Doing well in school required us to get good at studying. To study, per the dictionary, is to devote time and attention to acquiring knowledge on [an academic subject], especially by means of books. Studying, however, is different from learning. To learn is to gain or acquire knowledge of or skill in something by study, experience, or…
I have learned:- That you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them. I have learned:- That no matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back. I have learned:- That no matter how smart, beautiful or charming you…
My favorite excerpts from a fascinating article on The Atlantic – “Power causes brain damage.” _______________________________________________________ Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at McMaster University, in Ontario, studies brains. And when he put the heads of the powerful and the not-so-powerful under a transcranial-magnetic-stimulation machine, he found that power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, “mirroring,” that may…
When we think about business development opportunities, we mostly begin by knowing exactly where we are today and what goals we want to reach next. From there we set out to widen our net and acquire more customers or users for our existing products and services. Our growth strategy starts with the need to expand…
In an inspiring display of leadership last year [2019], Ethiopians planted more than 350 million trees in 12 hours as part of a wider reforestation program called “Green Legacy.” Led by a call from the Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy and his cabinet of ministers, Ethiopians broke the previous record set by Indians in 2017 [66 million trees].…
Refrigerators are so commonly-used these days, we take for granted how easy they make our lives. They allow us to be lazy shoppers: we bulk buy fresh ingredients first, and decide what to eat for dinner later. For at least 100,000 years, humans have been able to make fire, but the skill to make cold…
How often do we think about the impact glass has on our lives? Often when we think of glass, we think of drinking glass, glass of milk, some are already thinking wine glass, or windscreen glass, or glass on my mobile phone, or windows glass at home. But there is more to glass than we…
John and Sara were neighbours. They heard that the lady down the street was giving every child pieces of cake on Christmas day. Deciding to drop by at the kind lady’s place, they went home to take containers with which to collect the pieces of cake. Sara brought back a small container with enough space…
'Too much to do', 'It's too cold.' 'It's too hot.' 'Open up the economy.' 'I'm tired of lockdown.' 'Can I see the manager?' 'Are you the one in charge?' 'This person is not helpful.' 'That person is not helping at all... why?!' blah blah blah etc etc. Enough is enough. Everyone is complaining, on TV,…
When Hungarian scientist, Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that maternity ward doctors were killing more women when they came straight after working with cadavers, he suggested that they should wash their hands, ideally with antiseptics. Described as the "saviour of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever [also known as "childbed fever"] could be drastically…
One interesting story I have recently learned about the attitudes we need to have during difficult times is the jack story: _______________________________________________________ A guy is driving through a deserted highway when one of his tires blows out. He gets out of his car, opens his boot to look for a spare tire and realises he…
“Have you heard? That new virus is spreading like crazy in Wuhan, China. That seems just awful.” “Oh gosh, now there are tons of cases in Italy and Iran. I heard it came from a bat or something like that. How terrifying. Thank goodness there are only a few cases here.” “It exploded in New York,…
