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"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." - Helen Keller, who's obviously been through a lot

You aren't alone, no...

When people tell you to "open up your emotions", it means "be open about your feelings as long as you don't actually have any problems".

  • Everyone has the right to be mad. Their anger is your doing, whether or not you did anything. Let them throw pillows until they feel tired.
  • You should back yourself up with evidence when you say something, yes, but you don't need to do so for every stranger who asks. You don't have to participate in "intellectual discourse any time some fucko on the Internet tells you to". - pervocracy
  • Bullying is hurting someone's feelings. Beating you up is assault. Learn the difference. Don't be upset because you were bullied... be upset because assault is a crime.
  • "Confidence is not "They will like me". Confidence is "I'll be fine if they don't"." - /u/bloomer62
  • If you rent at somewhere sketchy, so sketchy that you aren't sure if your landlord owns the house, then request to see the property tax invoice from them.
  • Be a friend: "If you go out looking for friends, you're going to find they are very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you'll find them everywhere." - Hilary Ziglar (a white man)
  • For a party, bringing enough for literally everyone to eat/drink is rare for a guest to do, but the host would normally not be jealous over/about that.
  • Remain calm in stressful situations. Goldie Hawn said: "The ability to remain calm and focused in stressful situations is central to making positive decisions."
  • People are waiting for you to fail. They will bring you down. The only person you can trust to keep you positive, all the time, is yourself. As an aside, you are not anyone else's responsibility. You and you alone are responsible for your physical, mental, and social wellbeing.
  • When booking an AirBnB, look for cameras literally everywhere. They can be hidden in cushions, lamps, as one of the lights in the router, behind mirrors...
  • When someone asks "Where are you from" or "What do you do", try to respond the question with something that relates to the asker. For "What do you do", you should not be asking it because not everyone is proud of what they do. If you are the one answering "What do you do", then attempt to add the word "help" into the response, i.e. "I help people get the best Japanese candies the country has to offer," rather than "I run a website that sells Japanese candies". A valid alternative to "What do you do" is "How do you spend most of your time".
  • "There is an unpanned gold in every soul you run into, no matter what walk of life they are from." - Robert Downey, Jr.
  • "If you are more fortunate than others, build a longer table, not a taller fence." - Canadian Memorial Centre for Peace
  • When going to a house party, bring specialty food that the hosts could not have gotten themselves. This makes it clear to other guests that the food was not supplied by the hosts.
  • If you give up your own information then people know more about you, and that means they think they're close to you.
  • Let people play their music in your car: not only does it improve the probability that at least one person (the one who's playing the music) likes the music currently playing; "Similar to the Ben Franklin effect (someone who did a favour for you is more likely to do it for you again), the acceptance of their gesture to play the songs they like will make these people like you. They will feel as if their interests are affirmed and that they've helped improve the social setting around them."
  • Some wise redditor once posted, "Your success in life will be directly proportional to your willingness to have uncomfortable discussions."
  • People don't like others who complain all the time.
  • When in an argument, act like you are being recorded. In fact, forget about the argument altogether. Always act as if you are being recorded.
  • One technique to get people to like you is called "the glove". When in a group, for a short period of time, pay your entire attention to that person.
  • How to stop being the guy that rarely says anything: "talk louder and don't mumble, it makes what you say seem more important and keeps you in the conversation more."
  • Not saying your donation is useless, but it might be more worthwhile to donate to charities that help others get their own food, than to charities that give out food.
  • "When you have a conversation with an idiot, nobody watching can tell which one of you is the idiot."
  • You won't believe it. Flirting just means appearing interested in someone.
  • The story of a 17yo15yo man and his encounter with a girl called MonicaAmanda; accept challenges from strangers
  • Parroting is a lazy technique that repeats a term from the last sentence the other person said. followed by a question mark. It is a bailout method that keeps the conversation going without contributing anything to it. "I watched Westworld last night. It was amazing." "Westworld?"
  • You are supposed to act scared in a haunted house out of courtesy.
  • "Be a person that you like and people will flock to you" first requires you to know yourself.
  • If you can hang out with two or more friends but can never hang out with just one, it means that you don't know how to start a conversation.
  • The less you talk, the less likely someone will think you are stupid.
  • Your nipples should be the first part of your body to enter a room.
  • If you are a man and you believe you at risk of mansplaining to a woman, pretend she is Angela Merkel, quantum chemist and world leader. You cannot explain in a "condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner" if you think the woman already knows everything---including what you don't---and is asking merely to test your knowledge, and to assert her authority.
  • Whenever you feel you should keep quiet to avoid confrontation, remember this was what the Republic of China said to its troops when Japan started its invasion: "須萬分容忍，不與抵抗，以免事態擴大" (need to tolerate everything they do, do not resist, lest we make the situation worse).
  • Always begin a conversation with "Can we talk?".
  • Basically everything is sexual harassment if you aren't attractive.
  • Being nice doesn't mean people like you back... especially if you are being nice, just so others will like you.

