Some Painful Questions We Ask Ourselves

Is Google primarily a tool for telling you that the world is more or less as you believe it is? How often do you take a position on an issue just by looking around and discerning what the “right” opinion to have is, then selectively learning the facts that justify that belief? Don’t feel too bad, this is probably most of what politics is.

Deciding to be action-oriented, even in the face of uncertainty, is a superpower that is accessible to almost everyone. A willingness to simply say “I see this problem and I am going to take personal responsibility for doing something about it” is incredibly powerful.

Envision yourself making the decision before you over and over again. If you find it repellent to try and imagine infinity, let’s say a million times. Would it be utterly intolerable? More or less okay? Would you be proud of it? Repeat with your day, your month, your life.

if you have a nagging feeling that something you’re doing is making you worse or less interesting, it can be revealing to ask, “is the person who tends to do this the person I want to be?”

Self-loathing is not productive and typically doesn’t result in better behavior. But if you can’t see yourself accurately, you can’t change anything, or have any impetus to change: loving yourself isn’t incompatible with believing you’re capable of more.