One of the most vexing philosophical questions is whether or not human beings have free will. On the one hand, we certainly seem to have the ability to make choices. While what I decide to do with my life feels influenced by outside factors, it does feel like I am the one ultimately making the […]

My friend Justin Jackson wrote an article recently about reducing costs for his online small business. Anyone familiar with start-up advice has probably been told a thousand times to not worry about costs. Focus on increasing revenue. Cutting costs is a losing battle. Although this is usually sound advice, Jackson did something unusual: He actually […]

About a year ago, I went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. I was interested in meditating before that, but like most people, found it pretty frustrating and didn’t do it regularly. If there’s one benefit of doing a 10-day retreat is that you quickly get over the mild feeling of discomfort in meditating. Instead […]

People often get accused of seeing the world the way they want it to be, rather than how it is. This kind of optimism-bias, is supposedly pervasive, and it takes bold truth-tellers and skeptics to show people the light. I’m not sure I agree. It’s certainly true that we don’t see things exactly as they […]