Patricia Mou

The apparent happiness of Africans, against all horror, seems to derive from a sense of connectedness, or as the Zulu put it, "ubunto." This word is often translated to mean community, but one of them gave me what I think is a more accurate definition: "I am because we are; we are because I am."

There are numerous variations on these simple activities but the original intervention (Emmons and McCullough, 2003) consisted of taking time once per week to reflect upon five things in life that one was grateful for and writing these down, and then repeating this for ten consecutive weeks.

 Ignore what others may be thinking of you, because they aren’t.

6. Antifragility. Do not be broken by this chaos and disorder; rather, adopt a mentality that you will benefit from it.

Champion myself and others: I hold a high standard for myself and others. I know that we are capable of being great, doing great things, and staying true to ourselves. I compassionately and courageously remind myself and others of our truest, boldest, most authentic visions/dreams, even and especially when it's uncomfortable. I challenge us to step... See more

Rather than sticking to the script we assigned ourselves (or our structures and society assigned us), maybe we can imagine who we are, what matters to us, and what we need without focusing on “growing into” the next big thing. Maybe we can look at ourselves-as-is, rather than the ones we envisioned becoming. That’s the place everything else grows... See more

Presence over planning: "There’s this sense that we’re on our way somewhere else and that what’s right here is not the time that matters. We’re trying to get to the point in the future when we’ve finally checked everything off our to-do list and we can rest. As long as this is our habit, we are racing toward the end of our life. We are skimming the... See more

There are profound asymmetries and power laws at play in the pursuit of meaning – a split second decision might be the most important one you make; years of lounging around in cafes and on beaches might pay off more than years of hard work - if it results in one extremely good idea.

“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy." - Elon Musk