James Clear on being pleasant and having a good attitude
vutran | Nov. 7, 2021, 9 a.m.
"Being pleasant and having a good attitude is a simple way to become luckier.
Opportunities come through people, and people are more likely to bring opportunities to people they like.
It's hard to win if your attitude adds friction to every interpersonal experience."
— James Clear
Read More →James Clear on decisive advantage through delay gratification
vutran | Nov. 7, 2021, 8:58 a.m.
"Most people optimize for the day ahead. A few people optimize for 1-2 years ahead. Almost nobody optimizes for 3-4 years ahead (or longer).
The person who is willing to delay gratification longer than most reduces competition and gains a decisive advantage.
Patience is power."
— James Clear
Read More →Shane Parrish on the cost of execution vs ideas
vutran | Nov. 2, 2021, 6:37 a.m.
"Ideas are cheap. Execution is expensive. The ability to execute separates people, not the ability to come up with ideas."
— Shane Parrish
Read More →Painter Arshile Gorky on the endless nature of craftsmanship
vutran | Oct. 30, 2021, 8:21 a.m.
"I don't like that word 'finish'. When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while.
I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often.
The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting."
— Arshile Gorky
Read More →James Clear on course of action for happiness, meaning and satisfaction
vutran | Oct. 30, 2021, 8:17 a.m.
"We often make choices based on immediate outcomes. What can I do to experience a little joy in the next 30 minutes? What can I accomplish in the next hour?
But if you always expect to get a little bit of reward for a little bit of effort, then you often overlook actions that lead to greater payoffs down the road. The relationship between input and output is rarely linear.
The course of action that could provide greater happiness, meaning, or satisfaction in the long run may not make you happy in the next 30 minutes."
— James Clear
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John Stuart on how cultural bias is a perpetuating force
vutran | June 2, 2021, 7:44 a.m.
“The fact of cultural bias, and how it perpetuates itself, is easily extrapolated from the specific case Mill was arguing against to many similar power dynamics throughout history. One group has power. They justify that power as being natural in order to keep it. That idea of naturalness becomes part of the cultural rhetoric and becomes the lens through which the powerless are viewed. The powerless struggle to change because before they can attain rights they have to change the cultural narrative.
When we take away someone’s freedom to choose where they can best contribute based on cultural biases, it does not benefit society as a whole. It does us no good “to ordain that to be born a girl instead of a boy, any more than to be born black instead of white, or a commoner instead of a nobleman, shall decide the person’s position through all of life.”
— John Stuart on cultural bias
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