When I was a young boy, we moved to a small rural town in Western Pennsylvania; “East Brady”. I started school there, and started to attend third grade.
Right off the bat, all the other boys played basketball, football, baseball, and lots of other sports. But I didn’t. My father never played sports with me, he never watched sports, and my mother forbid me from playing “dangerous sports” outside.
So, when I entered school, I was at a terrible disadvantage.
I didn’t know how to play basketball, dribble a ball, catch a ball or make a basket. But all the others did. They had been doing so since they were three years old.
i was at a great disadvantage, and I was constantly picked on because of it. Not just by the boys, but the girls too. And Lordy! Even the teachers. It became hellish for me.
I tried to explain to my dad, but he wouldn’t have any of that. He would say “be a man”, and “you can learn”, and the proverbial “don’t listen to what they all say, you just ignore them”.
It didn’t work.
Not until i started lifting weights, has muscles the size of oil cans and started to fight back. But that was later on, 10th through 12th grade, but this narrative is about what happened with I was in fifth or sixth grade.
You see, even though I couldn’t play basketball, dribble or anything… my father insisted, and then ordered me to go get on the basketball team and play ball. Why?
Well, it was because that’s what all the other kids were doing.
WTF?
Didn’t he listen to me? I was at a strong and strict disadvantage. I could not play ball. I literally could not, and that made me the laughing stock of the class. We did not watch sports at home, we did not go to sports events, but somehow… somehow… I was supposed to be able to play them.
And I had to do it.
Do it because of what the other kids were doing? Seriously?
So yeah… for three years, I endured the taunting, the jokes and the pain from sixth grade though ninth grade because of something that my father demanded of me WITHOUT him actually participating in helping me obtain any skills.
yes.
Just gave orders. No on-hand training. Never attended the games. Never participated in any way, shape or form.
Fucking jack ass.
On the plus side, I’m making sure that this DOES NOT happen to my kids. So there is something positive that came out of this, don’t you know.
Moral…
Play ball, but only if you know how to.
Today…
What is an experience you had with a “Karen” you’ll never forget?
She brought her car in and asked what it would cost to replace the EGR valve.. Then she promptly spent the next ten minutes running down the shop that has been ripping her off for years, explaining how EVERY TIME she brought her car in to them, they said it was this, and then that didn’t fix it, so she had to pay more…
“So, would you like me to fix the car, or replace the EGR valve? They may not be the same thing..”
“What do you mean?”
“We could inspect the vehicle, identify the faults, and make a recommendation based on our findings..”
“You would charge me for that?”
“Yes, of course..”
“No, just change the EGR valve, they already told me what’s wrong with it! You guys are all alike!”
So, I wrote up the repair order, specifying “Replace EGR valve per customer request.”
I called her a couple hours later and told her the EGR valve had been replaced..
“It still runs terrible! You didn’t even change it, did you?!”
“Of course we replaced it.. I have your old EGR valve right here, along with the large chunk of carbon that had blocked it open.. We took the liberty of inspecting the engine after the work was done so I would be able to explain to you why it’s still running so badly.. If you’ll look right here, you can plainly see the ignition spark escaping the plug wire arcing to the cylinder head.. The chunk of carbon that blocked the EGR open resulted from unburned fuel entering your exhaust.. You need a tune-up.. I have that estimate for you right here, and as soon as you pay for the work we’ve already done, I’ll get started on it..”
“Why should I have to pay for that? You didn’t fix it!”
“Because you asked us to, as evidenced by this signed repair order, which expressly authorizes a mechanic’s lien in lieu of payment for services rendered.. If you choose not to pay this bill, I’ll place your vehicle in storage at $19.00 per day until such time as I can apply for a permit to sell the vehicle..”
She politely paid the bill, and paid up front for the tune-up.. The next day, she drove away in her perfectly running Nissan Quest..
What is the proof that fentanyl is made in China?
I am a Chinese and a worker in the IT industry. Fentanyl is a drug precursor, and its rational application in medicine is necessary. Some excellent answers have already explained the question in detail. Foreign intellectuals understand that this is a minor issue in the diplomatic struggle between China and the United States, and a new issue set by the United States to hinder the harmony of bilateral relations. So, regarding the issue of fentanyl, both the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US State Department are making some clich é s. I want to tell some fresh stories about the relationship between ordinary Chinese people and drug abuse (吸毒). Most of them come from the original works of some guys I have read in Chinese online communities over the past few years. I wrote it down based on memories:
Story 1
A guy from Northeast China, he was in high school at the time. But fighting, sleeping, and pestering girls every day. But as long as he doesn’t take the initiative to provoke, no one cares about what he is doing. One day, he felt very bored and came up with a brilliant idea: to bring a small bag of soy milk powder from home (which is a traditional Chinese food, a mixture of soy powder and milk powder, with a slightly dull white powder appearance). Then roll the tin foil in the chocolate box into long strips. Then, he stole a lighter from home. The show begins: During the break, he takes out a tubular tin foil and carefully takes out a little bit of soy milk powder from a plastic bag, slowly putting it onto the tin foil. Then, light the lighter and bake under the tin foil with flames – this is a common scene of drug addicts in Hong Kong gangster movies. In an instant, all the classmates around him were stunned! A classmate shouted loudly and ran to the teacher’s office, telling everyone that this guy was taking drugs. Two strong male teachers ran into the classroom and knocked him down on the ground. One teacher extinguished the lighter, while the other teacher asked everyone to leave the classroom immediately to protect the crime scene. Then, someone called the police number. No matter how much the guy who usually causes trouble lies on the ground pleading and defending, it is ineffective. Until the police arrived at the school. Finally, the police gave this guy a lesson, and the school gave him a stern warning, requiring everyone in his family to come to the school to receive anti drug education. This guy is no longer arrogant anymore.
Story 2
A Chinese guy was surfing the internet and saw someone asking where to buy methamphetamine? In fact, it is almost impossible to buy drugs in China. So, this guy came up with a brilliant idea. He purchased some rock sugar, which looks like some semi transparent crystals. Then, tell the drug addict online that he has heroin in his hands, and the price is very cheap, only 1/5 of the black market price, and there is also a considerable amount of inventory. This price immediately attracted drug addicts. After some bargaining, the drug addict paid tens of thousands of yuan and bought a small bag of rock sugar from that guy. The supermarket sells for 5 yuan. However, this guy, in pursuit of the pinnacle of art, kindly tells drug addicts: I will mail it to you through China Post. However, in order to avoid the police, we must be smarter. For example, I would use packaging bags of rock sugar to hold these methamphetamine, and when you receive the goods, if someone asks, you would answer, “This is just a bag of rock sugar.”. Okay, they happily reached the deal, and this guy made tens of thousands of yuan with just a bag of rock sugar. And the poor drug addict who couldn’t buy drugs, after receiving sweet and delicious rock sugar, became extremely angry and had to report to the police that he had been deceived. So much so that when the police asked him how you were deceived, he had to admit that he was a drug addict. He said to the police, I would rather be locked up in a drug rehabilitation center than have this scammer get legal sanctions! Finally, this guy was sentenced to three years in prison for the crime of fraud.
