Summary: 10 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Mental Horsepower

According to research, despise our previous belief that intelligent quantity is stuck at some point, actually it can be developed. There are 10 ideas we can fit into our daily routine that can improve our mental horsepower and increase our intelligent quantity. It is not a list that will use a lot of time and energy, so worth to try.

• Be smarter about your online time

There are many things we can do while online surfing, not only checking the social media or seeing cute animal pics, but get some nourishing resources such as from online learning courses, intriguing TED talks or vocabulary-building tools.

• Write down what you learn

Spend a few minutes each day to write again what you have learned. You do not need to write so long, but reflect in writing is surely can boost your brainpower. A yoga teacher, Claudia Azula Altucher suggest to write 400 words a day on things that you learned.

• Make a ‘did’ list

Intelligence also comes from happiness and confidence. Rather than we make a list of the things that we have yet to do, listing the things you have already accomplished is a big boost for your intelligence. Famed VC Marc Andreessen and Azula Altucher recommend this I DID list.

• Get out the Scrabble board

Play the board games and puzzles also can boost our brain power. There are many games nowadays such as Scrabble, bridge, chess, Go, Battleship, Connect 4 that can make our brain work out.

• Have smart friends

Saurabh Shah, account manager at Symphony Teleca writes that your IQ is the average of five closest people you hang out with. Hanging out with people who are clever than you is the fastest way to learn. But remember that you need to realize there are many things that you need to learn from them.

• Read a lot

Reading is the most essential part of getting smarter. We can vary our readings such as select fiction and nonfiction books, or picking up a daily newspaper. However the most important is the quantity, read a lot.

• Explain it to others

Albert Einstein – “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

We can assure what we think we have learned is really we have learned by teaching it to others. By then, the information is truly stuck in our memory and can’t be forgotten easily. It is easier to learn new things rather than retain it in our memory, so teach it to others.

• Do random new things

Do not hesitate to learn new things, because we never know that something don’t seem immediately useful or productive in the meantime will be useful in the future.

• Learn a new language

It doesn’t to be a fluent learning but still worth to try if you want to learn new things.

• Take some downtime

Azula Altucher recommends giving yourself a time for your brain to process what it has learned.

 

Author’s Opinion

You don’t have to do all the things on the list. Mark some points that you like and fit on your daily schedule. Better to do small things but consistent, rather than do the big but get bored easily then stop.

 

Reference

Stillman, J. (2014) 10 Small Things You Can Do Every Day to Get Smarter. Available at: http://time.com/3032117/get-smarter-every-day/ (Accessed: 28 December 2016).

Is It Better to Telling the Truth?

I am 100% believe it is better to telling the truth in every relationship than keep lying, even though it sounds naive and some people find it is hard to do. Relationship in this context is not only applied between us and someone we know, but also as human to human. This is because we never know what people feel and think, also whether our lie will turn good or bad to that people. We all are only common people, who do not have ability to do such.

For example, some parents maybe ever told a lie to their child, but they never know if their child really did not know the truth. It is possible the child has already know all of these time but pretend does not know anything. Even though that lie is for their child’s sake, but they never could control what their child thinks later. Therefore the parents could not blame anyone else but themselves when their child lost the trust to his parents.

Someone said if we once tell a lie, we would tell a bigger lie to cover previous lie. It will create an open loop lying and burden our own heart. Besides, once the people know about our lying, their trust has already broken. So, what I am trying to say here is there is no good will come out from lying, whether to other people or ourselves. Moreover, if we tell the truth, maybe it is hard, but it is surely harder to them if they found about the truth later in a way we never expected and even gives worse impact. Though even if the truth is really hurtful, we can always find another way how to speak the truth. It is always better than keeping the lie within our heart and hurt ourselves later on.

Best Friends from My Perspective

In my opinion, best friends are the people who accept you no matter how freak you are, give you support when you look down, and be happy if you happy. Some people only have one best friend in their life because they said less people you trust is better, though I am blessed with four lovely best friends around me. I met them six years ago when I was in college in a way which I do not remember, but we lived together in campus dormitory for around one year. At that time I was not sure we would make this strong bond only through watching film together in someone room, hang out and shopping together, even our major was different with each other so we only met at the campus dorm. Nevertheless, we still stick together until this very moment and still counting.

Of course our relationship is not always very bright and smooth. Sometimes we had frustrated by someone stubbornness or the other time someone felt offended by the other one’s not intentionally harsh tongue. But still we forgive and forget in the next day, even after time to time we consider that is her natural behavior so we should compromise with it.

As in my opinion, they are the type of girls who would not complain much if you did not dress properly, but could get furious if they found you have something important which they did not know. They are also not the type who would give you super cute attention like the other girls, but they would always be there when you need them. I never had a really close friend before, because I had to move town to town when I was in school and it was painful. Therefore, I really grateful for the God who draw the line for us and I hope you would not get bored with me.