...But you alone are responsible for your life

"No one gives a shit about you." - Dr Murphy

  • 落地喊三聲，好醜命生成 means "your life is determined the moment you were born". So basically the opposite of Sarah Connor.
  • To be a mature person, you can't just downplay everything: you still need to be serious when you encounter a serious issue. So to be a mature person, you first need to know what is serious and what is not.
  • /u/Festivearea2's psychiatrist, Dr Murphy: "No one gives a shit about you." He meant and explained it as, in life there are very very very few people who will be there for you all the time, and drop everything. No one cares about what you're doing because everyone is selfish. That's just how life is. Do what YOU want to do, because it's YOUR life.
  • A successful person sees its own weaknesses and then improves them.
  • If I am to change this image, I must first change myself.
  • Keep a blog, says this man.

Set a goal and stick to it

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe. - a poet

  • If you give yourself the freedom to do anything, you will probably do nothing or the easiest one. If you give yourself the option between studying and playing games, then you will probably play games. So not only do you need to do what you need to do, you also need to stop doing what you shouldn't do.
  • How much work you put into learning matters. How much time you put into it also does. Increasing the intensity of learning is crucial to saving time on learning a skill.
  • "There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results." - Kenneth Blanchard
  • "We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment." - Jim Rohn
  • 七孔流血還七孔流血，死還死，係兩回事！ 能捱下去就是勝利。
  • "If you are agonizing over the decision, it's because one path isn't clearly better than another. So just pick one. It doesn't actually matter which you pick. If there were a right decision, you would have already made it. Toss a coin." - /u/kabooozie, describing a TED talk
  • 1 of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is "Be Proactive", i.e. you are going to change something. No one is going to make that change for you.
  • "Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do." - Thomas Jefferson
  • "If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place." - Nora Roberts
  • One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you cannot change.
  • "If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things." - Albert Einstein
  • "Change can be beautiful when we are brave enough to evolve with it, and change can be brutal when we fearfully resist." - Bryant McGill
  • "A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work." - Colin Powell
  • "If you believe it will work out, you'll see opportunities. If you believe it won't, you will see obstacles." - Credited to Wayne Dyer
  • "He who has a why can bear almost any how." -Viktor Frankl
  • Good things come to those who actively look for them. Waiting is like waiting for food to hit your mouth.
  • Don't want to change. Decide to change.
  • "Do something and don't stop until it's complete, no matter how long it takes." is fundamentally how things get done successfully.
  • Dale Carnegie said, "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."
  • Find yourself a big goal, one that you will need years to achieve. This is a good way to develop skills, and turn skills into money.
  • Better find a mentor in life to better achieve your goals.
  • "Recipes are useless if you don't cook. To-do lists are useless if you don't do." - Me
  • An implicit acceptance criterion for everything you do ought to be: "do/make something people want."
  • Percentage-wise, rich people don't spend nearly as much as the poor, so they get to save way more and be financially responsible while not looking like it.
  • "Fake it til you make it" is the exact opposite of the imposter syndrome.
  • "... braveness is not the absence of fear but rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear." - Something Paulo Coelho probably wrote
  • "Be like water" by Bruce Lee meant that "people shouldn't allow themselves to be trapped in a certain mindset. Instead, a person should be able to adapt to certain situations, grow, and change."
  • When NASA brought spiders to space, they struggled for a bit (because none of their ancestors have been in space), made webs that looked like they were drugged or something, but eventually adapted to microgravity and made proper webs. Terry O'Reilly (S9E23 - Bookmarks 2020) said... only those who adapt [to unwanted change] will thrive in the new normal. It pays to be a spider in space.
  • "Tough times don't build character. Tough times reveal character." - A guest on Bloomberg Radio
  • Similar to what Helen Keller said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King Jr
  • If you are confident that you can change your circumstances in life, you don't need to worry about anything.
  • "Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee, in a show called "Longstreet"
  • "Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them, just find a new way to stand." - Oprah
  • "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - someone named Voltaire
  • Believing you are a winner makes you a worse person ("gives men a testosterone boost and promiscuous disposition"). Touching physical cash also gives you a similar testosterone boost.
  • "Your emotions are a good guide for the fears of others. Your analysis, whether technical, fundamental, etc. is a good guide on where to place your greed. When the two don't match, that's where you profit." - /u/EHC11375
  • The correct response to "You ask too much of me" is "You are not asking enough from yourself."
  • Remember your goals are set so you will achieve something. Don't "meet your daily quota", don't work on those goals because they are your goals; don't let your goals become you. Change your goals if you need to. Be sure they always align with what you want out of your life.
  • Your achieving your goal involves a lot of practice, practice makes permanent---it is hard to unlearn a bad habit. You need to practice the right way.
  • A Ulysses pact is a pact you make with yourself. If you manage to do A, you reward yourself with B. If you fail to do A, you punish yourself with C.

