Enough
Patrick Rhone’s enough is a collection of essays on mindfulness that will help you become better aware of where your time and attention is being spent and offers tips on how to control that. It’s a quick read and written in a manner that’s great to pick it up for reference any time you need recalibration.
Here are some of my favorite quotes and ideas, and my thoughts about them:
To get to [enough], one must let go of what-ifs, conjecture, assumptions, guesses, and half-truths. One must overcome fear, gluttony, self-doubt, and thoughts of grandeur. One must ask hard questions to find harder answers.
It’s scary but you have to let go of things always being perfect to understand what enough is.
Decide to be adequately prepared for the things that matter to you, balanced with practicality and the realization that sometimes you are going to get a little wet no matter how many umbrellas you own.
We can’t be prepared for every situation so focus on what’s most important, like the health and well-being of your family.
When one defines intention, values, and purpose, limitations create themselves.
Limitations are a good thing. Set them and embrace them whenever you can.
There is a purpose within most of [the scheduled religious] rituals: to turn your attention away from the things outside towards the focus on the practice within.
Make focus routine.
Our goal then is to seek, for any task, the tool that provides the perfect balance between simple, easy, and right.
Notice that “best”, “feature-rich”, or what your “favorite blogger linked to” aren’t in that list?
It’s not the tools that you have faith in—tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. —Steve Jobs
You can’t do it all alone. Find people who you can depend in and ask them for help when you need it.
We should take time to consider the tools we use, purposefully opt-out or decline some of them, and take regular sabbaticals.
Being away from something, through sabbaticals, gives us a more accurate perspective for consideration.
When it comes to social networks, having a hard limit on how many people you can and will follow is tremendously helpful in meeting [the goal of cultivating and deepening connections]. I can’t tell you what that number should be for you. That said, I have a suggestion of one number to be aware of in order to help you find that balance — Dunbar’s number.
From experience of more than a couple years, limiting my Facebook friends to 150 has greatly improved its value for me. My use of Facebook is becoming more and more infrequent but when I do use it, it’s easier to focus on the people I actually care about.
I write letters. But, not just any letters. Letters that may not ever be sent. In some cases, ones that I knew I would never send, even before I wrote them.
I love this idea and think I’m going to adopt it.
A real conversation should be a journey. It should take you places. It should not have limits. It should be a full sensory experience. It should be immersive. It should be timeless. It should not be ambient. It should be intimate. It should have depth.
I think this is why I can’t stand small talk. The conversation is shallow and neither parties are invested. I’m curious how I can start a conversational journey with someone without blowing through their comfort zone.
[Technology’s] ability to distract is only as powerful as our ability to let it do so.
It’s not the distraction-free whatever environment that gets things done, it’s you. If you decide to do it.
Loneliness is failed solitude. —Sherry Trukle
Solitude is a powerful thing when embraced. It takes practice but learn to take comfort in being surrounded only by your own thoughts.
Create the communication you wish to see in the world.
The crowd, the meeting attendees, your boss, they’re going to fight back because effective communication is hard. Show them, by making it happen, that it’s worth the investment.
For everything we take, someone else must give.
Be grateful. Always.