So You Wanna De-Bog Yourself

It's scary to admit that you can't control the future; it's a lot easier to distract yourself by trying to optimize every decision, no matter how insignificant.

About half of my friends kind of hate their jobs, so they're moderately unhappy most of the time, but never unhappy enough to leave. This is the mediocrity trap : situations that are bad-but-not-too-bad keep you forever in their orbit because they never inspire the frustration it takes to achieve escape velocity.

The mediocrity trap is a nasty way t... See more

every moment I dither is a moment I suffer

People will sometimes approach me with projects I don't really want to do. But if I do them, those people will smile and shake my hand and go, “We feel positive emotions, and it's because of you!” and that will feel good. So I often end up signing on to these projects, feeling resentful the whole time, cursing myself for choosing—freely!—to work ha... See more

Whenever you chicken out, you don't just feel the pain of cowardice; you miss out on the pleasure of courage.

You know how, when you go up in a tall building and look down at the street, everybody looks not just small, but kind of silly? Like, “Aww, look at those tiny little guys, walking around in their suits like they're people! They don't even know they're so small!”

This is how other people's problemslook to me. A friend will tell me, “I'm stressed!” an... See more

About half of my friends kind of hate their jobs, so they're moderately unhappy most of the time, but never unhappy enough to leave. This is the mediocrity trap : situations that are bad-but-not-too-bad keep you forever in their orbit because they never inspire the frustration it takes to achieve escape velocity.

The mediocrity trap is a nasty way t... See more