We live in an interesting time. For billions of years, life evolved by searching endlessly for resources, using those resources to grow and reproduce, and then dying. And, at its core, that’s what humans still do today. But the past few centuries have seen great advances in humans’ ability to require less effort to survive and to reduce the risk...
Read MoreLife is all about growth, but we live in a world with a near-incalculable (i.e., how many bottom of the ocean?) number of organisms on it, all competing for growth-enabling resources. Trees compete for sunlight, animals compete over food and water, and some animals have to eat others to survive. Naturally, it would seem that the fight-for-your-li...
Read MoreThere is a trend today that people not-so-affectionately call the “oppression Olympics” where people compete to see who can claim the most victimhood so that they achieve certain benefits such as more power, influence, and control over how others behave in relation to them (full disclosure: I come from a poor background and am guilty of trying to o...
Read MoreDo you remember your first steps? (Probably not) Do you remember someone else’s first steps, such as a child’s? In either case, there was a lot of failure involved in the process. Maybe the child wasn’t strong enough yet, or maybe they fell a bunch of times. Maybe they were scared. Yet no one remembers that nor points to their failures while le...
Read MoreIf someone were to ask me what their life mantra should be, I would suggest, “New, Better, More”. Why? Because that’s what keeps life interesting, engaging, and meaningful. Let’s discuss. This blog and the book, The Meaning of Life, talk a lot about growth. Growth is ultimately the point of life, as all living organisms strive to grow and it ma...
Read MoreDepending on how you count what a “choice” is, you’ll make hundreds of thousands to billions and billions of choices in your lifetime. Choices include the big ones like which school to go to, which jobs to apply for, and whether or not you marry or reproduce as well as the little ones like where you focus your attention at any given time or whethe...
Read MoreIn my blog post a few weeks ago, “If You Want to Be Happy, Then You Have to Be Happy”, I spoke about how if you wait for things to be better before you’re happy, then you are making yourself miserable now for a future that either will come (and you’ll have been miserable for no reason up until then) or will never come (and you’ll always be miserabl...
Read MoreEveryone knows that people love a good story. It helps them learn, remember things, and stay engaged in a presentation or conversation. But why is it such a more impactful way to convey information than simply stating facts, such as “2+2=4”? Because the story is a journey, and effective engagement, influence, and relationship-building follows th...
Read More"Money is the root of all evil." Yes, it's a cliché because people will do horrible things over money: lie, cheat, steal, fight, and even kill. It's also the source of much jealousy in this world: some people have it; some people don't; some people resent that others have more than they do (regardless of how much they have). But most anger, jeal...
Read More“I was supposed to have a spouse and kids by now.” “One of my classmates from high school is now a CEO.” “I’m so far behind in my retirement savings.” People naturally compare their life progress to others, and they start to wonder what they need to do to “catch up” to others when they fall behind.
Read More