Notebook for
Selfienomics a seriously fu_ (Z-Library)
1 The Theory of Relativity
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It felt great to make money for the first time in my life and I strived to make more and more of it— but I was lucky to realize earlier than most people that even money is not enough.
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According to me, life is a balance between making others happy and keeping yourself happy.
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‘If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.’
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Happy people are always consciously or subconsciously doing both.
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When we have too much to do, we end up doing nothing but when we have just a few things to do, we do them.
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‘I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.’
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Our ability to help people is the greatest privilege we have.
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Passion along with social recognition can do wonders. If you look at the bigger picture, it doesn’t matter what their motive is, what matters is that people in need are being helped in the process.
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What is jealousy for one person, can be a networking opportunity for another.
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but affluence is definitely a state of mind. You are rich. Feel rich.
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I’m not suggesting that you stop striving for more. Being grateful is not an excuse to be unambitious.
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Those who are arrogant are satisfied with what they’ve achieved while those who are grateful are satisfied with what they have,
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‘Don’t take life too seriously, no one gets out alive anyway’.
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There are a few people who even apply the negative relative scale positively by using jealousy as a source of motivation to work harder to improve their position.
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the best strategy is to move from negative relative scale to positive relative scale and from the relative scales to an absolute scale.
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When your aim in life is to survive, you can be content being the second worst. But when your aim in life is to excel, then take up more responsibility.
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‘If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’
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Don’t forget, life is a balance between keeping yourself happy and making others happy.
2 Progress Before Perfection
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We don’t have to know it all, but we must take an active rather than a passive approach towards life to make the most of it.
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Ideally, our end goals should be a balance of all three responsibilities. Most people end up ignoring the first and the third responsibility. Ask yourself ‘What are your personal goals?’
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They neglect self- care and divert all the care to their children. This harms not only the parents but the children as well, as they become overly dependent on their parents.
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Yes, entrepreneurs chase their dream and innovate, but you can still be living your dream by working for someone else, as long as your dream aligns with the people you work with.
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If you can’t find a job that makes you happy, find something to be happy about in your job.
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Some people in Category 1 make the mistake of following the work- dinner- TV- sleep routine. They need to change the way they manage their nonwork hours and spend their time working towards their end goals.
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One of the primary reasons our goals don’t materialize is because of indecision.
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We think we hate being told what to do but that is often exactly what we want.
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We won’t always have others to make our decisions for us and there will be a time when we will have to overcome our indecisiveness in order to succeed. ‘Indecision is also a decision’ and it is pretty much always the worst decision we can make. The decision we make to remain confused and not be proactive about our goals will cost us a lot when we look back and realize that all our goals are still unfulfilled.
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too much criticism early on can be very demotivating.
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You will always feel like you need to know a lot more before you can start. You want everything to be perfect. But perfection slows you down.
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After a point, planning is synonymous with procrastinating and is just an excuse to avoid actual action.
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I was procrastinating and was trying to avoid getting into the core of the work, which was the actual writing part.
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I realize how different the book turned out from what I had in mind when I first started writing it. You don’t need to know every step of the process to begin, just focus on the first couple of steps and take it from there.
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Completing these small goals reduces the burden and boosts our confidence, giving you a sense of accomplishment at every step. Nothing is more motivating than success.
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The growth and comfort zone are negatively correlated. The only way to grow as a person is by moving out of your comfort zone.
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The number of demotivating things happening around us is usually higher than the amount of motivating things.
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The greater our vision, the more accountability and regular motivation we need. We can’t reach our long- term vision overnight (there’s a reason they call it long- term).
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Regardless of how big your comfort zone is, you’ll always have a growth and freak- out zone. The potential to learn and grow is limitless.
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Instead we should have a success- driven mindset, ‘What can I do differently to stop failing?
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It is not failure but learning from failure that leads people to success.
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The best part about failure is all the skills you learned in the process and the strength you gain from failing to move forward.
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When you aren’t able to fulfill any of your own dreams, you’re likely to do one of two things— you could either try to stop other people from fulfilling their dreams out of jealousy, or help other people realize their dreams because you understand the importance of dreams.
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Your life will be very fulfilling and satisfying if you see this as an opportunity to coach someone else in getting to where they wanted to be.
