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A Democratic Spirit is one that combines rigor and humility, i.e., passionate conviction plus a sedulous respect for the convictions of others. As any American knows, this is a difficult spirit to cultivate and maintain, particularly when it comes to issues you feel strongly about. Equally tough is a DS’s criterion of 100 percent intellectual integrity—you have to be willing to look honestly at yourself and at your motives for believing what you believe, and to do it more or less continually.
All you have to do is set aside some time on a regular basis to force your brain to think positively about the future. Which, if you are not very optimistic, you may recognize as precisely what your brain is not doing enough of. Actually, you probably don’t even need to write, but having the journaling exercise helps focus your thoughts. Structured journaling exercises can help us learn to be more optimistic, which in turn can help us manage stress.
The Art of Taking It Easy
Brian King
The cost of not structuring our attention is higher stress, lower productivity, and impaired performance on the most important tasks. In a harrowing example, a study of nearly 1 million surgeries found that if a procedure was performed on the surgeon’s birthday, patients were more likely to die soon thereafter, apparently because the surgeon faced more distractions.
The Secret to Success Is ‘Monotasking’
theatlantic.com
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