If you think more privacy is always better, that is a case of loserthink. Every situation is different. Sometimes privacy is the problem that prevents the solution.
Every generation before us believed, like Snickers, that it had things figured out. We now know that every generation before us was wrong about a lot of it. Is it likely that you were born at the tipping point of history, in which humans know enough about reality to say we understand it? This is another case where humility is your friend.
The next ring – and your second-biggest priority – is economics. That includes your job, your investments, and even your house. You might wince at the fact that I put economics ahead of your family, your friends, and the rest of the world, but there’s a reason. If you don’t get your personal financial engine working right, you place a burden on everyone from your family to the country.
If eating a healthy diet feels unpleasant, you’re doing it wrong. And you’re wasting your limited stockpile of willpower.
This was about the time that my opinion of experts, and authority figures in general, began a steady descent that continues to this day.
I wouldn’t be satisfied simply escaping from my prison of silence; I was planning to escape, free the other inmates, shoot the warden, and burn down the prison. Sometimes I get that way. It’s a surprisingly useful frame of mind.
Persistence is useful, but there’s no point in being an idiot about it.
I’ve long seen failure as a tool, not an outcome.
The power of daydreaming is similar to the power of well-made movies that can make you cry or make you laugh.
Humans think they are rational, and they think they understand their reality. But they are wrong on both counts.
It’s smarter to see your big-idea projects as part of a system to improve your energy, contacts, and skills.
I have no reason to believe humans evolved with the capability to understand their reality. That capability was not important to survival. When it comes to evolution, any illusion that keeps us alive long enough to procreate is good enough.
If you can’t imagine any other explanation for a set of facts, it might be because you are bad at imagining things.
My mother, in the style of the times, told me I could do anything I set my sights on. She said I could be the president, an astronaut, or the next Charles Schulz. I believed her because at that point in my life I hadn’t yet noticed the pattern of her deceptions.
We humans don’t like uncertainty, so we are attracted to those who offer clarity and simple answers, even if the answers are wrong or incomplete. Master Persuaders can thrive in chaotic environments by offering the clarity people crave. And if an environment is not chaotic already, a skilled persuader who understands both social media and the news business can easily stir the pot to create an advantage through chaos. Candidate Trump was a champion of this method.
You know you’re in a bureaucracy when a hundred people who think ‘A’ get together and compromise on ‘B.
One thing I can say with complete certainty is that it is a bad idea to trust the majority of experts in any domain in which both complexity and large amounts of money are involved.
Everything you want out of life is in that huge, bubbling vat of failure. The trick is to get the good stuff out.
People who have good arguments use them. People who do not have good arguments try to win by labeling.
I don’t read the news to find truth, as that would be a foolish waste of time.