When you face someone’s insults, hatred, whatever…look at his soul. Get inside him. Look at what sort of person he is. You’ll find you don’t need to strain to impress him. But you do have to wish him well. He’s your closest relative. The gods assist him just as they do you, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations …
There’s a frustratingly high standard defined in several of the most impactful ancient texts: It isn’t enough to simply behave righteously. We need to think righteously. It’s hard enough to smile and be cordial to someone who we feel has wronged us. That itself is a big win. But the instruction from Christian, Stoic, Buddhist …
If the objective of mindfulness is to improve our experience in the world, our ability to remain calm in a dark, quiet room with our eyes close doesn’t prove much. So why not try a fun experiment? Pick one of your least favorite situations – the type that is almost guaranteed to get your blood …
By reducing human fluctuations and predicting nearby events, an automated vehicle can often surpass the efficiency of a similar manually-driven vehicle. The equation changes when we zoom out though. Adding a few automated vehicles on the road changes the game. Computers don’t drive like we do (at least for now). For example, they stay at …
I’m a strong advocate of introspection and making an effort to better understand the world around us, but there’s a key distinction to keep in mind. The purpose isn’t so we can sound smart or feel entitled thanks to the knowledge we’ve gained. The purpose is to use these learnings to shape and improve our …
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is …
It’s surprisingly hard to recover. It doesn’t take more than a couple of incidents before everything coming out of someone’s mouth smells funny. -Brandon
Most people have a tendency to revert back to a place that feels “right” to them. When we’re verbally attacked, we strike back. When we’re complimented, we downplay it or point our flaws. This tendency has an interesting application when working with others. For example, when something goes wrong, there are two extreme paths we …
Charging performance for electric vehicles is reported in kW (a unit of power). Technically, it makes sense. But to the consumer, it doesn’t matter. What really matters to a drive is how long they’ll be stuck at the charging station before they have enough energy in their car to finish their trip. So a much …
I try to avoid using big words to describe simple ideas, and most ideas at their core are simple. -Lex Fridman -Brandon