Been reading this this New York Times bestseller, What Should I Do with My Life? written by Po Bronson. It’s a compilation of stories of real people who answered life’s ultimate question. I must say, it was a compelling and interesting read. I decided to write down some of the passages that most struck me from that book.
“Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever. It is so, so much harder to leave a good thing.”
“Muslim men can have multiple wives. It’s not for the sex. Guys who want sex on the side keep mistresses. The multiple wives is a pragmatic thing. Nobody wants to be alone. So a Muslim’s second wife might be his first cousin, so she won’t be a spinster. It’s a way of assigning responsibility for who is going to take care of people. Everyone is taken care of.”
“I used to think that inner city kids only needed to connect. They needed love and understanding. And so if they were disorderly in class, I would let it go as a way of making them my friend, currying their favor. And they kicked my ass. They abused me. If I gave an inch, they would take a mile. I couldn’t connect to them. They didn’t respond to kindness, they took advantage of it.”
“It’s like that old story: three guys laying bricks are asked why they’re doing it. The first guy says, ‘I’m doing it for the wages.’ The second guy says, ‘I’m doing it to support my family.’ The third guy says, ‘I’m helping to build a cathedral.’ For the first time in my life I was helping to bvild a cathedral.”“Lewis asserted that the strongest of all human drives is the desire to belong to an Inner Ring, an imaginary circle of the important. He warns that this ring is an illusion. No sooner do you crack one ring than you are soon obsessed with joining the even-more-exclusive ring inside that one. Status is like an onion, comprised of endless layers, and no matter how many rings you cracked, you were still on the outside.”
“What do people really want? They want to find work they’re passionate about. Offering benefits and incentives are mere compromises. Educating people is important but not enough. We need to encourage people to find their sweet spot. Productivity explodes when people love what they do. We’re sitting on a huge potential boom in productivity, which we could tap into if we got all the square pegs in the square holes and the round pegs in the round holes. It’s not something we can measure with statistics, but it’s a huge economic issue. It’s a great natural resource that we’re ignoring.”