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f4d8506
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Another huge advantage of learning as much as you can in different fields is that the more concepts you understand, the easier it is to learn new ones. Imagine explaining to an extraterrestrial visitor the concept of a horse. It would take some time. If the next thing you tried to explain were the concept of a zebra, the conversation would be shorter. You would simply point out that a zebra is a lot like a horse but with black and white str..
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Scott Adams |
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c125f3c
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Goals are for losers. Your mind isn't magic. It's a moist computer you can program. The most important metric to track is your personal energy. Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success. Happiness is health plus freedom. Luck can be managed, sort of. Conquer shyness by being a huge phony (in a good way). Fitness is the lever that moves the world. Simplicity transforms ordinary into amazing.
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Scott Adams |
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a7b057f
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Men believe value is created by accomplishment, and they have objectives for the women in their lives. If a woman meets the objectives, he assumes she loves him. If she fails to meet the objectives, he will assume she does not love him. The man assumes that if the woman loved him she would have tried harder and he always believes his objectives for her are reasonable.
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Scott Adams |
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407cb86
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People think they follow advice but they don't. Humans are only capable of receiving information. They create their own advice. If you seek to influence someone, don't waste time giving advice. You can change only what people know, not what they do.
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Scott Adams |
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7e86454
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In the long run, any system that depends on your willpower will fail.
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Scott Adams |
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bd0758d
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For humans, honesty is a matter of degree. Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth.
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Scott Adams |
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ca5de10
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I was no longer surprised to find unlocked doors in the city. Maybe at some subconscious level we don't believe we need protection from our own species.
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Scott Adams |
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f437c33
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The elderly are spooky when they degenerate into reflections of their younger selves. They say things that make sense on some grammatical level, but it's not always connected to reality.
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Scott Adams |
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e895f99
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Love? Do you mean love in the way you understand it as a human?" "Well, not exactly, but basically the same thing. I mean, love is love." "A brain surgeon would tell you that a specific part of the brain controls the ability to love. If it's damaged, people are incapable of love, incapable of caring about others." "So?" "So, isn't it arrogant to think that the love generated by our little brains is the same thing that an omnipotent being ex..
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Scott Adams |
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ef89c9d
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On all the important stuff, we are emotional creatures who make decisions first and rationalize them after the fact.
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Scott Adams |
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29de138
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Practicality rules our perceptions. To survive, our tiny brains need to tame the blizzard of delusion generator information that threatens to overwhelm us. Our perceptions are wondrously flexible, transforming our worldview automatically and continuously until we find safe harbor in a comfortable delusion.
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Scott Adams |
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7f8ed20
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An insane person believes his world is consistent. If he believes the government is trying to kill him, he will see ample evidence of his belief in the so-called real world. He will be wrong, but his evidence is no better or worse than your evidence that it rained this morning. Both of you will be converting evidence of the present into impressions stored in your minds and you will both be certain your evidence is solid and irrefutable. You..
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Scott Adams |
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169b9a8
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The rest of the universe is like the coin. The events of the past appear to cause the present, but every time we pop back into existence we are subject to a new set of probabilities. Literally anything can happen.
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Scott Adams |
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7c00ab3
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Successwise, you're better off being good at two complementary skills than being excellent at one.
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Scott Adams |
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38d5111
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Pessimism is often a failure of imagination. If you can imagine the future being brighter, it lifts your energy and gooses the chemistry in your body that produces a sensation of happiness.
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Scott Adams |
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0180006
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I've explained to a number of people my observations about how exercise, diet, and sleep influence mood. The usual reaction is a blank expression followed by a change of topic. No one wants to believe that the formula for happiness is as simple as daydreaming, controlling your schedule, napping, eating right, and being active every day. You'd feel like an idiot for suffering so many unhappy days while not knowing the cure was so accessible.
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Scott Adams |
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a151adc
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We humans like to think we are creatures of reason. We aren't. The reality is that we make our decisions first and rationalize them later....Your illusion of being a rational person is supported by the fact that sometimes you do act rationally.
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psychology-of-self
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Scott Adams |
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ff85a04
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Lately...the Peter Principle has given way to the "Dilbert Principle." The basic concept of the Dilbert Principle is that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management."
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humour
peter-principle
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Scott Adams |
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ac6975e
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Managing your personal energy is like managing budgets in a company.
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Scott Adams |
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1a1d181
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If you give an ant infinite time, it can move a mountain all by itself.
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Scott Adams |
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00cca8b
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I would define an asshole as anyone who chooses to make the lives of others less pleasant for reasons that don't appear productive or necessary.
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Scott Adams |
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d87dd87
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The only way to succeed in the long run is by using a system that bypasses your need for willpower.
