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Incorrectly translated, the Chinese word for "crisis" is "opportunity." (It is closer to "danger" + "change point.")
However, the trope becomes a truism because it dismisses our cultural stigma around failure and disaster as debilitation and reorients us toward the possibility of hopeful growth.
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Once you have learned all the options, you make a value judgment.
Your research is new knowledge, and you have to put knowledge to use.
Clever marketing wraps the consumer in minor choice differentiations. Each small decision is a small reflection of you (your taste and values): you shape your identity by choice, and your agency is completed through action.
The consumerist trap is to entangle your shaping of self with commodity selection.
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On your deathbed, you will be grateful for those with you.
But why wait?
Today may be your last, and you can decide to be grateful now for those with you.
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Staying silent and non-reactive will never allow you to shine, challenge yourself, or try something new.
Without risk, you will never be able to feel good or accomplished because not only will no one else know what you’re capable of, but neither will you.
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The ultimate freedom is the realization of your death: you are simply pre-dead, an inevitable corpse.
Instead of clinging to your dead-end job, stagnating in a pool of fear, knowing you are dead already brings you the courage to really live gracefully and fully.
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We seek to receive love. Instead, choose to care deeply and prioritize another: in giving love, you have the love you desire without demanding anything in return.
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To unsubscribe is to opt out. To be able to exit as quickly as you entered. This frictionless training is casually adapted into our daily lives: we unsubscribe from friends, family, spouses, and life.
Controlling our feed extends to avoid discomfort or boredom: when anything is too much, we drop it.
We can instantly refill our lives with novelty. Still, the process is a simulacrum of control: in the act of perceived agency, we soothe ourselves but hold so loosely that carefree choices shape our character over time.
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Winning looks like an event, but it is a process. Winners win and must keep on winning to remain winners.
The horizon of achievement will always stretch beyond, deferring "when" into infinity.
You can always choose now and win a different game.
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Baron Munchausen once pulled himself and his horse out of a swamp by pulling upward on his own hair.
While this fantastical feat is humorous because it is impossible in reality, bootstrapping is precisely what we must do in the spiritual realm: lift ourselves through moxy and determination alone.
(idea from Slavoj Žižek)
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The paradox of looking to others for help is that it creates hurt.
Just as you must decide to help and change yourself, you must choose not to hurt yourself.
Either way, getting hurt or looking for help comes from giving your responsibility to others.