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Mock interviews for juniors
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Make a bucket list of your goals.
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you do not categorize your bucket list, then your goals will be limited to your career and your bucket list will be limited to the usual ‘skydiving, travel to different countries….’
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If you aren’t willing to step out of your comfort zone, you’ll never find out what you’re
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In case you have no idea what you want to do, start with what you don’t want to do.
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Log kya kahenge’— these three words have killed more dreams than anything in this world.
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Do whatever you want. People are jerks and are going to judge you anyway.’ The more you worry about what others think, the less you will achieve and the more regrets you’ll have.
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But if you didn’t do it at all, it would be a regret. We regret what we don’t do more than we regret our mistakes.
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Our goal should be to minimize regrets, not minimize mistakes.
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I brought it up since it made me realize how any sort of approval helps us boost our confidence and self- esteem.
3 The F word
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While being underweight may be more socially desirable than being overweight, it can be equally stressful. Discriminating against skinny people is as wrong as discriminating against overweight people.
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we should fight discrimination with equality and not with discrimination.
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The best example would be the media that often goes on to ‘generalize exceptions’ which leads to a one- sided image of the world.
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‘Ideally, you would get to know everyone individually but that’s not possible. We resort to stereotypes because it’s the next best thing available. Stereotyping is an efficient way to categorize crowds of people.’
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on a micro- level every individual must be given the opportunity to break away from the stereotype.
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use the positive relative scale, which leaves no room for discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and religion. These differences are too small if you look at the bigger picture.
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celebrate the similarities and appreciate the tiny differences rather than fight over them.
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may not be right all the time, but I believe that open discussions lead to solutions.
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We need to start talking about menstruation openly
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The opposite of feminism is sexism. If you are not a feminist, you are sexist.
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The extreme feminists complain about the unfair benefits received by men, instead of complaining about the unfair benefits received by both men as well as women.
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has barely breached villages and backward areas but at least people are now talking about women’s rights— and that’s great.
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More often the problem is the differential treatment of genders. Parents and society play the biggest role in how children shape up as they encourage gender stereotypes.
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Parents and society directly and indirectly teach girls to be ‘girly’ and boys to be ‘masculine’.
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children grow up conforming to stereotypes to the point where stereotypes become a reality.
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gender- neutral parenting
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Freedom of choice has become the freedom to choose the wrong thing.
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When you go deeper, you may realize that our choices are based on our perception– the way we think. Our perception is in fact largely dependent on social acceptability— what society considers worthy of accepting.
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We get used to the common and think it’s normal.
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Marwadi weddinvgs
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But the same people would find it disgusting and unethical to eat dogs since it is socially unacceptable to eat dogs
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if our perception is dependent on social acceptability, then what is social acceptability dependent
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We may not hire a prostitute, but we don’t mind watching porn. We may not exploit a 9- year old child at a factory, but we don’t mind buying clothes made by a 9- year old child (# Nike). We wouldn’t steal money from the poor, but we can illegally save tax that may go to the poor.
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Society accepts or rejects choices not because of logic but due to convenience. We are a convenience driven society.
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‘What’s on the inside matters only because of what it makes you do.’
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Clearly there are much more important issues in the world than the nutritional facts of whole- wheat bread (# FirstWorldProblems).
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People tend to be more passionate about the issues they themselves face or see other people around them facing.
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When you discuss realistic solutions to controversial topics, you are bound to be occasionally wrong.
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When women move to a different area or city after marriage, they have to leave their current job. Since companies want to hire long- term employees, they don’t favour unmarried women.
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Veganism (abstaining from the use of all animal- products including dairy products and honey)
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I consider myself to be a mentor, not a role model— who you take advice from but don’t necessarily idolize.
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Everyone loves giving advice. What I find peculiar is that we rarely apply the advice we ask others to apply.
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gap between what you know and what you do.
4 Experiences > Possessions
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don’t let your net worth influence your self- worth.
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To get maximum utility from our money, first we must treat our money as means rather than our end goal,
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it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad.
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We think too much of production and too little of consumption.’
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When it comes to most things in life, and especially money, if you’re not moving forward you’re going backward (# Inflation).
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As important as it is to learn how to manage money, it is more important to learn how to make more money.
