Once you grasp this, the modern mantra of “no regrets” begins to look not courageous but fear-based: a desperate, panicky effort to avoid future sadness. By contrast, and paradoxically, amor fati offers a more full-throated way of overcoming regret: by accepting it. It’s not a matter of making bold choices “before it’s too late”, but rather of seeing that it’s already too late, and always has been. This is deeply liberating. You only live once. Why waste it trying to have no regrets?

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(via Paralyzed By Doubt? Here’s A Guide For The Worrier In Us All : Shots - Health News : NPR)

The conclusion of the book provides advice on avoiding blunders.

…make a realistic effort to slow our rush to judgment before all the relevant facts are in. If we could grow more comfortable with the uncertainty around us, our daily blunders would not be as great. All kinds of daily interactions would be altered if we suspended our insufficiently informed conclusions over why others act the way they do.

As children, we harbor ideals for how the world and our lives could be; as adults, we gain bitter experience of how often reality falls short. Growing up means refusing to scurry back into childhood’s unsullied ideals – yet *also* declining to give in to cynical resignation. It’s about tolerating the tension between how things are and how they should be, while still getting out of bed in the morning. To be a good citizen, a good parent, a good political activist – a good grown-up – may require nothing less.

We had a discussion at work recently about how much we sit, standing desks, treadmill desks, etc. So I did about 90 minutes of searching and came up with the following digest of items that I thought covered the topic fairly well. This will be my starting point if the topic comes up again in the future. Bottom-line: Variety is the spice: mix standing and sitting, don’t do too much of either, move regularly. I was surprised by the observations from some writers about the types of work best done sitting vs. standing. 

Recommendations

We’ve spent hundreds of hours over the past three years testing 13 standing desks. The $700 Ergo Depot Jarvis is the best for most people. It’s as sturdy and reliable as a high-end desk, but sells for half the price and comes with a seven-year warranty—compare that to the typical one to three years its competitors offer. It ships faster, too.

If you use a standing desk, you should also be using an anti-fatigue mat. This will provide support for your feet and relieve pressure on your heels, back, legs, and shoulders, which in turn helps you stand for longer. After hours of research and weeks of foot-on testing, we recommend the Imprint CumulusPro for just under $100. We found it was the most supportive out of the dozens considered and nine tested. What’s more, it won’t offgas toxic chemicals, has a ten-year warranty, and feels great to stand on. And in a panel test several months after this article was first posted, every Wirecutter editor who tested our top contenders chose the Imprint CumulusPro as their favorite.

First-person lessons learned

As it turns out, you must check your posture constantly and move around, whether you sit or stand at work, because standing all day can be as bad as prolonged sitting. A 2005 longitudinal study in Denmark found that the incidence of hospitalizations due to varicose veins was higher among those who stand or walk at least 75 percent of their time at work. … Of course, nurses and factory workers have known this for some time, but it seems to be largely forgotten in the stand-up-desk trend.

As for me, my doctor’s diagnosis of my leg pains did not prompt me to dismantle my stand-up desk. Now I follow my body’s cues. When I begin to feel lethargic or my neck or shoulders bother me, I shift to standing, and almost immediately my muscles relax and I feel more energized. If my legs or feet later begin to ache, I’ll take the experts’ advice and elevate one foot or plop into my chair. And I try to move a lot more in general — doing shoulder rolls, shaking out my limbs, walking to chat instead of e-mailing, or visiting the water fountain down the hall.

1. Don’t switch straight to a standing desk; make the transition gradually. I’ve actually got my old desk set-up plus a separate desk on which I have the equipment that allows me to stand while I work. I just switch my laptop and wireless mouse and keyboard over to my new desk when I want to work standing up, but I can still sit when I need to.
2. Standing too much is just as bad as sitting, which is one reason why it’s a good idea to mix it up. If your lower back gets tired from standing, sit down again to work, or stretch it out.
3. I thought I wouldn’t be able to write while standing, but that’s been fine, although it took a bit of getting used to because I was so accustomed to thinking while sitting. Standing to think is actually quite effective because you’re moving around, which for some reason keeps your brain awake.
4. ...
5. The main message is to try out what works for you and don’t think you have to do everything standing. 

If a standing desk works for you, that’s great. But if it doesn’t, don’t force it?—?especially if it negatively impacts your work. Standing while working might not be for you. It wasn’t for me. And that’s okay. Standing for long periods of time isn’t much better than sitting anyway.

The key is to do some activity every day. It doesn’t have to be a five-mile sprint. A walk to and from work, taking the stairs, or some squats while you’re waiting for your lunch can be enough to do the trick.

From the testing camps

There was one result that we all found to be true.

While standing, you feel a sense of urgency which causes you to be focused on the completion of tasks. This works ideally when you’re working with tasks where you know what the outcome should be, and it’s just a matter of completing it. [Also helps counteract the 3pm food coma.]

However, for tasks which require a creative approach—for example, thinking about a possible coding solution, or writing a great article—then the urgency provided by standing is more of a hindrance. We found that for creative tasks, sitting and not paying attention to your corporal self was helpful in letting your mind wander and explore creative options.

From the skeptical camp

Common sense should prevail in these discussions.  If you have the luxury of choice and stand rather than sit at your job, you’re probably healthier because you’re probably more health conscious in other parts of your life.   You will burn more calories and exert more effort in standing if nothing else.  And you’re probably going to be stressed out, depressed along with the physical factors that result from standing or sitting all day if you’ve got little choice in the matter [ie, postal delivery or assembly line workers, who stand and move all day and are not appreciably healthier due to more stressful jobs].  Reports that draw these very loose correlations to activities like sitting certainly do not merit extreme changes in lifestyle.  If your job allows you the freedom to do so, I would think the best response would be a combination of sitting and standing throughout the day, rather than favoring the extreme.

Feel free to sit down and relax though, it’s not going to kill you.

I’m a writer but I’m also a teacher and having been successful at both I can tell you that people who say things like “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach,” ought to try to teach. It is hard to be a teacher…. 

I have dedicated my life to art but honestly, in many ways, artists are parasites.  We don’t keep people warm, we don’t feed people, we don’t keep them dry (unless they use books to build a shelter.)  Give me an oncology nurse any day.  You can all deluge me with emails about how important art was/is to you and I won’t disagree, but try living in your car for a week.
 

I’m proud of what I do.  But I’ve arguably changed more lives by being a mom and by teaching than by writing.

Here’s a polite person’s trick, one that has never failed me. I will share it with you because I like and respect you, and it is clear to me that you’ll know how to apply it wisely: When you are at a party and are thrust into conversation with someone, see how long you can hold off before talking about what they do for a living. And when that painful lull arrives, be the master of it. I have come to revel in that agonizing first pause, because I know that I can push a conversation through. Just ask the other person what they do, and right after they tell you, say: “Wow. That sounds hard.” 

From “How To Be Polite.”

(via A tale of two lovers (or three, or four): the truth about polyamory | Life and style | The Guardian)

Institutions – from national newspapers to governments and political parties – invest an enormous amount of money and effort in denying this truth. The facades they maintain are crucial to their authority, and thus to their legitimacy and continued survival. We need them to appear ultra-competent, too, because we derive much psychological security from the belief that somewhere, in the highest echelons of society, there are some near-infallible adults in charge.

In fact, though, everyone is totally just winging it.

“We live by slowing down and saying with our lives that the world will not be saved by frantic activity.” – Stanley Hauerwas, theologian, Duke University