Is it better, in life, to pursue happiness or purpose? This is a constant question we ask ourselves when trying to find the best way to live.
But over 2,000 years ago, the wise thinkers in ancient Greece − Plato, Homer, Socrates and Aristotle − came up with a philosophy that bypasses both, as both happiness and purpose are transient and unreliable.
The concept that they came up with is called areté and though it has no exact meaning in English, it stands for reaching the potentiality of excellence in everything which contributes to more satisfaction and significance in our lives.
The word areté is loosely related to the Greek word ‘aristos’, which is the root of the word aristocracy, denoting superiority and nobility. So then, areté is a superior virtue, the aristocracy of virtues.
In modern culture, we seem to be missing an aspect that the ancient thinkers gave much importance to. And this is introspection, which is an important component in achieving excellence. We need to ask ourselves why we pursue a quest and what value such quest is contributing to us personally or professionally.
Achieving areté is an endeavour of a lifelong pursuit for personal and professional growth. The goal is not to compete with others but to bring out the best potential in oneself. It is very individual.
However, everything has its own particular areté – i.e. essence, excellence or highest good. So, the areté of a man is different from the areté of a dog or an apple. It basically refers to the innate quality – an art, the highest good, potential or virtuousness of a living being or a thing.
In practical terms, if we are being and acting at our best, we are being excellent. This is the areté of the self. When an apple seed grows into the perfect apple tree, the areté of the apple seed is manifested in its excellence. A good cutting knife is said to be an excellent knife and where its areté lies. The areté of a country is shown in one that is well run − with its citizens happy and thriving. And a soul that is well balanced at its best has its areté in place.
Interestingly to note, this concept was referred to even in the New Testament where excellence was encouraged: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence [areté], if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (the Admonition of Paul in Philippians 4.8).
Thus, areté isn’t just having as much of a good thing as possible or avoiding a bad thing. The highest virtue lies in moderation and balance of all the merits of a given thing. The potential for areté exists in all things, but achieving areté is an ongoing journey, and the quest is itself an achievement of the highest order.
The areté of something is the highest quality state it can reach.
Areté covers the idea that there is a potential excellence in everything. Pursuing that excellence, whether it creates happiness for yourself or service for others, should be our ultimate goal. Both happiness and service are subsets of the larger domain of areté.
A few ways one can incorporate the philosophy of areté into one’s life are – with relationships: instead of focusing on how people can help you, or how you can help people, you focus on areté. What is quality in a relationship? It is connection, sharing, loyalty, deep conversations or laughter; with speech, if aiming for an areté quality of life, there are times when it is best to shut up rather than waffle about a topic; and with food, instead of eating for taste, weight goals or even long-term health, eating for areté would be eating food that has quality to us in both taste and nutrition. Eating greasy junky snacks will not qualify for an areté ideal.
Rather than chasing happiness or purpose it is preferable to adopt areté into one’s life experience, which raises the quality of all that is undertaken, making life a personal masterpiece… and a more holistic and supportive one.
Reading the fine print or understanding available offers means you could be saving money or taking advantage of refunds or freebies that you might not have otherwise known about, like a brand-new pair of Nike sneakers.
That’s the kind of attention to detail that can lead to some surprising upsides, according to Erika Kullberg, lawyer and founder of Plug and Law, a legal tech start-up for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Kullberg has found that you could be eligible for compensation for everything from getting bumped from your flight to having a package arrive after its guaranteed delivery date or money off an Apple purchase under its educational pricing.
Airlines are already anticipating a busy summer, which makes it particularly important for passengers to understand the rules in the event of an unexpected change. And agreements like Delta’s contract of the carriage can belong. That’s why it can pay off in a big way to take the time to read and fully understand the fine print.
“Almost every transaction in your life involves a contract whether you’re flying with an airline or buying a pair of shoes,” Kullberg said.
Kullberg doles out this consumer wealth of knowledge on social media and has amassed more than 11 million followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Often preparation time exceeds the actual cooking time when preparing a dish. As such, many of us tend to look for easy hacks that can help save time and effort in the kitchen. One such prep activity that we dread is peeling garlic. If you agree with us, then we have the perfect solutions for you!
Recently, chef Saransh Goila shared some super effective hacks for garlic peeling.
“Garlic peeling is always a debate! A lot depends on the size of garlic and how many do you want to peel,” he said.
With the coming of a new year, most of us have once again resolved to make ourselves into better people — the people we were meant to be. Last year’s resolutions may be only a fading memory, but this year, we’re sure, will be different.
