reasons to do so), then train yourself to check only your notifications and then get out.  Otherwise you'll scroll your day away.  To resist the urge of scrolling to see what your friends are up to: pick a handful of good friends, if you like - and choose to "get notifications" for their activity.
  
  
• If you don't LOVE your job, then you don't have the right job. If you do what you love, then you'll never work a day in your life.
• Become an expert at something you enjoy or find interesting, ...anything! Read about it, write about it, speak about it, blog about it, create a website, etc.
• If you have a blog or website, monetize it with Google AdSense and/or affiliates. It may only mean an extra 25¢ per day in the beginning, but it adds up. And besides, you never know when something might go viral and put a few hundred (or few thousand) bucks in your pocket overnight.
• Do not answer calls/texts during dinner time, family time, or "you" time. Your cell phone is for YOUR convenience, not the caller's.
• Always remember - every person you come in contact with (every single day) is in the midst of some kind of personal struggle.
• Always remember - what other people think about you is none of your business.
• Always make eye-contact when speaking to someone, or when they are speaking to you.
• Work on your hand-shake.
• Always lend a hand when possible.
• Always be grateful. No matter how hard your circumstances are, I can guarantee that there are people who would trade places with you in a heartbeat.  The fact that you are reading this on a computer, tablet, or mobile phone right now - means that such people (those willing to trade places with you) number well into the millions, maybe even billions!

I could go on for hours, but its time to have pizza with the kids. So let me wrap this up - just two more:

• Read all the answers on this thread again. Save this page to pocket, or copy paste some of your favorites. Refer back to it every few weeks as a reminder.

• Take a few minutes to contribute to it - I just did.

Important things and advice to know that people generally aren't told about?

1. Marry your best friend.

I am truly amazed that I have the most successful marriage of all my friends -- going strong after fifteen years. Most of my friends are amazed, too, because, growing up, I was the geek who couldn't get a girlfriend. I had almost no relationships until I was in my mid twenties. I got married at 29. I'm now 45 and still deeply in love. Meanwhile, I have seen so many of my friends get divorces and/or grind their teeth through loveless, combative relationships.

What I've noticed about these people is that, 90% of the time, (a) they got married really young and (b) they mistakenly thought that long-term romances work best when when they're based entirely on lust and trivial shared tastes (e.g. "We both like the same bands.")

Sometimes, I hear people say things like, "I've been dating this guy for a year. We get along okay, but sometimes I think about leaving... How do I know if he's 'the one'?" This makes me really sad, because it's so obvious to me that my wife is 'the one.' Why? Because she's my best friend. Whenever anything good or bad happens to me, she's the person I want to tell! When I need advice, she's the person I run to! When I need to laugh, she's the person I joke around with!

If you don't know that the other person is 'the one,' he or she is not. And though it sucks to be alone -- believe me, I know: I was alone for years -- it's better than settling. Don't settle. You'll still be alone. It is very possible to be alone while being in a relationship. Many people are.

(Let me be really clear about what I mean by "don't settle." I don't mean "look for someone who is perfect." No one is perfect. I mean that if you feel luke-warm about someone, he's not the one. If the person you're with makes you continually unhappy, she's not the one. Don't settle for that because you think "it beats being alone." It doesn't. You evolved to think it does. Your selfish genes want you to mate. Your brain will continually tell you that nothing is worse that being alone. It's wrong.)

The other sad thing I hear is "Bill is my best friend. We have so much in common. He's always there for me. We talk for hours. I completely trust him and we have the exact same sense of humor ... but ... I don't know ... the spark isn't there..."

When I hear this, I don't say anything, because it's none of my business, but I want to scream "GET OVER THIS 'SPARK' THING! STOP BELIEVING IN HOLLYWOOD VISIONS OF CATCHING SOMEONE'S EYE ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM! Jesus Christ! You found someone you connect with on so many levels, and you're not getting down on your knees and proposing?!? Do you think you're going to find 30 more people like that in your life?!?"

The "spark" doesn't last, anyway. I'm not saying that sex dies or anything. I'm just saying that incredibly exciting, new romance feeling inevitably fades. But, if you're lucky, what comes next is much, much better. You spend years in that loving, warm place with the person you know you want to grow old with. And if you have good communication with someone, the spark can come later, even if it's not there at first.