Family / relationship values

"Only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something." - Chris Rock

Know what you want / to do at work

"Would I ever leave this company? Look, I'm all about loyalty. In fact, I feel like part of what I'm being paid for here is my loyalty. But if there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly, I'm going wherever they value loyalty the most." - Dwight Schrute

  • "If you work 12-hour days and spend no time at all eating, you can work an internship on top of your full time job" - paraphrasing this woman over here
  • "Unlimited PTO at manager's discretion" is just having no PTO.
  • Testing in prod is ok, as long as you know what you're doing, and are prepared to take responsibility when things go south.
  • If you become a manager and find that you actually suck quite much at it (and don't want to fake it til you make it), you can switch back to doing whatever you were doing. No one said no backsies.
  • "You're not paid based on the value of your labor: You're paid based on the cost to replace you." - Some guy, who seemed to know his stuff
  • You know you dun goof'd when QA asks "What level of testing was done prior to submitting this patch" in your change, or like, "On the next patch, can you please add more unit tests (...)", because clearly you haven't tested anything.
  • If you are ever asked to provide a reference from your manager, just don't, whether your relationship with them is good or bad. Nothing good comes out of it. If you ask your manager for reference, they will know you are looking for a job. If you tell your new company you are unable to provide the reference because you have a bad relationship with your current manager, then obviously you won't get the job. Decline such requests and forget you ever interviewed with them.
  • There are many reasons people burn out and quit: work not being recognised, no promotions, everyone else left, having the same conversations over and over and not making any progress... the list goes on.
  • In bad company, stick to your job, because /u/zer0_snot has interesting insights: "Do anything extra (even once). And that extra thing will become a norm and always be expected of you in the future", "Competent work completion is always rewarded with more responsibilities irrespective of your bandwidth", "Work completed quickly is almost always seen as a bad thing", and "Good work will rarely be appreciated".
  • You know you understand something if you know when not to use it.
  • "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." - on hating other people but needing to work with them anyway
  • "Intelligence increases through your mistakes, through ups and downs, or what you've learned." - Rob, that guy who says to stop saying "I can't", but "How can I?"
  • High-level bosses want results. Low-level bosses want solutions. Neither of them want excuses. They don't need to hear about your failed attempts. They need to know the successes that they can report upwards. A bit like top-down communism.
  • "Don't strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt." - Grace Liechtenstein
  • A Chesterton's Fence is a rule that should not be removed without understanding why it was put there. It goes on to say that you should document the reasoning behind a rule so others know why that rule exists.
  • "Poaching" implies your employee is going to work for your competitor against their free will. Offering them a higher salary than you do certainly doesn't fit the definition of "poaching", yet here we are.
  • It says "know your worth", not "know that you are worth a lot". You can be worthless and not know it.
  • When you're down because you feel like you can't do something, remember you can't do everything, like growing proper facial hair (if you're Asian).
  • "Never ask a question to show that you already know something, but always ask in earnest and be vulnerable to the fact that you don't know something." - Milton Glaser, guy who designed "I ♥ NY"
  • "Who gives a fuck if you can code, if you start crying because you boss didn't say hi?" - Chris Rock, on needing bullies
  • You're still getting emailed by recruiters because although plenty of developers greduate from university, the need for them also increased. Globalisation messes with all that because plenty of developers don't want to relocate.
  • A principal developer mentors those below them, while not being the best of the best. They're a role model others want to follow. They should also be able to influence how other departments function, so they need to know the business side as well. This is another way of saying "coders don't know coding isn't everything".
  • Someone can plant incriminating evidence in your office even if there is nothing inside to steal.
  • "If you're a developer, become friends with the sales team at your work. Seeing things through a less technical lens will make you much more effective." ... "Learn how to talk with people, how to be adaptive and contextual." (said by two separate people)
  • If you see a job and you know you want it, focus on it, says bullshit article. i.e. don't spray and pray your resumes. It works because everyone else is spraying and praying.
