The experts don’t know everything, or even everything about anything. And one thing they know very little about is you. The people who tell you how to live have very little knowledge of who you are and what you’re capable of doing.

Large social changes take place only when the market is ready — meaning when millions of individuals are ready for such change. No matter who was leading the movement, great social changes have occurred only when the market was ready for them.

To try to find happiness by doing what seems to make others happy is to fall head first into the Identity Trap.

My relationships with such people are mutually beneficial. I trade ideas for money — but I would never make my future dependent upon changing or controlling or persuading anyone.

But it was fun to see the total go down. Before long, no purchase was as exciting as buying a position of less debt.

In fact, it’s a very easy way to jump into a box. When you’ve lied about something, your actions are restricted by the need to maintain the fiction you’ve created. You can no longer react freely and spontaneously to new developments; you always have to keep your guard up to avoid doing anything that might reveal your previous acts. Ironically, I

Happiness isn’t a new car, fame, a good marriage, wealth, or a warm blanket. Those are things. Happiness is what you feel inside of you as a result of the things that happen to you.

You’re in the Identity Trap when you assume an individual will react to something as you would react or as you’ve seen someone else react.

And if it’s difficult to influence just one person, think what you’re up against when you hope to change the prevailing views of a whole society of people.