Lots of people seem to learn this after a long time and a lot of pain. They marry the "bad boy" or the "hot chick" instead of their best friends, because doing so is more exciting. Then those marriages -- which are based on nothing -- fail. Sometimes, if these people are lucky, they later marry those best friends who they should have married in the first place. If they're unlucky, they can't, because the best friends have moved on.

See also:

-- Marcus Geduld's answer to What are some tips for young people wanting to get married?

-- Marcus Geduld's answer to What is the secret to a lasting marriage?

2. There's no such thing as a "grown up," and if you try to be one, you'll wind up becoming a poser at best and a killjoy at worst.

First of all, if you're waiting for that magic time when you're finally there, give it up. As I ease into the middle age, I can see it will never happen. I will never have learned what I need to learn in order to be a grownup. I will never be 100% confident. I will never stop failing...

People who seem like they have it all together are either faking it or living such incredibly boring lives that they never face any challenges.

Let me be clear that I am a responsible person. So if all "grownup" means to you is "someone who does the dishes," then -- yes -- I'm a grown up. But it's not like when I was younger, I was a child ... a child ... a child ... a child ... and then I reached some particular birthday and -- boing -- I was an adult.

God, I hate people who think it's important to be grown up. They are no fun at all. They are the people who, if you show any enthusiasm that goes beyond what you have to do at your job, inevitably say, "Looks like someone has too much time on his hands!"

Don't be that guy!

As you go through life -- especially when you pass through your 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s -- continually ask yourself this: "When was the last time I played in the mud?"

It is vital that you play in the mud! You must do this or you'll lose your soul! I am somewhat speaking in metaphor. If you don't like mud, that's fine. But when did you last finger paint? When did you last get into a pillow fight with your friends (or with your spouse?) When did you last sing a loud, off-key song where all the lyrics were nonsense words? What was the last time you did something utterly pointless that was great fun?

Playing Scrabble doesn't count. (I say that as a huge Scrabble fan.) Playing tennis doesn't count. Those activities are great, but they're too regimented. They are too much about rules. They don't involve cutting loose, letting go and being vulnerable. (By vulnerable, I mean doing stuff that may lead other people to say "Act your age!")

Getting drunk or high doesn't count, either. If you can only dance around in your underwear when you've had three (or ten) drinks, you're doing it wrong. One of the reason drugs don't count, is because they put you in an altered state that is disconnected from who you are when you're not drunk or high. Your goal should be to become someone who always has a little bit of play in him -- not someone who is super-stern and serious and needs chemicals to unwind.

I know that letting go this way is really, really hard for some people. If it's hard for you, ease into it. No matter how hard it is, surely you can finger paint when you're alone in your room! Make yourself do it until you can do it without shame -- until you can let go and enjoy getting paint on your nose. You will wind up living longer and having less stress in your life.

And though you can start this in private, try to work towards doing it in the company of someone else. Play is fundamentally a social activity. You will never feel as close to another person as you will when you roll in the mud with him.

Despite the way I sound, I am a very shy person. I don't, as a rule, go dancing in the streets. But I have a few close friends (and a really fun spouse) with whom I can do those things. Those friends keep me alive! I wouldn't trade them for ten million dollars!

One last thing: if you have kids, what's your relationship to them? Are you very much the mom or the dad. Do you feel like they are the kids and you are the grownup? Or do you feel like they're your friends and you enjoy playing on the floor with them? Of course it's important to be the grownup for them sometimes. But see if you can ease yourself into a different kind of relationship with them? When did you and your kids last have a snowball fight?

3. Most grownups stop learning. Don't.

I spent many years as a teacher, mostly teaching computer classes to adults. These were folks who were being forced to adopt new technologies for their jobs. They were very unhappy. They would say, "I don't understand this stuff! I'm just not one of those computer people."

What I gradually learned, via long discussions with many, many students from many different occupations, is that this wasn't true at all. Their problem -- though very real -- had nothing to do with computers. It had to do with the fact that this was the first time they'd been asked to learn anything new in years. They would have had just as much trouble if their boss had forced them to learn how to knit, juggle, or play the guitar.

