October 30

Expand your knowledge

It’s good to find information that validates and deepens what you already know. It’s even better to discover credible, compelling information that challenges what you know.

More than one thing can be true at once. More than one perspective can be an accurate depiction of the world.

Even if a differing perspective turns out to be wrong, by considering it you improve the value of your own perspective. And you open yourself to new opportunities for learning.

Be careful not to let your knowledge become a wall that separates you from others. Instead, jump at opportunities to expand your knowledge so that it better connects you with many different people.

Adjusting your perspective is not a rejection of your past experience. On the contrary, it is a more effective way of incorporating that experience into a workable vision of reality.

Be confident enough about what you know to let that knowledge be challenged. You’ll end up with even more knowledge, or greater confidence, or both.

— Ralph Marston

October 31

Work and play

Your work enables you to play, and your play enables you to work. Don’t skip either one or you’ll end up doing neither one very well.

It is by being useless for a while that you get inspired to become more useful. It is by being useful that you earn the time and resources to occasionally be useless.

A common saying is that all work and no play makes you dull and boring. And it’s just as true that all play and no work makes you absolutely intolerable.

So switch it up. Give yourself the work that sustains you and the play that relaxes and invigorates you.

No matter how enjoyable your work may be, it is still work, and your best strategy is to see it as such. No matter how highly focused your play might be, treat it as the play it is.

Whether it’s work or play, go all in and then after a while set it aside. Give your life the benefit of healthy balance.

— Ralph Marston