  • Without looking at cause and effect, there are far more shady people working blue collar jobs than white collar jobs. White collar jobs are "cushy" for a reason.
  • You are worse than you think: "Half of my income is from training people in JS and Python. I have 50% of those missions that are requested to be "advanced" courses. The vast majority of the participants are not up to the task. They are paid professionals, but they consistently overestimate they level, skills and needs. They often are not very good, and of course, they don't know what they don't know."
  • When you start a new job, instead of asking for help all the time, look for README files. (You should do this naturally anyway, given the lack options available to you.) Also don't run scripts just because people tell you to.
  • "To lead people, walk behind them." - Lao Tzu
  • Personal projects don't matter beyond the entry-level job market, but you still need to know your shit, including stuff you don't do at work, which is why you need personal projects anyway.
  • Being good at a lot of similar things is sufficient, and far less demanding, than being the best at one thing.
  • Sometimes it might be good to think about doing something with a high ROTI (return on time invested) rather than just ROI, i.e. "is it worth my time?" "Beyond a good income, what do you want to achieve from your career? Professional accolades? Awards? The knowledge you've made a difference? All are valuable. All require time. None can be purchased with cash."
  • Resumes full of one-to-two-year experiences can also mean the companies you choose are hire-and-fire places that kill you off when a project is complete.
  • Developers, get a plan B. Software development as a lifelong career is statistically absurd. If you aren't the top 1%, chances are you won't remain a 65-year old software wizard (i.e. architect). If you aren't going to be a wizard, then perhaps think if you can be a manager. But only 10% can be a manager. So what are the other 89% going to do? You need a plan B. Be a plumber, realtor, home inspector, casino dealer, bus driver, air traffic controller, water treatment, CP rail, welding, or something.
  • If you do your day job properly, and you happen to be good at doing screener tests, you don't really need personal projects to back up your skills. Since personal projects are personal, you rarely reach the required depth of knowledge that people expect, anyway.
  • I was told you can prank your colleagues, but you can't prank your boss.
  • "Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." - Newt Gingrich
  • "It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man." - Benjamin Franklin
  • "I am easily distracted" is an okay weakness to mention during an interview.
  • Being a leader largely involves gaining respect, which usually means doing the dirty work, making tough decisions, and having a backbone.
  • "Move to management. Fluff the resume a bit and put yourself out there as someone who can manage a decent term project and get stuff done. Job interviews, much like everything in life, comes down to 10% what you say, and 90% how you say it. Come across as wise not old, confident not down on yourself, and have an air of "If you don't hire me you're a f'in moron" without actually saying that, and you might be surprised what you get."
  • Any personal project is a good personal project if it has a gif demo in the readme. Apart from you and your own self esteem, no one cares about your code.
  • Sometimes, people try to hire you as quickly as possible. Sometimes, they already have an internal candidate in mind, and just want to end the mandatory interview with you as quickly as possible. Pick your battles.
  • "You know you are doing your job when at least three people are angry at you at once" - A clay bar
  • Coworkers value three things: Competence, Character, and Consistency.
  • How to dress for work: 5 common levels of formality
  • What you know doesn't matter to a company; what you can do for the company, does.
  • Leaving your comfort zone is the only way one can grow.
  • Hiring managers now send out technical interview tasks that take a week to do. If you apply to 100 companies before you get a job, that's two years just in wasted time.
  • You need to meet just half of a job posting's requirements to get the job [with the highest probability].
  • Don't work somewhere before asking people who work there, "what about your role are you enjoying".
  • "You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills."
  • When the interviewer asks "How badly do you want the job", you can't win. Try to answer instead the question "What got you interested in the job and the company".
  • Present your strengths and weaknesses via short stories, in the "job hunting is 60% networking" that you have to do.
  • "It is better to wear out than rust out." - Richard Cumberland
  • When resigning from a company, a) don't mention it to anyone until it is approved by the management, and b) never tell people why.
  • When things go bad at a job, good people leave first.
  • "Politically correct" is a bit of a misnomer—it isn't about being right; it's about being respectful and considerate. It goes one level above simply being unobjectionable, and not at all related to Hezekiah, who "did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done".