Even many people we think of as smart do very few new things every day -- things that stretch them. Here's an example: I used to work for a large auction company (think Sotheby's or Chirstie's.) This company employed a lot of "experts." An expert was, for instance, someone who has spent decades studying French ceramics. Having done a lot of studying, he can now look at a vase and instantly tell you when and where it was made, what it's worth, and whether it's an original or a reproduction. I am not making light of this skill. I certainly couldn't do it.

But let's take a look at what it involves: the expert had to spend decades cramming information into his brain. He had to get to a point where that information wasn't just in his brain but also instantly accessible. Doing all that grunt work was an incredible feat, and the expert has good reason to be proud of what he accomplished.

But if he's like most of us, he learned most of his knowledge in his 20s. Starting in his 30s, he began coasting. Coasting feels really good and most jobs are built to let experts coast. You know you're coasting when you can go to work and instantly know how to fix any problem. You're coasting when you can look at the vase and instantly know when and where it was made.

You're coasting if all your problems at work are things like annoying co-workers and long hours. If you never (or rarely) need to do exhaustive research or work out complex problems on paper or white boards, you're coasting.

I'm a computer programmer, which means my job is pretty intellectual, and I coast way less than a lot of people: but I still coast about 75% of the time. A lot of the code I write is boilerplate stuff. I'm "solving" problems that have already been solved, and all I need to do is copy, paste, and make a few tweaks.

Doctors coast a lot of the time (at least general practitioners do). They hear the same symptoms over and over again, and in most cases, they can do their jobs very well by doing mental "database searches" and regurgitating answers that worked in the past. This is also the case for non-trial lawyers.

If you're a "smart person" like me, and if you work in an "intellectual" field, it's humbling to ask yourself, at each point in your day, "Am I stretching my intellect? Am I coming up with a new solution? Am I facing a new problem that I've never faced before?" How much of the time do you do this? 10% of the time? 5% of the time? 1% of the time? How many years have gone by without you having to face a real intellectual challenge?

Incidentally, the jobs that we think of as intellectual tend to be the least intellectually demanding (with some exceptions, such as Mathematician and Brain Surgeon). The "dumb jobs," such as auto-mechanic and football player tend to involve a lot of continual, on-your-feet thinking.

What's wrong with coasting? Nothing, necessarily, if it makes you happy. But we're moving into a time period where it's harder to get away with it. The pace of change has quadrupled and we're getting hit with new technologies daily.

But the bigger problem is that "if you don't use it, you'll lose it." You need to continually give your brain a workout or it will grow sluggish. We all know those people who have retired at 65 and then spent twenty years sitting in front of the TV. What's sad is that we accept that people in their 80s are going to be sluggish. But that's not a given. They don't have to be! You don't have to be. If your job isn't challenging you, find ways to challenge yourself. 

Note: most people get frustrated when they fail. This is one of the reasons why they quit trying new things. Trying new things inevitably leads to failure. But understand that, if you're trying anything challenging, it's going to take you at least a month to succeed at it. A month is the minimum. It's more likely that it will take you six months.

So if you, say, try to learn the guitar but "fail" at it after a few hours, you haven't failed. You can only fail at the guitar if you try to play it for six months and, during all that time, make no progress.

See also:

-- Marcus Geduld's answer to How much does grading matter or motivate students to learn?

-- Marcus Geduld's answer to Why do so many people hate mathematics?

4. If you're an artist or "creative person," stop trying to "be original."

Your goal should be to tell the story you're trying to tell. (Or play the melody or fill the canvas with color or whatever.)

When I'm not programming computers, I spend my time directing plays. I run a classical-theatre company. Here's the main lesson I've learned over the years: if I'm directing, say, "Romeo and Juliet," my job is to tell that story. Let's say that, in order to make the story clear and exciting, it turns out that Juliet should be wearing a red dress in a particular scene. But I go see another production and notice the actress in that production is wearing a red dress in the scene in which I was going to put my Juliet in a red dress!

I will feel that very human urge to make my Juliet wear a blue dress, because I don't want to be accused of copying or "not being original." I need to get over it. It's not about me! If it happens to be a case that a red dress tells the story better than a blue dress, then my Juliet needs to wear a red dress. Art is best when the artists serves the art rather than the other way around.

This general rule applies to many things besides art.

