you have to take responsibility for everything bad that happens to you. And this is a mindset.

Maybe it's a little fake, but it's very self-serving. And in fact, if you can go the extra mile

and just attribute everything good that happens to you to luck, that might be helpful too.

But at some level, truth is very important. You don't want to fake it. From what I have observed,

the truth of the matter is people who work very hard and apply themselves and don't give up and take responsibility for the outcomes on a long enough time scale end up succeeding in whatever they are focused on.

And every success case knows this.

Richard Feynman used to say that he wasn't a genius. He was just a boy who applied himself and worked really hard.

Yeah, he was very smart, obviously, but that was necessary but not sufficient. We all know the

trope of the smart, lazy guy. And I like to harass all of my friends, including Nivie,

that one of the problems I noticed with these guys, you're just operating way below potential.

Your potential is so much higher than where you are. You have to

apply some of that into kinetic. And ironically, that will raise your potential because we're not static

creatures. We're dynamic creatures and you will learn more. You will learn by doing. So just stop making

excuses and get in the ring. You also like Schopenhauer. What have you learned from Schopenhauer or is there anything surprising in his work?

Schopenhauer is not for everybody and there are many different Schopenhauer's. Like he wrote quite a bit and you could read his more obscure philosophical texts like the world is Willen Idea where he was writing for other philosophers, or you could read his

more practical stuff, like on the vanity of existence. He was one of the few people in history

who wrote unflinchingly. He wrote what he believed to be true. He wasn't always correct,

but he never lied to you, and that comes across. He thought about things very deeply. He didn't

care that much what people thought of him.

All he knew was what I'm writing down, I know to be true. He also didn't put on any errors. He

didn't use fancy language. He didn't try to impress you. People call him a pessimist. I don't think

that's entirely fair. I think his worldview could be interpreters pessimistic, but I just read him when I want to

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