Sadly, that’s probably not true. Eighty percent of New Year’s resolutions are broken by the second week of February, according to an article in U.S. News & World Report by clinical psychologist Joseph J. Luciani.
If you’re an entrepreneur, maybe you’ve vowed that this year you’ll be more productive. Are you doomed to be disappointed like everyone else?
Not necessarily. According to some psychologists, if you experiment with small potential solutions to your problem, big changes are possible. You may need, in other words, some handy hacks.
The wise words my aunt shared with me more than a decade ago still resonate today and guide how I structure my daily routine and schedule: Time is your most valuable
currency. It’s the one finite resource we work with daily where we can’t simply create more should we come up short in a given day. This can be especially true for entrepreneurs, who are consistently challenged to do more with fewer resources.
So, to get more out of your day and ensure you’re maximizing your most valuable currency, here are five small changes to experiment with.
Research at Stanford University showed that people who are media multitaskers are less productive. Those who can juggle many tasks at once certainly appear to be productive. But, this study showed that that is an illusion. It was assumed that these people had some sort of ability — perhaps a better memory — that enabled them to accomplish what others could not. But, it turns out that they may just be more easily distracted.
It’s counterintuitive, but research has shown that people who take short breaks during the day are more productive. One study demonstrated that the most productive 10 percent of workers, worked on average for just 52 minutes before taking a break. And the perfect break was 17 minutes long. The idea that breaks can make you more productive is not new. Back in the 1920s, Henry Ford realized that his company could get just as much work done by limiting the work week to five days and the work day to eight hours.
If there is a task that hinders your productivity, see if there is some technology that will help you do it better. For example, if you’ve lost business because you’ve repeatedly missed customer calls, think about forwarding your office phone to your mobile device via voice-over-IP, or VOIP. It’s technology that has been around for a while and can keep you in touch with your customers no matter where you are.
If you’re a person who believes if you want it done right, do it yourself, you could be wrong. Smart entrepreneurs know what they’re good at, and they know that delegating the rest may be more efficient than doing it themselves. It may take some time to determine which responsibilities you should hand off to others, but that time could pay off by freeing you up for more productive tasks.
Meetings can be an enormous waste of time, so attend only those that are absolutely necessary. Is that luncheon with the local chamber of commerce likely to generate some leads or not? If not, find a better way to drum up business. If you can’t eliminate meetings, try to make them more productive. One way is to keep them short, 30 minutes or less. Another is to create an agenda and send it out a day ahead of time.
If none of these experiments work, maybe the problem isn’t you. According to a Harvard Business Review article, some people just aren’t comfortable with techniques designed to make them more productive. They feel these techniques impose a regimentation on them that interrupts the flow of work, damages the quality of their work experience and even hampers their productivity.
So, if you’ve tried techniques to make you more productive and they haven’t worked, don’t sweat it. Just focus on other resolutions instead. Didn’t you sign up for a new
gym membership?
Being an entrepreneur is challenging. Every day is a constant battle with uncertainty and doubt. But it can be a lot harder if you don’t actively make yourself a bigger priority than your business.
The thing that many entrepreneurs fail to realize is that you are your business. If you don’t take care of yourself and do things every day that put a little extra gas in the tank, then you’re dooming yourself and your business to burnout and failure.
Here are just a few things that you can do every day to ensure that you are able to succeed at the highest level in your business and in life.
I know, I know, Benjamin Franklin said: “You can sleep when you’re dead.”
Well, that’s fantastic, but if you aren’t getting enough sleep, you will be living each day like you are already dead. There have been a number of studies in recent years showing just how detrimental prolonged sleep deprivation is.
Related: 8 Steps to Building Your Business According to the Lifestyle You Want
Just a few of the effects include lower memory capacity, slower decision making, inability to solve problems, a weakened body and immune system (making you more susceptible to injury and illness) and even an increased risk of obesity.
The message here is clear. Get enough sleep. And make sure it’s quality sleep, too.
Like getting sufficient sleep, exercising on a regular basis should be a higher priority than even your business.
Exercise releases endorphins and all sorts of other wonderful chemicals into your body that increase your happiness levels and improve your ability to perform daily tasks.
Not to mention, exercise has also been proven to help you live a longer healthier life.
Not a bad tradeoff for something that takes about 20 minutes a day, is it?
Entrepreneurs are notorious for working seven days a week without ever taking a break. I have been guilty of this myself on more occasions than I care to admit.