See also: Marcus Geduld's answer to How do I overcome my thought that there are so many people smarter than me?

5. If you focus on what's fair and what's unfair, you'll stagnate.

John: Someone keeps stealing pens off my desk! Whenever I need a pen, I can't find one!

Mary: Well, pens don't cost very much. Why don't you just buy a bunch of them once a month? Just think of them as perishable items that have to be replenished.

John: I shouldn't have to do that! It's not my fault the pens go missing! People need to stop stealing my pens!

Mary: Okay. What can you do to stop them from stealing your pens? Do you have a cabinet or something you can lock them in?

John: No!

Mary: Can you tell your boss? If there's a security problem in your office, maybe he can...

John: I've tried that. He doesn't care! He says it's just pens. That's not the point! It's stealing. Stealing is wrong!

Mary: You're right. It is wrong. It sucks that your boss isn't going to do anything about it, but I guess that's the way it is. And it seems like it's causing you a lot of anxiety. Wouldn't you feel better if you spent $2 on pens once a week? You could just assume they'll get stolen and get new ones when you need them. That way, you'd know you'd always have a pen!

John: Why should I be the one who has to buy new pens?

Mary: You shouldn't be, but you are.

John: That's not fair!

There's nothing wrong with striving for fairness and justice. But if that's not possible, it's pointless to fall into a mode where you're constantly stressed out and throwing your hands up in disgust. The pen problem literally used to drive me crazy. Then I took Mary's advice. The truth is, I earn enough money that buying pens a couple of times a month is no big deal. I wish people wouldn't steal from me, but I'm just not going to worry about it. A couple of dollars a month let me check a worry off my list. That is money well spent!

6. If you're not failing, you're doing it wrong.

We need to raise our kids so that they expect to fail and so that they understand that after failing they should keep going. I have finally gotten to a place where I dislike not failing. I am suspicious when I don't fail. Not failing generally means I'm playing it too safe. It means I'm not growing or learning. It means I'm keeping myself from finding all sorts of solutions I could be finding. But the only way to find them is to play past failure.

I recommend keeping a Failure Diary. When you fail at something, try writing it up the next day. Examine the failure in as much detail as you can. Make sure you use failure as an opportunity to grow. I publish excepts from my Failure Diary here: Failures: On Stuff I Did Wrong

See also: Marcus Geduld's answer to Why do we get frustrated when learning something?

7. You can't reason with a lizard.

If someone is hysterical or angry, it's pointless to reason with him. Don't try. The "lizard brain" can't use logic. Understand that you're dealing with a cornered animal, not a calm philosopher.

See also: Marcus Geduld's answer to What would you say if someone said that you were fat? and read the comments, e.g. http://www.quora.com/What-Would-You-Do-If-X/What-would-you-say-if-someone-said-that-you-were-fat/answer/Marcus-Geduld/comment/2266135

8. Stop reading the newspaper.

You don't really have to stop. If you enjoy reading it, by all means read it. But if you're one of those people who gets deeply stressed out every time you read the paper or watch CNN, consider stopping. Why are you constantly putting yourself through this stress? Because it's one's duty to stay informed? Why?

Okay, I understand why. We live in a Democracy and blah-blah-blah. Fine. But you're not required to live a life of stress. It doesn't help you or anyone else for you to be stressed all the time.

And just knowing that there are starving people doesn't help those starving people. If you have a plan of action, by all means carry it out. Otherwise, give yourself a break. If you feel terribly guilty when you're not informed, then just give yourself a two-week break. You don't have to stop reading the papers for life. But get out of the habit of being addicted to stress and sorrow. Your blood pressure will go down.

9. Do something that's not for money.

Make sure there's something pleasurable in your life that is completely disconnected with money. In our culture (in all cultures?) money comes with all kinds of baggage. Find something you like to do that will never make you any money.

If you're a waitress who longs to be a professional actress, acting in plays for free doesn't count. It's great, but it's not what I'm talking about, because you're hoping to one day quit waitressing and make money acting. Keep that dream alive, but find some other activity to be your non-money-pleasure. Say, "I like sketching (or whatever) and it will never, ever make me any money. And if someone offered me money to sketch, I'd turn it down, because I want one thing in my life that is forever disconnected from money."

