Self learning, how to do it right.

I reddit is full of very intelligent self learners people, these tips prolly are second nature to you, but this is for the newbies who you were  one day.

Recall what you learned at the end of the lecutre:
Recalling something learned is imprtant, because it strengthens those memories in your brain. Making it better absorbed. This is shown by science, the more revisions  you do with bigger and bigger delays in between(so that it is harder each time), the more you will absorb it.
Take notes, this is important :
Always keep the notepad ready(or your fav. note app) by your hand if you are watching lectures. Pause whenver you want to take notes, don't worry about noting it all down, make it as brief as possible. This is for convenience, if you want to remember all of the material then write all them. This is very important, no matter how much you think you'll remember the course, there is bound to be something you forgotten from it. Keeping a note you can easily stroll through and remind yourself some very useful fact you might want.
Take regular breaks:
your listening time should be a maximum as as 25 minutes no more. Taking breaks, this will make understand the information better, make conclusions, structure it better in your mind etc. Read about it right before you take a short nap. This will also have the same effects but even greater. Taking breaks is also necessary for peace of mind.
Final everyday tip, try to reduce as much as noise as possible:
Both visual noise and audio. close the room and the window infront. etc. it's not about being strict as it is about being productive with your time, you can learn so much more with the same amount of time.

Note: These are all tips from an experienced procrastinator, don't worry about being too lazy for online courses. If YOU are interested in the material, you have reasons for studying it and you make a commitment, it is certainly possible.

Positive Journal: Happiness through a stroll in my neighbourhood

About the day to the fruit shop . I was feeling kind of neutral verging on an ill feeling inside, I did my gratitude meditation and I don't remember doing loving kindness meditation, but that day I felt like I wanted to go out and buy food but I didn't want shawarma to avoid eating junk food . So I went out to the fruit shop and as I went out I felt the beauty of nature, I breathed the air , saw the trees and thought of how wonderful and how truly amazing this world, I felt a rush of dopamine, I felt really happy at the trees beside me, the greenery, the solitary walk allowed me to just feel refreshed  by it all. I felt light and easy like I was flying through the air , I felt slightly euphoric, my mind felt different and all I did was meditate and focus on gratitude. I felt really joyful and happy that I went outside through a whole day of sitting at home, I am grateful to that experience, I am grateful of nature and the place I am currently staying in, the air is fresh here, the surroundings are quiet and calm, and there are rare birds flying all beside this house, rare and beautiful birds. On that day I really felt great about living in this beautiful planet, living beside the greenery and amazing things society does for us, we go to a market and they cater to us and we have places to go to, we have unique flavor to dip our mouths in, we have incredible experiences at the theatre, we have music we could listen to over the internet, we have quiet strolls we can easily get to in our neighborhood. This was really peaceful and quiet and easily accessible, I never thought how beautiful quietness was or how beautiful nature or how beautiful gratitude itself was, I felt grateful for all the things I have in this world. Overall I'm grateful to the world of journaling for making me write and feel wonderful again, as I read this I feel at that moment walking and experiencing the intense natural high I experienced then. Although I feel like I haven't described that memory as vividly as I possibly can.

Tripping on Kammattipadam

 I was already into this movie within the first moments, it had a very confident start to it, like it knows it was going to be something awesome. Normally I don't like violence or blood, but in this movie it just felt poetic and like it was trying to potray a different spectrum of people and their experiences. I felt an intense and deep feeling of awe of spiritual nature by the middle, some of me wanted it to stop, some of me thought the movie was dragging out but I definitely experienced expansion of my emotional reel. I felt like I was on a wave of emotions, I was sad/worried/anxious/euphoric/ fearful of what was about to happen next. And it didn't dissapoint, exploring the nature and depth of our souls. It was exploring friendship, brotherhood, repressed feelings, criminality and justice. This gamut of neurotic emotions continued on and the movie took even more turngs into negativity and despair.By the end, I was totally washed over by emotions and everything inside me was on hyperdrive. Definitely an experience I'd never regret, please directors ,bring us more of these.

-From a fan of neuroticism.