Story 3
A boy who is currently in college is hosting a party with several other boys and girls at his home. In China, college student parties mean they eat hot pot together, play computer games, watch movies, eat snacks, and so on. Afterwards, they played cards. And it was agreed that the loser should take a sip of apple cider vinegar, which is a strange health drink that many people dislike. Then, a few college students had a sudden idea. They drilled several holes into the lid of the bottle of apple cider vinegar, each with a long straw inserted. This way, if someone loses a card game, they can use their own straw to take a sip of sour vinegar. After a while, the boy’s parents went home. When they saw their child and a group of young men and women using multiple straws to suck something, the boy’s father immediately called the police and told them, “My child is gathering to take drugs.”. Because in some movies, drug scenes include empty bottles, plastic hoses, and some liquids. The police rushed in, and several children turned pale in fear. What is the final result? The father apologized to all the children and then made a sumptuous dinner for them.
Story 4
This small matter is about myself. My bathroom wall tiles have fallen off. I consulted the owner of the hardware store and he told me that using a type of “tile adhesive” can solve the problem. However, he doesn’t have a syringe, and I have to suck the glue into the syringe and then inject it into the gap between the tiles. So I found a private clinic and told the nurse to sell me a syringe and a thicker needle. The nurse asked me, “What do you want this thing for?” I completely didn’t understand the nurse’s intention and casually replied, “It’s just doing something.”. Then she called the doctor and began questioning me. I have to tell them the truth. Afterwards, the nurse sold me the syringe but firmly refused to give me the needle. And I checked my ID card and remembered the name of the community I live in. Okay, maybe in her opinion, she still hasn’t dispelled her doubts about me.
These stories (perhaps some sentences are exaggerated, they come from my memories) fully illustrate the attitude of ordinary Chinese people towards drugs or drug use.
Pizza Meatballs
Yield: 14 servings
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ground beef
- 2 cups bread crumbs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 2 teaspoons garlic salt
- Pepper to taste
- 1/2 pound mozzarella cheese, cut into small cubes
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 (12 ounce) cans pizza sauce
Instructions
- Mix beef, bread crumbs, milk, onions, garlic salt and pepper together.
- Form mixture around cheese cubes to make balls.
- Dip balls into flour and brown in oil.
- Place balls in slow cooker and pour pizza sauce over them.
- Cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours or until meatballs are done.
“NATO is making a DEADLY mistake” and WW3 will look UNLIKE anything we’ve ever seen | Redacted News
Five ways criminals are using AI
Generative AI has made phishing, scamming, and doxxing easier than ever.
Artificial intelligence has brought a big boost in productivity—to the criminal underworld.
Generative AI provides a new, powerful tool kit that allows malicious actors to work far more efficiently and internationally than ever before, says Vincenzo Ciancaglini, a senior threat researcher at the security company Trend Micro.
Most criminals are “not living in some dark lair and plotting things,” says Ciancaglini. “Most of them are regular folks that carry on regular activities that require productivity as well.”
Last year saw the rise and fall of WormGPT, an AI language model built on top of an open-source model and trained on malware-related data, which was created to assist hackers and had no ethical rules or restrictions. But last summer, its creators announced they were shutting the model down after it started attracting media attention. Since then, cybercriminals have mostly stopped developing their own AI models. Instead, they are opting for tricks with existing tools that work reliably.
That’s because criminals want an easy life and quick gains, Ciancaglini explains. For any new technology to be worth the unknown risks associated with adopting it—for example, a higher risk of getting caught—it has to be better and bring higher rewards than what they’re currently using.
Here are five ways criminals are using AI now.
Phishing
The biggest use case for generative AI among criminals right now is phishing, which involves trying to trick people into revealing sensitive information that can be used for malicious purposes, says Mislav Balunović, an AI security researcher at ETH Zurich. Researchers have found that the rise of ChatGPT has been accompanied by a huge spike in the number of phishing emails.
Spam-generating services, such as GoMail Pro, have ChatGPT integrated into them, which allows criminal users to translate or improve the messages sent to victims, says Ciancaglini. OpenAI’s policies restrict people from using their products for illegal activities, but that is difficult to police in practice, because many innocent-sounding prompts could be used for malicious purposes too, says Ciancaglini.
OpenAI says it uses a mix of human reviewers and automated systems to identify and enforce against misuse of its models, and issues warnings, temporary suspensions and bans if users violate the company’s policies.
“We take the safety of our products seriously and are continually improving our safety measures based on how people use our products,” a spokesperson for OpenAI told us. “We are constantly working to make our models safer and more robust against abuse and jailbreaks, while also maintaining the models’ usefulness and task performance,” they added.
In a report from February, OpenAI said it had closed five accounts associated with state-affiliated malicous actors.
Before, so-called Nigerian prince scams, in which someone promises the victim a large sum of money in exchange for a small up-front payment, were relatively easy to spot because the English in the messages was clumsy and riddled with grammatical errors, Ciancaglini. says. Language models allow scammers to generate messages that sound like something a native speaker would have written.
“English speakers used to be relatively safe from non-English-speaking [criminals] because you could spot their messages,” Ciancaglini says. That’s not the case anymore.
Thanks to better AI translation, different criminal groups around the world can also communicate better with each other. The risk is that they could coordinate large-scale operations that span beyond their nations and target victims in other countries, says Ciancaglini.
Deepfake audio scams
Generative AI has allowed deepfake development to take a big leap forward, with synthetic images, videos, and audio looking and sounding more realistic than ever. This has not gone unnoticed by the criminal underworld.
Earlier this year, an employee in Hong Kong was reportedly scammed out of $25 million after cybercriminals used a deepfake of the company’s chief financial officer to convince the employee to transfer the money to the scammer’s account. “We’ve seen deepfakes finally being marketed in the underground,” says Ciancaglini. His team found people on platforms such as Telegram showing off their “portfolio” of deepfakes and selling their services for as little as $10 per image or $500 per minute of video. One of the most popular people for criminals to deepfake is Elon Musk, says Ciancaglini.
And while deepfake videos remain complicated to make and easier for humans to spot, that is not the case for audio deepfakes. They are cheap to make and require only a couple of seconds of someone’s voice—taken, for example, from social media—to generate something scarily convincing.
In the US, there have been high-profile cases where people have received distressing calls from loved ones saying they’ve been kidnapped and asking for money to be freed, only for the caller to turn out to be a scammer using a deepfake voice recording.
“People need to be aware that now these things are possible, and people need to be aware that now the Nigerian king doesn’t speak in broken English anymore,” says Ciancaglini. “People can call you with another voice, and they can put you in a very stressful situation,” he adds.
There are some for people to protect themselves, he says. Ciancaglini recommends agreeing on a regularly changing secret safe word between loved ones that could help confirm the identity of the person on the other end of the line.
“I password-protected my grandma,” he says.
Bypassing identity checks
Another way criminals are using deepfakes is to bypass “know your customer” verification systems. Banks and cryptocurrency exchanges use these systems to verify that their customers are real people. They require new users to take a photo of themselves holding a physical identification document in front of a camera. But criminals have started selling apps on platforms such as Telegram that allow people to get around the requirement.
