Never have I ever seen so many platitudes in one post. Makes me think of the Flemish “Bond Zonder Naam”[1], who monetise these kinds of uninspiring sayings where I live. In Dutch also called “tegelwijsheden”, because your grandma would have these sappy and dull ‘wisdoms’ painted on a tile in their kitchen. Apparently some people also see money in it[2].
It's hard to not be cynical when you read stuff like "Envy is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die." which is like 2 different inspirational quotes taped together, I heard this one about hatred rather than envy.
The positive side of wanting what others have is called inspiration or something like that, "you inspire me to work hard so I can be like you" etc, nobody calls that envy.
Envy is purely negative in a social sense, it makes you fight people just because they have stuff you want. It is beneficial to your own genes but not beneficial to humanity.
Yeah, when I read lists like this, I mostly just think: "That's it?" It's very trite and uninteresting, and frankly if I make it to 72 and my advice is similar to this, I will feel like something has gone terribly wrong. If all the wisdom I've acquired in life is indistinguishable from a Hallmark card, then I probably lived a pretty boring life.
Well, I'm in my mid-thirties, not 72, so I wouldn't claim to have any profound insights or wisdom. But if someone asked me for advice and I didn't have a long time to think about a proper answer, I'd say something like:
- Pick a career in your early 20s and get really good at it. Just pick something. Being good at something is better than endlessly searching for the "perfect" job that matches all of your interests. I worked in the food service industry for ±5 years during and after college, and I occasionally wish I had just become a chef, or an architect, or a mechanic, or some other very narrowly defined profession that results in mastering a particular set of skills – as opposed to the ever-changing, nebulous format of most white-collar technology jobs. You'll probably make less money, but I feel like such people have a better sense of identity and overall purpose than the typical white-collar worker.
- Popular culture is very feel-good about everything and shies away from any kind of negative emotions or feelings, preferring instead to neuter them, and push humans to be stoic, utilitarian, and anti-romantic. (As shown by the OP.) I don't think this is healthy or practical, and instead suggest that you learn to channel negative emotions into useful behaviors. We're all human and it's normal to get angry and not be nice.
- An extension of #1 above: good people are hard to find and the "maximize preferences" approach to dating, jobs, and other life decisions seems rational but really isn't. The best partner/job/etc. for you isn't one that has the most compatibility points determined by an algorithm and is in fact much more mundane and human in nature.
- The human ability to forget pain is really remarkable. No matter how horrible a situation is, you'll most likely forget about it in a few months or years. "This too shall pass" is the traditional adage describing this.
- You live in an era that has compressed every major life decision into a series of supposedly arbitrary choices. The real world doesn't work this way, and there are very different outcomes between say, being a parent and not being one, both for you and for society at large.
- Finally, the modern world, by default, thinks that the past was filled with dumb, irrational people, and that the present is automatically better in every way. This isn't a smart attitude and you shouldn't discount someone's viewpoints just because they lived a century or a millennium ago. And as an extension to this: don't be afraid of reading something by someone that you (think) you'll immediately disagree with. It's helpful to be able to interact with a variety of ideas and viewpoints without necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with them in toto.
People change due to criticism all the time, it really works. If criticism didn't work we wouldn't have so strong urges to do it, the feeling to criticize others is something we evolved to have.
Criticism might not change people the way you want however, it is like punishment vs rewards, you can change people by punishing them or rewarding them, both works to change people but in different ways and often punishment makes the person resent you so you should do it sparingly.
This is wrong in an important way (that's quite relevant to message boards like this one, about which you'll often hear that arguing about controversial subjects is pointless because nobody ever changes their mind). Basically, nobody ever individually changes their mind in the moment, so it appears as though debates are ineffectual. But that's only because people change their minds slowly, in private, in response to thousands of inputs.
And it might not even be the person you're talking to who eventually changes their mind. It might just be a reader, a thousand of whom exist for every one person visibly contributing.
You can't see the mind changing, but it's wrong to conclude that therefore it never happens.
>> criticizing the "stuff" is okay ... but not the "person"
> In my experience, people generally cannot tell the difference.
Often/Usually
> It's possible that I'm at fault in my approach, though.