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They live far off from work to reduce rent, compromise on food and sometimes even have multiple part- time jobs to save more. This leaves them with little or no time for themselves.
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But if your salary itself is low, as much as you try, your savings will be low.
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use their time on skill- building activities that can make them get into a potentially more lucrative industry for the rest of their lives.
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The problem with getting obsessed with savings early is that it becomes very hard to sacrifice a small amount of savings in the short run,
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I came up with the conclusion that we can save more by valuing things differently rather than compromising on standard of living.
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I saved a decent amount by not valuing conspicuous consumption at all.
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It is basically the type of consumption that is done with the intention of displaying your wealth to others.
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amazing post on Priceonomics about diamonds which I’ve used as inspiration for this topic.
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Diamond rings are supposed to lose 50% of their value the moment you leave the jeweller.
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money is not a substitute for tenderness.’
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When we make any decision (whether it involves money or not), we generally use the ‘opportunity cost’ theory even if we have not heard of the term before.
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Most of us assume that since a physical object like a car will last longer, it will make us happier for a longer time than a one- off experience like a music concert or a vacation, right? Wrong!
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Moreover, we tend to not compare experiences as they are personal, whereas we use a negative relative scale for physical objects.
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lot of us forget that money and time are scarce. Every time you spend your money or time on anything, you are potentially not spending it elsewhere else.
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‘Net Present Value’ (# NPV) that is extremely useful when making any sort of decision.
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Ignoring the moral responsibility of paying taxes, it is not worth evading them even for your own self.
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sunk cost fallacy. ‘The more we invest into something (time, money, and emotions), the harder it becomes to leave it even if going ahead with it has no point to it.’
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There are people who know that they are not in the right relationship. Instead of looking at the time and emotions spent as sunk cost, they carry on because they’ve already invested so much in
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you can only change the way you think about the past. It doesn’t matter where you were, what matters is what you took from it, and where you’re going.
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Every once in a while (maybe 6 months), ask yourself, ‘What am I earning for?’
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All of us spend some amount of money on things we do not value at all.
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Wouldn’t you rather go on a 6- month honeymoon instead of spending on people you barely know?
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Rather than focusing on saving, you should use your energy into trying to get into a more lucrative industry. You can control your savings, but you cannot control your income after a certain age.
5 Stressed Spelled Backwards
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Fitness is a means, while health is the end.
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Health is the food you put into your body. Health is how energetic you feel. Health is how happy you are with yourself. Health is feeling physically and emotionally safe.
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People who give and receive love daily are likely to be healthy.
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‘If there is one vitamin, I would recommend daily, it would be Vitamin L.’
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The high price of health food is making the healthy choice the hard choice.
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What we need to do is start looking at money spent on health food as a second insurance premium.
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‘People are fed by the food industry which pays no attention to health… and are treated by the health industry which pays no attention to food.’
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and I used to eat pasta 5 times a week since that was the only thing I knew how to cook.
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If you have a ‘burning desire’ to be healthy, then say NO to the convenient and unhealthy options. Look at the NPV of your action.
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Fat- free tends to be taste- free, and therefore food manufacturers add sugar to make it palatable.
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Calories are just a number— where they come from or the quality of food is what matters. So for simplicity’s sake, don’t bother making sense out of this.
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The ones to watch out for are saturated fat and trans- fats (they could have called these bad fats, but that would be too easy for us consumers). The good fats are the UNsaturated fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated), which are present in nuts, avocados, and olive oil.
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Carb quality can be assessed by taking the ‘total carbohydrates’ and divide it by the ‘dietary fiber.’ If this ratio is 10 or less, you’ve made a pretty good choice.
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top. What’s inside your food matters more than the ratios.
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It isn’t random. The order of the ingredients is in descending order by weight
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high- fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is used because it is both sweeter than sugar and works as a preservative.
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Just eliminate saturated fats, trans- fats, high fructose corn syrups, and natural flavors.
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THAT overwhelming for you, the simplest thing to keep in mind is that the longer the ingredient list, the worse the product. Try your best to stick to products that have 5 ingredients or
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The lengthy ingredient list is the first red flag. The protein content (2 grams) is too low to justify the high carb/ fiber ratio.
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buy foods without nutrition labels (vegetables, fruits…)!
