The problems with these common situations is that we take the big picture, the overwhelming nature of it all, and use it as a reason to not do anything. Instead, I’ve found it useful to pick one tiny action. It can change everything.
Tag: action
The Debate Over Taxation Cannot Be Value-Free
When anyone calls for a new tax or a tax increase, what that person wants is for government personnel to threaten force against anyone who fails to surrender his or her money to the state. But almost no one speaks in those terms. If tax advocates did that, their rhetoric at least would be honest (and only in that sense noble.) Instead, such people engage in base rhetoric.
Self-Sabotage Negates All Progress
Influence comes from two places. Force comes from the outer world, composed of every character and situation you’ll ever know. Force also comes from within. There is an inner world of values, concepts, and associations to guide you on your path. A weak inner world guarantees that your progress will fester, making you slave to external forces.
Arbitrary Self-Importance Will Taint Your Identity
You often wish a thing were true, but this does not make it so. Reality only bends in its own way, never totally mastered or obeyed. A thought originating in your mind is no more real or important than any other. You alone are not the determiner. It takes practice and skill to align your mind with what is.
The Magic of Being Held By the World
You are reading an article written for you by me, sent across the Internet thanks to the work of thousands and thousands of engineers and power workers and workers in computer factories, using a computer device produced by thousands of people around the world.
Words Poorly Used #85 — Agreement
For purposes of this discussion there are two disjunct forms of agreement. When a seller and a buyer reach a meeting point on a transaction, it is a meeting point of agreement.
Greatness is Rightful Action in Trying Times
Nothing is ever stable. Without warning, life demands us to go beyond what we think we can do. These moments test us. We cower away from the strangeness of the new demands, or we prove our worth by acting. Whether we fail or succeed in these spontaneous exams is no matter. What matters is that we are elevated to something better than we were before.
How We’re Harmed by Our Dissatisfaction with Ourselves
Over the last five years or so, as I’ve worked with thousands of people on changing their habits, I’ve come to a realization: dissatisfaction with ourselves is a pretty universal phenomenon.
Be Confident Above All Else
A person is more than the knowledge they hold and the body they control. A person is, fundamentally, awareness of themselves. The way you see yourself changes everything about you. Thinking and feeling exactly the way you are is the root of confidence. Anything that strays from the mark of reality will color all your actions.
Influences I
Whenever someone asks me which philosophers I follow, I very quickly branch off into persons who do not seem to be philosophers within the narrow meaning of the term, lover of knowledge. But how could Mark Twain possibly be not that? If asked who are the great wits, I will come up with a list from all over the place. In what universe would we think Lewis Carroll was not as witty as could be?