They work by offering a fake or stolen ID and imposing a deepfake image on top of a real person’s face to trick the verification system on an Android phone’s camera. Ciancaglini has found examples where people are offering these services for cryptocurrency website Binance for as little as $70.
“They are still fairly basic,” Ciancaglini says. The techniques they use are similar to Instagram filters, where someone else’s face is swapped for your own.
“What we can expect in the future is that [criminals] will use actual deepfakes … so that you can do more complex authentication,” he says.
Jailbreak-as-a-service
If you ask most AI systems how to make a bomb, you won’t get a useful response.
That’s because AI companies have put in place various safeguards to prevent their models from spewing harmful or dangerous information. Instead of building their own AI models without these safeguards, which is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult, cybercriminals have begun to embrace a new trend: jailbreak-as-a-service.
Most models come with rules around how they can be used. Jailbreaking allows users to manipulate the AI system to generate outputs that violate those policies—for example, to write code for ransomware or generate text that could be used in scam emails.
Services such as EscapeGPT and BlackhatGPT offer anonymized access to language-model APIs and jailbreaking prompts that update frequently. To fight back against this growing cottage industry, AI companies such as OpenAI and Google frequently have to plug security holes that could allow their models to be abused.
Jailbreaking services use different tricks to break through safety mechanisms, such as posing hypothetical questions or asking questions in foreign languages. There is a constant cat-and-mouse game between AI companies trying to prevent their models from misbehaving and malicious actors coming up with ever more creative jailbreaking prompts.
These services are hitting the sweet spot for criminals, says Ciancaglini.
“Keeping up with jailbreaks is a tedious activity. You come up with a new one, then you need to test it, then it’s going to work for a couple of weeks, and then Open AI updates their model,” he adds. “Jailbreaking is a super-interesting service for criminals.”
Doxxing and surveillance
AI language models are a perfect tool for not only phishing but for doxxing (revealing private, identifying information about someone online), says Balunović. This is because AI language models are trained on vast amounts of internet data, including personal data, and can deduce where, for example, someone might be located.
As an example of how this works, you could ask a chatbot to pretend to be a private investigator with experience in profiling. Then you could ask it to analyze text the victim has written, and infer personal information from small clues in that text—for example, their age based on when they went to high school, or where they live based on landmarks they mention on their commute. The more information there is about them on the internet, the more vulnerable they are to being identified.
Balunović was part of a team of researchers that found late last year that large language models, such as GPT-4, Llama 2, and Claude, are able to infer sensitive information such as people’s ethnicity, location, and occupation purely from mundane conversations with a chatbot. In theory, anyone with access to these models could use them this way.
Since their paper came out, new services that exploit this feature of language models have emerged.
While the existence of these services doesn’t indicate criminal activity, it points out the new capabilities malicious actors could get their hands on. And if regular people can build surveillance tools like this, state actors probably have far better systems, Balunović says.
“The only way for us to prevent these things is to work on defenses,” he says.
Companies should invest in data protection and security, he adds.
For individuals, increased awareness is key. People should think twice about what they share online and decide whether they are comfortable with having their personal details being used in language models, Balunović says.
9 Daily Habits that Often Cause 90 Percent of Our Relationship Problems
There’s something to be said for slow and steady progress, but there’s also something to be said for decisive and sweeping action. When it comes to negative relationship habits, there’s no time like today to quit cold turkey. Of course that’s a lot easier said than done, but with practice we can do better almost immediately.
Lately I’ve been making it a point to bring more awareness to the specific negative relationship habits our coaching clients have been repeatedly complaining about or engaging in. And perhaps more importantly than that, I’ve also been noticing how frequently many of the same habits and behaviors surface in my personal relationships. I mean let’s be honest, we all misbehave in our relationships sometimes. None of us are immune to occasional negative mood swings. But that doesn’t excuse what we do to each other on a daily basis.
Over the years, through our coaching practice and live events, Angel and I have literally worked with hundreds of individuals looking to fix or strengthen their relationships, and we’ve learned a lot about what it takes to make that happen. One of the most significant realizations, again, is the fact that most problems in our relationships (both intimate and platonic) arise from the same basic negative habits and behavioral issues. Here are some of the more prevalent ones to be aware of…
1. Giving the silent treatment.
Tuning out, ignoring, disengaging, refusing to acknowledge, etc. All variations of the silent treatment don’t just remove the other person from the disagreement or argument you’re having with them, it ends up removing them, emotionally, from the relationship you have with them. Truly, when you’re purposely ignoring someone you’re really teaching them to live without you. If that’s what you want, be clear about it. And if not, reengage with them in a constructive way.
2. Seeking attention by complaining.
I spoke with a new friend yesterday who all but refused to talk about the positive aspects of their life. After listening to them vent about fairly minor troubles for an hour straight, I asked about some of the exciting projects they have going on (of which they have many). Within three sentences they were back to complaining about trivial things. We all need to share our troubles with friends or strangers from time to time, but don’t fall into the habit of turning conversations into your own personal dumping ground. It’s an easy way to get attention, but it’s a poor way to keep it, and it’s a poor way to view your life.
3. Using disagreements as an excuse to condemn someone’s character.
Complaints are OK. Disagreements are OK too. These are natural and honest reactions to a person’s decisions or behavior. But when complaints and disagreements spiral out of control into global attacks on a person’s entire character, rather than their occasional decisions or behavior, this spells trouble. For example: “They didn’t call me when they said they would because they were busy and forgot, but because they are a horrible, wretched, selfish person.” The bottom line here is that there’s a big difference between who someone is and what they sometimes do.
4. Focusing on the inner monologue instead of the actual dialogue.
“Holy crap! How should I respond? What can I say that will sound smart and clever? I really hope they think I’m intelligent. I could touch on symbolism or make a reference to post-modernism. Wait… what did they just ask me?” Stay focused on the other person’s words and points. People rarely mind when you say, “Hmm, let me think about that for a moment.” Quite the opposite, since it shows that you’re taking the conversation seriously. If you compose your answers while someone else is speaking, you’re really only having half a conversation, and it’s usually quite obvious. (Read “Just Listen”.)
5. Using (subtle) hateful gestures.
Frequent name-calling, eye-rolling, belittling, mockery, childish threats, rude teasing, etc. In whatever form, gestures like these are poisonous to a relationship because they convey hate. And it’s virtually impossible to resolve relationship problems, or strengthen a relationship in any way, when the other person is constantly receiving the message that you hate them.
6. Multi-tasking while engaging with people.
Even if you are a professional multitasker, if you’re talking to someone, talk to them and that’s it. Don’t browse online, don’t watch TV, don’t scroll through social media, etc. If you really don’t have the time to talk, be honest and find another time, or cut it short. The bottom line is that there’s no greater gift of kindness, and no greater expression of caring that you can offer, than your undivided time and attention. (Note: Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the Relationships chapter of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently”.)