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Wasting food is better than overeating. The food you’re stuffing yourself with when you’re full is a sunk cost.
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‘You are what you eat. So don’t be fast, cheap, easy or fake.’ But you can occasionally be cheesy.
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That’s why it’s important to make slow changes rather than jumping into a regime at once.
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The people with the strongest willpower not only stop doing something but also stop wanting to do it.
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If you don’t stop wanting it, then chances are you’ll either go back to it or you’ll start to substitute it for something as bad.
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If you’re in a stressful relationship, have an unfulfilling career, or you have exams going on, chances are you’ll take your anger and tension out on a pack of cigarettes or a tub of ice cream (‘ desserts is stressed spelled backwards’).
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why a low stress, happier life is a key to not only good mental health but also good physical health.
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Did you seem to find it different after you increased your exposure to it? It was an acquired taste.
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#GradeB foods is to make the healthy choice, the convenient choice. Conversely, make the unhealthy choice the inconvenient choice.
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if you know you tend to binge on oreos, or bhujia, then why would you keep it close to you?
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Dehydration is the linked with many illnesses and just by improving our intake of water we can get rid of dozens of problems.
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spend a large part of my time sitting on a desk writing on my laptop, my lower back often hurts and I have a tendency to slouch.
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By keeping our head up high, and our shoulders back, we can strengthen our muscles and automatically look more confident and appealing.
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‘Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV. We are sitting ourselves to death.’
6 Second-Degree Happiness
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We don’t value others’ time… and most importantly, we don’t value our own time. Since we don’t value our own time, we don’t ever seem to have time.
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The problem isn’t discipline; the problem is that we don’t value our priorities enough.’
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don’t have time’, try saying ‘it’s not a priority.’ Once you start saying, ‘It’s not a priority’ instead of ‘I don’t have enough time for it’, you will see yourself making different choices.
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Using this ‘priority test’ has helped me budget my time and money better and figure out what my priorities are.
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‘The purpose of time management and getting more done in less time is to enable you to spend more face time with the people you care about and doing the things that give you the greatest amount of joy in life.’
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we don’t do things just for the joy of doing them, but rather seek some tangible benefit.
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We can split our leisure time into 3 parts: doing nothing, pastimes, and hobbies.
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Make the most of most of the days. If you try to make the most of all your days, then you won’t even make the most of some of your days.
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If someone is enjoying his free time by being on Facebook, you may ask ‘Toh phir problem kya hai?’ Problem yeh hai kii free time comes at a cost, the opportunity cost of time.
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remind yourself of the opportunity cost of time.
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The way to convert worthy pastimes into hobbies is by doing things outside our comfort zone. These fall under ‘second- degree happiness’— the sort of stuff which maybe annoying in the moment, but creates a positive memory.
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You can instead be the right person by making use of your leisure time.
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If you love cooking food (become my roommate), you can use Google to learn new recipes of cuisines
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#ConvertWorthyPastimesIntoHobbies
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(foreign films have also been a cheap substitute for my desire to travel).
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Watching sports (mainly cricket) forms a big part of the leisure time for majority of Indian men.
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discussing/ debating/ watching sports is an addiction— a sort of obsession that is preventing us from living our life to our potential.
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I try to make it a part of socializing and watch the games bonding with friends over the game.
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‘Too much undisciplined leisure time in which a person continually takes the course of least resistance gradually wastes a life. It ensures that a person’s capacities stay dormant, and that talents remain undeveloped, that the mind and spirit becomes lethargic and that the heart is unfulfilled.
7 The Wingman Theory
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You may have spent 9 months inside your mother, and you may spend the rest of your life with your spouse, but you’re going to spend every second of your life with yourself.
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Be comfortable being alone.
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There is no reason why you should feel even slightly stupid if you do not like what others pretend to love.’
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The most common approach used by those who value networking is to make connections with as many people as possible when they need them. There are two main problems with this:
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on knowing the right people.
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networking is all about building a relationship before you need it.
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This is why you have to build relationships beforehand so that the person helping you doesn’t feel used and you don’t feel awkward reaching out.
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network around those who are located the closest (# CultureOfConvenience).
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In order to diversify and expand our social network we need wingmen— individuals who help you meet new groups of people.