And it can't be something connected to duty. Yes, you don't get paid for raising your kids, and, yes, a lot of that job is fun. But parts of it are a duty. So it doesn't count. Knitting counts. Playing basketball with your friends counts.

Hanging out with friends doesn't count. It's fun. It's not about making money. But it's not a specific activity. You need something that will jolt you out of the belief that most of us have -- that anything you spend time and energy on must be about money.

10. The hour before bed is for you.

Don't work right up until bedtime, even if you "have to." Take half an hour -- even 20 minutes if it's all you can spare -- before you go to bed to unwind in an engrossing way. (Do this even if you're really tired and would rather not stay up an extra 20 minutes.)

By which I mean don't just sit on the sofa with a glass of wine. If you do that, it's too easy to start thinking and worrying about work. Spend that time reading a chapter of a fun thriller (not a "classic" that you think you "should" read) or watching an episode of a sitcom that makes you laugh.

Think of this as your duty. It will help you get your work done better the next day. It will help you get to sleep.

11. There is no such thing as highbrow and lowbrow.

Or if there is, who cares? School has bamboozled us into thinking Shakespeare is superior to "Gilligan's Island." As someone who directs Shakespeare plays and reads "King Lear" for fun, I'm here to tell you that the only great art is the art you love.

Life is really fucking hard. You have to deal with losing jobs, getting divorces, paying taxes and fixing the toilet. Don't add to your troubles by telling yourself -- or letting someone else tell you -- that you're a moron because you prefer beer to expensive champagne.

If something is beloved by experts, "refined people" and scholars, there probably is something wonderful about it. If you want to spend an hour with me, I'll explain to you why Shakespeare is wonderful and what you'll get out of his plays if you spend some time studying them. But it's not a requirement. You're not in school any longer. (Or if you are, you soon won't be). There's no teacher waiting for you to turn in your homework.

I am not a better person than you because I read Shakespeare. I read Shakespeare because I enjoy it. If I read it because I "should," I'd be a fool.

Art is primarily sensual. It can sometimes politicize people or give them intellectual ideas, but what art does best is feed you: it feeds your eyes with colors; it feeds your ears with sounds; it feeds your nerves with "what's going to happen next????" Life is short. If "Star Wars" feeds you more than "Hamlet," enjoy your feast!

If you feel guilty about watching "American Idol" when you "should be" watching "Masterpiece Theatre," then agree to challenge yourself once a month. Once a month, you'll go to a museum or watch a foreign film. The rest of the time, watch and read and listen to whatever makes you sit on the edge of your seat. Whatever makes you sing and dance.

If you're an "intellectual" like me, take a break from the Bergman films and Shakespeare plays once in a while. Sure, sure. "American Idol" is the death of American culture or whatever. But watch a couple of episodes. It's pretty engrossing and fun.

Get out of the habit of labeling things as high and low. There's stuff that feeds you and stuff that doesn't. There are acquired tastes which don't feed you now but which might feed you in the future, once you get used to them. As soon as you get the urge to categorize one thing as "art" and the other thing as "just entertainment," try to stop. There are different sorts of meals, and it's great to live in a world with both caviar and Pop Tarts!

UPDATE July 2, 2014:

12. Collaborate on a project that you care about with a group of passionate people who also care deeply about it.

I was talking with some theatre friends recently, and I realized with a shock that we are blessed with something many people lack: collaboration.

Most people collaborate at work, but unless they're working at their dream jobs, the goal is more about making money than they project itself.

My friends and I don't get paid to do theatre; we do it for love.

And what I've come to understand is that there's something important about working with a group of people towards a shared goal that the whole group cares about.

Musicians in bands and orchestras understand what I'm talking about; People who play team sports get it, too.

I suspect we evolved to do this. Early humans lived in small, hunter-gatherer tribes, and they had to collaborate every day or die. The sad thing is, many modern people don't experience this, even though their minds and bodies are crying out for it. If you feel like something is missing in your life but don't know what, maybe it's this.

- Collaborating at work doesn't count, unless you and your coworkers love the job; unless you'd all do it for free if you weren't getting paid.

- Hanging out with your friends doesn't count. It's important and fun, but it's not what I'm talking about. When you hang, your focus is on yourself and your companions. I'm specifically talking about a group of people focused on a shared project.

