The author is flat out wrong. The Hedonic Treadmill has been disproven. Moreover, the author seems to be conflating the concept of the treadmill, with adaptation. The former denotes the subject returns to the original state. The latter recognizes that while we become accustomed to new things, we still improve in happiness.
The author is also misquoting, or misunderstanding, Kahneman. Kahneman isn't talking at all about the treadmill. He's talking about what he called the "Focusing Illusion"-- a fancy way of saying "the grass is always greener on the other side..."
Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis.
>'Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis.'
Uh... what that Edge article you are linking shows is that 'experienced happiness' which he thought would be a better measurement of happiness than life satisfaction is even more immune to your life circumstances:
>"This was the first of many such findings: income, marital status and education all influence experienced happiness less than satisfaction, and we could show that the difference is not a statistical artifact. "
This only strengthens the OP's opinion...
He does tell us at the end of the article that GDP correlates with the happiness levels of countries. But that doesn't really detract from the OP's reasoning. (Who knows if that's even causative, instability & war could cause both GDP & happiness to drop.)
Even the study you are linking suggests revisions, and is far from 'disproving' the hedonic treadmill theory.
> The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago.
The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%.
nope nope nope
exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exercising and diet are probably _the most_ influential on our chemistry which in turn influences mood and happiness.
also not sure why all these things were lumped in together and how they could possibly calculate the 7% increase considering there is such a wide range of diets and exercise plans. Seems hyperbolic
And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it.
And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and get a 1.07^4 = 1.31 or 31% increase in happiness.
I was having an internal tug-of-war about whether to visit the gym when I read this comment. Although I knew this already, this just gave the activation energy to get out of my chair and out the door. Thanks!
"The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago."
Can someone explain to me what their definition of "standard of living" is in this context?
I get that they might have access to cleaner water, but surely easy access to food prepared for you and having a roof over your head in a snowstorm would sound really appealing to someone without a home.
(Maybe I need to know what they use as the definition of "homeless"...)
10,000 years ago, we were living in a pre-agricultural society (or, perhaps, only somewhat agricultural) Lots of wandering tribes, moving around following the food, hunting with sharp rocks. Hunger and starvation would be common, everything would be scarce, even for "kings" (which were really just tribal leaders) Modern construction wasn't a thing, dwellings were constructed out of sod, animal skins -- at the best, stacked rocks or mud bricks. As a king, you'd still have to do back-breaking, dangerous work to maintain your position and value in society.
There's no possibility of going to a homeless shelter to get out of the cold, or sleeping in a well-constructed subway station to shield yourself from the elements. If you were injured, you couldn't just walk into a nearby emergency room with a team of nurses and doctors required to treat you. No soup kitchens or food pantries or SNAP benefits. Even digging around in a city garbage can or restaurant dumpster would yield an easy and delicious feast compared to spending days tracking prey, killing it with a spear, cleaning and skinning it, and cooking it with primitive tools over a fire. I would much rather be homeless today than in any sort of position 10,000 years ago.
Not Manhattan, but I work in a ritzy part of downtown Chicago and see homeless people literally eating garbage from dumpsters now and again. Yeah, I think the richest kings of Europe were doing a little better than that.
I don't think the author understands what homelessness really looks like in dense urban areas and seems to have a Hollywood version of homelessness as his reference.
Yeah, I can't see how that could possibly be true. Kings would have had access to huge amounts of man power. People to build their castles and supply them with food.
I suppose you could argue that the homeless person might have better access to healthcare. But I still think the author's statement is very false.
" Material standard of living can be seen in the increase of real incomes that would increase the purchasing power of consumers, and is characterized by the ability to consume goods and services. Non-material standard of living is more qualitative, and refers to the improvements in quality of life and the environment."
So (assuming that's the same definition they used) yeah, I guess the material standard of living is higher. Seems like that's ignoring quite a bit to sound really optimistic though.
