45. It Might Result In Nothing

Doing something you do not know how to do can be frightening. Your goal is to do it correctly and not make a mess of things. You want to be successful, but more importantly, you do not want to fail.

You are worried about your performance because any mistake might doom you to failure. Your actions become rigid and tightly controlled because you are evaluating your every move, judging whether or not it will help you achieve your goal.

44. Temporary And Permanent

A star in the sky seems permanent, for it appears the same each and every night. But it is no more permanent than we are. Like us, it will eventually burn out and die. A blossom on a tree seems temporary, for it might last only a few more days before vanishing. But it is no more temporary than we are. Like us, it is sealed into history for all eternity.

43. A Vague Unhappiness

The way to happiness, he thinks, is this: 1) ask himself what he wants, and then 2) do whatever he has to do to get it. Only when he gets what he wants will he be able to feel happy. In the meantime, he will have to suffer. This is just how it is and how it always has been. And so he works very hard for a very long time and he achieves many things. With each achievement he experiences happiness, but it lasts only for a short time before fading again. So he repeats the process, working even harder to get the next thing he wants. He figures life is just like this, fulfilling goal after goal, and when he has achieved all of his goals, he will finally be happy forever. After all, there will be nothing left to want, and if he has everything he desires, how could he not be happy? But his work never seems to end. There is always something more that he wants, and worse, some things he thought he had attained have now left him. He is stuck in a perpetual state of vague unhappiness that he can neither grasp nor mollify. He keeps struggling with his feelings, with his desires, with himself. Why can’t he just be happy? Why does happiness keep escaping when he works so hard? He starts to wonder if there might be no solution. Perhaps there is no such thing as lasting happiness. Perhaps his efforts have been in vain. As his frustration builds and builds, he begins to hate his work, his colleagues, and even the people he once loved. He begins to hate everything. Sometimes he even hates himself. He believes the world is against him and he sees everyone as his enemy. He soon discovers he has no hope left for anything at all. His final resting place is cynicism, the hatred of life itself.

42. The Heart Of Compassion

Empathy is the heart of compassion. If I cannot empathize with you, then I cannot see what you need and I will not be inclined to help you fulfill that need. And as compassion is action to meet needs, I cannot possibly act from compassion when I cannot empathize. If I can already see that compassionate action is necessary to bring an end to my own suffering, then I must learn how to empathize with everyone I encounter.

41. Like A Common Fool

A sailboat rests on the rocks, its single mast tilted slightly to one side. It has run aground, pushed in during the previous night’s storm. The unmanned boat had been anchored in the harbour, before coming loose in the storm’s harsh winds. It remains perfectly intact, with no visible damage.

People pause along the boardwalk that runs close to the shore to stare at the boat. Some quickly survey the scene before moving on, while others linger or take photos of the misfortune. A cluster of seagulls has boarded the boat and taken possession. A man positions his two children for a picture using the beached boat as the background.

40. The Better Choice

It can be terrifying to choose the unknown. Between an already-tested option and an untried one, more often than not, we want to go with the safe bet.

But what if the safe bet is not actually safe at all — what if it is really the more dangerous option for our current dilemma? With only a limited awareness of the situation, it is difficult not to be deceived. We easily become confused by our existing views and biases. After all, the safe bet was the right choice in the past, and so we believe it must still be good now. We are not able to see the true risk of our options.

39. The Limits Of Responsibility

Where does my responsibility begin and end? I know I am responsible for my actions and everything that is directly caused by them. If I do something that directly harms someone, then I am responsible for that harm.

In many cases, I will not be the sole cause of a particular outcome. But even so, my responsibility is not reduced because responsibility is not quantitative. Either I am responsible or I am not. My responsibility might be shared with others, but this does not exempt me in any way.

38. Impossible To Satisfy

She was getting a lot done. She knew this because she was devoted to her work and she was always busy. Her productivity was higher than it had ever been and her projects were finally moving forward in a big way. Every evening, she would review her efforts and note with pleasure the measurable results she had achieved.

Her progress was impossible to discount, but still she felt she wasn’t doing enough. She kept worrying that her current pace wouldn’t be enough to reach her goals, at least not before she had expended her meagre resources. But when she took the time to map out her progress more carefully, it looked like she was still on track. She would be able to make it as long as she sustained her current effort.

37. A Collection Of Pathways

A frequent companion of the active reader is the reading list. My list is is long, varied, and poorly organized. Entries sometimes include details on a book’s content, but often they are nothing but a title.

My list is, in fact, several lists. I abandon them periodically, starting a new one whenever I feel the existing list no longer suits me. But while I stop adding to the old lists, I never delete them. I hold on to them out of the belief that what interested me once might be useful again in the future. Sometimes this is actually true.