Taking one day off every week from all work (that includes email) will allow your body and your mind to recharge and refuel, allowing you to come back to your business with a fresh perspective and more energy than you have had in a long time.
Be sure that when you take this day off, you take full advantage of your time.
Spend the day hanging out with friends and family who energize you, reading an interesting book, playing with your kids, or getting out in nature. Don’t waste it sleeping 12 hours (too much of a good thing) or sitting in front of the TV.
Sitting in a chair for 20 minutes and doing nothing. Sounds like a waste of time, right?
Not so. The science is clearly in on this one: meditation has tremendous benefits for you and your business.
Related: How Positivity Makes You Healthy and Successful
It has been proven to help improve your ability to focus, your creativity and your overall happiness levels.
The best part is that you don’t have to get fancy.
Just 10 minutes with a guided meditation on YouTube, Headspace or just a relaxing piece of music will work wonders for your mind and body.
Whenever you own a business, it can be hard to reward yourself whenever you aren’t doing as well as you would like to. I understand, and I’ve been there.
But if you can shift your focus to everything that you are doing right, all of the things that you have accomplished, all of the progress you are making, you will be happier, more productive, and as a result more successful. Keep a pen and pad near your desk and celebrate all of your small wins at the end of the day.
Maybe it was a client that you landed, a landing page you finally wrote, an employee that you gave a second chance, or maybe it was just hauling yourself out of bed to work on your business when you could have slept in.
It doesn’t have to be big; it just has to be something.
Life is short. Why would you want to spend even one second more than necessary surrounded by negative or pessimistic people? One of the quickest ways to skyrocket your success and happiness is to start intentionally cutting out negative relationships and cultivating positive ones.
There is no way around it, you become like the people you surround yourself with, and if you are surrounded with unambitious, lazy, and negative people, it will rub off on you no matter how hard you fight it. So get around people who lift you up and encourage you. It may be the most important decision you ever make.
There is a reason that they say laughter is the best medicine. Stop taking yourself so seriously and learn to laugh a little. Don’t make life any harder by going through every day with a permanent scowl on your face.
One of the biggest and most underrated factors that affects your mood, thinking, focus, productivity, and health is the nutrition you ingest. This is especially true for entrepreneurs. According to the study by the International Labor Organization (ILO), our nutrition habits directly affects our productivity.
Best way to keep a healthy diet is to do following:
Here is the a list of foods you should avoid in order to keep your mental edge.
If you want to succeed in business, you first have to succeed in life.
You have to take care of and prioritize yourself so that you can properly serve your company, your employees, and your clients.
Never forget what Jim Rohn said: “Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development.”
So take some time each day to invest in yourself and you will see a bigger return than you thought possible.
We all have lemons at home, but most of us only ever use it for cooking. Some people, who are aware of its hair and skin benefits use it appositely, but largely everybody else remains oblivious to the many advantages of the essential fruit. Here, we discuss some unique hacks, with which the fruit can help make your life easier. Read on.
* Lemon is effective on any tough stain that comes up on your favourite fabric. Instead of panicking, squeeze a little bit of lemon juice on the fabric, and also add a pinch of salt. Let it stay on the stubborn stain for a few hours before you wash it off normally using a detergent powder. It is highly effective against curry stains, coffee and ketchup, to name a few.
Is your fridge smelling? Use lemons to fight the odour. The juice is highly helpful in getting rid of any fowl smell, so just soak a cotton ball in lemon juice and place it in the fridge. Alternatively, you can also place half-cut lemons to get rid of the smell.
* Lemons can also keep apples and other such cut fruit slices from turning brown. Just remember to squeeze a few drops of lemon in water, and then soak the apple slices in the solution to keep them fresh for long, so that when you finally sit down to eat them, you enjoy the taste.
* Lemon juice can also be used to whiten nails naturally. It often happens that any dark nail paint that you wear, leaves behind a dark hue that you struggle to get rid of. Just squeeze half a lemon into a bowl of lukewarm water, and then soak your nails in it for at least five minutes. Rub the peel of lemon on your nails before washing it off. In no time, you will see your nails becoming whiter.
* This should not come as a surprise to many, but using lemon juice can help you fight your dandruff naturally. Whenever you wash your hair, applying lemon juice on the scalp and allowing it to stay for 10 minutes before washing it off with an anti-dandruff shampoo can give you much relief over a period of time. Lemon juice is said to contain citric acid that can help chase away the dandruff from the roots of the follicles.
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