Convincing yourself of BS is the first step along any path leading to bad outcomes. Whether it is 'another donut doesn't matter' or 'customers won't care about this bug' or any other number of self-delusions, constantly failing to reject your own BS will erode your character.
But that's hard to do, considering our minds are natural born lawyers. There is a fine line between confidence and believing BS, one that I can't always find.
Well, going to the gym or learning a new programming language are also hard. Most things that matter in the long run are.
Being honest with yourself is not the same S confidence building. BSing yourself is saying 'my new app will sell a million units'. Being honest with yourself is saying 'if I do x and y, then I can see a market size for my app of a million units. There is risk that this won't happen becaue of z, but I am going to proceed'. If it then fails, the person prone to lying to themsleves will blame everything and anyone else. The person who is honest with themselves will look at the hard lessons and take them on board, and benefit from the experience.
Thinking / talking to oneself is a huge puzzle-space in general because of the self-modifying aspect of it, and not lying to oneself sounds like a great foundational value to keep the entire OS sane.
Not the way I see it. A lie is an intentional untruth. An honest person knows when they tell a lie, whether to themselves or to someone else. To start lying to others, first you have to lie to yourself.
A habitual liar eventually ends up in a whirl of relative truths, justifications and evasions. An effective person must never end up in such a place.
Telling yourself things that are ultimately wrong is OK, as you will eventually learn the truth. It's at the point where you learn the truth that determines whether you will continue to delude yourself or face up to it.
Absolutely not. This is not about others' opinions, which you cannot ultimately control. This is about your own action, which is the only thing you can.
Not really. If you conduct yourself in a way that makes a lie of half-truth seem implausible, then those lies will never catch on.
There are a great many 'trtuhs' about people out there that are actually complete untruths. But they gain traction because they confirm an exiting belief about a person. Presidents are particularly susceptible to that, especially where the lie adheres to an impression of character.
A person who is forthright and honest in their dealings, and consistently hard working and punctual will find that other people gossiping about them will have little effect. This you can control what others think by being of good character.
I've noticed this - the lie only sticks if it seems plausible. People believe that Al Gore said he invented the internet because he's made several fantastic statements, is self-aggrandizing, and while what he did say about his role in shepherding the internet was not unreasonable, it was just a slight overstatement of his role. So instead of getting the credit that he deserves, he gets laughed at.
But different people will hold you to different and often contradictory standards. It's hard to go through life without pissing anybody off. Work too hard and you make others look bad for example.
Also worth noting that people will subconsciously judge you based on all kinds of superficial factors you have no control over. Have the wrong facial features and people will think you untrustworthy, and of course there's skin colour etc.
Well, you can't control individuals perceptions - everyone brings a bias to the table - but you can control the aggregate perceptions by being consistent. The point being that if you are always trustworthy, that fact eventually gets out, and it then doesn't matter what your face is like.
It is the same as Wikipedia being not necessaarily right on every singe detail, but being correct in aggregate. People should aim to be like Wikipedia - not flawless, but reputationally good.
If we define it that way, I agree, but this is not a useful guide, imo. You cannot control your reputation, though of course treating others well should be extremely important.
> Again, there is literally no thing on Earth that can stop you from acting with dignity.
Nothing except serious illness.
Involuntarily vomiting your guts out is not dignified. Being paranoid and acting on your bizarre delusions is not dignified. Ranting on and on about the same things every few minutes because your short-term memory is gone is not dignified.
Maybe your definition is different from mine. Try to apply it the next time you see and smell a homeless person mumbling to themselves in public.
My statement was overly general; when something affects your mind, that's a whole other area - life advice is necessarily useful only to those who can act on it, unfortunately. There are also those who have been so forgotten by society that they have no dignity left, and that's our failing collectively.
However, with something like disease that leaves your mind unharmed, I suppose the dignified way to go is assisted suicide, though honestly I probably wouldn't choose to act with dignity in that situation. Though it's clear that many people do, since assisted suicide is even a topic.
But this maxim is one of the most important that I guide myself by, and the way it's stated really resonates with me:
"Your character can never be essentially injured except by your own acts."
And if it spoke to you too, you should read Marcus Aurelius.