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It’s everyone’s nightmare. Rush hour. Inching along interminably as too many cars navigate too few lanes, with too many merging in and too few turning off.
Who would have imagined that King Solomon already anticipated the chaos of our highways when he declared, Go, sluggard, and learn from the ant?
As it turns out, ants are better drivers than we are. And the lessons of their highway habits offer some valuable lessons that extend far beyond the way we drive.
According to NPR, Apoorva Nagar discovered the connection in a study by German and Indian researchers. Apparently, traveling ants are able to maintain a constant speed regardless of the number of ants on the path. In other words, even at rush hour, ant traffic carries on unimpeded.
Professor Nagar, a physicist at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, suggests three reasons why ants don’t bottleneck as traffic flow increases. First, ants don’t have egos. They don’t need to be first, don’t need to show off, and don’t take it personally when another ant cuts in front of them.
Second, they don’t mind fender-benders. Sure, a multi-ant pile will slow them down. But a few minor bumps and scrapes have little impact on their progress. Even with incidental bumping and knocking, the ants just keep on moving forward. Needless to say, humans would never tolerate the most glancing or superficial collisions, even if the law permitted it.
And third, says Professor Nagar, ants get more disciplined as the crowd thickens: they hold their speed steadier and make fewer twists and turns. In contrast to human drivers who cut in and out while breaking and accelerating, ant discipline creates a road culture of greater predictability and, consequently, greater safety and consistency.
Granted that ant behavior may have limited practical application to human driving habits and traffic patterns, the observations offered by Professor Nagar suggest other benefits to improve the quality of daily life.
NO EGO
Have you ever watched someone else hopelessly caught up in his own ego-gratification? Sometimes it’s the driver trapped behind a slow-moving car, desperately looking for a chance to break out and around. And what happens when he gets his chance? More often than not, you catch up to him stuck behind the next car or idling at the next stoplight.
Or what about the person who has to be the center of attention or the life of the party? He thinks he’s the darling of the crowd, but the dismayed expressions among his captive audience frequently tell a different story.
When we stop worrying about where we rank compared to others and stop needing others to validate our existence, we become a lot more comfortable with where we are and end up making progress with far greater efficiency.
It’s actually pretty easy when we start asking ourselves the right questions:
IS IT WORTH IT?
We’ve heard it before:
Don’t sweat the small stuff. And so much of it really is small stuff.
Sure, I enjoy the frequent fantasy of trading in my ‘98 Camry for a new… anything. But until I do, I’ll never have to worry about the latest scratch, dent, or interior stain the way I would if I were driving a Mercedes… or even a new Subaru.
The truth is, the shinier our toys are, the more we notice when the shine starts to fade, and our mood fades just as quickly. That’s only natural, since those scrapes and blemishes are all tied up with our first problem… ego.
That scuffed bumper is a reflection on me, isn’t it? It reflects either my own driving or my slothfulness repairing damage inflicted on me by someone else. Of course, it might reflect the sanity of my priorities, that I don’t want to take hours away from my family and friends and community and personal growth so that my car can be pristine (while waiting for the next minor accident to send me back to the repair shop).
And it’s not just our cars. The human eye and mind seek out every imperfection on which to fixate, whether it’s a loose thread or a tilted picture, a sore toe or a pesky hangnail. If anything is 99% perfect, that last one percent becomes all the more intolerable, invalidating everything that is as it should be.
Which is the perfect time for another list of questions:
TIME TO PAY ATTENTION
As tension builds, we start looking for a way out. Maybe what we should be looking for is a way in. Like the ants who become more focused as traffic increases.
The truth is, stress and tension are products of our bodies preparing us to enter into survival mode. When we respond by heightening our awareness of the challenges that face us and steeling ourselves to meet them, we can propel our productivity and success to unprecedented levels. Not only do we manage the job at hand, but we increase our ability to overcome greater obstacles that lie ahead.
It’s a win-win.
