The Buddhists have a belief that I find intriguing: Before you are born, you get to see what your life will be. You are then asked if the life will be acceptable. If you give your OK, your memory is wiped clean and you get to live that life. Otherwise, you get to look at another life. So, the life you lead, with all its suffering and challenges, is the life you chose on that day.
Not to put too fine a point on it, as this is clearly just a fluffy inspirational quote, and the article itself is worth reading, but this quote kinda sorta makes no sense. Here's why:
You are then asked if the life will be acceptable. What you find acceptable is a function of who you are. Who you are is also largely a function of the experiences you have had in life. What I find acceptable now is not what I found acceptable 10 years ago and probably not what I will find acceptable in 10 years. So, acceptable from what perspective? The perspective of the person who has lived that life, or the perspective of someone else? Those are two very different perspectives that will lead to very different answers.
Another big hole is that there are only a finite number of existences out there. So surely someone has to be stumped with a life they didn't like. It is condescending and incredibly insulting to tell someone whose life really, really sucks that they chose it.
So, a nice article, with a nice fluffy thought at the beginning, but the gaping holes in that fluffy thought kind of bothered me.
I found this quote interesting: "psychologists have found that a person flourishes when their chance of success is between 80% and 95%. If your chance of success is below 80%, you start to act desperate. Above 95%, you start to get complacent".
I wonder if many startups feel anywhere close to an 80% chance of success.
I think it's imperative. From an outsider's perspective, most start-ups look like a bunch of nuts riding the edge of sanity. From the inside, you have to convince yourself that you will succeed.
I'm not sure I've ever been that confident on a decent sized project. I'm starting to wonder if it explains a lot of things about me or if its just the latest convenient thing to tell myself :)
If I had to put on a number on it, I think we have an 80%+ chance of success. However, I'm just here for the journey. The result of the journey, whatever it may be, only signifies it's time for a new journey. Basically, I can't lose.
the other interesting thing is that a persons perceptions of statistics and the statistics of different situations is all kind of skewed.
the first question is how did psychologists ascertain and normalize someone's perception of the chance of success. the second question is how does the system react now that we know about it.
That post is a good example of what is wrong with blogs. It's basically an interesting intro without a body, 'cause, you know, blog entries are 500 words or less.
The bottom-line is that you have to entertain online. No entertainment, no visitors. And people aren't entertained when they see a big wall o' text.
I wouldn't even say that. Blogs are blogs. They are a certain medium with certain styles & certain breakable 'rules.' Evolution & survivor bias ensure that most blog posts read are the types of blog posts that are appealing to the the people reading them. I see no problem with that. Same goes for novels, biographies, essays, magazine articles or pretty much any category of writing. Nothing wrong with that. A blog within the framework of the style is definitely a useful one to have out there.
Not at all, it depends on the context. I really liked his style, and then...bam...it stopped right when I thought it was about to start. Blog entry vs. Essay, I guess.
Can I take a minute to talk about this blog post? It ended abruptly and the last two paragraphs read like he had envisioned a longer post but ran out of steam and/or things to say. Good overall theme, though.
See, I like this article partially because it invites the reader to reflect on these thoughts, rather than provide an explicit, pre-packaged way of approaching life.
I agree because I think this is another way of searching for authenticity in all our decisions: "complacency" is another way to say you're not re-evaluating the choices you've made.
To experience life in the upper class of the second to last generation of humanity, Generation Y. It's a learning experience and my post-human soul will have this life added to its knowledge along with all of the other lives it has lived.
I was given a choice of this one or coming back as a cockroach. I chose this one. However, had I taken a closer look at life with my ex-wife, I might have chosen the cockroach.
My life's pretty cushy. I want to know how sucky your options are to choose dieing young in some horrible way. I think if it is a genuine Buddhist belief its purpose is to make you more engaged with reality by accepting it as yours. Probably more worth dwelling on that.
This idea of "..and I think we do our best work when we are conscious of both(success and failure)." has always intrigued me. Do we really need to know the reality of failure?
The explanation I can come up with is that the experience and knowledge of failure gives us an advantage on both sides of the 80-95% spectrum (lets ignore the validity of the numbers for a second). For the times when we feel that our chances our below 80% we get scared and if we had the experience of failure we would be better suited to handle the stress. On the 95% portion I think it keeps you honest by reminding you that you could fail and the consequences if you do.
"So let me spell out my thoughts explicitly: If success is the carrot, then failure is the stick, and I think we do our best work when we are conscious of both."
I was disappointed here. This seems far too trite a conclusion for the thoughts he put forth in the rest of the entry. Did he feel compelled to wrap it up quickly for some reason? I don't know. But there's so much more he could have said, even within a reasonable-length blog entry.
"So let me spell out my thoughts explicitly: If success is the carrot, then failure is the stick, and I think we do our best work when we are conscious of both."
Not to put too fine a point on it, as this is clearly just a fluffy inspirational quote, and the article itself is worth reading, but this quote kinda sorta makes no sense. Here's why:
You are then asked if the life will be acceptable. What you find acceptable is a function of who you are. Who you are is also largely a function of the experiences you have had in life. What I find acceptable now is not what I found acceptable 10 years ago and probably not what I will find acceptable in 10 years. So, acceptable from what perspective? The perspective of the person who has lived that life, or the perspective of someone else? Those are two very different perspectives that will lead to very different answers.
Another big hole is that there are only a finite number of existences out there. So surely someone has to be stumped with a life they didn't like. It is condescending and incredibly insulting to tell someone whose life really, really sucks that they chose it.
So, a nice article, with a nice fluffy thought at the beginning, but the gaping holes in that fluffy thought kind of bothered me.