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Whether you realize it or not, how you slept last night probably has a bigger impact on your life than what you decide to eat, how much money you make, or where you live. All of those things that add up to what you consider you—your creativity, emotions, health, and ability to quickly learn a new skill or devise a solution to a problem—can be seen as little more than by-products of what happens inside your brain while your head is on a pillow each night. It is part of a world that all of us enter and yet barely understand … Sleep isn’t a break from our lives. It’s the missing third of the puzzle of what it means to be living.
Edward Hallowell -
The enthusiasm that characterizes our time is, unlike current events, hopeful and, like all enthusiasms, playful. The energy that flashes through our electronics has leapt into most of our bloodstreams and brains.
Edward Hallowell
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Instead of describing ADD as an inability to concentrate, this model presents it as the ability to concentrate on everything. The world always is alive and ripe with sources of interest.
Edward Hallowell -
But because kids today have so little free time, and because they’re always surrounded by media, they don’t explore what’s off the beaten path. They want their fun to be quick and easy. The art of being bored is lost.” . . . There’s no question that Klauber’s findings are.
Edward Hallowell -
One large study 127 sets of identical twins and 111 sets of fraternal twins recently found that in 51 percent of the identical sets both twins had ADD, while only 33 percent of those in the fraternal group shared the ADD diagnosis.
Edward Hallowell -
I would suggest that excellence occurs in direct proportion to necessary suffering, but in inverse proportion to unnecessary suffering or toxic stress. Connection is the best antidote to unnecessary suffering.
Edward Hallowell -
When we forgive, the slave we free is ourselves.
Edward Hallowell -
Modern loneliness is an extraverted loneliness, in which the person is surrounded by many people and partakes of much communication but feels unrecognized and more alone and, although connected technically, isolated and even estranged emotionally.
Edward Hallowell
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That’s the problem with being an adult: people have already made up their minds about us; we’ve even made up our minds about ourselves.
Edward Hallowell -
In this era, you must deliberately preserve and cultivate your most valuable connections to people, activities, and whatever else is most important to you. Anyone can cultivate these connections, drawing from them the strength and will a person needs to handle the best and worst of life, but only if you plan to do so and insist on adhering to your plan.
Edward Hallowell -
Families, by and large, like most groups, resist change. If one member of a family wants to move away, this is regarded as a betrayal, for example. If one member of a family is fat and tries to lose weight, often other members of the family will sabotage the effort. If one member of the family wants to get out of a role he or she has been playing for years, this is usually difficult ot do because the rest of the family tries not to let it happen. If your role is clown, you remain the clown. If your role is responsible oldest child, you probably keep that role within your family for your entire life. If you are the black sheep, you'll find it very diffcult to change colors in the eyes of your family no matter how many good deeds you do.
Edward Hallowell -
Russell Barkley similarly describes the primary problem in ADD as a deficit in the motivation system, which makes it impossible to stay on task for any length of time unless there is constant feedback, constant reward.
Edward Hallowell -
Difficulty getting organized. A major problem for most adults with ADD. Without the structure of school, without parents around to get things organized for him or her, the adult may stagger under the organizational demands of everyday life. The supposed “little things” may mount up to create huge obstacles. For the want of a proverbial nail—a missed appointment, a lost check, a forgotten deadline—their kingdom may be lost.
Edward Hallowell -
In order to do what really matters to you, you have to, first of all, know what really matters to you.
Edward Hallowell
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Ashley’s backstory Ashley’s form of ADT, the despair of infinite possibility, is especially common today because, due to electronic communication technology, so much more has become possible than ever before. The great blessing of modern life can also be its curse: you can do so much. The possibilities line up in an endlessly sparkling, flashing, pinging array, perpetually distracting a person like Ashley, creating a particularly modern kind of ADT.
Edward Hallowell -
Having ADD makes life paradoxical. You can superfocus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally, intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.
Edward Hallowell -
Mastery means making progress at a task that matters to you and is challenging.
Edward Hallowell -
Happiness is not something that happens to people but something that they make happen.” His research shows that people are happiest in a state he has named “flow.” In a state of flow, you are one with what you are doing. Children know flow well. They call it play. Play is one of the childhood roots of adult happiness. But there are others—four others, to be exact—in the schema I outline in this book.
Edward Hallowell -
Most adults with ADD are struggling to express a part of themselves that often seems unraveled as they strive to join the thought behind unto the thought before.
Edward Hallowell -
You can superfocus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally, intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.
Edward Hallowell
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Forgiveness is not turning the other cheek. Forgiveness is not running away. Forgiveness does not mean that you condone what the person has done, nor does it mean that you invite them to do it again. It doesn't mean that you forget the offense, nor does it mean that by forgiving you tacitly invite bad things to happen again. It doesn't mean that you won't defend yourself.
Edward Hallowell -
Because people develop ADT in an effort to cope with the stresses in their lives, and because the symptoms actually help them in the short term, the symptoms are “sticky” and may solidify into firm habits, even when life slows and becomes less stressful.
Edward Hallowell -
Forgiveness takes intelligence, discipline, imagination, and persistence, as well as a special psychological strength, something athletes call mental toughness and warriors call courage.
Edward Hallowell -
So don't look over your shoulder or let fear and anxiety rule you. Go for broke. Let passion blaze your trail. Look ahead and pursue the dream that fits who you are as a person and a manager. Learn what you can, but don't get bogged down--in today's world, there's so much to know that learning can actually take the place of action and hold you back. Learn enough, then trust your gut and act. Be bold--or crazy--enough not to hold back. Take advantage of the freedom to be your own person. When the game is over, regardless of the score, you'll revel in what you've done.
Edward Hallowell