So I'm not sure I agree with the original author but a modern homeless person can wander into a hospital emergency ward and get treated for a variety of diseases that would have killed a medieval king. Assuming we mean 1,000 years ago and not 10,000 years ago which may actually pre-date kings.
I'm equally confused. I wonder if he meant to say 10,000?
My understanding of human history pretty much stops at what we all learned about Egypt in history class, and that time period was ~6,000 years ago IIRC. I have no concept whatsoever of what life was like before then.
The claim that losing weight won't make someone happier always surprises me. To be sure, there are those who have deep seated issues that won't be solved by losing weight, or for those who lose a little it won't make a big difference, but I can state with confidence the fact that I am happier and my quality of life is better for having lost weight. Just getting better sleep (and not needing a CPAP to do it) has made a world of difference for me. Anecdotal, I know, but still.
I think that point needed to be deconstructed (by the author of the article) in a lot more detail. It strikes me as both obviously true in many ways but also obviously false in many other ways.
It is obviously true that losing weight won't make you feel any better about being stuck in a shitty marriage, or a job you hate, or being estranged from your parents, or any number of other things that can cause deep-seated unhappiness.
It is also obviously true that losing weight will make you feel better physically, and probably result in you being treated better by most of the people you interact with face-to-face on a daily basis. Being treated better by people definitely makes me feel happier.
On that note, I should really go to the gym more often.
"The top 1% own 48% of global wealth, but even they aren’t happy. A survey by Boston College of people with an average net worth of $78m found that they too were assailed by anxiety, dissatisfaction and loneliness. Many of them reported feeling financially insecure: to reach safe ground, they believed, they would need, on average, about 25% more money. (And if they got it? They’d doubtless need another 25%). One respondent said he wouldn’t get there until he had $1bn in the bank." [0]
>>But sunshine after sunshine is correlated with nothing.
>> Because if every day was warm and sunny, you would get use to it.
That seems really really wrong. I see they cite studies but it just finally got warm and sunny here after a long cold winter and it feels, well, happy :-) Maybe, just maybe, if it was sunny all the time I'd get used to it. But some days wouldn't be sunny, or I'd travel someplace with no sun, or people would visit and say how awesome the weather is... I dunno, I'd be reminded all the time how awesome it is. Or I'd complain because there's no rain and everything is dry and dead and we're running out of water... damn hedonic treadmill.
Moved to the Peninsula from Chicago a couple years ago after becoming increasingly fed up with and depressed by winter (despite trying to "medicate" with a full-spectrum lamp).
Everyone I knew commented on how much happier I seemed. Sure some of that may have been job-related, but it is amazing how much I notice it every day, even a couple years later now.
The most noticeable thing for me in my day-to-day is that I no longer feel guilty during nice days when I just want to chill inside and play a computer game or something. In Chicago, since there were only a handful of truly gorgeous days per year, I'd have immense guilt. The flip side is that I need to motivate myself more to go outdoors, but because I can garden pretty much year round, I have an enjoyable hobby that keeps me outside.
Sure, some days I get a bit tired of the sun (particularly when we have heat waves), but the lack of humidity means I can usually hide in the shade and be fine, which can't be said of Chicago in it's 100% humidity summers.
I'm not sure if I'll ever get to a point where I take it for granted because it energizes me. However I do appreciate and look forward to a good rainy day which we rarely get. I even sat outside on my deck in the rain at one point because it felt so nice.
Honestly--I don't miss winter. If I want snow I'll drive to Tahoe. We get a gorgeous extended fall, and those three are enough seasons for me.
I'm fortunate to commute on 280 (vs. 101) and driving home in the evening I get to watch the hills go from a peaceful lush green in the winter/spring to a glowing gold in the summer and fall as the sunset lights them up. It really is something to watch the landscape change like that, and I certainly don't miss the ugly stage of black slush and dangerous white out conditions I lived through in Chicago.