- Internet projects don't count. You need to be in a room with a group of people, working together. It's great if there's a physical component as well as a mental one. I'm not necessarily talking about tackle football. Playing musical instruments is physical. Working in a soup kitchen is physical.

- And it doesn't count if, even though people are helping you, you could do the project all by yourself. It must be a project that will fail unless all hands are on deck.

There are many ways to make this part of your life: collaborative arts, team sports, group games, volunteer work, etc.

Many religious people get this through their communities. Secular folks, like me, have to find other paths to it.

Study Methods

This is my research on how to study over two years. I succeeded to get a distinction in 8000 students from many colleges. I did not spend more than two months in my college.

There are two important studies worth sharing before I describe my study method. The first study is about memory graph and the second one is about concentration span.

The Human Memory Graph
This study reveals to us that when you read something, your memory of what you read or heard is almost alive.  If we represent this with graph it is horizontally at 100%, and it slowly declines over time. When you review it after one day, memory connections are strengthened. Now its declination is very slow as compared to without review.  This speed decreases with every review of the thing you want to remember. It is explained in the graph below.

Instead of memorizing, try setting a review plan without any tension and be relaxed. Read with concentration, and then leave it. Read again in the evening, then again the next day, and then again the next week. Test yourself on the 15th day, and then review after one month. You'll notice that your memory, of what you heard, read, or listened, will not decline so easy now plus you remember most of it including subtle things related or within the material.

Human Attention Span

As it's clear from this graph, the human attention span is at 30% after 45 minutes. Mostly, that is the length of one class for schools below university level.  In universities it is increased to one hour or more.  You can improve your attention span by increasing the time slowly, but it is better to take a short break (~5 minutes) after about an hour of focused study.  The short break will allow you to regain about 90% of your attention span.

Another important thing regarding memory is reading a topic from many sources. It has two benefits, less boredom and many different aspects of the same scenario. Later one increases latency of information from different areas of mind when required. The more connections your brain makes with the information, the more likely it will stick in your mind.

• Another important consideration is the productive hours. It may be different for few people but mostly early morning is the most productive time.
• Remember to keep the room temperature a little warm. It will help in focusing.

After a lot of study about how to study I devised a plan, which was refined over time and according to the results. Now here is a refined plan, in which are inherent many researches and experiences I have come across.

Planning and managing your study

1. Make a timetable; mine was 11 hours for study. It is first step to success. (I was studying, and interested in it, so I was giving most of my time to studying; you may have less than 11 hours of course. It just shows my dedication towards academics and the dreams I had after graduation. I was in a poor family; I knew that without hard-work, I won’t be able to get along. After getting a position, I was able to continue my study for free. I also received prize money from the government and a special training for more motivation and visits. Yes, I got a Talent Award too.
2. Humans can concentrate for 40 minutes on a subject, or maximum 1 hour. Do change your study material/subject after every 40 minutes or 1 hour. But later on you can increase this time slowly to 2 hours. I did this.
3. Start time table by learning new things, after looking at the last day topics. Later chapters in books mostly have references from former ones. Learning new things at start gives you hope and makes you motivated.
4. Don’t start one subject or module after the other; take a break of 5 to ten minutes. In this time eat some chocolate, fruits and vitamins. Do some sit stands and go out to look in nature and have an analog (natural phenomena) thinking to refresh. This is a right click and refresh for you on your desktop to start another application.
5. Study each subject three times a day, design time table such that every subject has 3 shifts per day.
6. Take notes in the first shift, and rehearse them in second shift and so on. Notes should not be exact copy of the book text.
7. Re-allocate time for your modules in timetable after every, maximum two weeks. Or take your exams after one week and re-allocate based on the exam results.
8. Exam yourself sometime in the middle of the time table.
9. Have some extra time to look topics of this day you have studied, at the end of study time table.
10. Second day, start with looking at the topics of the last day. But never do an exam at the start of study time. Increase difficulty slowly from start to end.
11. Do some statistics on important and less important subjects or difficult and easy subjects and divide time with statistics methods. For example by first assigning the difficulty level to each subject like 40% and 60% etc.
12. If studying something which could be easily implemented in home or lab, don’t miss it. I, when studying biology, had tried to produce a new family of a tree though it was just a try and nothing resulted. I have been programming to simulate the physics concepts which helped a lot.