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‘Become friends with people who aren’t your age. Hang out with people whose first language isn’t the same as yours. Get to know someone who doesn’t come from your social class. This is how you see the world. This is how you grow.’@
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In India, many women are not only financially dependent, but also socially dependent on their husbands. They lose touch with some of their extended family and most of their friends they used to have before marriage.
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Married women have to make a conscious effort to not let go of their friends so that they don’t become dependent on their husband’s network.
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Partners always try to think of ‘us’ and ‘we’ and forget the ‘I’ and ‘me.’
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A lot of relatively happier families are those in which parents talk to the kids about what they did at school; people talk about their hobbies,
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Whenever I go to a house party or for dinner with friends, I try to make a point of talking the most with the person I know the least. This really helps me broaden my network.
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As the organizational structure in companies is getting flatter, the importance of horizontal relationships is increasing.
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The best way to get to know people is by meeting them in different environments and seeing different shades of each other. Meet them outside your office.
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Comparisons kill relationships.
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It’s also easy to settle in an average relationship by looking at those friends who are doing even worse than you.
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Love is not supposed to be comparative.
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Do a few people in your network take up most of your time? It is possible to have 1000 friends on Facebook, but still have a poor network.
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In the first few months of your friendship, you can see the person frequently to build a bond. But after that, reduce daily contact and maintain your bond.
8 Swipe Right
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What I did not learn in these classes was that best investment I can make early in my career is to invest in my personal brand.
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it. You can improve what shows up when you Google yourself by leaving Amazon book reviews.
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Humans tend to be very biased in nature. Once they form an opinion, they try their best to convince themselves that they are right.
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Most of us behave according to how people expect us to behave. When you set a high standard, you feel like you have to meet that standard and you continue reinforcing the first opinion.
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But it is more important to be ‘interested than to be interesting.’
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What we wear influences how people perceive us.
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shows how clothes boost or lower our self- esteem.
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#JustaJoke Sometimes when we want to dress well, we gravitate towards branded items.
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Instead of buying branded clothes to fit in, focus on the fit of your clothes and being fit yourself. When we feel ugly, less worthy or simply put INFERIOR, we buy these brands to make us feel like we are now worthy enough to a part of whatever society we belong.
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Every time we buy something for its status appeal rather than its style or quality, we should question ourselves ‘Am I inferior?
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There is no reason (# BlackFriday #BigBillionDay) to buy anything that makes you look average. Buy a few quality products rather than a lot of ‘junk clothes’ that you don’t look good in.
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This is just a suggestion, just find your own style whether it’s conventional or hipster.
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Paying less for something that doesn’t fit well isn’t a good
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Spending more doesn’t mean dressing up better. Spending strategically makes you dress up better.
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One of the by- products of having credentials is that it increases your credibility.
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The way you present yourself on social media is crucial to not only the way you want your career to go, but also how you want your friends to view you (especially the ones you don’t see often).
9 Hum Hai Naye, Andaaz Kyun Ho Purana?
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As we follow the core principles of love, tolerance, and peace, we must learn when to reject unnecessary customs.
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I would advocate for charity rather than customs.
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What could you do to avoid blindly following everything in your religion?
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The opportunity cost of any money and time you spend on customs is using the same time and money to help a poor, illiterate child.
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We believe in something because we are brainwashed early on in our lives by our parents, society and government.
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(blasphemy is speech that has been outlawed to prevent religion from losing arguments @ God).
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Religion is after all just a belief. None of us are born with beliefs. Everyone is born an atheist.
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‘Is man God- made or is God manmade?’
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They have too many emotions attached to religion. You just cannot out- reason passion.
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Religion gives hope to the poor who don’t have too much to hold onto in life besides hope.
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In fact, there are studies that indicate that suicide rate is higher among atheists than among believers.
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I realized the mistake I was making in relation to my Grandma. I put her in her freak- out zone. Religion was a very important aspect of her life, like a drug that she was dependent on to feel strong, to feel like she belongs to a group, to explain the world and to provide her with hope.
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You have to phase it out, and reduce it slowly.
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It is hard to be an atheist in India. Indian atheists tend to be a frustrated lot since they are forced into believing something that they consider stupid.
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I’ve learnt that many Indian men are becoming atheists. Women are still uncomfortable calling themselves atheists since they are used to letting external factors control their life.
