Squandrous

Another principle I discuss is check your reference points. This principle involves carefully considering the motives that are driving our decisions, and examine whether they are driven by the bitter feelings resulting from where we stand in comparisons to others. It is a principle that helps us counteract another force that often sidetracks us: social comparisons. On a wide range of dimensions, from how trustworthy we are to how good looking others find us to be, we often compare ourselves to our peers to evaluate where we stand. These types of social comparisons can lead to irrational behaviors. For instance, we may accept a job offer paying a lower salary than another that pays more but where other people like us make more money than we would. Or we may vote against hiring a new colleague who excels on dimensions we feel we also excel at (such as leadership) because we find him or her threatening.

Accept that there are things in this world we can never explain and life will be understandable.

The shadow-past is shaped by everything that never happened. Invisible, it melts the present like rain through karst. A biography of longing. It steers us like magnetism, a spirit torque. This is how one becomes undone by a smell, a word, a place, the photo of a mountain of shoes. By love that closes its mouth before calling a name.