Aaron Miller - How to Help (Page 13)

Mar 12, 2024 Blog

We Need to Understand—Not Just Eliminate—Suffering

I enjoyed this article by Katherine Boyle so very much. It reflects what I’ve been learning as I slowly work my way through the book Suffering and Virtue by philosopher Michael Brady. (I will eventually write a newsletter article about that book.)

“Though we may not realize it, nearly all of our modern cultural debates and ailments stem from the contemporary belief that suffering is not a natural or essential part of the human condition. The war on suffering has not only robbed us of resilience; it has sold us a mirage that is making us miserable.”

If suffering is only to be eliminated, then we miss out on what it also produces that’s good. Post-traumatic growth, for example, is impossible without suffering. The ways we respond to suffering need to be far more thoughtful and nuanced than just making sure it never happens, which is impossible anyway.

The War on Suffering | Katherine Boyle - The Rambler

Mar 11, 2024 Blog

Happiness and Meaning Are Different Things

It’s an easy mistake to think that a happy life is a meaningful life. But research by Baumeister and others shows that meaning comes from different things than happiness.

“Their findings suggest that meaning (separate from happiness) is not connected with whether one is healthy, has enough money, or feels comfortable in life, while happiness (separate from meaning) is. More specifically, the researchers identified five major differences between a happy life and a meaningful one.”

The five differences are fascinating, but I’ll just encourage you to follow the link to find out more.

Is a Happy Life Different from a Meaningful One? | Greater Good Science Center

Mar 8, 2024 Blog

The TED talk will never be the same

Back in the late 90’s as a college student, I read Wired magazine religiously every month. My brothers did, too. It felt like seeing into the future.

I was surprised some years later when my younger brother told me that he stopped reading Wired. He’d realized that the cool inventions he’d been reading about almost never materialized. I’d never thought of that, but knew he was right. It was aspirational vapor, amazing to see but never real enough to be solid.

The TED talk in the 00’s was the next version of that. This article is worth a read just for the word “inspiresting.”

Back then, around a decade ago, I watched those articulate, audacious, composed people talk about how they were building robots that would eat trash and turn it into oxygen, or whatever, and I felt hopeful about the future. But the trash-eating robots never arrived. With some distance, now, from a world in which TED seemed to offer a bright path forward, it’s time to ask: what exactly is TED? And what happened to the future it envisioned?

What Was the TED Talk? - The Drift

(via Dense Discovery, a favorite newsletter)

Mar 7, 2024 Blog

Why “Follow Your Passion” Is Bad Advice

I use Dr. Cech’s research in one of my classes, and this article is a nice summary by her on how it can be perilous to “Follow Your Passion.” I wish we could scrub the advice from every graduation speech given every year. There are better ways to inspire the next generation.

Yet, what I found is that following one’s passion does not necessarily lead to fulfillment, but is one of the most powerful cultural forces perpetuating overwork. I also found that promoting the pursuit of one’s passion helps perpetuate social inequalities due to the fact that not everyone has the same economic resources to allow them to pursue their passion with ease. What follows are five major pitfalls of the passion principle that I discovered through my research.

5 drawbacks to following your passion | Cech

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