Category: Mind Space

Toronto is Getting Better

There’s an election happening in Toronto right now and all the campaigns lack optimism and the people have noticed. Local columnist Christopher Hume has compiled a fun list of things that are good which are already under development in Toronto. He wants to help people realize all the good things happening in the city – good for him and good for Toronto.

Nuit Blanche: One night, one million people and 130-odd art installations scattered throughout the core; the result is the most genuinely popular cultural event in Toronto. The fifth edition, held this past weekend, closed off much of the downtown stretch of Yonge and Bloor streets for 12 hours of pedestrian freedom. Despite annual complaints of drunkenness and loutish behaviour, Nuit Blanche is a brilliant way of getting Torontonians engaged in their city at street level.

…
Evergreen Brickworks: Much remains to be done, but already this innovative and thoroughly entertaining complex has become a gateway to the Toronto ravine system and ecological urbanism. It also happens to be one of the most extensive and imaginative heritage rehabilitation schemes ever seen in Toronto. With several large galleries, classrooms and various amenities, indoors and out, this is a place to see an exhibition, take a course, eat dinner, go for skate or enjoy the views.

Right the rest of Hume’s article.

Keep Learning for a Good Life

For some reasons that I don;t understand people find learning to be dull. If you’re one of those people this post is for you!

Learning is a great way to keep your mind active and acquire new skills to improve your life and ways you don’t necessarily foresee. There’s always areas that you can expand your knowledge in and lucky for us someone has put these into a handy blog post.

Here’s a snippet:

Challenge Yourself
Finally, give yourself a challenge or two. Next time you say, “I can’t”, stop and think. Maybe you really can’t cook … yet. There’s nothing stopping you learning.
Sure, you might find that you just don’t enjoy cooking. But at least you’ll know that you could put together a meal if you had to.
We start at a zero skill level for everything in life. Just because you can’t currently play the piano doesn’t mean that you’ll never be able to. With the internet, there’s a huge amount of content on every topic you can think of – and loads of it will be aimed at beginners.

Keep reading and learning at the source.

Ways to Build Self-Confidence

Feeling self-confident feels good and there’s no reason why you should lack confidence because you, dear reader, are pretty awesome! I recently stumbled across a list of 63 ways to build self-confidence that are simple and easy to do.

  • Take yourself off auto-pilot – make deliberate decisions on what really matters to you.
    Next time you come up against a risk or a challenge, listen to what you tell yourself and look for a way that that inner dialog can be improved. Ask yourself, “What would make this easier?”
  • Scared of looking silly? You and everyone else. It’s no biggie so don’t let it stop you. Say it with me – “It just doesn’t matter.”
  • Don’t think for a second that you can’t be confident. There are already loads of things you do with natural self-confidence, you just have to notice them and get familiar with how it feels. Look for the things you do where the question of whether you’re confident enough never arises.

    • Read all 63 ways to boost your self confidence at Life Hack.

    Say Good Things About People

    It turns out that if you speak highly about those you know then you yourself are a good person. New research shows that the way you think about others reflects on how happy you are.

    The researchers found a person’s tendency to describe others in positive terms is an important indicator of the positivity of the person’s own personality traits. They discovered particularly strong associations between positively judging others and how enthusiastic, happy, kind-hearted, courteous, emotionally stable and capable the person describes oneself and is described by others.
    “Seeing others positively reveals our own positive traits,” Wood says.
    The study also found that how positively you see other people shows how satisfied you are with your own life, and how much you are liked by others.
    In contrast, negative perceptions of others are linked to higher levels of narcissism and antisocial behavior. “A huge suite of negative personality traits are associated with viewing others negatively,” Wood says. “The simple tendency to see people negatively indicates a greater likelihood of depression and various personality disorders.” Given that negative perceptions of others may underlie several personality disorders, finding techniques to get people to see others more positively could promote the cessation of behavior patterns associated with several different personality disorders simultaneously, Wood says.

    Keep reading about this positive news.