“I would prefer not to.” - Herman Melville Lots of folks requested this line from Bartleby the Scrivener, and it has been a glaring omission from the OS canon for some time. But I finally had a novel idea about...
No one has ever accused Dostoevsky of pulling his punches. When it comes to life’s struggles, he goes right for the jugular. This makes him something of a bummer when life is going well, but truly invaluable when things get tough. ...
I recently noticed something about bad days. If you check all of the items off your to-do list, it makes no difference whether you did so miserably or with equanimity. The report was written, the project was completed, the dishes...
In the face of an overwhelming, infuriating, almost-paralyzing array of unanswerable philosophical questions, stoicism starts with the most pragmatic one.What can we actually control? Our judgments, choices, intentions, virtues, efforts, and our focus. What can’t we control? Bad fortunes, when and...
Human beings feel the pain of loss roughly twice as acutely as the joy of gains. Find $100, you're up 1 happiness point. Lose the same $100 and you're down 2 happiness points, even though you're in the same absolute...
"I am no bird, and no net ensnares me." - Charlotte Brontë Despite being the daughters of a vicar and growing up in a parsonage, Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë were a wild bunch. At an early age, they demonstrated their...