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Scott Adams |
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e6ded8f
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The grand illusion of life is that our minds have the capacity to understand reality. But human minds didn't evolve to understand reality. We didn't need that capability. A clear view of reality wasn't necessary for our survival. Evolution cares only that you survive long enough to procreate. And that's a low bar. The result is that each of us is, in effect, living in our own little movie that our brain has cooked up for us to explain our e..
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Scott Adams |
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6812282
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Every other question has an answer to why. Only probability is inexplicable.
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Scott Adams |
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46d63f3
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This was about the time that my opinion of experts, and authority figures in general, began a steady descent that continues to this day.
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Scott Adams |
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fec72db
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Persistence is useful, but there's no point in being an idiot about it.
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Scott Adams |
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6c88228
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I've long seen failure as a tool, not an outcome.
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Scott Adams |
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433c07a
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Everything you want out of life is in that huge, bubbling vat of failure. The trick is to get the good stuff out.
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Scott Adams |
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90eccfb
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money distorts truth like a hippo in a thong.
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Scott Adams |
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d372bfb
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The only reasonable goal in life is maximizing your total lifetime experience of something called happiness. That might sound selfish, but it's not. Only a sociopath or a hermit can find happiness through extreme selfishness. A normal person needs to treat others well in order to enjoy life.
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Scott Adams |
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425499a
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take care of yourself first and use that success as leverage to get everything else you need. I'll
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Scott Adams |
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201cceb
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The common worldview, shared by most humans, is that there is one objective reality, and we humans can understand that reality through a rigorous application of facts and reason. This view of the world imagines that some people have already achieved a fact-based type of enlightenment that is compatible with science and logic, and they are trying to help the rest of us see the world the "right" way. As far as I can tell, most people share th..
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Scott Adams |
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62b400b
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Just remember to keep your eye out for ways to maximize your schedule freedom in the long term.
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Scott Adams |
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af7844a
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Inaccurate worldviews are the only kind there is.
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Scott Adams |
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fda47f7
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Consider the people who routinely disagree with you. See how confident they look while being dead wrong? That's exactly how you look to them.
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Scott Adams |
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6f1ef09
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Every generation before us believed, like Snickers, that it had things figured out. We now know that every generation before us was wrong about a lot of it. Is it likely that you were born at the tipping point of history, in which humans know enough about reality to say we understand it? This is another case where humility is your friend.
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Scott Adams |
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8182f96
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I'm more of a sprinter than a marathoner when it comes to many aspects of life. For example, when I'm running. Over short distances--up to two yards--I can run faster than cheap panty hose on an itchy porcupine. But over long distances, I'm not so impressive. I try to compensate for my lack of long-distance endurance by having good form. I'm told that my running style is quite majestic. That's probably because I learned to run by watching n..
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zebras
running
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Scott Adams |
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8b0dd9b
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I also find it helpful to remind myself that every human is a mess on the inside. It's easy to assume the good-looking and well-spoken person in front of you has it all together and is therefore your superior. The reality is that everyone is a basket case on the inside. Some people just hide it better. Find me a normal person and I'll show you someone you don't know that well. It helps to remind yourself that your own flaws aren't that bad ..
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Scott Adams |
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074c4bd
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If eating a healthy diet feels unpleasant, you're doing it wrong. And you're wasting your limited stockpile of willpower.
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Scott Adams |
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09ca96a
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The most effective way to stop people from trying to persuade me is to say, 'I'm not interested.' You should try it. Don't offer a reason why you aren't interested. No one can say why a thing holds interest for some and not for others. There's no argument against a lack of interest.
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Scott Adams |
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4ceb0a3
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You might be familiar with a television show that was called The Dog Whisperer. On the show, Cesar Millan, a dog-training expert, helped people get their seemingly insane dogs under control. Cesar's main trick involved training the humans to control their own emotional states, because dogs can pick up crazy vibes from their owners.
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Scott Adams |
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172d375
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But Trump apparently wanted to squeeze some extra juice from the word "lying" and make his branding stand out. So he insisted that Lyin' Ted was the proper spelling, not Lying Ted. This was good branding. It was different from anything you have seen in politics and it gave you a reason to pause and wonder why it mattered if the spelling was "lyin'" or "lying." It did matter, but only because you stopped and wondered about it. That is an eng..
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Scott Adams |
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b1b5430
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Here I pause to say I know nothing of Ted Cruz's record of honesty. I have no idea whether he is better or worse than any other politician. I'm focusing on his physical appearance and Trump's persuasion. And on those levels, Lyin' Ted simply looked like a liar. The reality might be very different, but that doesn't matter to our story today. What matters is that the Lyin' Ted nickname stuck like glue. It was fresh political wording, it was p..
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Scott Adams |
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15f4896
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My philosophy is that every phone conversation has a loser.
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Scott Adams |