  • Dead end careers seem to be the ones that end up having a low max-earning potential. On the flip side, lawyers earn almost twice as much as everybody else, but they are useless without clients.
  • Accepting your current employer's counter offer, when you tell them you have an offer elsewhere, is a form of bridge burning.
  • Microsoft's "Alternative Interview Framework" involves sharing interview questions with candidates can prepare, interviewing a junior and senior candidate together (to give the team an idea of how junior/senior differ), and withholding opinions about a candidate until after all interviews are complete.
  • CLM: Career-Limiting Move (something stupid you do that prevents new jobs and opportunities, such as being a douchebag or writing this line)
  • Never, under any circumstances, mention why you don't like your previous environment in an interview. Just say you want more challenging work or develop new skills or something.
  • Constructive Dismissal, i.e. making life hard for employees so they would quit on their own, so they don't get paid severance, is "mad illegal".
  • (Shitty link) it is not illegal to ask interviewees if they have been convicted of a crime, but illegal to ask if they have been arrested.
  • At the start of a new job, you are not meant to blend in; instead, find the problems related to the workplace to make sure your next job search includes them as a requirement.
  • Work is not life.
  • 41-year-old tluyben2 recommends all programmers hang out with non-developers a lot.
  • If you are indispensable, you cannot be promoted, but you can sometimes get a raise.
  • Go to Glassdoor and answer every basic question.
  • If you have a leader who does not listen, do consider before telling them your project is delayed, even if it is not your fault, because people do shoot bearer of bad news.
  • The interview rate of you after getting fired is equivalent to looking for a job alongside candidates with 5 years of experience fewer.
  • When you're young HR says you have no experience. After a few years HR says you're asking for too much. When you have lots of experience HR says you're too old. HR works for the company. HR doesn't think of you. You alone can market your worth.
  • "Fuck it" jobs for men include: mining, oil rigs, the military, and, in general, physical labour. That, or you just kill yourself.
  • "Working as hard as you can" doesn't mean not resting and burning out. It means putting maximum sustained load on yourself.
  • Focusing on legacy tech like "ASP" and "ColdFusion" is a surprisingly lucrative business: "The IT world has already more work in maintenance than in greenfield projects and that will grow every day", with a word of caution to junior devs because that is totally not the right thing to do at the beginning of one's career.
  • In the US, it is common for a boss to act very angry at your voluntary resignation, firing you with no cause, well before your notice ends. This saves them two weeks of pay.
  • George Orwell wrote in The Road To Wigan Pier, "When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'."
  • You are supposed to say "thank you" when you get a compliment at work, and then try to ask a question to better understand why the compliment was given.
  • A fool-proof red flag when applying for a job is if the employer seems more interested in telling you about the company than it is interested in you.
  • Minimax is Minimizing Maximum Loss. Maximin is Maximizing Minimum Gain. For some reason, "do NOT try to minimax this game" means "don't spend your life working". How is working minimaxing?
  • "Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way." - Homer Simpson
  • If you suspect you will be criticised in a meeting, sit next to the person in the meeting. It is much harder to be criticised when the person needs to turn the body to you.
  • "Never make the same mistake twice" is not the same as "Always learn from your mistakes." The latter still implies you can fail again.
  • You are much more likely to have a good career if you are universally, consistently nice to your colleagues.
  • People with kids naturally have less time furthering their professional development. A natural cause for why young people fresh out of college are often, despite the lack of experience, better hires.
  • When sending resumes through Gmail, Google will analyse it and potentially spam filter it. Better send with a simple password, or, better, not use Gmail.
  • Software developers are just tech mercenaries. They have been trained to work with no loyalty.
  • Books can't tell you what to do; they can only give you suggestions. "Using your best judgment" is what you should actually learn, and increasing accuracy when making good decisions separates you from junior developers.
  • "Everything you do in your free time can help your career, so never stop learning and playing around with new technology." - Some guy on Reddit
  • In bottom-up organisations, you need to think what you should do to help advance the company. Hardly anyone will tell you what to do, particularly if you are considered senior in any way. To find out what you should do, ask your manager what their deliverables are; these are the things you need to help achieve. Set your own timelines. Mark your own progress.

