Pay attention to what insults someone uses. It’s usually a confession. When someone calls others lazy, they’re telling you their entire sense of worth is built around effort. What you project onto others the hardest is what you’re most afraid or ashamed of in yourself. Don’t get defensive when someone comes at you. Get curious about what they just told you about themselves.

I think people fail to understand that it can’t do the entire job of a coder. It still needs to be told how, where, and why to do things. It’s like if you had a friend that could rattle off every math formula you learned through calculus, but had no idea that the math is meant to solve real world problems.

Most people were never taught how to deal with conflict, so they just try to win it. Conflict isn’t a competition. It’s two people who don’t yet understand each other’s wants and needs properly. The goal isn’t to be right, it’s to understand and then, and only then, negotiate if necessary. Think about the last argument you had. Were you listening to understand, or were you just waiting for your turn to talk?

You don’t have bad habits. You have habits that are perfect for who you currently think you are. The person you want to become has a completely different set of habits. So the question was never how do I change my habits? It was always who am I trying to become?

The paradox of training for something is that it makes you ill-equipped to deal with it again in the short term, but better equipped to deal with it in the long term. So the real question becomes, are you more likely to require the skill (physical or mental) that you’re training for immediately after training or at any other point in the future?

Better advice I’ve heard is to become someone you would want to date. Do you want someone who doesn’t like their life already? What about someone who can’t take accountability of their actions? Someone who won’t try new things? Of course not. As your happiness depends on others less, counterintuitively, most people want to be around you more.

The modern world rewards speed and punishes depth. If you’re looking for more depth, try slowing down for a few moments and see what happens.

One simple trick to get people to feel like they can drop their guard around you is when delivering a sentence with “but” in it, reverse the order. I really want to go, but I can’t. ❌ I can’t go, but I want to. ✅ I love and support you, but this isn’t a good idea. ❌ This isn’t a good idea, but I love and support you. ✅ Why does this work? People have both a negativity bias and a recency bias. If you don’t do this, over time, people will learn to associate your words of affirmation as just precursors to conflict. They’ll also get hit extra hard with a negative AND most recent part of the sentence, so it will stick with them more than the part you want them to remember.

I think this conversation requires some nuance. I was with you until you said “under the knife unnecessarily”, implying that there is a cosmetic surgery that’s necessary. In my opinion, that’s absurd. You can do it because you want to, but don’t kid yourself by saying it’s necessary. Aside from hygiene, physical fitness, and mental health-in that order- there’s arguably very little to be done. Becoming a person that other people want to date isn’t a cosmetic problem, at best, cosmetics affect the first impression. Beyond that, it’s a completely different game.

If you're wondering how cooked you really are, try doing only 1 thing at once. Pick 1 of the 5 senses and only use that. Only 1 input. You don't get to listen to music and work. You don't get to watch TV and scroll. You don't get to play video games and watch a stream. You don't get to listen to a podcast and walk. You don't get to eat and watch YouTube. You'll be bored out of your mind. Won’t make it an hour. Your senses were never meant to be stacked like this. When was the last time you actually tasted your food? When was the last time you heard all of the instruments? You've been running them all at once for so long you've stopped experiencing any of them. It will be pretty eye opening to see how far from baseline your brain has really drifted. You need to address this. Read physical books. Take silent walks. Write on pen and paper. Stare at a wall if you have to. Your attention span demands it. Your enjoyment of life depends on it. The further out to sea you keep swimming, the harder you'll be fighting the tide on the way back in.

I’ve never met anyone that’s asked for a congratulations for not doing these things, but I agree with the sentiment. However, you can’t- unfortunately- claim that this is normal behavior. Men in today’s society are raised as if whistling and harassing is the norm. Most were never taught to consider what you might call harassment even as rude. In fact, it’s often taught and thought of as a compliment. It’s all well and good to say that you don’t deserve a congratulations for it, but condescension isn’t deserved either. When you yell at the people doing the wrong thing, then condescend towards the ones trying to be better, it appears as a double bind in which there’s no point trying. The path towards change is common understanding and education. This is neither, so I’d ask you to please think about if your methods of inciting change align with your goals before you post.

I don’t think anyone truely has nothing going on behind the mask. Some people are just less comfortable taking it off even when it’s not necessary. The mask becomes a security blanket. Warm, comfortable, but ultimately suffocating.

Step one: Say something inflammatory Step two: when people are upset, insult them Step three: profit Jokes aside, 2 2=4 is easily demonstrated by taking 2 objects and another two of the same objects, then putting them together. God is an abstract concept that requires a leap of faith. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking that leap of faith, I’d even call it a reasonable leap of faith, but you have to recognize it is one. Some people have a higher bar of evidence for what they deem acceptable to take that leap of faith.

It’s difficult to gauge both how much you believe something and how much significance it holds in your life. Both are highly subjective. For myself, I’d say the percentage of decisions that I have to take that belief into account is a good measure. Take the fact that the sun is 93 million miles away from the earth. The level of confidence I have in that is more than enough for the purpose I need it for (practically nothing). The fact that the food in front of me doesn’t contain peanuts however, requires a touch higher degree of confidence because I wasn’t planning on a near death experience today.

The percentage of certainty required for belief should be proportional to the weight that the belief holds in your life.

Real learning doesn’t happen without friction. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but even listening to or reading educational content can’t teach you anything if there’s no failure condition. This is why creating specific and concrete goals is important. If something has no failure condition, create one.

Before you go to numb the pain, think about what’s causing it.

I recently came across a fascinating video on this topic I’d like to share. I wouldn’t say I agree with it fully, but it is at the very least a really interesting way of thinking about it. youtu.be/9f13NO-WqVk?si=SnNe…

What made you convert to or leave religion?