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Kindle Notes & Highlights
The question is how to maintain focus in a world full of choice and temptation.
Once we have achieved something for which we have strived, we grow accustomed to it and the attraction soon wears off. We then come up with something else to strive for, in a never-ending pursuit of happiness that only stops when we die.
Workplaces demand not just professional but also personal development. Children are expected to perform well in the classroom, but also to be healthy, creative, musical and good at sports.
The main threats to humankind were once posed by the forces of nature; now they are self-inflicted, we are the cause of our own problems, and they can only be solved at the level of the society that created them.
new technologies have created new problems and risks, which – almost paradoxically – we are now seeking to address by developing yet more new technology.
We are formed by what we miss out on, not just by the things we do.
Character is about, among other things, the ability to resist, to opt out, to say no.
It is to live the life of a chameleon. You may change colour because fashion dictates it, because another hue is just more opportune, or perhaps simply because you are bored. Can this form the basis for an ethical life? Not if the proponents of moderation introduced in this chapter are right.
BE AUTHENTIC! During all stages of life, at every age.
Socrates compares human desire to a leaky bucket: no matter how much we fill it, the water leaks out again, leaving only a hole and a craving for more.
It is all too easy to lose yourself in a Facebook feed, because they are, by design, endless. As you scroll down through a few posts, new updates are constantly being added higher up the thread. The same applies to the TV series that we now binge-watch: we have to make an active effort to turn the machine off, otherwise the next episode just starts automatically.
wow! thought-provoking
