IT'S GETTING THERE. I AM 3 days away from the 100th day -- hooray. I can't wait. It would be wonderful to finally reach the milestone I set for myself over three years ago. I obviously overestimated my ability to be both consistent and persistent. The 100th day was set to be finished around mid-2016, so I will be about 300% tardy when, hopefully, the 100th day post was finally written within the next few days.
The psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky call this a "planning fallacy," of which I may be a prime example: I planned because I thought I could do it, but I failed to do it. But if we may think about it from a different angle, that's actually life. How many times things in life actually goes as planned?
When I planned to write "a blog a day for one hundred consecutive day" (hence, the name of the blog), I was not just being optimist about my ability to pursue it, but I also deliberately took for granted the nature of life: That shit happens. Metaphorically (luckily) shit is what we least or don't fully expect (call it a black swan if you may). When shit happens, we are forced to slow down, recalibrate, and re-position ourselves.
That's why things don't go as planned, and time is usually the first thing that shit affects. In this post, I want to write about those shit and disruptions. In other words, I want to write about what (I think) I absolutely know for sure about life. These are, to me, categorical truths based on my experience living in this world (and dealing with disruptions in life that result in the delay the completion of this blog and fuels the planning fallacy.
Here you go: 12 things I know for sure. The fastest way to feel unpleasant is to compare yourself (or your situation) to others (self-pity and ego-boost are no good); Unless you let them, how others think about you cannot affect you (they can even take your soul if you let them, oh, but don't you let them); In doing things, ego is the enemy (so, kill it).
and obstacle is the way (so, embrace it); Being seen doing good it doesn't make it "more good"; in fact, it feels much better to do it without anyone else knowing but you (try it!); Unhappiness is a result of our failed attempt to control that which we are not in control of (And, how many things in life we are really in control of?
Stoics would say just your value and your opinion ); Those who enjoy judging others do not like to be judged; so, they justify judging others as a form of self-defense; When focusing in the presence, you cannot possibly worry about anything (Go on, try it; don't think about the past or the future, you won't be able to think about anything that can possibly worry you); Even about things we think we know well, there's still almost a 100% chance that our knowledge is not all complete (so let's assume that the person we are talking to might know something we don't, and learn); Bad news appear more often then good news in the media, and people don't use the internet to tell the world about who they really are; so, don't mistake what you see on the internet as the representation of the world.
We can actually become better versions of ourselves by reading books. Whenever shit happens, turn yourself to some great books. Silence is less harmful, less violence, and altogether better than gossip and nonsense prose. The world is not perfect -- nothing is -- but it's still good.
Why Reading News Isn't Good for You