sunil nair

Tag: philosophy

  • Leave them alone

    These days it’s rare that I bump into something that’s genuinely refreshing and makes me go, “wow, that’s deep.” And one of those rare moments occurred last evening when I bumped into this beautiful paragraph from the English version of the Tao Te Ching. When taxes are too high,people go hungry.When the government is too…

  • Don’t explain it, embody it

    I think we waste most of our time rationalising our philosophy instead of living it. This is true with the new batch of stoics that are cropping up everywhere, thanks to Tim Ferris, Ryan Holiday, and others who have popularised the philosophy as an “operating system for life.” That’s not a bad thing at all!…

  • The need to win

    It’s rare to find prose as beautiful and as profound at the same time as this excerpt from the book The Way of Chuang Tzu. “When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous.If he shoots for a prize of gold,…

  • Silence, not applause

    The other day, I read the chapter on Gaius Musonius Rufus from Ryan Holiday’s most recent masterpiece, “Lives of the Stoics”, and came across this passage. It gave me shudders because as a person, a coach, and a stoic practitioner, I know it’s the ultimate truth nobody wants to hear. Enter Ryan Holiday: He believed…

  • Alan Watt’s On Yin and Yang

    I don’t know if you’re into philosophy or religion, but if you haven’t heard of Alan Watts, the shame of you. He was a British philosopher, writer and speaker, best known for interpreting Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism for the Western audience. His best-known work (and something I recommend everyone should read) is The Way of…

  • Thinking about how to living well makes us happy

    Our ability to think is undoubtedly one of our most incredible superpowers. It’s part of our being. Speculation is what we do for a living. And because thinking is effortless, we don’t pay much attention to its profound applications. Right from the days of Aristotle, philosophers, who used to talk about the importance of eudaemonia,…

  • The good archer doesn’t always hit the target but always shoots well

    Almost all my adult life, I’ve obsessed over outcomes and the processes. As you can imagine, it can get pretty stressful at times (and that’s putting it lightly).  I once read Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery and highlighted this:  “Put the thought of hitting right out of your mind! You can be a Master even…

  • The virtue of “value”

    Everyone’s got values. Unfortunately, most people don’t know what they value until they either reflect on it or work with someone to identify their core values. And I say this from my experience as a coach. It’s okay not to know what your values are. But exploring what they are is a worthy pursuit should…

  • On being different

    You might not believe this, but most people live a life of compromise. They would rather conform, keep a low profile, do what’s safe, so they blend in with the other countless threads that form our society’s fabric. And this isn’t a new phenomenon; centuries ago, Marcus Aurelius noted, “It never ceases to amaze me:…

  • Dont’ talk about your philosophy, embody it

    I’ve been studying philosophy for close to two decades now. And I say that not to impress but confess that studying philosophy has been one of the most challenging intellectual pursuits. The texts are hard to read and warrant re-reading at least half a dozen times if you would like to grasp the essence of…