Associate's Mind

  When I was an uchi-deshi, there were special classes reserved for senior students called kenshu (“sword sharpening”). During these classes, I would sit in seiza (“proper sitting”) for 30 minutes or so, listening to the instructor lecture on a multitude of topics. History, art, subtle points of techniques, themes, etc. If you haven’t come [...]

  An old year falls, a new one rises. People will dedicate to change. They will tell themselves that this year will be different. They will commit to change their appearance, their friends, their family, their job. Goals will be set. Plans will be made. Motivation will be high. Intentions strong and good. Time will [...]

Seriously, if this is you right now – get off your computer and go do something productive. Exercise, spend time with a friend, go to work. Anything but sitting on your butt and endlessly surfing for some brief bit of amusement. You’re better than that.

Something Mike said over at Crime & Federalism resonated with me. From the post, The Prison is Your Mind: Partial Objects asks: Could you live in an 81 squre foot home? My first semester in law school, I lived in a garage that had been converted into an apartment. People found this hard to believe, but [...]

Will it? It’s up to you.

Totally unrelated to law, but worth a moment of your time to reflect upon: Science. Yeah, it’s like that.

I noticed a post over at Bnet recently entitled “Perfectionism is a Disease.” It offers three tips to ward off Perfectionism: 1. Allow yourself to be wrong in front of others. We learn by making mistakes. The only way we understand ourselves is to test our limits. If we don’t want anyone to know we [...]

Note: This is the final Part in a series on the traditional Japanese educational (master/apprentice) framework, Shu Ha Ri, and it’s correlation with the study/practice of law. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Ri Wikipedia describes it as “leave”, “separate” — transcendence — there are no techniques or proverbs, [...]

Note: This is Part 2 in a series on the traditional Japanese educational (master/apprentice) framework, Shu Ha Ri, and it’s correlation with the study/practice of law. Part I can be found here. Ha Wikipedia describes it as “detach”, “digress” — breaking with tradition — detachment from the illusions of Self. Which is part of it. [...]

Last week in a post about “flow” and the zen concept of mushin, I had a bit of a discussion in the comments with a reader in regards to a seemingly growing trend in executive/work coaching/consulting advice that a person engaging in a type of process should just function at an intuitive level immediately – without [...]