I am not the center of the world. Our world is a globe, not a map that has been cut out on a plane.

But I did find this—it’s not my own idea, but something I came across at the library, a line from a novel by Dostoevsky: “Money is coined freedom.” What do you think? Isn’t “coined freedom” a rather refreshing term? But seriously, I was fascinated to find this one line that drove right to the heart of this thing called money.

Tolstoy sums up the judge’s life in a single sentence: “The pleasures Ivan Ilyich derived from his work were those of pride; the pleasures he derived from society were those of vanity; but it was genuine pleasure that he derived from playing whist.”

For instance, when reading a book, if one brings one’s face too close to it, one cannot see anything. In the same way, forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance. When the distance gets too small and people become stuck together, it becomes impossible to even speak to each other. But the distance must not be too ... See more

First of all, people enter this world as helpless beings. And people have the universal desire to escape from that helpless state. Adler called this the “pursuit of superiority.”

400 mcg is where you have a transcendental or mystical experience. At this dose or higher, it is critical to have qualified supervision in the form of a guide. “Transcendental” here roughly means “the feeling or the awareness that you are connected not only to other people but to other things and to living systems.” More on this later. 200 mcg can ... See more

‘Is that a dream, or a goal? Because a dream is something you fantasize about that will probably never happen. A goal is something you set a plan for, work toward, and achieve. I always looked at my stuff that way. The people who were successful models to me were people who had structured goals and then put a plan in place to get to those things.

People are nicer than they look, but you have to go first.