7. De-emphasizing compliments, or fishing for more of them, with self-effacing remarks.
“Oh, I look terrible today” … after someone compliments you. “I just threw it together at the last minute” … when you obviously dressed up. “I’m really not good at things like this” … when the people you’re with say you are. Don’t do this to yourself and others. It’s not flattering or helpful behavior. By making self-effacing comments, you basically force the other person to repeat their compliment or defend it, which is not a gracious thing to do. It’s perfectly OK to say simply “thank you” when you’re complimented. It’s not snobby, it’s just a basic courtesy.
8. Holding the past against people that have been “forgiven.”
If someone you love or care about makes a mistake and you choose to forgive them, your actions must reinforce your words. In other words, let bygones be bygones. Don’t use their past wrongdoings to continuously justify your own present righteousness. When you constantly use someone’s past wrongdoings to make yourself seem “better” than them (“I’m better than you because, unlike you, I didn’t do XYZ in the past.”), it’s a lose-lose situation in the long run.
9. Leveraging or accepting emotional blackmail.
Emotional blackmail happens when you apply an emotional penalty against someone if they don’t do exactly what you want them to do. The key condition here is that they change they’re behavior against their will as a result of the emotional blackmail. Absent the emotional blackmail they would live differently, but they fear the penalty from you and so they give in. If that sounds familiar, the solution relies heavily on better communication. If two people care about each other and want to maintain a healthy relationship, they absolutely need to be allowed to openly communicate all of their feelings to each other, not just the agreeable and positive ones. If this is not allowed or supported — if one or both people fear penalty or punishment for their honesty — lies and deceit will gradually transpire.
Remember, we all have a responsibility to uphold.
As you reflect on the negative social habits above, do your best to keep things in perspective. If you recognize one or more of them in your relationships, refrain from pointing fingers. Take some responsibility so you can put yourself in a position to make positive changes. Remind yourself that when you deny 100% responsibility in a relationship problem or dispute, all you’re really doing is blaming the other person. You’re saying, in effect, “The problem here is never me and it’s always you.” This denial of responsibility usually just escalates everything, because there’s a complete and utter breakdown of communication.
The key thing to understand is that you have a choice. Either you’re choosing to be in a relationship with another person, or you aren’t. If you’re choosing to be in, then you are responsible for it. Denying this means you’re giving up all your power to the other person — you’re their victim, regardless of circumstances (positive or negative), because you’ve given them 100% of the responsibility for the relationship you have with them. So again, even when the behavior driving a relationship problem belongs to the other person, the only way to find common ground, or simply create a healthy boundary and more space for yourself, is to first own the fact that you have a responsibility to address.
And also keep in mind that when your friendship, marriage, parenting, etc. gets difficult, it’s not an immediate sign that you’re doing it wrong. These intimate, intricate relationships are toughest when you’re doing them right — when you’re dedicating time, compromising, having the tough conversations, and making daily sacrifices.
Healthy long-tern relationships are always amazing, but rarely easy 24/7. Resisting the hard times and seeing them as immediate evidence that something is wrong, or that you’re in a relationship with the wrong person, only exacerbates the difficulties. By contrast, finding the patience and mindfulness to view the challenges as an opportunity to work together will likely give your relationship the energy and strength needed to transcend the problems and grow even stronger in the long run.
And finally, practice tuning in to your own feelings and needs. Note the times and circumstances when you’re resentful of fulfilling someone else’s needs. Gradually establish healthy and reasonable boundaries by saying no to gratuitous requests that cause resentfulness in you. Of course, this will be hard at first because it may feel selfish. But if you’ve ever flown on a plane you know that flight attendants instruct passengers to put on their own oxygen masks before tending to others, even their own children. Why? Because you can’t help others if you’re incapacitated. In the long run, proactively establishing and enforcing healthy and reasonable boundaries in your relationships will be one of the most charitable things you can do for both yourself and those you care about.
The Fundamental Attribution Error: Why You Suck at Judging People’s Behavior
We all like to think we’re good at reading people and figuring out why they do the shit they do. Your coworker snapped at you in a meeting? Must be because he’s an asshole with anger issues. That lady cut you off in traffic? Obviously it’s because she’s a self-absorbed, horrible driver.
Well I’m here to burst your bubble. Turns out, you actually suck at judging other people’s behavior. And so does everyone else. It all comes down to a pesky little cognitive bias called the fundamental attribution error.
Here’s how it works: when someone else fucks up or does something annoying, we attribute it to their personality and character. “She’s just a rude bitch,” we say. But when WE screw up in the exact same way, we blame the circumstances. “I was just having a bad day,” or “I was stressed and not thinking clearly.”
See the problem? We cut ourselves all sorts of slack, but when judging others, it’s all about their flaws as a person. We ignore the situational factors influencing their behavior.
Maybe your coworker snapped because he’s going through a rough divorce and hasn’t been sleeping. Maybe that lady cut you off because she just found out her kid is sick and she’s rushing to pick him up. There’s often a lot more to the story that you’re oblivious to.
The truth is, people’s behavior is largely driven by their environment and circumstances, not just their core personality traits. But the fundamental attribution error causes us to zoom in on character and ignore context.
And this doesn’t just lead to us being judgmental assholes. It actually fucks up our relationships and interactions. By wrongly attributing people’s actions to their fixed personality, we assume they’ll always act that way. We write them off or treat them poorly, instead of considering the reasons behind their behavior.
So what’s the solution? How do we avoid this trap?
First step: realize you’re susceptible to the bias. It affects all of us, no matter how smart or perceptive we think we are. Stay humble and recognize your judgment of others can often be flawed.
Second: put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Pause your knee-jerk reaction of “Wow what a bitch/asshole/idiot” and consider the situational factors that could explain their behavior. What’s going on in their life that you might not be aware of? What circumstances could have contributed?
This doesn’t mean you have to excuse everyone’s shitty behavior. Some people do just consistently suck. But very often there’s more to the story. And giving others the benefit of the doubt can improve your relationships and emotional reactions.
So next time someone is pissing you off, take a step back before writing them off as a shit human being. Consider the context. Realize you could act the exact same way in their situation.
Congrats, you’re now slightly less of a judgmental ass. You’re welcome.
SECOND Russian Nuclear Missile Warning Radar Hit By Ukraine – Also an attempt to hit a THIRD!
For the SECOND TIME, Ukraine drones hit a radar of Russia’s nuclear early warning system, and attempted to shoot a THIRD one, with Moscow expecting a fourth radar station to be hit as well.
The attack upon a SECOND Over-The-Horizon radar inside Russia is an extremely worrying development because it is clearly being done not for Ukraine defense, but rather as a NATO destabilization of the combat command and control system of Russian strategic nuclear forces.
This SECOND attack hit the Voronezh-DM advanced over-the-horizon (OTH) early warning radar system in the Orsk region of Orenburg, 1,800 km from the Ukrainian border.
This second attack happened on May 26 into 27. But unlike the first attack, wherein imagery from the ground was available to me almost immediately, no ground imagery is presently available to me. Instead, all I can show is grainy satellite imagery showing scorch marks on the ground:
As you can clearly see, it is difficult if not impossible to determine if the radar is still functional, but I am told it is NOT.
