Virtually all of life's ills boil down to mindlessness. If you can understand someone else's perspective, then there's no reason to be angry at them, envy them, steal from them.
Ellen LangerRead
People are at their most mindful when they are at play. If we find ways of enjoying our work blurring the lines between work and play the gains will be greater.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Mindfulness and enjoyment in work enhance productivity and creativity.
Ellen Langer emphasizes that engaging playfully in activities leads to greater mindfulness. When we can incorporate enjoyment into our work, it blurs the conventional boundaries set between work and play, potentially resulting in increased overall benefits and satisfaction in our endeavors.
Themes
MindfulWorkPlayEnjoymentProductivity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a team-building event to encourage a playful work culture.
More from Ellen Langer
All quotes →What we have learned to look for in a situation determines mostly what we see.
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Stress is a function not of events, but of our view of those events.
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To be mindfully engaged is the most natural, creative state we can be in.
Ellen LangerRead
When people are not in the moment, they're not there to know that they're not there.
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Out of an intuitive experience of the world comes a continuous flow of novel distinctions. Purely rational understanding, on the other hand, serves to confirm old mindsets, rigid categories. Artists, who live in the same world as the rest of us, steer clear of these mindsets to make us see things anew.
Ellen LangerRead
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