How to become a morning person – From a previous night owl

Table of Contents Why Wake Up Early? My Early Sleeping Habits How to Wake Up Early Have something to look forward to every morning Procrastinate Think about waking up the night before Take advantage of time zones Have an accountability partner Try out an alarm app Go to bed early

My first breakthrough with self-guided meditation

A casual mention of my self-guided meditation practice always generates a lot of questions from my friends: What exactly do you do? Do you feel any benefits? How do you keep yourself from thinking about different things?

After sharing my experience with a few friends, I decided to write about it here.

Apps for productivity – how to automate tasks

We’re living in a world with self-driving cars and 3D-printed houses. Are you still manually creating invoices and copy-pasting items to create logs? Writing scripts to automate tasks requires programming knowledge, but thankfully, there are three super easy to use automation tools that will save you a lot of time

When I Feel Lost and Unmotivated

Here are some words of wisdom I turn to when I feel unmotivated.

Time and its limited supply:

Time is Not a Limitless Commodity – I so rarely find young professionals that have a heightened sense of urgency to get to the next level. In our 20s we think we have all the time in the world to A) figure it out and B) get what we want. Time is the only treasure we start off with in abundance, and can never get back. Make the most of the opportunities you have today, because there will be a time when you have no more of it.

-Jason Nazar, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnazar/2013/07/23/20-things-20-year-olds-dont-get/

Five top regrets of those who are dying:

How I Became Fluent in Spanish in Six Months

Within six months of living in Albacete, Spain, I began to speak Spanish fluently. I did not take Spanish classes during that period. The people I met right after my move to Spain were blown away by my level of Spanish after three months, during which I experienced a sort of language explosion (parents should be familiar with this phenomenon). I should admit, however, that I did not start exactly from zero.

Why Learn Foreign Languages

First, let me quickly go through the reasons that people commonly list for learning a new language.

1. You gain a new perspective.

Each language you speak alters the way you view and interact with the world, especially if they are from regions that are culturally very different. For example, I know for a fact that I become more respectful and cautious when speaking to older Korean adults. Obviously, the custom in each region plays a huge role, but the language itself does as well. For example, I saw a Korean TV program that showed footage of married couples getting into arguments while one was teaching the other how to drive. A therapist recommended using the formal tone (in Korean, using the formal tone changes not only the vocabulary, but even the grammar) while conversing in the car. The couples became much more considerate and stopped snapping at each other over time. It’s not difficult to understand how language can evoke completely different emotions. Think of freedom fighter vs terrorist, advance vs invade, chat up vs holler, etc.

Knowing Before Being Aware of Knowing

The Iowa Gambling Task was a psychological experiment in which the participants were presented with four decks of cards that were turned over. Depending on the cards that they chose at the top of the deck, they either gained or lost money. The people who designed the experiment made some decks more rewarding than others, which the participants figured out over time. However, one of the interesting findings from the experiment was that long before they were fully aware of which decks were favorable or not (and quite early into the experiment), their bodies showed signs of stress as they chose the bad decks.

How to Make a Difficult Decision

Decision making, along with motivation and time, has always been a fascinating subject matter to me. Here is my advice and guide for making difficult decisions:
    • Imagine what decision your role model would make.
    • Imagine what decision you as an older person would make.
    • Be honest to yourself. Write down how you feel. Create a list of pros and cons.

Why are North Korea and South Korea divided

A simple analogy to understand the Korean War

Imagine sharing a distressed childhood with a sibling. You were extremely close since he/she was the only family you knew, and also because you were fighting against an external force. That evil force finally disappears, but with it, also disappears unity. Your sibling acts strange and starts to make friends that you cannot stand. The distance between the two of you grow, and you feel betrayed. To get the sibling to accept your own rules so that you can become close once again, you two fight, but to the point that you almost kill each other.