A meme is a collection of ideas that spreads through people. But it does not spread indiscriminately, it relies on skillful narration and delivery on the part of the person propagating it. A talented orator and a highly connected medium are the perfect vehicles for a meme to survive. A successful meme is invariably copied and transferred … Read more
Alfred Adler was an Austrian psychologist, famous for discovering the “inferiority/superiority complex” and the effect of birth order on personality. But most importantly, Adler differed from his contemporaries, Freud, and Jung, by focusing on the present rather than on the past. Adler’s idea was that the past did not determine an individual’s destiny, there was … Read more
The Paradox of Work Work is the source of anxiety, pain, exhaustion, and stress – yet without work, we would lose our sanity and ability to sustain ourselves. One imagines that the avoidance of work is how you manage stress, but it is the avoidance of work that cultivates stress. It is only when you … Read more
“We greatly overestimate what we can do in one year. But we greatly underestimate what is possible for us in five years.” Peter Drucker It is not necessary to wait for five years before seeing the truth of this idea. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short amount of time, and underestimate … Read more
Forget the saying, ‘the mind is a terrible master but a great servant.’ The mind can be a terrible master and a terrible servant. Not only does it not know what it wants, but it is bad at doing what it does want. If you have ever struggled with breaking an old habit, or building … Read more
In the West, there has been a movement towards a society that is orderly and rational. Historically, the roots of this movement can be traced to the Enlightenment, when a fear of human intuition, emotion, and superstition led to a hyper-rational ethic that persists till this day. But this ethic can be a barrier towards … Read more
Chess grand masters win because they don’t make a mistake. Poker players win because they don’t lose their stack. Investors get rich because they don’t go broke when others do. Athletes become stars because they don’t get injured. It is wiser to follow advice that warns you of what not to do rather than tells … Read more
In a memorable graduation speech, the writer David Foster Wallace explained the real purpose of a liberal arts education. It is not to download literary and historical data into your brain, but to teach you something much more fundamental: to give you the power to choose what you want to think about at every moment. … Read more
“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our actions.” Epictetus These words by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus closely resemble the Serenity Prayer from … Read more
The Philosophical Trend The Ancient Greeks had much to teach us. They set the foundations that would later transform our moral philosophy, science and politics. But Ancient Greek philosophy was far from homogeneous. There were many competing schools of thought, and they all saw the world in fundamentally different ways. The Stoics were influenced mostly … Read more