THIS MIGHT BE A BIT of a surprise to many: How I eventually return to writing this blog again. The truth: I have always been wanting to return to write this blog. It's just that for the past two years since my last post, I have been living a different kind of life -- no longer as a student who had the time to sit down daily and write his thoughts to share, but an employee in a super cut-throat profit-driven field.
I have learned over the past two years since my last post that there is no difference, really, between the business and academic fields when it comes to the cut-throatness. It's all the same. Education, too, is becoming more and more profit driven. I'll leave it at that for now. I'll, at some point, return to share with you my life since September 2016. A lot of things had happened and at one point I almost lost my life. I am sincerely happy to be alive.
So, as the title of this post suggests, I have been at an airport for the past 10 hours and counting. My employer who bought me the tickets, with or without the knowledge of the 12-long-long layover hidden in these tickets, confirmed them with the travel agent before speaking to me whether or not I would be fine with it. Actually, I probably would not mind if I were told that which would be the case. Caught off guard, I wasn't prepared anything.
I did not have the visa to leave Kiev Airport to see the city; hence, I could only stay in the lounge trying to be as productive as I can. Now, what have I learned during this 10 hours and counting? Let's begin with what I've been doing for the last 10 hours. The first 3 hours were all devoted to catching on sleep. From the fourth hour onward, I have been reading, writing, and listening to a new audible books that I have just downloaded.
The book is Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Professor Jordan B. Peterson, whose works has become one of the authors that I've become addicted to following. As a clinical psychologist who speaks with the clarity and wit of a philosopher, he reminds me of great minds (and my heroes), Professors Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tverksy (I'll also write about these two at some point). In short, Professor Peterson wants us to think clearly using logic and sciences.
He wants us to see the world the way it is -- no matter how discomfort it is for it to be seen that way -- and not the way others try to convince you to see it. Happiness, for instance, should not be the goal of life in Professor Peterson's logic. Happiness should be something that you get out of doing something moral and something right, for which he has created a set of rational thoughts to help us think.
He blatantly criticizes identity politics driven by postmodern and hyper-left activists to be detrimental to the improvement in which we are living. I, in fact, finished his second book 12 Rules for Life: Antidote to Chaos first. It's a great book which I highly recommend. It's worth it just to study his storytelling technique -- it's a technique of a truly literary genius. It's this book that got me thinking about the resonance between the 12 rules and my 12-hour-long layover.
So, I tried to write one rule that I hold dear in my life for every hour that has passed. Again, I may return to rewrite these at some point too. I am sleepy and fatigue as a result of not having been exposed to any sunlight at all for the past ten hours trying to breath the limited amount of air available in a badly ventilated airport terminal. Let's start with the first 6 rules for this post: Social proof is dangerous.
We tend to not think too much when following what other people are already or about to be doing. So, don't hang out with selfish people. You will be doing awful thing before you even know it (and worse, sometimes you wouldn't even know that which was bad); Be kind, not right.
It's simply the fact that we do not always know everything that we should know about any particular situation to make an absolutely true judgement; so, based on that, be kind to others and cut our own ignorance some big big slack; Don't confuse what you want with what other people want you to want. In our life, we have our own pace of moving forward.
Just because someone seems to be getting ahead of you doesn't mean that you should always speed up, or worse, get off your own path to compete with that person on his/her path. It's important to define your own path and walk on it.
Freedom, alas, is the ability to set your own path and walk on it without allowing any forms of arousal to distract you from it; Success needs both determination (49%) and luck (51%) — by which I mean the kind of luck that puts you in the right place at the right time.
But you first need the determination (AKA will power) — simply because without it, you won't recognise luck when it appears (and you would just be blaming other things or people for your failure); Do not tolerate a bad boss. Bad boss is the parasite and deeply troubled symptom of evolution as a whole. It's a disgrace to our humanities as a whole. If you continue to tolerate and work under them, they will use their power to make you a scapegoat.
Histories have shown that which to always be the case. Do not tolerate bad boss. Call them out. Period; and, Get older and wiser. Now, you are oldest than you have even been. Don't become an old person who nobody wants to see being alive. To be continued to Day 75!
12 Rules for Life