Category: Life Lessons
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How To Validate
Cultivating your superpowers. Being able to validate is a superpower. It makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside. “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”-William James. If craving appreciation is the deepest, the foundation beneath that is the craving for acknowledgment. We cannot appreciate something without first acknowledging it. What…
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To Say, Or Not To Say, That Isn’t The Question
The question is not whether to speak up, but how. On playing small in a big world. Often in relationships of all kinds, we wonder whether or not to speak up. This is the wrong way to think. You should speak up. You shouldn’t debate whether or not to speak up. Something gave you a…
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Why You Shouldn’t Ghost
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻 First, let’s define ghosting– its essence is acting out of integrity. It’s disappearing, not showing up. Ghosting is saying one thing, and doing another. It’s lying. The fact that I can use the word “ghost” as a verb and have it be widely understood is sad. This wasn’t a thing 30 years ago. If…
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You Have A Duty To Complain, Here’s Why
That’s right, you have a moral obligation to complain. You don’t have to complain all the time. But you should complain some of the time. Before digging into when to complain or when to hold back, we need to take a few steps back and understand why we get upset, and what our menu options…
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How To Win ANY Argument
This is a guide to winning arguments and vanquishing all enemies in your path. Once completed, you may begin practicing this martial art. After some practice, you will be nearly invincible. The first step towards conquering all of your enemies is realizing that they don’t exist. Once you do that, they are defeated. They are…
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Pragmatic Jedi Mind Tricks For Everyday People
Delusion involves being unaware of reality or acting bonkers amidst circumstance. For example, performing a stop, drop, and roll despite not being on fire would be delusional. I think of being enlightened as being aware of reality and choosing a way of being despite circumstance. It’s a form of conscious delusion. Lately, I’ve been paying…
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What is influence?
Stoics teach that we should worry about what we can control and ignore what we cannot. This is generally sound advice and I tend to agree. But, the Stoics have not covered all bases. Many psychologists advise that we cannot control how others feel, and we may not be able to control how we feel…
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Making the World Smaller
Cities often seem unfriendly relative to small towns. What gives? I’ve spoken with several folks about the dichotomy in friendliness between small towns and dense urban centers. I suspect it’s due to our threat detection systems. Let’s say that 1 in 1,000 people is a criminal, for example. In a town of 30,000 people, that…
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Coping with the Societal Flakiness Epidemic
I’m 28, and most of my friends are in the 40-plus demographic. Why? I don’t know for sure, but I have some ideas. For one, they didn’t grow up with cell phones. This gives them an increased presence during face to face interactions. They have higher integrity- their words and actions are more closely aligned.…