Welcome criticism

"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves

  • Not all criticism is good. Hell, not even all suggestions are good. Think critically about criticism before acting on it.
  • Blind men and an elephant... many perspectives can be correct at the same time. Don't disagree so readily.
  • "Snitches get stitches" - My partner
  • Body language matters when giving advice. Be natural, look open, don't look distracted. Put yourself to the side and listen as if you are them. Don't interrupt, even if you have heard it already. Just point out the patterns. (NPR life kit)
  • Don't be afraid to be wrong, accept new opinions, stop being defensive, because you aren't always right, and not forever.
  • You can't argue with someone who's shorter-tempered than you, and continue to make that claim. In fact, you can't really argue with someone who's short-tempered and win. The only way to win is not to argue.
  • Don't argue to be "right" because you can be right and miss the entire point, making your entire argument useless. Being on point is a skill you must practice.
  • Don't argue with someone who entered the argument with the mindset that their opinion is obviously right, or that your opinion is stupid. Anyone like that will not be listening to you. They are not worth your time.
  • Welcome criticism. If you don't take criticism well, you can't improve at a rate above average. If a Chinese website laughs at Hong Kong people for speaking broken Mandarin, you welcome the criticism. You practice the fuck out of your Mandarin. 香港人，記住唔好衰俾人睇。You improve beyond their imagination, exceeding their proficiency in their own native (and sometimes, only) tongue. And then you don't laugh at their broken English, because doing so will give them the idea to improve it.
  • Arguing doesn't work. People just believe in whatever they believed in. See also: lots of tips and tricks for arguing and learning in general.
  • Learn to take responsibility. For yourself, for your mistakes, and for others. "The difference between complaining about bad things, and committing to a concrete plan to overcome them is the difference between Beta and Alpha." - Copilot wanted me to credit The Art of War for some reason, but it's from a subreddit.
  • "I constantly get out of my comfort zone. (Staying in the comfort zone) is the easiest way to mediocrity." - Terry Crews (actual part of the quote was "Looking cool")

Be thankful

"Be grateful man, life isn't hard at all" - Summarising Louis CK

  • "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison
  • Positivity blog says: people find being overly positive annoying, but being overly positive is a good thing. Be overly positive!
  • If one day you become even half as rich as Jeff Bezos, be like Mackenzie Scott, not like Jeff.
  • If Princess Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh of Persia can be considered beautiful, then you can, too. Apparently it was cool for a woman to sport a moustache back then.
  • Always apply to scholarships. It's free to apply. It takes an hour to apply. You don't get paid $2000/hr very often.
  • Think of "you're adorable" as whether you can be adored, the same way people say "a face only a mother could love".
  • Life never gets easier (with the exception of your first month, where you struggled to even breathe). You just get stronger, and make the best of it by making your life satisfying.
  • Loving and respecting yourself is what reddit calls "take no shit but do no harm".
  • "The "stuff" thing really resonated with me. I value not having a lot of stuff. I prefer less clutter, fewer things to maintain or care about. I hate that our society is often centered around the acquisition of material things, most of which have no practical use, and even dubious aesthetic use. I'm certainly not completely spartan, and do have stuff, but I try to be careful about what I let into my home ..." - kelnos
  • Reciprocity (or "being thankful") is the core antidote to feeling dissatisfied. Life less than the most satisfying is also a good life: "Life can feel amazing [after serious hardship like chemotherapy] is over. The smallest things can be bottomless sources of joy, from being able to taste, to just sitting in the Sun or chatting with a friend." Sources. Want to start? Once or twice a week, keep a gratitude journal writing down what you felt thankful for.
  • "We did not come here to fear the future." - Thanks Obama
  • There isn't a purpose in life. Your purpose in life is what you make it, and that will keep you busy until it is time for you to exit the stage.
  • Happiness comes from inside. You make your own happiness. No one owes you anything. That means you need to do something to make yourself happy. "Happiness is what happens when what you think, what you say, and what you do are the same thing."
  • "Never grow up, just learn to be an adult." - Frazer271009's Dad
  • "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C. S. Lewis
  • "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." - not necessarily Marcus Aurelius, but attributed to him anyway
  • Not all carpenters are created equal. Do realise that if someone did a sloppy job, you don't have to pay them.
  • Start a meaningful conversation with strongly opinionated topics and open-ended questions, like music and movies.
  • Rich mindset ... help others and cultivate relationships with no expectation of anything in return. Poor mindset thinks "I scratch your back, you scratch mine". Rich mindset understands that there is no "I made it". No "done". Life is defined by challenges and learning. Poor mindset believes that one day they'll be able to "retire" – to kick back and do nothing. That all work is simply "paying dues" on the way to a life of leisure. Ironically this is the kind of mindset that stifles the ambition and drive required to ever get to the point of having that kind of life as an option. - Other analogies
  • "Remember that you asked for growth. Don't be surprised when life decides to challenge the fuck out of you." (many variations of this quote exist)

