A short spoken piece by Ben Greenfield encouraging empathy and flexibility in daily routines: prioritize occasionally choosing others’ needs over personal habits (e.g., skipping a fast, changing plans) and begin each day aiming to live by the golden rule—putting oneself in others’ shoes to make them feel seen and loved.
Make every attempt to understand that every human being walking this planet is living a different day and often a significantly different life than you are. Consider sacrificing your fast every once in a while. Take your kids to waffles, shift your weight training workout to instead meet up with some friends or stay up past your bedtime to go gaze at the stars with your lover, because they want to do that and they might not have as great an importance placed upon a strict bedtime as you. And most importantly, begin each day with the mindset of living out the golden rule and putting yourself in other people's shoes. Because sure, you can live your day and stick with the habits you know will lead to success and impact. But understand that to be a fully functioning, interdependent, connected human being on a planet with a whole lot of other humans, you may often find yourself living other people's days also. And you gotta learn to do that gracefully, often by setting your own interests and schedule aside to make other people feel special and loved and noticed and seen and felt and heard.
The Solution to Aging Might Be Closer Than Anyone Realizes - With Ben Goertzel
