Reality

The Yin-and-Yang Nature of Life

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, February 5 2025

Life is full of cycles, opposites, complements, and balance. The Earth revolves around the Sun, the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth rotates to create a day-and-night cycle that many animals have evolved to set their periods of activity and rest to. There are also complements in nature such as men and women, sunshine and rain, effort...

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Emotions

Everybody Needs Somebody to Care About Them

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, January 29 2025

We are a social species. The evolution of life led to cooperative organisms because the life forms that worked to deliberately help each other and not hurt them were more likely to survive. But you can't just have organisms behave like that randomly; for the behavior to occur regularly, there has to be an incentive to do

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Life Goals

Choose Your Hard

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, January 22 2025

People worked for thousands of years to build up society so that the average person's life is easier and easier. Microwaves, sedentary jobs, air conditioning, and similar modern conveniences have made it so that life is safer and easier to manage than ever before. While this is mostly a good thing, it does create one huge issue: people's lives...

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Meaning

Whether You Think That Life Has Meaning or Not, You’re Right

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, January 15 2025

There is a famous quote attributed to Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't—you're right." While it's not 100% certain that he said that, it is generally accepted to be in line with his philosophy of life. The idea is that your beliefs affect your effort, which cause your reality to come true (either way). The psychology...

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Success

The Fastest Way to a Right Answer Is a Wrong Answer

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, January 8 2025

One of my favorite sayings is, “The fastest way to a right answer is a wrong answer.” It is a simple saying that conveys several meanings about how you can approach life to be successful. It is an important to keep in mind as you approach difficult situations and hesitate because you’re trying to be perfect, save face, or avoid

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Meaning

Caring Is the Secret to Meaning

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, January 1 2025

When people ask, "What is the meaning of life?" to themselves, they are typically asking what the meaning of their life is and how to really find meaning in their lives. Fortunately, the latter is much more clear and concrete than the former since life has the meaning that you assign to

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Growth

The Better You Are, The Better We Are

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 25 2024

Many people look for ways that they can contribute to the success of a cause, a group, or even society. Yes, there are plenty of examples of getting involved in ways that benefit others: volunteering, joining a support group, and fundraising are examples of options that people often choose from. But there’s one thing to keep in mind: taking care...

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The Meaning of Life

There’s No “Happily Ever After”—There’s Always the Next Thing

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 18 2024

There is a statement that will tell you everything you need to know about life. It explains the point and, therefore, how to approach it. It’s three simple words: “And then what?” When you understand this statement, you’ll understand life. There’s a famous video game series, Civilization, where the goal of the game (one of them, at least) was to...

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Ethics

Unethical Altruism (Yes, It’s a Thing)

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 11 2024

Performing an unethical act for others’ benefit does not make it right. However, this is a difficult ethical conundrum because it is the ultimate “ends justify the means” argument when you’re doing something wrong because someone needs it. This is the “would you steal a loaf of bread to feed your family” kind of situation that most people would...

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The Meaning of Life

Meaning Doesn’t Require You to Save the World

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 4 2024

When people talk about “higher” meaning or “greater” meaning, many of them know intuitively that it is about meaning outside themselves. But then they draw the logical conclusion that the more people they impact, the more meaning they’ll have and so they think that the best goal to have is to “change the world” or “save the world” for the...

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