Take care of yourself

"I feel that manning up is what men do, (that) we think we should just take it on the chin. But it's actually the opposite - that's not a brave thing, to suffer in silence. The really courageous thing to do is to face your problems, face the pain that you're suffering. Trying to fix it, that's what's really courageous."

  • Consume less, create more. Don't just scroll Reddit all day long. Go and write something, paint something, draw, and code. Don't convince yourself that reading is self-improvement; if you read and don't do, it's like you have never read at all.
  • "Writing is nature's way of telling you how sloppy your thinking is."
  • Someone chaining your bike with theirs? That's a way to steal your bike when there were fewer people around.
  • Don't use a surface cleaner on wood. Not sure why.
  • When you go on a vacation, turn off your water and water heater, but not the heat. Turn it back on slowly when you return. Turn off your gas and ice maker too, while you are at it.
  • "Don't bother spending 400 dollars on a door lock if you don't have a door that can't be kicked in."
  • "You should read more instead of watching youtube videos" - youtube video
  • "I hugely appreciate him helping, but, beyond the basics, would rather see him sleeping ... rather than trying to be on top of everything", says mother. "Fuck you," says society.
  • "Gladiators and Vikings didn't have gymnasiums" - Arnold.
  • A "tincture of benzoin", a mixture of ethanol and benzoin --- which is a resin from benzoic acid --- helps bandages stay on for longer. Benzoic acid (>5mg/kg) seems to be safer than nicotine (1mg/kg).
  • Slippers guard your toes against other hard objects.
  • According to an unsourced meme, being in a one-bedroom apartment for the rest of your life until you're placed in a nursing home by the government was once a form of punishment.
  • Wear gloves when you use oven cleaner sprays, which strips fats away from anything.
  • "Never let an animal see you as 'the path of least resistance.'" - /u/Quinn_tEskimo's grandpa
  • Blogs ideally teach others what you learned, not just rambling. (But you can... it's your own blog, I'm not the police)
  • Try not to shower before you drink coffee.
  • "Plan your next 30 years" - 80000 hours. "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." - Mike Tyson.
  • Before you buy a house... make sure it isn't over a known flight path. And make sure there isn't a party venue next to it.
  • Make sure a "smoke-free" clause applies to all apartment tenants in your building. Some of these tenants may be grandfathered from a contract that omits that clause. If not, smoke can travel into your apartment from someone else's.
  • Washing your face easily yields higher returns than the cost of whatever $10 face wash you use every day.
  • You can calculate how much you need to invest into your retirement by reverse calculating from how much you want every month (no taxes for simplicity). Say you want $10k in passive income every month in whichever currency. A year of that is $120k, and if you say you get that much from a 5% capital growth per year, then your actual investment is 120k / 5% = 2.4M. So you will have to figure out how to get this 2.4M in 20 years. 2.4M in 20 years is (interestingly enough) back to 120k per year. So unless you save 10k every month now, you aren't retiring.
  • Lining your boots with tinfoil might help with the winter times.
  • It is possible to take your CPP out early (at 60) if you don't plan to live for long. The breakeven time depends on how many years it'll take to lose however much you got in the five years (60~65) under that percentage penalty.
  • The difference between a good day and a bad day is how much alcohol you want to consume, versus how much you need to consume. ~Rob
  • Don't eat out. But "When you do eat out, make it count"
  • Timeshares are complex: each owner wants to make their own decisions. You don't want that. You also don't want to going to the same place every year for the rest of your life. Timeshares are also properties that don't generate income... and hard to sell.
  • Some 0%-interest deals stop your autopay like a month before the payments end, because they really, really want to earn your money.
  • The No Tech Magazine once suggested that the tools used for hobbies ("boating, bicycling, skiing or backpacking") are being improved by manufacturer, so much so that we forget what we actually want out of the hobby. Doing traditional archery, for example, "promotes a sense of fun and encourages a carefree spirit."
  • Practice speaking with a pen in your mouth for a few minutes every day. It forces you to really enunciate what you're saying, ... - 213Compton
  • Want to cancel a subscription service attached to your home? Just claim to be moving in with someone else.
  • People spend more when their money isn't real, so children should be taught what money is in a concrete way, like using real tokens.
  • When returning something to the retailer/owner via UPS, remember to get a receipt. They might fake not receiving it and charge you extra for "losing" the item.
  • "The nice thing about IKEA is that you pretty much get what you pay for."
  • Realtors don't do the lawyer stuff; lawyers do the lawyer stuff. You can (if you want) buy and sell houses without a realtor. "The real work in a real estate transaction is done by the lawyers... title searches, transfer of funds, lien registrations, signing of documents, and more... Real estate agents show the house, and very little more. They write the offer, but anyone can do that, the forms are pre-printed."
  • If a piece of hardware requires the internet to work, you don't own that hardware.
  • To train vocals, sing through your closed lips for a few minutes.
  • For appointments that have late cancellation fees, check if you can bump the appointment up for free. If it is free to do so, then bump the appointment up enough that the late cancellation time no longer applies.
  • Version 1 of some scams go as far as "One day a guy rang me up saying I got a parcel but needed to verify my name". Version 2 involve the scammer looking up your phone number and then your name online, so they can sound more legitimate. This is why you should not put your phone number and your name in the same document.

