History isn’t just something that ought to be taught or ought to be read or ought to be encouraged because it’s going to make us a better citizen. It will make us a better citizen; or because it will make us a more thoughtful and understanding human being, which it will; or because it will cause us to behave better, which it will. It should … [ Read more ]
Author: David McCullough | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, History
Those who claim that the wealth they have accumulated is theirs to pass on without returning anything back to the American system show a shocking lack of appreciation for all that the system and public monies did to help them create wealth.
Author: Bill Gates Sr. | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy
Money is everywhere, it affects all of us, and confuses most of us. Everyone thinks about it a little differently. It offers lessons on things that apply to many areas of life, like risk, confidence, and happiness. Few topics offer a more powerful magnifying glass that helps explain why people behave the way they do than money. It is one of the greatest shows on … [ Read more ]
Author: Morgan Housel | Subject: Finance | Investing
Feelings are messengers of needs. Meeting needs unlocks positive feelings and energy; neglecting needs does the opposite. […] Emotions and feelings bring our needs — human requirements for survival — to our attention and strongly move us toward meeting them.
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Our feelings advocate for our needs. […] When we are in alignment with meeting a need, feelings push us forward: Positive feelings energize and … [ Read more ]
Authors: Carolyn Black, Chad Gomes, Jon Katzenbach | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
In much of our education, and in many of our formative experiences, we’ve learned that some simple problems have one right answer. For more complicated problems, accepted algorithms can help us work out the best answer from among available options. We respond to uncertainty with analysis or leave that analysis to the experienced hands of others. We look for leaders who know the way forward … [ Read more ]
Authors: Jennifer Garvey Berger, Zafer Achi | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Psychology | Behavior
When you blame other people for how you feel, you absolve yourself from something you are responsible for.
Author: Shane Parrish | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Responsibility
Ultimately, there is egoism in the delusion that the gods would trouble themselves to punish any one of us. Equally absurd is the belief that our powers are so vast they are the cause of whatever befalls us — or can enable us to understand it. In business, as in life, one of the bitterest lessons is that hard work and good intentions aren’t always … [ Read more ]
Author: Daniel Akst | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Concepts, Personal Improvement, Success / Failure, Wisdom
The solution to imposter syndrome is to see that you are one. […] The lesson to be drawn isn’t that we’re doomed to chaos. It’s that you – unconfident, self-conscious, all-too-aware-of-your-flaws – potentially have as much to contribute to your field, or the world, as anyone else.
Humanity is divided into two: on the one hand, those who are improvising their way through life, patching solutions … [ Read more ]
Author: Oliver Burkeman | Source: The Guardian | Subjects: Career, Personal Improvement
The capacity to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower. It’s shocking to realise how readily we set aside even our greatest ambitions in life, merely to avoid easily tolerable levels of unpleasantness.
Author: Oliver Burkeman | Source: The Guardian | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
Major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” We’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy: the question swiftly gets bogged down in our narrow preferences for security and control. But the enlargement question elicits a deeper, intuitive response. You tend to just know whether, say, leaving or remaining … [ Read more ]
Author: Oliver Burkeman | Source: The Guardian | Subjects: Happiness, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
Inequality, an issue politicians talked about hesitantly, if at all, a decade ago, is now a central focus of candidates in both parties. The terms of the debate, however, are about individuals and classes: the elite versus the middle, the 1 percent versus the 99 percent. That’s fair enough. But the language currently used to describe inequality doesn’t capture the way it is manifesting geographically. … [ Read more ]
Author: Phillip Longman | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: America, Economics | Economy, History, International
The will to power still passes through hatred on the right and virtue on the left.
Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Concepts, Politics & Public Policy, Power, Psychology | Behavior
Orthodoxy is also enforced by social pressure, nowhere more intensely than on Twitter, where the specter of being shamed or “canceled” produces conformity as much as the prospect of adding to your tribe of followers does. This pressure can be more powerful than a party or state, because it speaks in the name of the people and in the language of moral outrage, against which … [ Read more ]
Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Social Media
We are living with a new kind of regime that didn’t exist in Orwell’s time. It combines hard nationalism—the diversion of frustration and cynicism into xenophobia and hatred—with soft distraction and confusion: a blend of Orwell and Huxley, cruelty and entertainment. The state of mind that the Party enforces through terror in 1984, where truth becomes so unstable that it ceases to exist, we now … [ Read more ]
Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Concepts, Information, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Unfreedom today is voluntary. It comes from the bottom up.
Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Concepts, Freedom | Liberty, Life & Society
Orwell never intended his novel to be a prediction, only a warning. And it’s as a warning that 1984 keeps finding new relevance.
Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Literature | Arts, Politics & Public Policy
Human beings crave order and simplicity. We cling to the hope that some day, if we really refine our world view and beliefs, we can actually find the fully correct way to think — the absolute truth and final side to stand on. People and systems craving power take advantage of this desire and pit us against each other using a “this or that” mentality. … [ Read more ]
Author: Andrew W.K. | Source: The Village Voice | Subjects: Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
At its best, politics is able to organize extremely complex world views into manageable and communicable systems so they can be grappled with and studied abstractly. But even the most noble efforts to organize the world are essentially futile. The best we can usually achieve is a crude and messy map of life from one particular vantage point, featuring a few grids, bullet points, and … [ Read more ]
Author: Andrew W.K. | Source: The Village Voice | Subject: Politics & Public Policy
An autonomous existence is heavily burdened and beset with fears, and can be endured only when bolstered by confidence and self-esteem. The individual’s most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action.
Author: Eric Hoffer | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
Where self-advancement cannot, or is not allowed to, serve as a driving force, other sources of enthusiasm have to be found if momentous changes, such as the awakening and renovation of a stagnant society or radical reforms in the character and pattern of life of a community, are to be realized and perpetuated.
Author: Eric Hoffer | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Change, Concepts, Leadership, Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior