According to this Christianity Today Blog however, the greatest danger of mid-life for women is loneliness.
At midlife, those years of ignoring ourselves have a way of catching up with us. When our nest empties, our career downshifts, our marriage hits the rocks, our church splits, our parents die, or our health fails, we may find we have little choice but to stop the striving to please others and give ourselves some attention.
2 I was charmed to read in The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard that Jesus was very funny. Words like You of Little Faith, Oligopisteoi, were his own coinages, and would have sounded funny to his listeners.
Relevant Magazine on how Jesus was funnier than we think.
3 Harvard Business Review on the Benefits of Reading
Those who want to lead, read.
Reading can improve intelligence and lead to innovation and insight. Some studies have shown, for example, that reading makes you smarter through "a larger vocabulary and more world knowledge in addition to the abstract reasoning skills." Reading — whether Wikipedia, Michael Lewis, or Aristotle — is one of the quickest ways to acquire and assimilate new information. Many business people claim that reading across fields is good for creativity. And leaders who can sample insights in other fields, such as sociology, the physical sciences, economics, or psychology, and apply them to their organizations are more likely to innovate and prosper.
Reading can also make you more effective in leading others. Reading increases verbal intelligence (PDF), making a leader a more adept and articulate communicator. Reading novels can improve empathy and understanding of social cues. And any business person understands that heightened emotional intelligence will improve his or her leadership and management ability.
Finally, an active literary life can make you more personally effective by keeping you relaxed and improving health. For stressed executives, reading is the best way to relax, as reading for six minutes can reduce stress by 68%, and some studies suggest reading may even fend off Alzheimer's, extending the longevity of the mind.
4 A common trait of many writers of children's books is not so much that they like children, but that they have never really grown up themselves. They retain the emotional make-up of children.
Margaret Wise Brown, author of the beloved Goodnight Moon, was one of these writers, according to Slate.
5 This poor little owl has longed to a lark all her adult life.
The New York Times has some suggestions on how to reset your circadian rhythms.
How about you? What was the most interesting thing you've read today.
Ok, today I read about theories about why sexual reproduction of species evolved especially because it doesn't seem to make evolutionary sense. Indiana Univ has a great website devoted to explaining all the current hypotheses.
ReplyDeleteThen I read through some ideas for demonstrations of electron orbitals (they're hard to visualize - trying to find some good ideas for building 3D models for our chemistry class).
And I read your blog and the Beaker Folk tonight.
Typical day for a science geek :).
The first one sounds v. interesting. The second is Greek, or Science to me:-)
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for reading my blog!