We only live once

"A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come." - William Shakespeare

  • "If you stress too much about something before it happens, you basically put yourself through it twice." - Online quotes
  • Radon-induced lung cancer is one of the reasons you can die, even if you have done everything right. When death wants to get you, it gets you. Live your life, kids.
  • /u/CaptainNoBoat on climate change: "... there is a delay in air temperature increase. This means that the carbon already emitted will take 40 years to reach its full potential. This is largely due to the slow process of Earth's oceans warming. In many ways, we're only feeling the full effects of emissions from the 80's right now. ... If we did the impossible and switched entirely to 100%, zero-emission, fictional renewables today and provided zero carbon footprint... We'd still be in dire conditions for generations to come."
  • "Caskets and coffins are a surprisingly good deal at Costco." - businessinsider
  • "Take care of yo' body" - paraphrasing Robin Hobb, who put it together rather nicely
  • Don't go around getting medical tests for something if the results from the test won't change what you do and how you treat it.
  • Do not "life hack" your surgical masks. People have been using surgical masks for decades. "Never do you see a doctor or a nurse trying to 'hack' a mask, you just put it on and it does its job, otherwise, it would be designed differently."
  • When at a funeral, don't say "they're at a better place now", "you'll meet again", and "they're always with you". Actually there's no need to say anything at all. Give them a hug or feed them or help them get gas if they're too lost to live. They just want that person back. Save them for another day.
  • Half the fun of skydiving comes from knowing your parachutes might fail and you might die. Yet you do not.
  • Do not donate your (dead) body for research, even if it means no cost for burial. Your body can be sold to someone else, and your estate won't even be paid. Your body could be sewn together with someone else's. As long as you exist, no one can guarantee you the respect you deserve.
  • Doctors merely delay the inevitable.
  • "None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you're (carrying) in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be Kind. Be weird. There is no time for anything else." - /u/hotsauceinmyeye's mother
  • Wherever you go, no matter how impoverished, there are locals living there, not because they love the place (which is possible), but because they cannot leave / sustain an income elsewhere. Who doesn't want to live in Havana, in Lisbon, New York, Santiago? Loving a place is overrated---especially if there is no one there to love you back. If you have upward mobility, do move to a better place.
  • "For the rest of the earth’s organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death—and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying—and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering—slowly or quickly—as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we “enjoy” as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are—hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones." – Thomas Ligotti