Subject specific study techniques

1. For math subjects, try to solve a question, if you fail, just do it with your hands by looking at some help book. After you finish copying by hands, you will infer what was missing. This is called learning with hands not mind. This is because some time an answer tells you about the solution in math.
2. For physics subjects, start with writing the topics equation, prove it on paper same as stated above in (math method), then start with the theory. Attach equation with the topic.
3. For English, write difficult words on the note book. Learn them first.
4. For theory subjects, read a lot on the same topic from different sources, read the topic on book, leave it. Now read it on Wikipedia and leave it. Learn it on some other book. This is easy and very useful method. Don't try to learn from your book only this will bore you and you won’t remember well.

Exam Tips

1. End preparing for exams about one week before. Design your exams timetable so that your intense preparation ends about one week before the first day of paper. This will help in
2. Tension free preparation. Inside your heart you know I have one week, as a backup.
3. One week extra preparation. The last EXTRA week is now more valuable than one month. Everything you will do in this week will be extra and very motivational for you.
4. If there is 2, 3 days break between papers, don't stick with one subject. As mentioned above it kills productive study and focus. Change study module for the sake of attaining mind focus and refreshment, at least.
5. Review your notes the day before paper. This will give you an overview of all topics plus strengthening the memory connections for those topics.
6. After paper is over, don’t throw the question paper into dust bin, thinking that it’s gone now. It can help your mind settle down. Read and examine how much you did correctly.
7. Keep calculating marks you obtained in each paper and adding to total. It will motivate you, like we do in scoring games.
8. Don’t forget the one and only solution for refreshment and energy of mind, the exercise and healthy foods in exams.

Miscellaneous facts

1. Don't listen to love music or such type of songs. Listen to some good motivational music like "K'NAAN - WAVIN' FLAG".
2. Do take some time for spirituality or loneliness, for many reasons it’s important.
3. Play some sports or exercise, not too much.
4. Eat different things in daily life and especially in break times.
5. Listen to news for some time. If learning English, listen to BBC.
6. Play with children, they are also learning, observe them and their interest.
7. Do spend some time with family and share your status.
8. If possible, do have some time to teach someone. It will be best, if you can teach what you are learning yourself.
9. For your tasks apart from study, make a to-do list. It’s very important to lessen the distraction and burden from your mind.
10. Understanding the problem, half solves it.
11. Imagine your success every day, imagine the future. You are investing on your future.
12. Spread knowledge.

* If you note I have written number 1 for no love music, in the details, I mean we should have zero distraction outside and inside of ourselves to create a creative state of mind, give all your attention to study when you study!
Do one thing at a time. Don’t have another part of your mind allocated for the mobile phone beside, or an open Facebook tab.

Good luck.

Advice from Dad's

"Your thoughts are limited by your vocabulary.", my father told me when I was a teenager.

That one line set me on the path to reading, building my vocabulary, falling in love with dictionaries, enjoying word-play, and attempting to write well and speak well. This expanded the horizons of my comprehension, and also gave me the ability to appreciate the refined, subtle thoughts written by others. There is a richness to the commentary of human experience that I would have missed out on had I not enjoyed reading and writing as much as I do.

This path has been central to how, for better or for worse, my personality evolved in the last 20 years since that afternoon.



"Whenever you feel down, take a bath. Shave. Put on your best clothes. And just. Be. Happy. You're pretending, of course, but that's the point. Pretend that you feel good. Act like you're on top of the situation. And you know what? Eventually you will be. It's all in your head, son."


Make sure you marry somebody you want your kids to act like.


The best advice my dad gave me was in his inability to give advice:

I was just out of college and I was madly in love. Ridiculously. Blindly. In. Love. ... at least to a 22 year old... I thought it was the be all, end all of love affairs. Then, it happened--I got pregnant. I think I peed on at least 20 sticks--all plus signs. Just as I was sitting down at dinner to tell my boyfriend and to ask him what we wanted to do about it, he says "I have something I've been meaning to tell you--I think we should break up." I just started shaking and sobbing and it was quite a show. Eventually I mustered up the ability to say what I needed to say. He got up and walked out and never came back. I called my dad sobbing beyond anything he'd ever dealt with before from his daughter.

