Brian Keng

  • Sleep

    If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
    If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
    If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
    If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.
    Chinese Proverb

    Lately I’ve been reading this amazing book by Gretchen Rubin called The Happiness Project.  In this book, she test-drives age old wisdom, scientific studies and common sense on how to be happy.  Although I’m probably outside the typical readership, I found many insightful ideas that had a very noticeable effect on my own happiness.  One of the biggest and the most obvious ideas (as always) is something that falls under the category of common sense: sleep.

    The Chinese proverb at the beginning of the post is not too far off.  Although it may not bring a lifetime of happiness, sleep does have a measurable effect on happiness.  The way I look at it, it’s more of a necessary but not sufficient condition for happiness (sorry for the logic speak).  In other words, if you’re tried, you will be significantly less happy.  But at the same time having enough sleep doesn’t guarantee happiness either.  I think this is true in many other respects too such as being hungry or being healthy.  If you’re hungry, most likely you’re not happy.  If you’re sick, most likely you’re not happy.  The biggest difference with sleep, however, is that many people neglect to value sleep as highly as the other two (obesity seems to be a growing problem but sleeping in isn’t).  But with sleep, I at least have the capacity to be happy (not to mention think clearly and more productively).  However, as with most problems (weight loss comes to mind), the problem isn’t understanding the idea, it’s implementing it.

    My biggest enemy in this battle was my pre-bed time procrastination full of aimless internet browsing and tv watching in order to, apparently, avoid the dread of my down filled 400 thread count comforter and pillow.  I know, not so rational.  Although I do get some fleeting happiness from the procrastination, it was nothing compared to how great I felt after a good night’s sleep.  It was funny because I was always aware of how much sleep affected my disposition but never thought to make a change of habit.  I finally woke up to this fact when I started thinking about how to materially increase my happiness.  If happiness is something you strive for and there is something directly in your control to increase your happiness, wouldn’t you do it?  Being (sort of) rational, that was enough for me.  So I now say: if you want happiness during the day, start with a good night’s sleep.

  • Advice

    “All advice is autobiographical. It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past.”
    How To Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon

    Advice is a funny thing.  There never seems to be a short supply of it.  Colleagues, friends, parents, teachers, they all seem to have something to say about how you can make your life better.  They’re sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but more often than not I think they’re wrong.  Not that they actually are wrong, just that I think that they’re wrong.  And it’s not too hard to understand why when you think about it.  They have a lifetime of experience that says you should do this or you should do that.  Unfortunately, I have a lifetime of experience that says I should do something else whenever I hear “advice” that doesn’t fit my world view.  This is problematic.  To help I’ve been doing a few things to combat the natural urge to dismiss the advice (or worse argue about it):

    1. Listen (without trying to knock it down)
      Listening is almost always harder than not listening.  This is especially true when the advice is less like advice and more like criticism.  However, the first step is not to get into an argumentative state because that almost always ends up with me learning nothing.
    2. Say, “I’ll think about it.”
      This is important so that I won’t be nagged about it constantly.  Otherwise, the conversation will inevitably risk turning it into an argument.  It also happens to show respect for the other person’s point of view as well as saving me from a barrage of criticism.
    3. Think about it.
      I’ve found it hard to immediately extract wisdom from most “advice” I receive.  I usually give it a good night’s sleep after which I always have a very different perspective.  At the very least, it gives me time to figure out why the other person is giving the advice.  It’s almost always based on the experiences that they have gone through, which may or may not be applicable to me.  In any case, there is always wisdom that can be extracted beyond the actual words that they are conveying to you.  This is the most important part because people usually do have a good message — they just don’t know how to communicate it well.

    It took a while for me to figure this out, which is why that quote from Austin Kleon struck a chord with me.  It’s such a succinct way of framing how people give advice.  And that’s why I like sharing these lessons that I’ve learned, in hopes that they may somehow be useful because the last thing I would want is to give anyone advice.

  • Seeing the Future

    “I believe I can see the future
    Because I repeat the same routine…”
    Every Day Is Exactly The Same, Nine Inch Nails

    I recently watched the movie Wanted, and thought it was a really good movie.  Not because of Angelina Jolie, or because there were action packed sequences preceded an awesome training montages, but rather because I could relate to the main character: Wesley Gibson.  Wesley works a dead-end job with a terrible boss, cheating girlfriend and no prospects in life.  Before you get ahead of yourself, I’m not in any of these situations.  But one idea struck a chord with me: repetition.  One of the reasons why his life was going nowhere was because he repeated the same boring job everyday, reacting in the same unproductive ways, and thinking the same useless thoughts hoping and wishing that something would come along and change his life.  Fortunately for him (and the plot of the movie), he had a life changing experience that took him on a wild ride he could never have predicted.  For the rest of us, we should only be so lucky.

    Most people’s lives aren’t as terrible as Wesley Gibson’s, in fact they’re far from it; they’re actually qute comfortable.  And that’s the trap.  Because it’s so comfortable, we get stuck doing the same thing day in and day out, just like Wesley Gibson.  Except unlike the movie, we usually aren’t born with innate superhuman abilities and get recruited into a fraternity of assassins.   Instead, we just keep doing the same thing everyday.  Predicting the future isn’t too hard when you repeat the same routine everyday.

    Routines are great for some things, but your life shouldn’t feel like one.  Doing different things, having new experiences, and getting excited is what makes life interesting.  For me, I actively try to meet new people and try new things because if I didn’t, I would almost surely just sit at home all day.  Sometimes it’s uncomfortable and sometimes it’s scary, but it’s always very rewarding.  I can’t see the future and it’s a beautiful thing.

  • Maker’s Schedule

    This article from Paul Graham is a must read for anyone doing any kind of maker work (like writer or programmer).  Being aware of how much time you need to get productive work done is very important.  Once you’ve figured that out, trying to make that fit into most schedules is a nightmare (but that’s for another post).  Here’s an excerpt from the essay:

    “…programmers and writers… generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.”
    Paul Graham, http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

  • Paper Dragons

    One of the people I met in Japan was a big origami enthusiast.  In fact, he was able to make one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen: a paper dragon (Not him, but a video of the paper dragon).  One sheet, many folds and something very, very beautiful.  What I also found very interesting was how he got to the point of making it.  You see he’s no origami expert; just a hobbyist.  He had all the basic skills but didn’t have a mastery of all the complex techniques.  Yet it took him no more than one day to complete this arduous task.  How you may ask?  Simple, he went to a class. When asked how long he would take to do it himself, he said “three months”.

    Being the inquisitive type that I am, I asked how this was possible.  Three months to one day is no small task, even with a teacher in front of you.  It was simple he explained.  By himself he might spend weeks trying to figure out one particular folding technique, while in the class he could be corrected immediately.  It’s just like learning how to bake the perfect chocolate banana bread, sure you might figure it out after a many tries, but it’s so much easier just to have someone share their secret recipe with you.  The important part is to find that someone who will share that secret recipe — whether that be all the things not to do or the one thing you need to do — so that you can get to the next level quicker.  The sooner that we can find those people who will are willing to share their secret recipe, the sooner we can all conquer our own paper dragons.

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