34 Posts Found

Author: Yuval Noah Harari | Source: Big Think (August 11, 2025) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Information, Intelligence | Knowledge, IT | Technology, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior

The upside to mechanical values is that they’re easy to apply. It’s very hard to agree with other people about what counts as a full life, as great art, or as a soul-nourishing vocation. But it’s easy to agree about what leads to statistically longer lifespans, more page views and engagement hours, or more money. When we turn our values mechanical, we make it easy … [ Read more ]

Author: Christopher Thi Nguyen | Source: Vox (January 13, 2026) | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

How a chance encounter on a plane sparked a quest to uncover life’s meaning. Arthur C. Brooks shares research-grounded tips to help your happiness levels soar.

Authors: Arthur C. Brooks, Suzanne Hogseth | Source: IESE Insight (May2025) | Subjects: Career, Happiness, Personal Improvement

And that’s okay.

Author: Julie Beck | Source: The Atlantic (June 2, 2025) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

A self-schema is the information and beliefs you hold about yourself. This cognitive framework influences how you feel, how you react, your actual behavior, and your perception of your place in the world.

How your self-schema influences your actions can be nuanced: For example, you may have internalized that you’re not athletic during childhood — and then, later in life, limit yourself when you want to … [ Read more ]

Author: Sarah Sloat | Source: Inverse (April 22, 2025) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

We feel our way through life, then rationalize our actions, as if emotion were a shameful scar on the countenance of reason. […] Our emotional lives [are] the root of our motives beneath the topsoil of reason and rationalization. – Maria Popova

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We suffer primarily because we are so insentient to our own emotions, so illiterate in reading ourselves. – Maria Popova

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The main difficulty that faces … [ Read more ]

Authors: John Macmurray, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Excerpts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Senses, Thought | Inquiry

Human beings are creatures of mimicry. We are evolutionarily supercharged to do one thing better than anyone else: learn by watching and copying others. And the most important thing we learn is how to want. 

As we grow up and live our lives, we watch others and learn what it is we ought to want. Aside from the basics, like food, water, shelter and sex, our … [ Read more ]

Author: Alex Danco | Subjects: Excerpts, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Sociology | Anthropology

Over and over, people would overestimate the degree of control they had over events — smart people, people who excelled at many things, people who should have known better… The more they overestimated their own skill relative to luck, the less they learned from what the environment was trying to tell them, and the worse their decisions became… The illusion of control is what prevented … [ Read more ]

Authors: Maria Konnikova, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (December 8, 2020) | Subjects: Excerpts, Life & Society, Math & Science, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Logic is the bedrock of pretty much all human knowledge. As such, philosophers have killed many trees over the centuries, analyzing and determining the principles that define logic and reason. Their ambition has been to determine what we can know to be true and what we cannot know to be true.

What most people don’t realize is that logical fallacies—that is, errors in judgment and reasoning—are … [ Read more ]

Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Communication, Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy, Thought | Inquiry

The savanna theory of happiness is the idea that life satisfaction is not only determined by what’s happening in the present but also influenced by the ways our ancestors may have reacted to the event. Evolutionary psychology argues that, just like any other organ, the human brain has been designed for and adapted to the conditions of an ancestral environment. Therefore, the researchers argue, our … [ Read more ]

Author: Sarah Sloat | Source: Inverse (December 6, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, Happiness, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior, Sociology | Anthropology

One of the most important [Shaolin] teachings is the “five hindrances of self-mastery.” These are the core mental states that prevent us from seeing clearly, making smart decisions, achieving our goals and living a happier, more harmonious life.

1. Sensual desire. Sensual desire is intertwined pleasure, and it arises when we have a deep craving for something that stimulates one or more of our five senses (vision,

… [ Read more ]

Author: Shi Heng Yi | Source: CNBC (June 17, 2020) | Subjects: Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Everyone knows that to do great work you need both natural ability and determination. But there’s a third ingredient that’s not as well understood: an obsessive interest in a particular topic.

[…]

Which leads us to the second feature of this kind of obsession: there is no point. A bus ticket collector’s love is disinterested. They’re not doing it to impress us or to … [ Read more ]

Author: Paul Graham | Subjects: Ability | Skill, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

Humans suck. We are impossible to please.
We have so many conflicting needs and desires, it’s a marvel that we can
even wipe the correct ass.

I’ve long written about how humans evolved to be constantly dissatisfied in some way. I’ve written about how, in life, it’s impossible to escape suffering. In fact, in one of the most popular sections of my … [ Read more ]

Author: Mark Manson | Subjects: Happiness, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

I had a Powerpoint presentation forwarded to me with the following, which is supposedly what The Dalai Lama has to say on the millennium:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
   • Respect for self
   • Respect for others
   • Responsibility for all your actions
4. Remember that not getting what you want

… [ Read more ]

Author: Dalai Lama | Subjects: Inspiration, Life & Society, Wisdom

[Each morning] I read what I call My Practice, which […] is a living document, I continue to edit and refine it. As I grow and change, so does My Practice.”

1. The Universe desires to express itself through me and so every day I work at improving myself and the conditions around me. The more I improve and the more I can provide others, the more

… [ Read more ]

Author: Michael R. Shenker | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Wisdom

Said to be passed down from a fellow named Hermes Trismegistus (“three times great”)—the Greeks called him “Hermes” (the messenger for the gods), the Romans called him Mercury (pictured him with winged shoes) and the Egyptians recognized him as their god Toth. According to legend, he was a contemporary (and even teacher of) Abraham. Considered the father of science, his Laws capture the essence of … [ Read more ]

Authors: Brian Johnson, Burt Goldman, José Silva | Sources: PhilosophersNotes, The Silva Mind Control Method of Mental Dynamics | Subjects: Excerpts, Philosophy, Thought Starters, Wisdom

I’ve learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sing “Silent Night.”
Age 6

I’ve learned that our dog doesn’t want to eat my broccoli either.
Age 7

I’ve learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back.
Age 9

I’ve learned that just when … [ Read more ]

Author: Unknown | Subjects: Insight, Inspiration, Wisdom

• I’ve learned that we don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
• I’ve learned that no matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
• I’ve learned that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
• I’ve learned that you

… [ Read more ]

Subjects: Insight, Inspiration, Wisdom

Hard as it may be to believe, you can actually win [political] arguments. Here’s how.

1. Forget facts
   Psychologists who study political belief and persuasion think it’s adorable how obsessed argumentative people are with those cute little things called facts. When it comes to winning arguments, truthfulness and details simply don’t matter as much as we think they do.
   ‌
   “People think emotionally, and they very often will have

… [ Read more ]

Author: Jesse Singal | Source: The Cut (May 14, 2014) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Communication, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting

… [ Read more ]

Author: Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (October 23, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Insight, Wisdom