Probably usually not. Broadcasting good intentions only gets you so far. For most of us it's high skill communication. Earned trust can pave past issues. Past that it's often a minefield of psych factors (you+them) - like having a good/bad day, internal disciplines, where is self-esteem in the equation. A good read on the other person can make mines visible.
I wish the author a happy birthday. But - and I hope this is taken in a spirit of constructive kindness - the post is fairly generic and bland advice. I'm sure it is well meant, but I hope I never feel tempted to post something like this when I'm 72.
You can rationally understand what's being said but you're not attached to it.
"You will die, don't delve over negative moments too much."
You can read this but have no experience of knowing you will really die. You might rationally understand it, but you experience no change. Yet when you finally realize you will die, when you truly know it, you act from a different place.
"You will die." is very generic and bland yet truly knowing it can change everything.
I know I'm going to die. I've been with people when they died. And I'm seeing a parent living with the challenges of very old age. I know I'm going to die and I try to meditate on that and, as far as I can tell, I truly know it. And I see the value of that knowledge.
But in a way it also changes nothing. I'm still alive. I'm still going to die. Nothing fundamental has fundamentally changed.
> Work on a passion project, even just 30 minutes a day. It compounds.
I need to do this. I know my project (just a passion, not a side hussle or for income). Tell myself I need to. Then daily life gets in the way. 10 years or more.
I started a new job a few years ago. I was successful at my last place, but was often stressed and in conflict with others that didn't meet my standards. We were encouraged to speak up and hold others accountable, but the way I did that was not really 'nice', even if it wasn't offensive or rude.
At my current place, I made a conscious decision to be 'nicer'. That doesn't mean I'm going to put up with BS or get pushed around, but I'm way more thoughtful with how I approach interpersonal relationships. I've found more success with less stress with this approach than I did with my previous tack. It really boils down to being "nice", or as I tell myself, "don't be an asshole".
you are not wrong, but some things come with time because 99% of us are regular human beings who learn over time.
99 years old might not be wiser than couple of smart people, but their conclusion can be wise for other regular 30 years old hard working professionals who are losing their mind over their careers and never investing into personal relationships
I just meant it doesn't make anyone wise by default ;)
There are lessons you can only learn by living through them, no doubt about it.
I think I just don't like these type of posts where age is used as some kind of source of authority or to set expectations. Old or young, like a post that says "I'm only 16 and I did X".
It doesn't diminish the accomplishments or anything and maybe it's just better marketing at that point..
I'd personally rather be right, and at the same time, maintain an appropriately friendly and respectful demeanor. If this is what the author means by "nice", then I'm not sure why the two are treated as mutually exclusive. I suppose it suffices for a generic inspirational quote.
For sure. And I can pick at a few of them — or perhaps worse, a few of them are outright trite. And I can gripe too that there are 32 of them (not just 10 or 5) and so I am unlikely to be able to commit them to memory.
But I am nonetheless happy to see a reminder like this from time to time, a reminder to put things in life in perspective. And for sure there are some gems here. And in the comments too.
Perhaps the two that struck me for some reason (perhaps because they seem to speak to truisms about living with other people):
It’s usually better to be nice than right.
Envy is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die.
And from the comments:
People will forget what you said or what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
My gripe, for every one of them, I hear a contradicting one, from an equally reputable source. And then it gives me a cognitive dissonant Diarrhoea. And stresses me out. DAE face this? How do they handle it?
Repeat the positive ones, and they will eventually get louder than the negative ones. This is the thought behind daily affirmations: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me."
I had a childhood where I was brought up to believe I was worthless. One tactic I used to overwrite those schema that imprinted in my personality from early life is to repeat what I believe about myself, like I'm a good person, etc. Eventually those pathways of believing I'm good were more comfortable than those of believing I'm worthless.
Some further truths can colour the reliability of each.
1) honesty is the constantly out of reach ideal that solves a huge portion of nearly all global problems
2) Everyone becomes worm food faster than they expect, and they care less about their legacy when they are dead than they expected and they are forgotten faster and more permanently than they expected.
[1] https://www.bzn.be/ [2] https://www.tegeltjes.com/tegeltjes-wijsheid