I've lived very close to the equator for a couple of decades. I never had to care about weather forecasts at all, because I alway knew what the weather would be like: 30 degrees celsius (86F), +/- a couple of degrees. Sunny. Too hot under direct sunlight, but completely fine under a tree shade even at noon.
If anything, you get fed up with the single season and will welcome rainy days. There is this mountain nearby that was hugely popular because it was a few degrees colder. So I guess even nice beaches under perfect weather get boring, given enough time.
I live in LA. The last time I noticed myself wanting a change in the weather was a rare day when it was overcast AND I was bored. I realized that it wasn't that I wanted more interesting weather, it was that I was bored, and interesting weather is interesting.
Most days I have at least one moment where I love the weather.
Where I live, everyone celebrates the start of winter (because they're tired of summer), and then then start of summer (because they're tired of winter).
My favorite part of winter is, a warm fire literally never feels better than when it's freezing outside.
I've read the claim over the years that plastic surgery actually defies the usual reasoning of the hedonic treadmill. Those having plastic surgery tend to stay more-happy over an indefinite period of time.
I've got impression that the author has somehow conflated adaptation to pleasure and monotonicity. Adaptation doesn't imply that people will always want more stuff, monotonicity [0] does.
What adaptation implies is that all gains in subjective happiness are short-term gains. Hence the "treadmill" image: though striving forward, people go nowhere.
It's not a treadmill, it's a ladder, even if it's a small step at a time. I bet people will be less happy if they follow the advice and stop seeking more happiness.
preaching to the choir. happiness is the derivative of circumstance thus ultimately unachievable. Unless you can sustain exponential growth in your current circumstance. Option two, hop on a sinusoid, and sometimes you will be happy and sometimes you wont.
In addition to the other criticisms in the comments,
> The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago.
I'd be curious to see how chronic pain fits into the equation.. I developed a fairly severe neuralgia and it dropped my quality of life about 3 or 4 points on a 1-10 scale.
What strikes me about the article is that a gratitude journal is recommended because of its effect, with no real discussion of the cause of the increased happiness. What could possibly explain a strong, common desire regardless of life-circumstances to thank an external source for the good things in our lives? If we're merely products of genetic mutation, this seems like a very bizarre psychological phenomenon.
The Hedonic Treadmill may be a phenomenon but it can be rendered irrelevant to your decision making process with a couple simple guiding principles which many people actually do in practice (some don't but it is an overgeneralization to say everyone does this so don't try to make more money). Principle 1: All Raises Go to Savings (invest those in whatever suits your risk tolerance). Principle 2: Begin With The End In Mind. The end of course is the end of working life (free to do more work of course if you so choose beyond a certain point). If you want to be financially independent at age 50 plus or minus 10 years you need a high net worth, so ensure that these savings habits result in a high net worth (definitions of high net worth of course vary). Kind of tired of hearing about the hedonic treadmill at this point.
This is such a terrible argument, even by its own data.
For instance:
"The good-looking are on average 7% happier than the bad-looking."
...from which it draws the conclusion that being beautiful doesn't make much of a difference. But 7% doesn't seem like a small difference at all. Spending hundreds of hours for a 7% improvement doesn't seem like such a terrible deal to me. Of course it's a bad deal if that's time you're taking from other things that make you happy. But exercise, for instance, has the benefit of improving your health and creating happiness in its own right.
Likewise the fact that 30% of unemployed feel 10% less happy years after becoming employed again. A 10% reduction in happiness doesn't seem minor at all.
I guess if you have some absurd expectation, like some notion that a simple intervention will make you twice as happy, you'll be disappointed by the effects of all these various things. But a lot of these changes are pretty substantial, and they're not even taking into account things that I would expect to really affect happiness--professional accomplishment, one's love life, etc. People are complicated, happiness is complicated, and of course no single thing is going to instantly grant you contentment. That's no reason not to work for small improvements; the small improvements add up.
