Listen now (35 min) | Deliberate practice and the stubborn belief that talent, ability, and skills are born and not made
Sunday Letters
Welcome to the Sunday Letters archive. Here you'll find all editions of the newsletter from 2015. Sunday Letters is a conversation I'm having with myself. It attempts to address the psychology and philosophy of living the good life. It is the pursuit of an answer to a question. Thanks for being here.
Talent: You Either Have It Or You Don’t
For some, talent seems innate and success is effortless. For most others, however, the heights of creative success remains out of reach. So are we born talented or not?
What work do you do?
Be a part of the research that will form the forthcoming book; The Paradox of Work (working title). I want to know what work you do, how it make…
Dr Jonathan Murphy on Free Speech, Psychology, Future of Work, AI, & Identity
Listen now (93 min) | In conversation with Dr Jonathan Murphy, Senior Executive at Enterprise Ireland
How To Turn Off A Humming Fridge
We seldom hear it and hardly know it was there at all until it stops. But sometimes we need help to flip the switch. This time twelve months ago, I decided I’d seek out a therapist. Not because I felt I was in turmoil, that I was anxious or depressed or otherwise at odds with […]
Cyclical Time
Songs serve as a cosmic map for life experience. One song earlier today triggered 1989, 14 years old, down the lane on St. Philomena’s Road beside our school. The La’s were playing There She Goes in my head and I was smokin’ a Carroll’s No.1 with two classmates, painting my name in Tipex on the wall. I […]
The Pursuit of Happiness Part 3: Nine Factors That Impact Your Happiness
Welcome to part three of our exploration into the nature of happiness. In this article, we turn our attention to the psychology of happiness and findings by professor Peter Warr at the University of Sheffield. In his 2019 book of the same name, Warr draws on thousands of happiness and wellbeing studies to suggest nine primary environmental factors that impact your happiness. As we will see, many parallels can be drawn from the forthcoming with, for example…