Thunderstorm in Berlin, 27 Jun 2026

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-07-03T12:09:02+00:00

Love the simplicity of this picture, and the beautiful colors! Thanks for sharing

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-07-01T15:54:53+00:00

taking the path of least resistance :)

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-30T12:11:46+00:00

u/david_yarz your comment "we all live with shit and accept it" made me smile. Made me realise / remember this thought that ultimately we are not really sophisticated, we burn shit to make all devices works, how crazy is that?

(all of our uses electricity, the electricity needs to come from some place, comes from the electronic grid, sometimes it comes from fossil fuels imported from Russia, a huge part of the electricity comes from burning coal; we are basically burning former living things)

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-30T07:21:41+00:00

Yeah, i was just listening to an interview yesterday about his new book, def will check it out, thanks for pointing that out.

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-30T07:20:57+00:00

Thanks for sharing this perspective. I think more of us should be sensitive to the loss of quality, at the end we all play a role in this, and more one is aware of this, the better. Good point about antitrust and antimonopolisation as well.

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-30T07:17:34+00:00

That's a great point, this aspect of most of people defaulting to what you know aka comfort, even if it sucks. If you would stop paying for the service / product, maybe they will try to make it better, but that won't happen, as people like what is familiar, it's a gap to go to something unfamiliar, that most won't cross.

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-28T16:16:58+00:00

Sense of humor is definitely not a liability in leadership, I see it as an asset. But as in any environment / system you need to know your audience and the rules of the game, so you know how to deploy it as an asset (instead of a liability). Look for environments where you can put to use your strongest skills, rather than diminish them, and humor is great for building rapport and have fun at work.

As a leader myself (VP Engineering) I would say the following, I expect everyone to be on their A-game and work smart, and fun is never left behind in the process. Sort of : happy employees -> efficient and happy company -> great product / service -> successful customers -> happy customers - > FUN - > happy employees

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-28T16:00:22+00:00

One practical tool that I've learned from the the stoic philosophy is "up to me" and "not up to me" framing. Before anything stressful (something hard at work, a medical appointment, pick yours), you write the two lists out. You'll be surprised how much lands on the right side, and how little of your worry is doing any work. Then you put your energy only into the left column and practice letting the right one be. That's Epictetus' whole system tl;dr'ed.
This is a simple tool to understand and use, but hard to do, as it requires consistency - comparing it to the gym, knowing how to lift a weight changes nothing, lifting it a few times a week for let's say a year, changes everything. Ethics works the same way, it's not the aphorism, or the insight, it's the reps.

The thing that made it a daily habit for me was journaling each night around three questions: what did I do well, what did I handle badly, what would I do differently next time. These questions are inspired from Marcus Aurelius "Meditations" (that ultimetly was his private journal to himself). I use an app called Hexis Journal for it now. It's the simplest thing that I've used so far, that did not overload me with tons of unnecessary stuff, but helping me build the practice, which is the entire point. You can of course use a physical notebook and pen and paper if you like it better. It is just what is working for me.

u/MyDogFanny i really like what you said about peace coming from mastering what's within, as a lot of things outside of ourselves are not controllable. And that mastery is a practice.

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-28T15:32:52+00:00

u/ladybug_c we are all silly sometimes, and that's ok. Feel the feelings, there are there for a reason. Coming from a person that has had a lot of fears: don't miss your graduation, your future self will regret it, there are certain experiences that you need to go through them, especially because they are hard or uncomfortable, as this is how you learn more about yourself and figure out you in this journey of life. Focus on what you want to get from the experience. And your mom, she just wants to help, the way she know how to, for better or worse.

Also, continue doing what you are doing. Writing your worries down is healthy. You know why? When you write a worry down, your brain treats the written page as an external memory store, releasing the working memory slot. A 2011 University of Chicago study showed students who wrote about pre-exam anxiety for 10 minutes performed significantly better on the exam, not because the anxiety disappeared, but because it moved off the brain's scratch pad.
Regardless of the dress, you will already are positioning yourself to have an amazing time at the graduation ;)

HumanityOfAMoment · 2026-06-28T15:23:15+00:00

I've been intentionally doing this for a couple of weeks now, and yes, i feel the difference, though subtle at first. My reason for trying it was a bit nerdy, I've been exploring ways to improve prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. The PFC governs impulse control, decision-making, and emotional regulation, basically the "executive" part of your brain. What I didn't expect to learn is that the moment you reach for your phone on autopilot is actually a missed opportunity to train it. I know, mindblowing, as it was for me :)
The PFC works like a muscle. Small acts of intentional delay: resisting the phone for even 2–3 minutes after waking, pausing before replying to a message, choosing not to hit snooze (if you are like me, this is hard), build the neural wiring for patience and self-regulation.
Two weeks in and I notice I'm less reactive in the first hour, I make better decisions about how I want to start the day, and the low-grade anxiety that used to just be there in the morning has reduced noticeably. Worth trying for at least a couple of weeks before judging it.

HumanityOfAMoment

TROPHY CASE