You don’t always have to do the right thing, or the thing that benefits you. Sometimes you choose the path just because it isn’t the wrong thing. It is a truth of life that you must accept: You are not guaranteed happiness. You are not guaranteed success. You don’t always get to be the hero.

But god damn, you can try your hardest not to be the villain. You can avoid the path that leads to misery and despair, in yourself and in others. If you manage that, and the path you take instead just leads nowhere, then so be it. Take those steps, hard as they might be, endlessly as they might stretch out before you. It’s hard, and there may be no reward. Do it anyway.

When trying to discover things that are true, you’ll find yourself against many opponents, internal and external.

Externally, you’ll find yourself opposed by anyone who has a stake in the lie, anyone who’s simply confused, and anyone who is simply more distracting than the truth you’re seeking.

Internally, you’ll be opposed by confirmation bias, the limits of your own curiosity, and the comfort of the lie that makes you happy.

The more you get angry at any of this, the more vulnerable to all of it you become. Stay humble, stay calm, stay curious. The truth is in those traits.

If you try to spear one fish when there’s only one to spear, you’ll get it. But try to spear one fish when there are many, and you’ll get none. When there are many, you use a net, and you’ll get most; only a few will get away. But if you use a net when there’s only one, that one will be the one that gets away.

We need focus for some things, and big sweeps for others. Count the fish, pick the tool.

Evil, in all its forms, should be discussed. Light is the great disinfectant, and knowledge is the lantern. When we refuse to even discuss evil for fear that the discussion itself will cause harm, we allow actual evil the space it needs to cause far greater damage. You can, and should, be respectful and tactful in your discussions, of course. You shouldn’t use this as a backdoor to simply be edgy for its own sake, and you should call out those who do. But you should never give evil the shield of silence it so desperately craves.

Today I heard a great mental model for what to do when facing an unexpected problem, emergency, or disaster. The acronym for it is “VIP,” which I like because it also reminds you that hey, you’re still a very important person even if you’re in some trouble!

Step 1: Vent. Blow off the steam. Clear your emotional cache so you can think clearly. Voice what happened to you out loud, even if only to yourself. Just sweep the table.

Step 2: Improve. How can you improve the current situation? Don’t worry about getting mad or sad or anything else. You voiced your emotions in step 1, but now you need to triage. What can you do right now that will actually stop the bleeding?

Step 3: Prevent. Okay, the immediate emergency is handled. Now, don’t just walk away! What can you do to prevent this from happening again in the future? Was there a critical error you can document so as not to repeat? Was there a structural weakness you can fix?

I love this. Any model that makes emergencies less dramatic is a welcome addition. And hey – you’re important enough to deserve it!

Things must come and go as they will. All the tightest grip in the world will not keep a moment of happiness that is ended, but it can crush the life from the memory. Better to use all your strength to live, than to keep living.

Humans invent things. Sometimes we invent terms for things, or ways to measure things. But those are different from Things In Themselves.

For instance, humans invented weeks, but we merely named days. There is such a thing as a “day,” independent of humans. The Earth will spin its spin, half in shadow and half in light, whether we observe it or not. But a “week” is merely an arbitray grouping of repetitions of that process that we’ve named after old gods to help us organize when brunch with Margaret is.

We didn’t invent whales, though we invented the concept of calling them “whales,” and categorizing them as mammals, etc. There would be whales without us, but that would not be their name.

If you are a leader, part of your job is inspiring other people to be leaders as well. You can measure the success of a leader by how many people they’ve helped move into leadership themselves – or how few.

Some leaders work themselves half to death in order to spare their teams the slightest bit of discomfort. They stress until midnight, burning the candle at both ends. They think they’re helping their people by shielding them, but the reality is that their growth is hindered. So is yours, if you do this. If your team looks at you and thinks that your job (or life!) is miserable, then none of them will want the mantle of leadership, and you’ll be stuck where you are forever.

This means yes, you should brag a little. You should enjoy the perks a little. You shouldn’t take advantage and you shouldn’t make it all about status or personal benefits, but use your parking space! Delegate and take a vacation! Stand up and take a bow when it’s appropriate!

You want your people to look at you and say, “That will be me someday.” You want to do good work, help your people, and be an inspiration. If you’re overworked and miserable, then you aren’t one.

When you’re in the lead, you should expect every trick in the book to be thrown at you. Your competition can and will bring it all to the table.

In some cases, it’s quite fair. Many games and competitions have rules that specifically handicap the leader(s) as a way of keeping the contest competitive and engaging. Sometimes, it’s not fair at all – but you should expect it either way.

Part of the price of being in first place is that whatever game you’re playing becomes harder, simply by virtue of the competition looking for every possible advantage against an opponent who might beat them otherwise.

Forget about whether it’s fair or not. Just be ready for it.

Everything you interact with, whether it’s a person, a concept, a location, anything – changes you. And, if things are working correctly, you change that thing as well. You change a group by joining it, and it changes you. You change a workplace by working there – and it changes you.

This is how people grow and evolve, and it’s a good thing.

But.

Be careful when the changes are flowing too unevenly. In some cases, you should expect (and want!) to be changed more than the reverse. If you’re reading a book, you’re probably changing it very little but you might want to be changed quite a bit by what you learn. If you’re teaching a young person how to do something, you might expect to be influencing more change in them than the reverse.

But be cognizant of that. Know that the things you absorb change you, they don’t just get stored. And the things you teach change the other entity. Don’t do any of it without consideration.