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You don’t have to do things others do, or have things they have, at the expense of the deeper things you want. You really don’t. Almost everything is an option. You have full permission to ask yourself what really matters to you—whatever that is—and then optimize for that in all hard tradeoffs of life.

How to Win Friends & Influence People. Essentially, the book can be summed up into five simple steps:

1. Pay someone a genuine compliment. It has to be sincere. It can’t be a fake compliment. 

2. Ask them a question about their favorite subject, which is typically something about themselves. And then just listen, listen, listen, and listen until they’re done talking. 

3. Try and quickly assess their needs.

4. If you were trying to sell something or get something from someone, consider a trial close. Give the person a chance to either lean in or opt out. 

5. Close. The only difference between four and five is the word if in form. 

Runaway consumerism explains the Fermi Paradox

• Fresh organic fruit juice costs so much more than nutrition-free soda. Having real friends is so much more effort than watching Friends on TV. Actually colonizing the galaxy would be so much harder than pretending to have done it when filming Star Wars or Serenity.

• Most bright alien species probably go extinct gradually, allocating more time and resources to their pleasures, and less to their children.