And I think this kind of fatalism is really pernicious, akin to writing arguments that suicide is a good idea or that heroin actually isn't very dangerous. Most people are sensible enough to dismiss them, but others develop this feeling of learned helplessness which really harms them. The authors arguing this are always hypocrites; they know that they'd be unhappy living on the street, that's why they keep going to work every day. But they're perfectly happy to confuse and harm others with their disingenuous rhetoric.
> But exercise, for instance, has the benefit of improving your health and creating happiness in its own right.
That and losing weight. I honestly believe that many don't understand the effects of being obese (or even overweight) because they've been that way for so long, they've forgotten what healthy feels like. I for one didn't realize it until I lost the weight and no longer needed a CPAP to sleep through the night.
And, if I may: what does 7% happier, 20% increase in life satisfaction exactly mean anyway? My 5% might be or feel very different than someone else's.
See, I have a hard time with all this self-help stuff. What's so difficult about it that needs hundreds of books and blogs to be expounded?
You either want to do something or you don't. Be grateful for what you have and try to improve a little at a time. Remember that everyone is out to get money from you. Try really hard not to be an asshole.
Seems like common sense to me, and everything else feels like a lot of unnecessary junk.
[+] [-] anotherhacker|10 years ago|reply
The author is also misquoting, or misunderstanding, Kahneman. Kahneman isn't talking at all about the treadmill. He's talking about what he called the "Focusing Illusion"-- a fancy way of saying "the grass is always greener on the other side..."
Relevant links:
"Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being" http://www.factorhappiness.at/downloads/quellen/S9_Diener.pd...
Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis.
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056
Kahneman's paper where that OP misquotes Kahneman from:
http://psiexp.ss.uci.edu/research/teaching/Schkade_Kahneman_...
[+] [-] Simp|10 years ago|reply
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056
Uh... what that Edge article you are linking shows is that 'experienced happiness' which he thought would be a better measurement of happiness than life satisfaction is even more immune to your life circumstances:
>"This was the first of many such findings: income, marital status and education all influence experienced happiness less than satisfaction, and we could show that the difference is not a statistical artifact. "
This only strengthens the OP's opinion...
He does tell us at the end of the article that GDP correlates with the happiness levels of countries. But that doesn't really detract from the OP's reasoning. (Who knows if that's even causative, instability & war could cause both GDP & happiness to drop.)
Even the study you are linking suggests revisions, and is far from 'disproving' the hedonic treadmill theory.
[+] [-] shermablanca|10 years ago|reply
It was here that I stopped reading.
[+] [-] SonicSoul|10 years ago|reply
nope nope nope
exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exercising and diet are probably _the most_ influential on our chemistry which in turn influences mood and happiness.
also not sure why all these things were lumped in together and how they could possibly calculate the 7% increase considering there is such a wide range of diets and exercise plans. Seems hyperbolic
[+] [-] and-can|10 years ago|reply
And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and get a 1.07^4 = 1.31 or 31% increase in happiness.
Isn't that GOOD? I'd say that's AWESOME.
[+] [-] nvader|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conceit|10 years ago|reply
Do you mean jagged, as in jagged edge? That is how new words are born, people accept it as if words wouldn't have to mean anything.
[+] [-] neogodless|10 years ago|reply
Can someone explain to me what their definition of "standard of living" is in this context?
I get that they might have access to cleaner water, but surely easy access to food prepared for you and having a roof over your head in a snowstorm would sound really appealing to someone without a home.
(Maybe I need to know what they use as the definition of "homeless"...)