But it demands that we reframe, that we stop looking at obstacles as impediments to progress and start seeing them as opportunities for development and self-improvement. And that outlook starts with more questions:
After all, what’s the point of an obstacle course? We could traverse the course much faster without all those obstacles, no? But then what would we have accomplished?
And isn’t life the greatest obstacle course of all?
Rabbi Yonason Goldson, a talmudic scholar and former hitchhiker, circumnavigator, and newspaper columnist, lives in St. Louis, MO, where he teaches, writes, and lectures. His new book Proverbial Beauty: Secrets for success and happiness from the wisdom of the ages is due out in July. Visit him at http://ift.tt/1yTxW6j.
The post How Ants Survive Rush Hour (and why putting your ego in check will change your life) appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
It’s everyone’s nightmare. Rush hour. Inching along interminably as too many cars navigate too few lanes, with too many merging in and too few turning off.
Who would have imagined that King Solomon already anticipated the chaos of our highways when he declared, Go, sluggard, and learn from the ant?
As it turns out, ants are better drivers than we are. And the lessons of their highway habits offer some valuable lessons that extend far beyond the way we drive.
According to NPR, Apoorva Nagar discovered the connection in a study by German and Indian researchers. Apparently, traveling ants are able to maintain a constant speed regardless of the number of ants on the path. In other words, even at rush hour, ant traffic carries on unimpeded.
Professor Nagar, a physicist at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, suggests three reasons why ants don’t bottleneck as traffic flow increases. First, ants don’t have egos. They don’t need to be first, don’t need to show off, and don’t take it personally when another ant cuts in front of them.
Second, they don’t mind fender-benders. Sure, a multi-ant pile will slow them down. But a few minor bumps and scrapes have little impact on their progress. Even with incidental bumping and knocking, the ants just keep on moving forward. Needless to say, humans would never tolerate the most glancing or superficial collisions, even if the law permitted it.
And third, says Professor Nagar, ants get more disciplined as the crowd thickens: they hold their speed steadier and make fewer twists and turns. In contrast to human drivers who cut in and out while breaking and accelerating, ant discipline creates a road culture of greater predictability and, consequently, greater safety and consistency.
Granted that ant behavior may have limited practical application to human driving habits and traffic patterns, the observations offered by Professor Nagar suggest other benefits to improve the quality of daily life.
NO EGO
Have you ever watched someone else hopelessly caught up in his own ego-gratification? Sometimes it’s the driver trapped behind a slow-moving car, desperately looking for a chance to break out and around. And what happens when he gets his chance? More often than not, you catch up to him stuck behind the next car or idling at the next stoplight.
Or what about the person who has to be the center of attention or the life of the party? He thinks he’s the darling of the crowd, but the dismayed expressions among his captive audience frequently tell a different story.
When we stop worrying about where we rank compared to others and stop needing others to validate our existence, we become a lot more comfortable with where we are and end up making progress with far greater efficiency.
It’s actually pretty easy when we start asking ourselves the right questions:
IS IT WORTH IT?
We’ve heard it before:
Don’t sweat the small stuff. And so much of it really is small stuff.
Sure, I enjoy the frequent fantasy of trading in my ‘98 Camry for a new… anything. But until I do, I’ll never have to worry about the latest scratch, dent, or interior stain the way I would if I were driving a Mercedes… or even a new Subaru.
The truth is, the shinier our toys are, the more we notice when the shine starts to fade, and our mood fades just as quickly. That’s only natural, since those scrapes and blemishes are all tied up with our first problem… ego.
That scuffed bumper is a reflection on me, isn’t it? It reflects either my own driving or my slothfulness repairing damage inflicted on me by someone else. Of course, it might reflect the sanity of my priorities, that I don’t want to take hours away from my family and friends and community and personal growth so that my car can be pristine (while waiting for the next minor accident to send me back to the repair shop).
