Monday, December 28, 2009

How To Get Awesome, or, those "my brain is a computer" jokes are not at all jokes.

Happy blahblah! Christmas has passed, and as long as you didn't spend the weekend drinken de kerstman onder tafel, you're ready for the New Year. Perhaps you'll make resolutions. But you know those don't work, so perhaps you'll make resolutions knowing that they won't work. Or perhaps you're sick of pessimism, so you're convincing yourself that this is the year that your resolutions will work, and you're making a resolution to keep your resolutions.

Here's my challenge to you: make ONE resolution. You can keep one resolution. You probably can't keep ten or five or three resolutions. Why not? The same reason you can bench press 100 lbs but not 200 or 1000 lbs. Start small. Stay small, until it's second nature. Even do something that's not even that meaningful, but do it! Your willpower is limited, and it's not because you're a bad dude. It's because your brain is subject to the same chemicals etc as the rest of ours.

Super interesting, right? Even willpower, this very "human" thing, is sorta just a basic mechanistic thing that is controlled by your brain.

Also this is neat: a map of how remote places are. Enjoy your days, I'm feeling pretty happy and excited about life, thank you for everything, etc. I have a cold so I may go nap.

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