[+] [-] erroneousfunk|10 years ago|reply
There's no possibility of going to a homeless shelter to get out of the cold, or sleeping in a well-constructed subway station to shield yourself from the elements. If you were injured, you couldn't just walk into a nearby emergency room with a team of nurses and doctors required to treat you. No soup kitchens or food pantries or SNAP benefits. Even digging around in a city garbage can or restaurant dumpster would yield an easy and delicious feast compared to spending days tracking prey, killing it with a spear, cleaning and skinning it, and cooking it with primitive tools over a fire. I would much rather be homeless today than in any sort of position 10,000 years ago.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|10 years ago|reply
I don't think the author understands what homelessness really looks like in dense urban areas and seems to have a Hollywood version of homelessness as his reference.
[+] [-] ChrisDutrow|10 years ago|reply
I suppose you could argue that the homeless person might have better access to healthcare. But I still think the author's statement is very false.
[+] [-] blakesterz|10 years ago|reply
So (assuming that's the same definition they used) yeah, I guess the material standard of living is higher. Seems like that's ignoring quite a bit to sound really optimistic though.
[+] [-] guyzero|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gthtjtkt|10 years ago|reply
My understanding of human history pretty much stops at what we all learned about Egypt in history class, and that time period was ~6,000 years ago IIRC. I have no concept whatsoever of what life was like before then.
Were there even "kings" 10,000 years ago?
[+] [-] CPLX|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanoli|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npsimons|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metaphorm|10 years ago|reply
It is obviously true that losing weight won't make you feel any better about being stuck in a shitty marriage, or a job you hate, or being estranged from your parents, or any number of other things that can cause deep-seated unhappiness.
It is also obviously true that losing weight will make you feel better physically, and probably result in you being treated better by most of the people you interact with face-to-face on a daily basis. Being treated better by people definitely makes me feel happier.
On that note, I should really go to the gym more often.
[+] [-] brianlweiner|10 years ago|reply
So a core element of this post may not even be an actual phenomenon.
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469954 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289759/
[+] [-] allisthemoist|10 years ago|reply
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-...
[+] [-] blakesterz|10 years ago|reply
That seems really really wrong. I see they cite studies but it just finally got warm and sunny here after a long cold winter and it feels, well, happy :-) Maybe, just maybe, if it was sunny all the time I'd get used to it. But some days wouldn't be sunny, or I'd travel someplace with no sun, or people would visit and say how awesome the weather is... I dunno, I'd be reminded all the time how awesome it is. Or I'd complain because there's no rain and everything is dry and dead and we're running out of water... damn hedonic treadmill.
[+] [-] shostack|10 years ago|reply
Everyone I knew commented on how much happier I seemed. Sure some of that may have been job-related, but it is amazing how much I notice it every day, even a couple years later now.
The most noticeable thing for me in my day-to-day is that I no longer feel guilty during nice days when I just want to chill inside and play a computer game or something. In Chicago, since there were only a handful of truly gorgeous days per year, I'd have immense guilt. The flip side is that I need to motivate myself more to go outdoors, but because I can garden pretty much year round, I have an enjoyable hobby that keeps me outside.
Sure, some days I get a bit tired of the sun (particularly when we have heat waves), but the lack of humidity means I can usually hide in the shade and be fine, which can't be said of Chicago in it's 100% humidity summers.
I'm not sure if I'll ever get to a point where I take it for granted because it energizes me. However I do appreciate and look forward to a good rainy day which we rarely get. I even sat outside on my deck in the rain at one point because it felt so nice.
Honestly--I don't miss winter. If I want snow I'll drive to Tahoe. We get a gorgeous extended fall, and those three are enough seasons for me.
I'm fortunate to commute on 280 (vs. 101) and driving home in the evening I get to watch the hills go from a peaceful lush green in the winter/spring to a glowing gold in the summer and fall as the sunset lights them up. It really is something to watch the landscape change like that, and I certainly don't miss the ugly stage of black slush and dangerous white out conditions I lived through in Chicago.
[+] [-] outworlder|10 years ago|reply
I've lived very close to the equator for a couple of decades. I never had to care about weather forecasts at all, because I alway knew what the weather would be like: 30 degrees celsius (86F), +/- a couple of degrees. Sunny. Too hot under direct sunlight, but completely fine under a tree shade even at noon.
