Change

The Meaning of Life

Meaning Doesn’t Require You to Save the World

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 4 2024

When people talk about “higher” meaning or “greater” meaning, many of them know intuitively that it is about meaning outside themselves. But then they draw the logical conclusion that the more people they impact, the more meaning they’ll have and so they think that the best goal to have is to “change the world” or “save the world” for the...

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Choice

You Can Get Used to Anything in Three Weeks

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, April 5 2023

When I was in college, I had a Health professor tell me that he used to like salt and then had to quit for his blood pressure. He quit it for three weeks and afterwards didn’t mind the unsalted taste and even couldn’t add salt anymore because he could taste it and didn’t really need it. He then said that if you wanted a habit to stick, you can...

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Suffering

The (Seeming) Paradox of Impermanence

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, August 25 2021

“The only constant is change.”  You’ve heard the saying before, usually when something great is coming to an end.  It’s often a harsh reminder that no matter what you do, there will always be more to do and always be entropy slowly eroding the progress you make in this world.  At the same time, many people today can’t even handle 5 minutes without...

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Suffering

The Stock Market of Life: It Has Its Ups and Downs but Trends Upwards

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, June 16 2021

Life is getting more grim, right?  Climate change, fascism, a global pandemic, social unrest, terrorism, potential wars of the cold, nuclear, and civil kind, flattening of lifespans and homeownership levels…it seems like every day there is a reason to be pessimistic.  But of course that’s absolutely absurd to think that’s an objective assessment....

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Growth

Permanence Sucks (Yeah, I Said It)

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, November 25 2020

Okay, so the title is a little "in your face" in nature, but I wanted to get your attention.  There are a lot of philosophical discussions out there about impermanence, and they all seem to be the same Buddhism-like narrative about how everything is impermanent and so you should detach from everything and learn to let go to evolve beyond attachment...

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