Happiness Advantage Summary (Work in progress)

1st principle : Happiness advantage
*happy people tend to make better decisions, are  more creative, perform better at tests, happier doctors make better diagnosii that are faster and more accurate
*even something small as a candy can significantly boost happiness and thus performance
*quick jolts of happinness lessens stress and anxiety
* do somthing that makes you happy before doing something important
*activities that  can raise happiness:
Meditation
Finding something to look  forward to: Imagine a vacation that will soon happen etc.
*Commit conscious acts of kindness
*Infuse posiivity into surroundings:Go out, place picturs of loved ones on sight
*Exercise
*Spen money on experiences.
*Revisit a strength like cooking, type racing

Years of research have shown that a specific and concerted focus on your sctrengths during a difficult task produces the best results
The author encourages employees to rewtie their jb description to waht Tal Ben Shahar calls a "calling description". I have them think about how the same tasks might be written in a way that would entice others to apply for the job. The goal is not to misrepresent the work they do but to highlight the meaning that can be derived from it. Then I ask them to think of their own personal goals in life. How can their current job tasks be connected to this large purpose? Research has found even the smallest tasks can be imbued with greater meaning when they are connected to personal goals and values.The more we can align our daily tasks with our vision, the more likely we are to see work as a calling.

A hotelier menitons, like to tell each employee "Forget about your current job title. What would our customer call your job title if they described it by the impact they have on their lives".

Pygmalion effect - teachers - students - academic superstars - non verbal communication made ordinary students into actual superstars.

Third Principle :The tetris effect:
When we keep on repeating a pattern of thinking for a job or a game(ex. Tetris), we use that pattern on our daily lives and not able to compartmentalize. we see what we look for and we miss the rest. This is the tetris effect

Three things a day : Write three things that were positive for the day, it can be small like a hug from a friend, or big.
This will make you more positive, happier etc.
Journal : Write about a positive experience three times a week. Also same benefits as above

Both the above techniques will lead to all the other positive things written earlier in the book, like recognizing an effort of a coworker/subordinate, and you will see meaning and purpose within your job.

Double L's - The light that corroded me to darkness.

The pantheon of alien war lords were after us, yes! that was the thought that hooked me to the t. Ofcourse it was just an after-association of something that I "think" was real psychic visions. This isn't a world where my beliefs about psychics and mediums were readily accepted. But it wasn't like abything that I had ever experienced, it seemed very real and very convinving. I didn't how to express them . And so I delved into my own psyche exploring what was to happen to my world. Aliens in this time, were entirely possible after all we invented super-speed space and engineered ways to breathe and be alive in space for longer times than ever in hisory. Why couldn't or wouldn't there be aliens with the same kind of technology. Aliens were just another discovery waiting to happen. I was just merely one among a thousand of us, searching dreadfuly miserably for new lands and new soil. I brushed my emotions clean. I was to be arriving back in 1 day. I thought of ways to be optimistic. That others like me would find worlds even better than what I had found. The day arrived and it wasn't like I had imagined, they were waiting for me, eager to know the stories, to know the man who finally found something. I couldn't expect this, I didnt have a clue about anythign else, , the mission protocol didn't allow us to even talk to our families for more 5 minutes. We were closely monitored, we were to survive how much ever long it took to find something. That meant close control of our minds.

Double L...Page 2

As I was taken up, something beneath was I as believe funneling me. I don't know how to explain it, there was stuff all over me, but I couldn't feel it with my skin. It was an invisible force, magnetic, gravity something like them. I was grounded to the floor of the vessel. I had a throbbing pain. As I was getting higher, it kept getting more painful. I was screaming. That was when I started experiencing the visions. Brief flashes of a picture, it was green light flashing to the earth, it was huge. As they ended the pain ended, the force underneath me lifted. I boarded the spaceship. Alas no one was there to greet me. Atleast there were people I could  see on the big screen I thought then. People were curious at their new discorvery, what was I to tell them, that this world was too crazy too different. I didn't, I told them all the descriptions they wanted from me.

Double L's - A short story (maybe more)

There was indecernable light everywhere, so blindling and so out of the perception of normal human eyes. Sensors could read it and quantify it, the only thing I could do on this planet was to use my other senses, and I couldn't hear many things actually it was silence. Silence so great that I could get lost in this void, but the light didn't permit it. Finally I found something, it was soft cushiony substance that smelled like nothing I had ever smelled, I took a part of it. Kept it in the sample box. The following moment, my sensors were down. I could hear the powering off  of the device. I opened the band on my eyes and saw a world full of color and this particular thing that I cut stuff off from was a plant like still organism that was entering hibernation, I knew that because that's what they told me later. I apparently stopped this process.
The world, it was soo soo colorful and so psychedelic. Tree-like things had fascinating patterns , all of them dissimilar. The ground was transparent and even flowing above my feet like heavy gas. The sky was off a particular warm blue hue that I adore even now. That was the world as the first to step on it, everone wanted to inhabit. I thought to myself what in the world these things that I saw were. I didn't know. The periodic table couldn't fully identify all of them I thought. I send for a signal that I was coming back to the craft above. Ofcourse everyone knows it by the name Leopard. The only cat species to finally roam the planet for some reason.

-to be continued.