Raptitude.com

How to Outlive Your Bucket List?

{ 29 comments } When you’re young, making a bucket list – things you want to do before you die — feels like you’re choosing prizes that will arrive in the mail later.

How to Look the Sky in the Face?

{ 29 comments } Last week I had a friend for dinner, and she convinced me to do one of her favorite activities afterward: lie on the grass in the park and look at the sky. I was hesitant because I don’t like to lie down until nighttime, when the only goal is to end the day by losing consciousness. (My friend loves lying down for almost any reason.) I also felt like I already know how that activity goes.

How to Exist?

{ 34 comments } Here’s an experiment for a true daredevil. Sit there for a three minutes, following two rules: Don’t do anything. Be content. By “don’t do anything,” I mean don’t move, don’t fidget, don’t indulge any thoughts or daydreams. You’re allowed to breathe, and blink. By “be content,” I mean be completely okay with your experience of doing nothing.

How to Just Do a Thing?

{ comments closed } I keep reading books from the 19th century and earlier, fiction and nonfiction, because I envy something about the lives of the people in them. I don’t think I’d want to trade places. I’m too accustomed to hot showers and modern dentistry. But people back then seemed to live with a certain straightforwardness we no longer have.