10 India Aaj Kal
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The rest use old fabric, grass, newspapers, and sand. This is more because of customs rather than costs and results in 70% of reproductive diseases being caused due to poor menstrual hygiene.
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a large percentage of people in the working- age group does NOT translate into having a large percentage of people working.
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This mentality of valuing ‘hard’ rather than ‘useful’ is reflected in our day- to- day choices. This also explains why Indians are obsessed with buying diamonds, fasting, and IIMs.
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checking items off our bucket lists by giving ourselves unnecessary challenges— doing one hard thing after the other, without stopping to think whether there is any benefit except an ego boost.
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what is uselessly hard and what is umm… usefully
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Education has 2 main purposes 1) life skills 2) competitive advantage.
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Yes, these things make our brain more agile but what’s the point of mental agility if we cannot apply what we learn in school to our life.
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Moreover, the education system is also very shortsighted and focuses on what to think rather than rather than how to think.
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If we don’t learn how to think, we will find ourselves being functionally illiterate in a few decades.
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While the rich can afford CAs, the middle class get crushed due to the complexity of laws which hinders the growth of small companies.
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Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking.
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Gandhiji had said, ‘Hate the sin. Not the sinner.’ Similarly I believe, ‘Love the virtue. Not the virtuous.’
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In comparison to the rest of the world, Indians have a much larger tendency to get obsessed and become ‘fans’ of parties, teams and individuals.
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The first opinion is everything in sports. Based on the first two months of people watching a sport, they become diehard fans.
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It is fashionable to hold a strong opinion. We’ve been made to believe that a strong opinion is one that doesn’t change.
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As soon as we realize that our strong opinion is wrong, we must change it even if we are labelled as a hypocrite.
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Integrity means being integrated or centered on principles— not on people, organizations or even family’.
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Let us not stick to our beliefs, but rather stick to our values. Let us create an environment that encourages change!
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If you can’t find 5 positives about the party you didn’t vote for, and 5 negatives about the one you voted for then you are either ignorant or biased.
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We prefer to be with those who share the same beliefs, same caste, and same (or more) wealth.
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We respect age, gender and qualifications associated with an individual rather than the personality and character of the individual.
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#ColonialHangover
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But educated Indians abroad as well as in India by and large neglect their responsibility towards society.
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You don’t make positive change by passing hate comments, shouting slogans, and shunning those who are ‘narrower’ minded than you.
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You have to treat people according to where they’ve come from, not where you want them to go.
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Online activism must be combined with real life activism in which we work to change the ground reality.
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‘There are three sides to every story— their side, your side and the truth.’
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Using online time productively is now the most significant form of education.
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Now, I’ve become intellectually curious which is probably the best skill I’ve developed and I try to understand why things are the way they are.
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Why does the death penalty cost more to the government than life imprisonment?
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Successful propaganda by the government coupled with our need to belong has made ‘patriotism’ a societal norm.
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I now assist in providing education to the children of domestic help (euphemism for servants).
11 Death and all his Friends
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The key to happiness is to stop waiting for happiness. Find ways and reasons to be happy, today.
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‘We fall into the trap believing that this day does not matter much given all the days that lie ahead of us.
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See your day as your life… Every day counts and contributes to the end result…
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There are some who take YOLO a bit too seriously, overspend their resources and in about a decade’s time end up regretting it, while there are others who keep waiting and eventually become too old to enjoy their resources. Pace yourself.
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life spent waiting will be full of regrets and unfulfilled dreams. Years from now when you’re about to die, you want to look back at your life with minimum regrets. The first step to reducing your regrets is to embrace death.
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‘Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently’
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‘Papa, can you tell me how I will manage the paper work involved with the property we own after you die?’,
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‘How will I manage the family business once you are no longer there?’
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Why don’t we start asking aging people what their last few wishes are?
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Make use of each day because today’s little moments become tomorrow’s precious memories.
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why do we fail to appreciate people who influence our daily lives?
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Embarrassment and guilt are like cousins.
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Are you going to remember today even five days from now? Create memories. Life is just one gigantic memory. And remember, a ‘small’ bad memory is better than a regular decent memory.
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read books, watched movies, had conversations with diverse people to learn more about the topics I was writing on. I’ve been influenced by many of these sources and