"Why can't I find a man like you, dad? Someone who does the right thing and acts like a man and respects me as someone's daughter?"

...That's when the silence hit. 

"Daddy?" I asked. 

Still silent. 

After a while, he said,"You know, I wasn't always the man you know. There was a time before you were born that I dated someone who I wasn't very fair to. I broke her heart..."

I said, "Yeah, but you apologized. You always take accountability."

Much to my surprise, he said, "No. No, I never did apologize." 

There was a long pause. 

"But I can tell you one thing: 

"If I wasn't sorry about it then, I certainly am double sorry now. Sorry doesn't even explain it. Because despite what I might have done to someone's daughter back then... there's no greater pain than watching a young man do to your own daughter what you did to someone else's 40 years earlier."

That conversation has never left my mind.


Do not be afraid to take advice from those who has tried something and failed. Do not take it from those who have never tried anything.


I was in class 7 when first time I fell in love with my best friend but before I could express my love to her, someone else proposed her and she said yes to him. At that time I was feeling down so told everything to my dad and then this is what he replied me: 

“Honey, you must have heard people saying that love cannot happen at an age of 12 or 13” I nodded as Papa said, “I feel, though they are not right, they are not completely wrong either. Love can happen at any age but one has to be mature enough to cherish the fullest form of love. See yourself, you care for her, you always want a smile on her face, it hurts you when she is in pain and a lot of things which show that you love her and I believe you truly love her but are you big enough to face the consequences of loving someone?" He paused, "No!"
“Love is unconditional. It never expects anything in return from the other person. If you love someone that does not mean that the same person has to love you, as you were free to love anyone so does the other person too. I love you, your mamma, your didi loves you but we have never expected you to love us in return. We just simply love you.  Moreover love is not about you, it’s neither about what you get out of it nor what the other person can give to you. When a person is immature, he thought of love to be proceeded by a relationship between a girl and a boy but what I feel is that love does not require anything either before or after falling into it. These kinds of relationship only try to fit love in a small box, keeps it there but love is infinitely sized while the box is… well there is no box large enough. Love is not about having a girlfriend or a boyfriend you can show off with and tell people. It’s not even about you feeling ‘proud’ to be with someone, it means you love the other person exactly as they are, exactly as they were before and exactly as they will be in the coming life. Your love for her should mean you will always be with her no matter what, she has the same feelings for you or not, you will always care for her no matter what, she loves you or not.”
“But yeah no one in this world has born with a tyrant heart so someday, somehow that person will realize the immense love of the other though it may take little time.” 
That was one of the best conversation I had with my dad and that day I learnt what actually love was.




He whispered into my ears, words that I carry in my heart and try to follow every day of my life, "Words are like arrows - once released, they cannot be taken back. Never say anything you will regret - if you don't like a situation, just get up and go away."

On my wedding day, just as I was leaving for my husband's home, ready to make my life with him and his family forever, my father said this to me. Twenty-five years ago, it was tough advice for an independent take-charge girl(then!!) to follow -  there were times when it was difficult not to retort, and I would remember his words and prefer to move away from an unpleasant situation rather than to retort and repent at leisure. 

Time has shown the wisdom in his words...I can look back with pride and say I did well and that the love and respect my actions have garnered are the medals I wear with pride.

It is now time for me to whisper the same words into my children's ears...and I hope the cycle goes on forever.

When I was a little girl, my father taught me a new word every day, but he always ended the lesson with....

He will live in my heart forever as the special father who taught his daughter the wisdom to speak well or not at all.



I don't have a problem even if you become a woodcutter. But if you're gonna be a woodcutter, be the best goddamn woodcutter ever. 




A woman creates the atmosphere in her home. She makes it a happy, sad, angry, frustrated one, so be sure you make your home a happy home. 
 
He told me this when I was about 14, and depressed over something. And today, after almost 15 years of marriage, I know this to be so true. With my moods, I can influence my husband, my kids, to be happy. 
 
Moods / Atmosphere infects your surroundings, and it is in your power what you create within your family. 
 
Thank you Papa, for this.



" Son, Not everything is measured in L.P.A. "