R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness

As a parent, your focus shifts from supporting and guiding your kids to adapting to their growing independence. This change can be challenging to navigate, but it's important to find ways to grow and support yourself.

One way to do this is by developing new hobbies and strengthening existing relationships. Hobbies can provide a sense of fulfillment and give you time for self-reflection, while building strong relationships with others can provide a supportive network.

While you can't control life's changes, you can prepare and grow with them. By taking steps to invest in yourself, you'll be better equipped to handle the challenges that come with increased independence from your children.

Just keep doing things and putting good into the world as much as you possibly can. Idle moments lead to mind wondering that is not good for you in any sort of way.

At the micro scale, I have to realize that I can’t fix everybody’s problems. But at the macro scale, I can have a big impact because of the problem of self interest that happens collectively

In the academic market, we have a tragedy of the commons, where people are not addressing larger issues because they’re self interested.

I document the emotions that you might go through as a #academic researcher based on my own experience.

You will have moments of high stress, such as #teaching or submission deadlines, followed by a recuperation. these are generally moments of high excitement, and generate elation.

The following day, you often feel exhausted. I tend to feel worn out, sad, and often get migraine headaches.

This is exacerbated by social isolation because you feel the need to produce. However, ironically the social isolation makes you feel the pressures to produce even more, and compounds negative emotions that you are currently feeling.

These feelings are very similar to what somebody would go through in the long-haul #trucking. You feel the pressure is to produce, so you want to work more and be further isolated, leading you to feel the pressure is even more.

As I’ve said before, social isolation is the industrial hazard that #academics face.

How do you handle it?

How do you deal with the social, isolation that you feel from doing research? Been really struggling with this in the last while, and I don’t quite know what the answer is. Are used to be really good with dealing with the sadness that you get from doing research, but where the years has become more difficult to deal with it. I’m just curious to see what your thoughts are and how you actually manage it?

It's never too late to pursue your passions and goals. Age should not be a barrier to trying new things and enjoying life to the fullest.

Imagine if you were a 90 year old and you wanted to pursue gymnastics your whole life.

Why wouldn’t you actually try to pursue gymnastics when you’re 90 years old? What’s the worst that’s actually gonna happen to you?

It may improve your flexibility and overall health.

Don't be afraid to start something, even if it's not perfect. Life is full of loose ends and opportunities for growth and development.

Don’t be afraid to start some thing, so what if it actually is started and there’s loose ends.

Don’t you realize that everything in life is nothing but loose ends.

This just gives more opportunity for you to start something or for other people to build on top of what you’ve already done.

Pursuing something new can bring new joy and purpose to your life. It can also help you to grow and learn new skills. Even if you don't achieve your goal, the journey of trying is often just as valuable.

Remember that age is just a number and you should never let it hold you back from living your best life. Embrace new opportunities and take risks, you never know what amazing things you may discover about yourself and the world around you.

We make up the world around us. There are structures in place, but those structures have largely been made up by other people. Why not create the structures in the life that you want by making it up as you go.

An important aspect of making wise financial choices is thanking about long run averages. If something is relatively proven, you should think about the long range average return that you’re going to expect. For example, on average, most publicly traded companies, make a return of summer around 10% per year based on looking at the stock market. So your expectation should be that it should make summer around 10% on every $100 that you’re putting in.

If somebody is promising to make more than 10%, you should be very leery of what they’re actually saying. If it’s an unproven venture, your expectation should be that you should lose a great deal of money from it.

Our future is likely going to be different than how we understand it today. Rather than being pessimistic about the future, I think we need to manage the future such that it has more positive than negative that result.

Is it going to break? A simple question you should use when you purchase products.

Ask yourself, “is it going to break, and if so, what’s going to happen when it breaks?” This was a simple, but important question I learned from my Dad.

When you purchase new things, #technological leadership does not necessarily mean that it’s a better product.

In fact, better products are often very simple and are less likely to break. Further, there are also likely to be much less expensive.

Figuring out if a new purchase will actually adds value in your life compared to its costs is wise decision-making.

Spending some time upfront, thinking about whether the hassle of ownership it’s is worth its cost in terms of the value it brings will often save you a lot of headache in the long run.

Think in terms of #failure because things do.