A mistake I’ve made too often, is falling into “single flaw” thinking. This is where you spend time trying to find the single cause for your lack of success in some complex problem. For example, in the first couple years of trying to start a business, I was struggling to make an income. In that […]
Losing Yourself
Two years ago, when I lived abroad, I made note of everything I experienced. Especially when those experiences contradicted the clichés I had heard about travel. Most of the time, my experience wasn’t exactly original. I made great friends, partied a lot and now I miss the people and places. Honest, but pretty much what […]
Happily Ever After
Brian Christian, from The Most Human Human: “Nothing is more dispiriting than ‘And they all lived happily ever after,’ which means, in information entropy terms, ‘And then nothing interesting or noteworthy ever happened to them again for the rest of their lives.’” There’s a pull in all of us towards ‘happily ever after’. The idea […]
Does Dreaming Smaller Result in Living Happier?
How much is enough? What level of monthly income is enough? What level of fitness is enough? How good a relationship is enough? How much success and impact on the world is enough? We, as a culture, rarely ask these questions. The dominant viewpoint is always maximization: don’t ask what’s enough, but ask how to […]
I'm a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcast host, computer programmer and an avid reader. Since 2006, I've published weekly essays on this website to help people like you learn and think better. My work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, TEDx, Pocket, Business Insider and more. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.