Russian analysts stress that a new blow from Ukraine should be expected. According to them, the next NATO target is the Voronezh-M radar in Lekhtusi (Leningrad region).
If Kiev hits this particular radar in Lekhtusi (Leningrad Region), then Russia’s defense capability in the northern direction will be reduced. Moscow will lose the ability to detect in time the launch of missiles with nuclear warheads against it and, accordingly, to react quickly to what is happening.
Put simply, the “Blind Spots” that are being created in Russia’s early-warning radar, are making Russia vulnerable to a Nuclear First-Strike attack by the West. The Russians are becoming “sitting ducks.”
Austrian Army Colonel Markus Reisner on the (US) attack on Russia’s early warning radar:
– Almost no significance for the Ukrainian battlefield
– Likely a US-led attack to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent
– “Boiling the frog” strategy to enable first-strike
HAL TURNER ANALYSIS
When I reported the attack upon the first Russia Over-the-Horizon radar (Story Here), I pointed out that the station did not provide coverage in Ukraine. There was no military advantage for Ukraine to have attacked this radar station.
I pointed out that, in my view, the only reason a station like this would be attacked, would be to set the stage for a NATO nuclear first strike on Russia.
Bolstering my belief that it is NATO engaging in attacking these stations is the fact, revealed over the Memorial Day Weekend holiday, that one of the Drones shot down during the FIRST attack, was a “Tekever AR3” Drone. They are made by Portugal! A NATO member country! A FILE PHOTO image of the Tekever AR3 appears below:
With this second radar station having now been hit, and an attempt made on a THIRD radar station, it seems clear to me that NATO is setting the stage for a DECAPITATION NUCLEAR ATTACK against Russia; the idea apparently being “Solve the Russia problem in one fell swoop.”
I may be wrong about the idea, but I am not wrong about the vulnerability being created inside Russia with these particular attacks.
At some point, Russia is going to be in a position where they have a single choice: Use their nukes, or lose them.
I am of the belief that Russia will USE them, because failing to do so, would leave Russia at the mercy of NATO and would thereby be a conquered nation. I just don’t see the Russians putting up with that. The Slavic mentality is “It is better to die on their feet, than to live on their knees.”
In sum, it is we in the West who are constantly upping the ante in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and now we are upping the ante to actual nuclear war. This is not the Treaty Role of NATO, and I know of absolutely no American or even European citizen that has authorized or even asked for Nuclear World War 3.
These dangerous and reckless escalations are being carried out by elements within NATO and these people should be confronted and stopped.
The survival of us, our families, and out way of life, is at stake.
Cool Vintage Illustration
Russian General: “NATO Training for NUCLEAR ATTACKS upon Russia”
Russian Television (RT) and the SPUTNIK News service in Russia are reporting the Border Protection Service sees NATO Training for nuclear attacks upon Russia.
The head of the Border Service of the Russian Federal Security Service told Sputnik about NATO’s nuclear drills near Russia’s borders and explained how guards regularly thwart Ukrainian attempts to infiltrate Russia.
NATO is training to strike Russian territory with nuclear weapons near its borders, the head of the border service of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Vladimir Kulishov, told Sputnik.
“Near the Russian border, NATO’s reconnaissance activities are increasing, the intensity of operational combat training of the alliance’s troops is growing, during which scenarios for conducting combat operations against the Russian Federation, including the launch of nuclear strikes on our territory, are being worked out,” he said.
The top official added that the situation requires “taking appropriate steps to protect and secure our borders.”
NATO is practicing nuclear strikes on Russian territory near the Russian border, head of the Border Service of the Russian Federal Security Service Vladimir Kulishov told Sputnik in an interview.
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) May 28, 2024
Russian border guards together with the Sever Battlegroup have thwarted 29 attempts of Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups to infiltrate Russian territory in the Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod Regions as well as the Crimean Republic since February 2022, Vladimir Kulishov told Sputnik.
Meanwhile, the number of missile and artillery strikes on Russian territory is increasing and drone attacks on Russia’s military, transport, energy and social infrastructure are becoming more intense, Kulishov said, adding that the victims of such terrorist attacks are mainly civilians, including the elderly and children. He also noted that in 2023, more than 5,500 attempts to enter Russia by individuals associated with international terrorist and extremist organizations, as well as special services and armed formations of Ukraine, were prevented.
Downing 1,300 Ukrainian Drones
Russian border guards downed over 1,300 Ukrainian drones that violated the Russian border in 2023, striking more than half of them by means of electronic warfare, the head of the Border Service of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Vladimir Kulishov, told Sputnik.
“Means of combating unmanned aircraft systems have long been used by the border services … In 2023, border guards shot down over 1,300 drones that violated the state border from Ukrainian territory, with more than half by electronic warfare equipment,” Kulishov said.
Means of combating unmanned aircraft systems have long been used by the border services … In 2023, border guards shot down over 1,300 drones that violated the state border from Ukrainian territory, with more than half by electronic warfare equipment,” Kulishov said.”
The development of unmanned aviation and marine systems and anti-drone technologies will remain promising areas of technical equipment for border authorities, he also said.
Since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has destroyed Ukraine’s 23,600 drones, 500 surface-to-air missile systems, 590 military aircraft, 270 helicopters, 15,890 tanks and other armored vehicles, 1,200 rocket launchers, 9,200 field artillery weapons and mortars, as well as 21,400 tactical vehicles, the Russian Defense Ministry said in early May.
The Last Words Spoken By 69 Famous People
1. “I know you have come to kill me. Shoot coward, you are only going to kill a man.” Facing his assassin, Mario Teran, a Bolivian soldier. Ernesto “Che” Guevara
2. Leonardo da Vinci was also overly modest, saying, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
3. According to Steve Jobs’ sister Mona, the Apple founder’s last words were, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”
4. “Go on, get out – last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.” To his housekeeper, who urged him to tell her his last words so she could write them down for posterity. –Karl Marx, revolutionary, d. 1883
5. “KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low.” Last radio communication before her disappearance. Amelia Earhart
6. Frank Sinatra died after saying, “I’m losing it.”
7. George Orwell’s last written words were, “At fifty, everyone has the face he deserves.” He died at age 46.
8. Napoleon’s last words were, “France, armée, tête d’armée, Joséphine.”(“France, army, head of the army, Joséphine.”)
9. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre turned to his partner Simone de Beauvoir and said, “I love you very much, my dear Beaver.”
10. “Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.” – Lord George Byron
11. Rainer Maria Rilke said, “I don’t want the doctor’s death. I want to have my own freedom.”
12. Nostradamus predicted, “Tomorrow, at sunrise, I shall no longer be here.” He was right.
13. Author Vladimir Nabokov was also an entomologist, particularly interested in butterflies. His last words: “A certain butterfly is already on the wing.”
14. Author Herman Melville died saying, “God bless Captain Vere!” referencing his then-unpublished novel Billy Budd, found on his desk after he died.
15. Marie Antoinette stepped on her executioner’s foot on her way to the guillotine. Her last words: “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur.” (Monsieur, I beg your pardon)
16. Richard B. Mellon was a multimillionaire. He was the President of Alcoa, and he and his brother Andrew had a little game of Tag going. The weird thing was, this game of Tag lasted for like seven decades. When Richard was on his deathbed, he called his brother over and whispered, “Last tag.” Poor Andrew remained “It” for four years, until he died.