If anything, you get fed up with the single season and will welcome rainy days. There is this mountain nearby that was hugely popular because it was a few degrees colder. So I guess even nice beaches under perfect weather get boring, given enough time.
[+] [-] RangerScience|10 years ago|reply
Most days I have at least one moment where I love the weather.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|10 years ago|reply
My favorite part of winter is, a warm fire literally never feels better than when it's freezing outside.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|10 years ago|reply
This is the best survey I could google-up;
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hollywood-phd/201403/do...
[+] [-] frostburg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tpeo|10 years ago|reply
What adaptation implies is that all gains in subjective happiness are short-term gains. Hence the "treadmill" image: though striving forward, people go nowhere.
Maybe I've got the wrong impression.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotone_preferences
[+] [-] return0|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danharaj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leecarraher|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darawk|10 years ago|reply
> The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago.
That statement is pretty clearly silly and false.
[+] [-] EricDeb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unit91|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ASpring|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aethos|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajcarpy2005|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karlb|10 years ago|reply
And the whole book is precised in the following eight-minute rap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyryRRYty4Y
(I find the visuals distracting and unhelpful.)
[+] [-] jonbarker|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maldusiecle|10 years ago|reply
For instance: "The good-looking are on average 7% happier than the bad-looking."
...from which it draws the conclusion that being beautiful doesn't make much of a difference. But 7% doesn't seem like a small difference at all. Spending hundreds of hours for a 7% improvement doesn't seem like such a terrible deal to me. Of course it's a bad deal if that's time you're taking from other things that make you happy. But exercise, for instance, has the benefit of improving your health and creating happiness in its own right.
Likewise the fact that 30% of unemployed feel 10% less happy years after becoming employed again. A 10% reduction in happiness doesn't seem minor at all.
I guess if you have some absurd expectation, like some notion that a simple intervention will make you twice as happy, you'll be disappointed by the effects of all these various things. But a lot of these changes are pretty substantial, and they're not even taking into account things that I would expect to really affect happiness--professional accomplishment, one's love life, etc. People are complicated, happiness is complicated, and of course no single thing is going to instantly grant you contentment. That's no reason not to work for small improvements; the small improvements add up.
And I think this kind of fatalism is really pernicious, akin to writing arguments that suicide is a good idea or that heroin actually isn't very dangerous. Most people are sensible enough to dismiss them, but others develop this feeling of learned helplessness which really harms them. The authors arguing this are always hypocrites; they know that they'd be unhappy living on the street, that's why they keep going to work every day. But they're perfectly happy to confuse and harm others with their disingenuous rhetoric.
[+] [-] themodelplumber|10 years ago|reply
Well, we don't want to moralize or anything. (Because somehow drawing shaky conclusions from perfectly good data is worlds better than moralizing...)
Like one of those corny people who tells you to keep a gratitude journal. Let's not be that guy.
But you should _really_ keep a gratitude journal.
[+] [-] npsimons|10 years ago|reply
That and losing weight. I honestly believe that many don't understand the effects of being obese (or even overweight) because they've been that way for so long, they've forgotten what healthy feels like. I for one didn't realize it until I lost the weight and no longer needed a CPAP to sleep through the night.
[+] [-] kidmenot|10 years ago|reply
See, I have a hard time with all this self-help stuff. What's so difficult about it that needs hundreds of books and blogs to be expounded?
You either want to do something or you don't. Be grateful for what you have and try to improve a little at a time. Remember that everyone is out to get money from you. Try really hard not to be an asshole.
Seems like common sense to me, and everything else feels like a lot of unnecessary junk.
[+] [-] amelius|10 years ago|reply
Or you could just choose uglier friends :)
[+] [-] acangiano|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hashkb|10 years ago|reply