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My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character

"But this happens everywhere. Cheaters always gripe that others are dishonest. The liar always accuses other people of lying. Parents absolutely lose it when they see their children making the same mistakes they did."

"Watch out for the small things, and the big things will take care of themselves."

Cope as an Essential Life Skill

"In a world where you have instantaneous access to an infinite list of things other people are better than you at, including all the things you pride yourself on, the solution is not to try to escape that information but to practice coping with it."

How to Build an Audience Without Losing Yourself

"If this was where I remained, then perhaps my relationship with music would have blossomed into something incredible. But instead, it went in the opposite direction, primarily because I stopped investing my time into making music, and focused on gaining approval instead."

"Focusing too much on “how I was going to be heard” chipped away at my love for the art, and realizing this, I knew that it was time to step away."

"Instead of trying to get a bunch of eyeballs on my work, I would spend my attention and energy on becoming a better writer and storyteller."

The Art and Science of Spending Money

"If I could just not have to work every day, if I could just be out fishing or hunting or playing golf or traveling, that would be the most wonderful life in the world – they don’t know life. Because what makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. The battle. The struggle – even if you don’t win it."

"People like to mimic others, especially those who appear to be living better lives. Always been like that, always will be."

"There is a paradox here: people tend to want wealth to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality those other people often bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired."

"You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house. But I’m telling you, you don’t. What you want is respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does – especially from the people you want to respect and admire you."

"There is no guide on what will make you happy – you have to try a million different things and figure out what fits your personality."

"If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are."

Ask HN: What are we even chasing?

"The value of family is one of those things that's a huge blind spot for "intellectual-types", but completely obvious to most normal people over the age of 25. It's too easy to think you're above it all, that your intelligence means you must have a higher calling, or that you're Not Like Other People. But it's not true. It takes humility to acknowledge that you're behind the curve in figuring this out, but better to learn it the hard way than before it's too late."