Presenting a glimmering version of yourself that doesn’t feel real is an easy path to discontent. You can follow your passion all you want, but if you’re not expressing it authentically, in a way that is indisputably you, the gap will catch up with you. The space between who you are and who you express yourself to be exists in varying degrees. But if it’s … [ Read more ]
Author: Jodi Ettenberg | Subjects: Career, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But one can be absent, obviously, either in the past or in the future. This adequately circumscribes the entire territory of the unhappy … [ Read more ]
Author: Søren Kierkegaard | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Happiness, Psychology | Behavior
A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
Author: James Madison | Subject: Politics & Public Policy
Americans now bear such animosity toward one another that it’s almost as if many are holding up signs saying, “Please tell me something horrible about the other side, I’ll believe anything!” Americans are now easily exploitable, and a large network of profit-driven media sites, political entrepreneurs, and foreign intelligence agencies are taking advantage of this vulnerability.
Authors: Greg Lukianoff, Jon Haidt | Source: Instrument of Mercy | Subject: Politics & Public Policy
As long as you tell us something that reinforces our preexisting beliefs and biases, we’ll enthusiastically hand over our consent to be manipulated and exploited for corporate profit and political gain.
Author: Joe Forrest | Source: Instrument of Mercy | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
Most human behavior is driven by our innate desire to avoid pain, rejection, and fear. If you can handily manipulate one (or a combination) of those three factors, you can get someone to do just about anything.
Author: Joe Forrest | Source: Instrument of Mercy | Subjects: Fear, Psychology | Behavior
If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy that we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection.
Author: Brene Brown | Source: Instrument of Mercy | Subjects: Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
People today pay for meaning more than they pray for it.
Author: Douglas Atkin | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Concepts, Economics | Economy, Meaning
The presidency is like a soft leather glove, and it takes the shape of the hand that’s put into it. And when a very big hand is put into it and stretches the glove — stretches the office — the glove never quite shrinks back to what it was.
Author: George Will | Subjects: America, International, Politics & Public Policy
The point of protest is rarely to swing a single race, however momentous that race may be. It is to change the terms of political debate, and ultimately to change society itself. And indeed, protest has always foreshadowed the most radical shifts in American history. Protest calls attention to problems with the status quo—and often spells political doom for those who have upheld it.
Author: Daniel Q. Gillion | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
If luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation, a crisis is difficulty meeting unreadiness. You can’t avoid every iceberg, but you can add a few more safety boats.
Author: Krista Berlincourt | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Success / Failure
Do not underestimate communication. Because in the absence of that communication, the narrative will be made for you, and the narrative is always negative, right? I’ve never seen a situation where someone has made up a positive narrative in the absence of any information at all.
Author: Kwasi Mitchell | Source: Knolwedge@Wharton | Subject: Communication
Many studies show that women are as good as, or better than, men at being businesspeople, and they are more likely to reinvest their earnings in long-term assets like education, health care and housing for their families. Gender inequality is a steep tax on global prosperity.
Author: Randall Kempner | Subjects: Business, Economics | Economy
Discussions are always better than arguments, because an argument is to find out who is right, and a discussion is to find out what is right.
Author: Unknown | Subjects: Communication, Personal Improvement, Relationships
Americans readily tolerate inequality of outcomes, accepting that it’s a necessary by-product of how we reward the hard work, initiative, and creativity that underpin our much envied economy. But we should not accept inequality of opportunity.
Author: Ray Boshara | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: America, Economics | Economy, International, Politics & Public Policy
If you bet with conventional wisdom, you get conventional returns. If you bet against conventional wisdom and you’re wrong, you look like an idiot. If you bet against conventional wisdom and you’re right, you’re a genius.
Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement
More than any other country, the United States in the post-war era lionized the individual at the expense of community and family. It was the sociological equivalent of splitting the atom. What was gained in terms of mobility and personal freedom came at the expense of common purpose. In wide swaths of America, the family as an institution lost its grounding. By the 1960s, 40 … [ Read more ]
Author: Wade Davis | Source: Rolling Stone | Subjects: America, International
The United States, virtually a demilitarized nation on the eve of the Second World War, never stood down in the wake of victory. To this day, American troops are deployed in 150 countries. Since the 1970s, China has not once gone to war; the U.S. has not spent a day at peace. President Jimmy Carter recently noted that in its 242-year history, America has enjoyed … [ Read more ]
Author: Wade Davis | Source: Rolling Stone | Subjects: America, International
No empire long endures, even if few anticipate their demise. Every kingdom is born to die. The 15th century belonged to the Portuguese, the 16th to Spain, 17th to the Dutch. France dominated the 18th and Britain the 19th. Bled white and left bankrupt by the Great War, the British maintained a pretense of domination as late as 1935, when the empire reached its greatest … [ Read more ]
Author: Wade Davis | Source: Rolling Stone | Subjects: History, International
Fluidity of memory and a capacity to forget is perhaps the most haunting trait of our species. As history confirms, it allows us to come to terms with any degree of social, moral, or environmental degradation.
Author: Wade Davis | Source: Rolling Stone | Subjects: Life & Society, Sociology | Anthropology