17. When Harriet Tubman was dying in 1913, she gathered her family around and they sang together. Her last words were, “Swing low, sweet chariot.”
18. When Sir Isaac Newton died, he was humble. He said, “I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
19. Italian artist Raphael’s last word was simply: “Happy.”
20. How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden? – P. T. Barnum
21. Drummer Buddy Rich died after surgery in 1987. As he was being prepped for surgery, a nurse asked him, “Is there anything you can’t take?” Rich replied, “Yeah, country music.”
22. Johnny Ace, an R&B singer, died in 1954 while playing with a pistol during a break in his concert set. His last words were, “I’ll show you that it won’t shoot.”
23. Richard Feynman, a physicist, author, musician, professor, and traveler, died in Los Angeles in 1988. His last words? “This dying is boring.”
24. As Benjamin Franklin lay dying at the age of 84, his daughter told him to change position in bed so he could breathe more easily. Franklin’s last words were, “A dying man can do nothing easy.”
25. Albert Abraham Michelson was the first person to measure the speed of light and was the first American to win a Nobel Prize for physics. Even as he was dying at age 78, he was measuring light. He wrote in his log: “The following is a report on the measurement of the velocity of light made at the Irvine Ranch, near Santa Ana, California, during the period of September 1929 to—.”
26. Thomas B. Moran was a pickpocket, known by the nickname “Butterfingers.” He reportedly stole as many as 50,000 wallets in his career. He died in Miami in 1971, and his last words were, “I’ve never forgiven that smart-alecky reporter who named me Butterfingers. To me, it’s not funny.”
27. Murderer James W. Rodgers was put in front of a firing squad in Utah and asked if he had a last request. He replied, “Bring me a bullet-proof vest.”
28. Charles “Lucky” Luciano was a mob leader who helped the U.S. work with the Sicilian Mafia during World War II in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. His last words were, “Tell Georgie I want to get in the movies one way or another.” And it worked! His life story is told in the movies Lucky Luciano, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, and many more. He also appears as a character in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.
29. John Arthur Spenkelink was executed in Florida in 1979. He spent his final days writing these last words on various pieces of mail: “Capital punishment means those without the capital get the punishment.”
30. Convicted murderer Thomas J. Grasso used his last words to complain about his last meal. He said, “I did not get my Spaghetti-O’s; I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.”
31. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, died at age 71 in his garden. He turned to his wife and said, “You are wonderful,” then clutched his chest and died.
32. Writer T.S. Eliot was only able to whisper one word as he died: “Valerie,” the name of his wife.
33. Actor and comedian W.C. Fields died in 1946. He last words: “God damn the whole friggin’ world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta.” He was speaking to Carlotta Monti, his longtime mistress.
34. Percy Grainger was an Australian composer who, with his dying words, told his wife Ella, “You’re the only one I like.”
35. Actor Michael Landon, best known for Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, died of cancer in 1991. His family gathered around his bed, and his son said it was time to move on. Landon said, “You’re right. It’s time. I love you all.”
36. Football coach Vince Lombardi died of cancer in 1970. As he died, Lombardi turned to his wife Marie and said, “Happy anniversary. I love you.”
37. O.O. McIntyre was an American reporter. He died at age 53, and spoke his last words to his wife Maybelle: “Snooks, will you please turn this way. I like to look at your face.”
38. When he was 57, Edward R. Murrow died while patting his wife’s hand. He said, “Well, Jan, we were lucky at that.”
39. John Wayne died at age 72 in L.A. He turned to his wife and said, “Of course I know who you are. You’re my girl. I love you.”
40. Humphrey Bogart’s wife Lauren Bacall had to leave the hospital to pick up their kids. Bogart said, “Goodbye, kid. Hurry back.” Not quite, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” but close.
41. Before Ernest Hemingway committed suicide, he told his wife Mary, “Goodnight my kitten.”
42. Donald O’Connor was a singer, dancer, and actor. He also hosted the Academy Awards in 1954. O’Connor died at age 78 with his family gathered around him. He joked, “I’d like to thank the Academy for my lifetime achievement award that I will eventually get.” He still hasn’t gotten one.
43. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eugene O’Neill was born in a room at the Broadway Hotel on what is now Times Square. He died at age 65 in a Boston hotel. His last words? “I knew it! I knew it! Born in a hotel room and, goddamn it, dying in a hotel room.”
44. Jack Soo was an actor on the TV series Barney Miller. On the show, there was a running gag about Soo’s character making crappy coffee in the office. Soo developed cancer of the esophagus, and when was being wheeled into an operating room, he joked to Barney Millerco-star Hal Linden, “It must have been the coffee.” In a tribute episode, cast members raised coffee cups in Soo’s memory.
45. Josephine Baker knew how to party. She sang, danced, and acted. She adopted a dozen kids and lived in Paris. On the last night of her life, she left a party being held in her honor, saying, “Oh, you young people act like old men. You are no fun.”
46. Charles Gussman was a writer and TV announcer, who wrote the pilot episode of Days of Our Lives, among other shows. As he became ill, he said he wanted his last words to be memorable. When he daughter reminded him of this, he gently removed his oxygen mask and whispered: “And now for a final word from our sponsor—.”
47. When Groucho Marx was dying, he let out one last quip: “This is no way to live!”
48. Groucho’s brother Leonard, who was better known as Chico Marx, gave instructions to his wife as his last words: “Remember, Honey, don’t forget what I told you. Put in my coffin a deck of cards, a mashie niblick, and a pretty blonde.” For the record, a “mashie niblick” is a kind of golf club.
49. Wilson Mizner is best known for his bon mots, though he was a successful playwright. He’s known for the line, “Be nice to people on the way up because you’ll meet the same people on the way down.” When Mizner was on his deathbed, a priest said, “I’m sure you want to talk to me.” Mizner told the priest, “Why should I talk to you? I’ve just been talking to your boss.”
50. As he was dying, Alfred Hitchcock said, “One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes.”
51. ‘I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.” – Humphrey Bogart
52. Vladimir Ilych Lenin’s last words were, “Good dog.” (Technically, he said “Vot sobaka.”) He said this to a dog that brought him a dead bird.
53. Blues guitarist Leadbelly said, “Doctor, if I put this here guitar down now, I ain’t never gonna wake up.” And he was right.
54. Thomas Fantet de Lagny was a mathematician. On his deathbed, he was asked, “What is the square of 12?” His last words: “One hundred and forty-four.”
55. “I am still alive!” Stabbed to death by his own guards – Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor,
56. Sir Winston Churchill’s last words were, “I’m bored with it all.”
57. Actress Joan Crawford yelled at her housekeeper, who was praying as Crawford died. Crawford said, “Damn it! Don’t you dare ask God to help me!”