And it’s not just our cars. The human eye and mind seek out every imperfection on which to fixate, whether it’s a loose thread or a tilted picture, a sore toe or a pesky hangnail. If anything is 99% perfect, that last one percent becomes all the more intolerable, invalidating everything that is as it should be.
Which is the perfect time for another list of questions:
TIME TO PAY ATTENTION
As tension builds, we start looking for a way out. Maybe what we should be looking for is a way in. Like the ants who become more focused as traffic increases.
The truth is, stress and tension are products of our bodies preparing us to enter into survival mode. When we respond by heightening our awareness of the challenges that face us and steeling ourselves to meet them, we can propel our productivity and success to unprecedented levels. Not only do we manage the job at hand, but we increase our ability to overcome greater obstacles that lie ahead.
It’s a win-win.
But it demands that we reframe, that we stop looking at obstacles as impediments to progress and start seeing them as opportunities for development and self-improvement. And that outlook starts with more questions:
After all, what’s the point of an obstacle course? We could traverse the course much faster without all those obstacles, no? But then what would we have accomplished?
And isn’t life the greatest obstacle course of all?
Rabbi Yonason Goldson, a talmudic scholar and former hitchhiker, circumnavigator, and newspaper columnist, lives in St. Louis, MO, where he teaches, writes, and lectures. His new book Proverbial Beauty: Secrets for success and happiness from the wisdom of the ages is due out in July. Visit him at http://ift.tt/1yTxW6j.
The post How Ants Survive Rush Hour (and why putting your ego in check will change your life) appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
We all want to be more efficient in order to make the most of our time. But how can we really accomplish more and stop wasting our efforts on insignificant tasks? The answer to our productivity concerns can be solved with the use of a tool called crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing is the process of enlisting the help of a big crowd of people, usually on the internet, whose collective knowledge, resources, and skills can help to come up with diverse and expert solutions to your problems. This way you can focus your energies on your top priority tasks while still using your crowd to figure out solutions to other problems as well.
You can ask for help and advice from your own crowd of friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter or engage with other kinds of crowdsourcing platforms. Wikipedia is one of the most well-known of these crowdsourcing efforts.
However, many of us may not know how to crowdsource to its full benefit. In order to get the most out of this process, I’d like to offer a list of 10 tips for crowdsourcing effectively:
The post 10 Tips For Using Crowdsourcing Effectively to Lead a Productive Life appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
We all want to be more efficient in order to make the most of our time. But how can we really accomplish more and stop wasting our efforts on insignificant tasks? The answer to our productivity concerns can be solved with the use of a tool called crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing is the process of enlisting the help of a big crowd of people, usually on the internet, whose collective knowledge, resources, and skills can help to come up with diverse and expert solutions to your problems. This way you can focus your energies on your top priority tasks while still using your crowd to figure out solutions to other problems as well.
You can ask for help and advice from your own crowd of friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter or engage with other kinds of crowdsourcing platforms. Wikipedia is one of the most well-known of these crowdsourcing efforts.
However, many of us may not know how to crowdsource to its full benefit. In order to get the most out of this process, I’d like to offer a list of 10 tips for crowdsourcing effectively:
The post 10 Tips For Using Crowdsourcing Effectively to Lead a Productive Life appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
We all have certain character traits which can help to define who we are as a person.
There have many theories put forward in Psychology about character and one such one is the Big Five:
A summary of the factors of the Big Five and their constituent traits, such that they form the acronym OCEAN:
The Big Five Model was defined by several independent sets of researchers. These researchers began by studying known personality traits and then factor-analyzing hundreds of measures of these traits (in self-report and questionnaire data, peer ratings, and objective measures from experimental settings) in order to find the underlying factors of personality. The Big five personality traits was the model to comprehend the relationship between personality and academic behaviors. (Source Wikipedia)
The post What is Your Dominant Character Trait appeared first on Change your thoughts.
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Sig Nordal 