One of my favourite quotes is "motivation follows action". Often times I've found myself loath to do something, but once I start "revving up" (at work, it might be starting with something simple like a small refactor; at home, it could be committing to simply washing one plate of the stack I have remaining) I find I gain the motivation to keep going.
I agree, waiting to get motivated can be really frustrating and it can fuel a sense of guilt because you know you should be doing something. Just starting do it triggers a rewarding feeling and spawns that precious feeling of motivation i guess.
> The key to faking a real smile is in wrinkling the eyes.
The wrinkling is not a very reliable indicator of fake smiles [1]. A real smile does indeed involve muscles around the eyes, but wrinkling could be caused by the cheek muscles pushing upward too.
Some more indicators of a real smile are, IIRC
- curling corners of the mouth
- corners of the eye pushing inward
- short duration
- it starts and ends smoothly
- symmetry
[1] Source: Having recently read "Telling Lies" by Paul Ekman (and that was a HN recommendation too)
Yes, because their profit margins are that low (!).
Considering Apple charges you £500 for a phone and £1000 for a laptop, I'd expect a bit more in terms of default cloud storage. 5 gig (and the 16 gig the cheapest iPhone 5S model offers) are incredibly stingy.
Alcohol, plastics (which leech from containers into the liquid they contain), pesticides (on fruits, vegetables)—there are a host of environmental factors that reduce our testosterone levels.
And as for anxiety, I think our modern urban lifestyle far increases our anxiety levels compared to our ancestors.
The human body was not meant for the world we live in!
I've wondered about the effect that environmental factors might have on Japan's current predicament- something in the water? did processing of soy products change at some point such that levels of the estrogen analogs ended up being higher? I guess I haven't been quite curious enough to see if there have been any rigorous studies that have compared T levels there over the last few decades.
I'd think the opposite. Since she is used to having to work hard from a young age, she will be more successful in life.
Others who coasted through—whom were used to everything being relatively easier—will not have the experience she has already accrued when faced with a harder challenge.
Not sure that makes sense. She potentially experiences 12 years of increased stress compared to her peers. I'm not implying that later in life, she will have better tools for work, but that her body would have spent most of her formative years under more stress.
This would then reflect in a shorter lifespan.
Note however that this concept she would gain the tools for hard working in itself is flawed. Studies have shown that those born in the Summer months have statistically lower exam scores.
This is very hard to measure as you would be looking at teaching practices in the 1920-1940s to determine the effects on life expectancy. I think potentially, nationally, this would be possible as most nations have been quite consistent on their school starting times.
I do think having a breakdown by month, not just quarter could be even more insightful.
Malcom Gladwell's Outsiders book basically covers this topic. Usually the ones who do best are the ones with an early head start.
One example that I remember is that oldest kids in class are usually the biggest, that (generally) makes them better at sport early in life. That leads to extra coaching for sports teams, more practice and the effect snowballs.
I don't have a link, but there was a comparative study done on children in Norway during the debate on lowering school starting age (it was 7 years when I was at school - it's 6 years now, and there's some pressure to lower it to 5).
They compared salaries and other factors based on age at school start and found basically no statistically significant differences later in life between those who had been oldest and youngest when starting school.
They did not look at things like health or stress levels, though.