58. Bo Diddley died giving a thumbs-up as he listened to the song “Walk Around Heaven.” His last word was “Wow.”
59. Baseball player “Moe” Berg’s last words: “How did the Mets do today?”
60. Emily Dickinson’s last words were, “I must go in, for the fog is rising.”
61. As Truman Capote lay dying, he repeated, “Mama— Mama— Mama.”
62. James Brown said, “I’m going away tonight.”
63. Surgeon Joseph Henry Green was checking his own pulse as he lay dying. His last word: “Stopped.”
64. “I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.” Errol Flynn
65. This is the last of earth! I am content. – John Quincy Adams, US President
66. “Let’s cool it brothers . . .“Spoken to his assassins, 3 men who shot him 16 times. – Malcolm X
67. Blues singer Bessie Smith died saying, “I’m going, but I’m going in the name of the Lord.”
68. “Lord help my poor soul.” – Edgar Allan Poe
69. Beethoven’s last recorded words were “Pity, pity—too late!”, as the dying composer was told of a gift of twelve bottles of wine from his publisher
Do Chinese and Korean people forgive Japan for its atrocities or not?
For this Chinese, NO!
Let me repeat.
NO.
NO.
NO!!!
Yes, let bygones be bygone, the current generation isn’t responsible for past atrocities, Japan is a peaceful nation today.
Yada yada yada.
I am old enough to have heard all these—and more.
It isn’t the Chinese (or in fact, East Asia) that harbor unforgiveness and refuse to move on.
It is the Japanese themselves.
But first, let’s segue to the Middle East, where recent events have brought a century’s worth of monstrous injustice to the fore.
The Brits began the process with the Balfour Declaration, carving up land they did not own for the establishment of a Jewish State. The Two-State solution, itself a massive compromise built on the rubble of colonialism, is still in limbo today.
Why?
The hegemonic power of the United States has hijacked the natural course of history in the Middle East.
Similarly, it is the United States that has hijacked the natural course of history in East Asia, up to the present.
What do I mean?
Imagine Adolf Hitler surviving WWII in a parallel universe. Post-surrender, Adolf isn’t prosecuted, and elevated to ceremonial leader of the German people, if only to preserve the unity of Germany as a counter to the Soviets.
Similarly, Nazi members of the War Cabinet and key administrators of the Third Reich are either pardoned or given slap on the wrist sentences to rehabilitate them for leadership roles in the New Germany. The Nazi flag of the German Navy is retained.
Now, Hitler in the alternate universe survives another 40 years as ceremonial Fuhrer. He toured Germany, making public appearances at special events and ceremonies, giving speeches celebrating societal progress. He also served as Germany’s top ambassador, traveling abroad to meet important world leaders, rebuilding Germany’s diplomatic image in step with its rapid climb up the GDP ladder.
His funeral in old age was the grandest in teutonic history, and took over a month of careful national preparation. Leaders from all over the world were in attendance, and German society came to a standstill, tens of millions lining the street or glued to the live telecast to send their dear Fuhrer on his final journey.
His eldest son, and grandson, inherit the position of ceremonial Fuhrer in succession.
The reign of Adolf is remembered as Germany’s most glorious, bringing the nation to the forefront of humanity, and respect from the world community. German kids are taught history from whitewashed textbooks where Germany is cast as a victim of WWII, and no Holocaust occurred.
Turned your stomach yet?
Replace “Germany” with “Japan” and “Hitler” with “Hirohito”, and we are immediately transplanted to the 20th century.
The real 20th century, only not the Eastern Atlantic but the Western Pacific.
This is STILL the flag of the Japanese Navy today. No longer Imperial, but unbroken traditions nonetheless.
Japanese leaders visiting Yasukuni isn’t the elephant in the room. It is Hirohito on the throne for 58 years and departing as Japan’s longest-serving and most successful Emperor in the history of the Chrysanthemum throne that is a permanent affront to the peoples of East Asia.
It’s a monstrosity that beggars belief.
No Jew would have accepted the parallel Germany described above.
Similarly, no Chinese accepts the perverse course of justice in China-Japan relations over the past 2,000 years, where all the violence—yes, ALL THE VIOLENCE—has been inflicted on the mainland, while the Japanese home islands reaped the benefit of cultural, technological and economic transfer, with little of the benefit flowing back.
If you thought the Nazis vile and inhuman for the systematic extermination of the Jews and Gypsies, words may fail you when the Japanese treatment of the Chinese in the 15-year war (1931–1945) is uncovered. The Japanese killed far more Chinese (tens of millions) than the Germans did Jews, and exhibited depraved, almost insane barbarity.
And yet the average Japanese youth has little awareness of his country’s dark history, because the textbooks teach a parallel Japan since the era of Meiji, presided by moral and wise monarchs whose steady hands guided the peaceful rise of Japan, in direct contrast to the horrific and vile land-grab and colonization that characterized much of their reigns.
What’s there for the foreigner to forgive when the perps have not even come to terms with their past and disavowed a blood-stained chapter of sordid history?
On a final note, the Chinese ceded Taiwan and paid an indemnity of 40m taels of silver (equal to 3 years of Qing tax revenue) after suing for peace in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended an 8-month war. China has not received a single cent of reparation from Japan’s 15-year war waged in China that caused a minimum of 1t (in today’s dollars) in physical damage.
The next time conflict breaks out between China and Japan, the Chinese will make sure it will NOT be fought on the mainland.
P.S.: Japanese whitewashing and glorification of history has a deleterious effect on the future, because unrepentant descendants will look to the past for guidance and seek to emulate the glories of the Showa, Taisho and Meiji eras. Reinterpreting the peaceful Constitution and rewriting it is the first step.
There will be abiding consequences, as a reckoning beckons.
10 ways to get the most out of your time on this planet
Accepting our mortality helps us let go of busyness and focus on what’s most important to us in order to live a happier, more meaningful life.
The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly finite. If you’re lucky and you live to 80, you will have lived about 4,000 weeks. This truth, which most of us ignore most of the time, is something to wrestle with if we want to spend our limited time on this earth well.
Given that, it follows that time management, broadly defined, should be everyone’s chief concern. Yet the modern discipline of time management (or productivity) is depressingly narrow-minded, focused on devising the perfect morning routine or trying to crank through as many tasks as possible, while investing all your energy on reaching some later state of well-being and accomplishment. It ignores the fact that the world is bursting with wonder — and that experiencing more of that wonder may come at the cost of productivity.
When we recognize the shortness of life — and accept the fact that some things have to be left unaccomplished, whether we like it or not — we are freer to focus on what matters.
As a recovering “productivity geek,” I know how it feels to become swept up in the idea of discovering the perfect system of time management. But I was eventually forced to accept that my struggles to achieve a sense of perfect control or mastery of my time were counterproductive, leading not to a life of more meaning but one of more overwhelm and stress. I came to see that I needed to give up the quest for that kind of control, letting go of the impossible goal of becoming perfectly efficient and embracing my limitations instead, so as to make more time for what was really valuable.
Part of that embrace of limitation involves facing the anxiety that comes with acknowledging mortality. When we recognize the shortness of life — and accept the fact that some things have to be left unaccomplished, whether we like it or not — we are freer to focus on what matters. Rather than succumbing to the mentality of “better, faster, more,” we can embrace being imperfect, and be happier for it.
