Join 📚 Roger's Highlights
A batch of the best highlights from what roger's read, .
I share this with Wendell as the minutes wind down in our final session. “Let’s consider this a pause in the conversation,” I say. “Like every week, but longer.” I tell him I may come back one day, because it’s true; people leave and come back at different times in their lives. And when they do, the therapist is still there, sitting in the same chair, holding all of their shared history. “We can still consider it a pause,” Wendell replies, then adds the part that’s hardest to say. “Even if we don’t meet again.” I smile, knowing exactly what he means. Relationships in life don’t really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you’ve been close to lives on somewhere inside you. Your past lovers, your parents, your friends, people both alive and dead (symbolically or literally)—all of them evoke memories, conscious or not. Often they inform how you relate to yourself and others. Sometimes you have conversations with them in your head; sometimes they speak to you in your sleep.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Lori Gottlieb
Expectations tend to rise with accomplishment. The better you’re performing, the more you demand of yourself and the less you notice incremental gains. Appreciating progress depends on remembering how your past self would see your current achievements. If you knew five years ago what you’d accomplish now, how proud would you have been? The 14-year-old kid who could barely do a flip would have been amazed by the progress I’d made in a few years. I started watching videos of my early diving days. It melted away my shame and marked my growth. Beating yourself up doesn’t make you stronger—it leaves you bruised. Being kind to yourself isn’t about ignoring your weaknesses. It’s about giving yourself permission to learn from your disappointments. We grow by embracing our shortcomings, not by punishing them. Make it feel wrong.
Hidden Potential
Adam Grant
Ritual silence can be very powerful. Simply keeping silence together can be a powerful part or a whole ritual. It can mean that the relationship is so close that not everything needs to be said aloud and not every moment needs to be entertaining. In a world where every second is filled with talk, music, or alerts, creating the space for silence can be the most powerful time together possible. In my experience, almost every community appreciates a silence ritual when there’s painful loss. When I was a chaplain in a trauma center and attended to families in the worst hours of their lives, I saw how important it was for them to have someone sit with them in silence, and even someone who would protect the silence, so they didn’t feel the need to say anything. Silence together can be the most powerful time.
The Art of Community
Charles Vogl
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
Readwise