Purpose and Meaning

January 16, 2020

To those who’re making good “bread”…

Mindset, Passion, Purpose and Meaning

This is what happened today in the bakery shop…

… that fueled my inspiration and desire to do better work.

I recently discovered the best bakery shop in my town.

They make delicious bread there. 🍞

I mean… I can just have their bread for lunch!

Their bread with some Lefkadian extra virgin olive oil!

Really dangerous bread!

But what’s even more dangerous is that Anthoulla, the owner of the bakery, always makes sure she throws some more of her creations into my bread bag saying…

“That’s on me! You pay only for the bread!”

And when my wife is with me… her generosity can go crazy!

“How are you, my Katya? Here’s a pumpkin pie for you to try!”

Sometimes I feel all the extra bonuses cost more than the bread I pay for! It’s getting uncomfortable! 🙂

Today as I was waiting in the queue… this picture on the wall caught my attention.

Here you can see the first founders of the bakery, ie. Anthoulla’s dad and her late mom.

The picture was taken in 2004 when Anthoulla’s parents got an award for the best olive oil cookies, a traditional recipe of our island.

– Do you see that lady? That’s my mom, Papanti, said Anthoula. She was a sweet and kind lady. Not because she was my mom…everyone used to say that.

– I’m sure she was. I can tell, I replied.

– Whatever you see here… everything is her own recipes! She passed away four years ago.

– Well, she’s still with us Anthoulla, I replied. Look, you’re still making her bread, her bread is on our tables every day, Katya loved the pumpkin pie last week, you and I are talking about her right now. I just took a picture of her, she’s in my phone. And… I can see Papanti in you.

– Yes, Angelos. She’s still here. You’re right!

Anthoulla smiled and then tears started rolling down her face.

~~~~

I’m writing this about Papanti right now.

Papanti inspired me today.

And although I don’t run a bakery shop, I make bread every day for my clients. We make bread together!

My bread is the love I give to my people, every interaction I have with them is another olive oil cookie, a cookie of love, a piece of me.

All this makes me think…

Our bread, our work, our vision, whatever we decide to do with our time, can have an imprint on the world that will stay here and can change the world even when we’ll be gone.

Our bread can change the way others think about their own bread.

Your bread can help others make better bread.

“Our work can change the entropy of the system forever. The limited time we live in this life can shift the world to a new direction forever”, as MIT Prof. Constantinos Daskalakis once said.

Tell me what you hear.

If you relate to all this, what do you want to do?

To all those who’re always striving to make better bread,

Angelos

By angelos No Comments

March 19, 2019

What’s the key to making progress?

Happiness, Mindset, Purpose and Meaning, Self-Development

Helping hand, Rescue, Black and white image.

A friend asked me the following question on FB the other day. I thought the answer might be useful to others and decided to share it here on LD.

Question: What’s the key to making progress?

I’m not a guru. I don’t have all the answers. I’m just getting better every day, facing my fears, and aligning my course a tiny bit of an angle with my definition of meaning and purpose. Because that’s not easy. It takes courage.

So, my Answer:

I’d say this: there is a path of the least resistance for each one of us. That’s the path where we find meaning. You’ve got to choose that path at all costs and go all the way. You’re gonna face a ton of challenges but what will keep you there is that meaning.

The other thing is to find pleasure in helping others. All around say give, give value, but you have to find pleasure in giving value to others and solving their problems, spending your precious time for solving the problems of others without expecting anything back. That goes against our genes. We’re inherently selfish, we care about our own survival and existence and that’s OK of course to a certain extent. Giving value without expecting anything back takes practice. Lots of practice. And then it becomes addictive. You want it badly. And all of a sudden, just because you’ve provided value genuinely this time people give value back to you. And this is contagious. These people will do the same when interacting with other people.
PS: I’m just learning and getting better. I’ve got a lot of work to do myself. This was just some realisations from my experience especially in the last 5 years since I quit my job in investment banking and went on to set up my business. The way towards mastery takes a whole life. 🙂

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March 15, 2019

Don’t give up on your true purpose (inspired by Cavafy’s poem The Satrapy)

Mindset, Purpose and Meaning, Self-Development

The power of this short poem by Constantine Cavafy is just unbelievable. This poem guides me.

The Satrapy – Constantine Cavafy

Too bad that, cut out as you are for grand and noble acts,
this unfair fate of yours never helps you out,
always prevents your success; that cheap habits
get in your way, pettiness, or indifference.

And how terrible the day you give in
(the day you let go and give in)
and take the road for Susa to find King Artaxerxes,
who, propitiously, gives you a place at his court
and offers you satrapies and things like that —
things you don’t want at all, though, in despair,
you accept them just the same.

You’re longing for something else, aching for other things:
praise from the Demos and the Sophists,
that hard-won, that priceless acclaim —
the Agora, the Theatre, the Crowns of Laurel.

You can’t get any of these from Artaxerxes,
you’ll never find any of these in
the satrapy, and without them,
what kind of life will you live?

My comments (talking to myself basically)

Dear Friend,

Don’t waste the gift of life that’s been given to you running after the ephemeral, superficial and flashy things.

You know what your heart is longing for and if you’re chasing other things because it’s easier or everybody else is doing so, that’s too bad.

Too bad for you, too bad for me, too bad for everyone. Because if you’re giving up on your purpose, you lose, I lose, we all lose!

And if you say that your purpose might take years or forever, let me tell you this. Life is much longer than you think and you will live to see your hard word give fruits, plenty of fruits, fruits which you will taste, I will taste, we will all taste.

Guys, please read this beautiful short poem, the Satrapy, by Constantine Cavafy, one of the most important figures of the Greek and Western poetry.

This poem is talking exactly about that, about being honest to one’s value, purpose and those hard-won noble things that your heart is longing for.

By angelos No Comments

March 13, 2019

Your suffering is trying to teach you something

Book suggestions, Entrepreneurship, Mindset, Purpose and Meaning

Listen to your suffering for it’s trying to teach you something.

You’re probably suffering because there is no meaning and purpose in the way you’ve chosen.

Viktor Frankl spent three years in Auschwitz and other concentration camps during WWII. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he writes:

Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis, it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner-decision and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally then, any man can, under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually.

If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an eradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to his life.

There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which
admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an
existence restricted by external forces.

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March 10, 2019

Happiness cannot be pursued – Best advice ever.

Book suggestions, Mindset, Purpose and Meaning

mans-search-for-meaning-viktor-frank-tonny-robbins-recommendation-copy

Tonny Robins recommends this book. Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for meaning. I’m only thirteen pages into it but I had to stop to share this with you.

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”

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