Here are 10 suggestions that I make in my book — Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals — about how to live with your limited time in mind.
Multitasking rarely works well — and you’ll soon find that serializing helps you to complete more projects anyway.
1. Adopt a “fixed volume” approach to productivity
We all need to make tough choices about what we can realistically get done, so that we can prioritize the activities that matter most, instead of reacting to a constant barrage of demands.
One way is to keep two to-do lists — one for everything on your plate, and one for the 10 or fewer things that you’re currently working on. Fill up the 10 slots on the second list with items from the first, then set to work. The rule is not to move any further items from the first list onto the second until you’ve freed up a slot by finishing one of the 10 items.
A related strategy is to set a pre-established time boundary for certain types of daily work — for example, to resolve to write from 8AM to 11AM — and to make sure you stop when time’s up.
2. Serialize
Focus only on one big project at a time. Though it’s alluring to try to alleviate the anxiety of having too many responsibilities or ambitions by getting started on them all at once, you’ll make little progress that way. Multitasking rarely works well — and you’ll soon find that serializing helps you to complete more projects anyway, thereby helping relieve your anxiety.
Strategic underachievement — nominating in advance the areas of your life in which you won’t expect excellence — helps you focus your time and energy more effectively.
3. Decide in advance what to fail at
You’ll inevitably underachieve at something, simply because your time and energy are finite. But strategic underachievement — nominating in advance the areas of your life in which you won’t expect excellence — helps you focus your time and energy more effectively.
For example, you might decide in advance that it’s OK to have a cluttered kitchen while you finish your novel, or to do the bare minimum on a particular work project so you can spend more time with your children.
To live this way is to replace the high-pressure quest for work-life balance with something more reasonable — a deliberate kind of imbalance.
4. Focus on what you’ve already completed, not just what’s left to do
Since the quest to get everything done is interminable by definition, it’s easy to grow despondent and self-reproachful when you can’t get through your whole to-do list. One counter-strategy is to keep a “done list,” which starts empty first thing in the morning, but which you can gradually fill in throughout the day as you get things done. It’s a cheering reminder that you could have spent the day doing nothing remotely constructive … yet you didn’t.
Social media is a giant machine for getting you to spend your time caring about the wrong things — and too many of them at once.
5. Consolidate your caring
Social media is a giant machine for getting you to spend your time caring about the wrong things — and too many of them at once. We’re exposed to an unending stream of atrocities and injustices, each of which might have a legitimate claim on our time and our charitable donations, but which add up to something no human could ever effectively address comprehensively.
Once you grasp that fact fully, it’s good to consciously pick your battles in charity, activism, and politics — and devote your spare time only to those specific causes. Focus your capacity for care, so you don’t burn out.
6. Embrace boring and single-purpose technology
Digital distractions allow us to escape to a realm where painful human limitations don’t seem to apply — scrolling idly around online, you need never feel bored or constrained in your freedom of action, which isn’t the case when it comes to doing work that matters.
You can combat this by making your devices as boring as possible, removing social media apps and, if you dare, email. It’s also helpful to choose devices with only one purpose, such as the Kindle reader. Otherwise, temptations will be only a swipe away, and you’ll feel the urge to check your screens anytime you’re bored or facing a challenge in your work.
When faced with a challenging or boring moment in a relationship, try being curious about the person you’re with, rather than controlling.
7. Seek out novelty in the mundane
Time seems to speed up as we age, likely because our brains encode the passage of years based on how much information we process in any given interval. While children have many novel experiences and time therefore seems slower to them, the routinization of older people’s lives means that time seems to pass at an ever-increasing rate.
The standard advice is to combat this by cramming more novel experiences into your life. That can help, but it’s not always practical.
An alternative is to pay more attention to every moment, however mundane — to find novelty by plunging more deeply into your present life. Try going on unplanned walks to see where they lead you, taking up drawing or birdwatching or playing “I Spy” with a child — whatever draws your attention into the moment more fully.
8. Be a researcher in relationships
The desire to feel in control of our limited time causes numerous problems in relationships, resulting not only in controlling behavior, but also commitment-phobia, the inability to listen, boredom, and missing out on the richness of communal experiences with others.
When faced with a challenging or boring moment in a relationship, try being curious about the person you’re with, rather than controlling. Curiosity is a stance well-suited to the inherent unpredictability of life with others, because it can be satisfied by their behaving in ways you like or dislike — whereas if you demand a certain result instead, you’ll often be frustrated.
Whenever a generous impulse arises in your mind, give in to it right away rather than putting it off.
9. Cultivate instantaneous generosity
Whenever a generous impulse arises in your mind, give in to it right away rather than putting it off. Don’t wait to figure out if the recipient deserves your generosity or if you really have the time to be generous right now (with all of the work you have left to do!). Just do it. The rewards are immediate, too, because generous action reliably makes you feel much happier.
10. Practice doing nothing
When it comes to the challenge of using your 4,000 weeks well, the capacity to do nothing is indispensable, because if you can’t bear the discomfort of not acting, you’re far more likely to make poor choices with your time, such as attempting to hurry activities that can’t be rushed or feeling you ought to spend every moment being “productive,” regardless of whether the tasks in question really matter.
Doing nothing means resisting the urge to manipulate your experience or the people and things in the world around you, and to let things be as they are. You can try the “do-nothing” meditation, where you set a timer for 5-10 minutes and then try doing nothing. If you catch yourself doing something — thinking, say, or even just focusing on your breath — gently let go of doing it.
As you keep letting go, you’ll increase your ability to do nothing and gradually regain your autonomy. You’ll no longer be so motivated by the attempt to evade how reality feels here and now; instead, you’ll learn to calm down and to make better choices with your brief allotment of life.
Neil Armstrong’s Family JUST NOW Confirmed What We Knew All Along
Pickapeppa Roast
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
- 1 (3 to 4 pound) beef chuck roast or Boston butt pork roast
- Scant amount olive oil
- 1 (5 ounce) bottle Pickapeppa sauce
- 1 (7 ounce) bottle beer
- 4 cups brown gravy
Instructions
- Heat oil in large skillet on the stove top over medium-high heat. Brown meat on all sides.
- Put roast into slow cooker. Add Pickapeppa sauce and beer to skillet. Stir to deglaze and cook off some of the alcohol.
- Add brown gravy and stir well.
- Pour sauce over roast and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.
I had a similar experience with my own father. I was amazed, when I grew up, about all the things that other people’s fathers had one with them!
As my younger brother said, our dad was basically just a sperm donor. An alcoholic STO who had no interest in his sons. He’s still alive, barely, and believes that he’s “just gone” when he dies. So, he’ll be back and will hopefully learn something next time.
My mother was pretty useless back then too but has changed significantly since. She wants to get out of here and I obviously have a pre-birth agreement with helping her to do that. Her positive response when I relayed your teachings to her was what made that obvious. She’s even been doing affirmations for a year and a half! I hope that she’ll eventually volunteer to help The Domain.
I intend, when I have kids in the future, to do the same as you and be a supportive father. In fact I’m really looking forward to it.