Are You Wasting Your Free Time?

. “Jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because … they have built-in goals, feedback, rules, and challenges,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (September 29, 1934–October 20, 2021) writes in his book “Flow.” “Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed,” he … Read more

Mortimer Adler on Play vs. Leisure

. When asked about their day, average Americans say, “I devote eight hours to sleep, eight hours to work, and I have eight hours … left over for free time.” So writes Mortimer J. Adler in his book “How to Think About the Great Ideas.” Then he adds, “And the average American today would [also] … Read more

Sigmund Freud on Humanity’s Naive Self-Love

. “When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself,” Eckhart Tolle wrote in his meditation on what it really means to be yourself. Except for the enlightened few, it seems the malaise of self-obsession will keep afflicting each and every one of us until the end … Read more

F. Scott Fitzgerald on Reserving Judgments

All of us live with an inner critic — that subtle voice in our heads that never stops talking. The most insidious thing about it is that often we’re not aware of it, not mindful of its tendency to be judgmental of ourselves and other people. I was recently reminded of this dysfunctional mental habit … Read more