All in Happiness

Why Settling For One Career, If You Can Have Two? How a Dual Career can Keep You Sane!

Why Settling For One Career, If You Can Have Two? How a Dual Career can Keep You Sane!

Fabian
Career, Happiness, Life

Follow your passion, and success will follow you! If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.

We have all heard it thousands of times! And every day we spend on LinkedIn or Instagram, we get bombarded with memes motivating us to leave our cushy corporate jobs to find and follow our one and true passion.

But guess what, it’s not that easy! Suppose you are 40 and you are a passionate triathlete training for the Ironman in Hawaii. Your chances of making a living following your heart are about as good as mine, turning my costly podcasting and blogging habit into a media empire of the likes of Tim Ferriss or Joe Rogan.

Luckily the world is not just black and white, and there is a smart alternative to tell your boss to love himself while storming out of your office to become a Yoga instructor in Bail.

Follow your passion AND keep your job! Basically, treat your hobby or passion project as a second career while maintaining your breadwinning job.

Read how a dual career can keep you sane and what you can learn from medical Rockstar Henrik Widegren.

Daydreaming as a Form of Planning – Using Your Imagination as a Source of Intrinsic Motivation

Daydreaming as a Form of Planning – Using Your Imagination as a Source of Intrinsic Motivation

Fabian
Career, Happiness, Productivity, Life

One of my LinkedIn contacts recently tagged one of his posts with “Daydreaming, after all, is just a form of planning.” When I saw this line, I knew it was the missing piece for this article that I have been pondering over for quite a while. As it turns out, I have without knowing prior to writing this article, practiced what NYU Professor of Psychology Gabriele Oettingen calls “Mental Contrasting for Goal-Fulfillment.”, a framework to tap into daydreams for motivation and more productivity.

You Too Are a Butterfly – Why We Are Powerless and Yet a Lot more Powerful Than We Think

You Too Are a Butterfly – Why We Are Powerless and Yet a Lot more Powerful Than We Think

Fabian
Happiness, Life

In the eye of giant issues like a global pandemic, social injustice, institutional racism, or climate change, it is easy to feel powerless. It seems that our voices, even our votes do not matter. We are all just small potatoes.

And it is true; it is unlikely that any of us will cause a revolution or change the course of the world significantly. But it would be too easy and convenient to give up and accept everything around us as it is. In many ways, we are powerless and yet powerful.

Special Times Need a Special Soundtrack - Two Hours of Fight Music

Special Times Need a Special Soundtrack - Two Hours of Fight Music

Fabian
Life, Happiness

I suggest that instead of just pressing F5 on the Worldometer Coronavirus Live Update, you get your butt off the couch and get your blood pumping with a proper “prison-style” home workout. And afterward, do an online course, clean-up your clutter, call family and friends or practice a musical instrument. Just do something!

As I believe in the power of music, I thought I’d share my “Life-Sparring Fight Music” playlist with you. Two hours of tracks with the sole purpose to push you to your limit that has served me well over the past few years, every time I needed a bit of a kick in my behind.

I’m not Jürgen Klopp – Four Takeaways from the COVID-19 Pandemic from a Non-Expert

I’m not Jürgen Klopp – Four Takeaways from the COVID-19 Pandemic from a Non-Expert

Fabian
Life, Health, Happiness

I could follow the example of Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp and leave writing about Corona to the professionals, as I am apparently neither an epidemiologist nor data scientist; but, let's be real here, if I would only write about topics, I am an expert in, there would be no articles in this blog.

The whole idea of Life-Sparring is trying to live up to your potential as a pretty average person, with average talents at best. So here are the (preliminary) takeaways from the current COVID-19 pandemic, from an unqualified non-expert.

Three Places for a Happy Life – Thoughts Inspired by Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki

Three Places for a Happy Life – Thoughts Inspired by Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki

Fabian
Happiness, Life

Haruki Murakami’s 2013 book “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A novel” drew mixed reviews. Some people loved it; other’s accused Murakami of relying too much on his proven plots and recipes.

I loved the book, so much that I read it in a single day.

But this article is not supposed to be another book review (if you like those, check out my “Food for Thought Posts”), it is a reflection based on an idea that was mentioned in passing in the book, but that I found quite profound. The idea of the “Three Places” that define our lives and our happiness.

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