Alan Weiss puts forward an interesting idea in a short blog post "Self-Esteem and Control" --

It seems to make some sense. I rarely people who feel fully in control of their lives, time, resources, emotion, thinking, social lives, etc, who are unhappy.

Mistrusting people is a horrible way to live. It leads to getting lonely and isolated. It's hard enough to accomplish enterprising and creative works in the world, it's hard enough to raise a great family, it's hard enough to make a positive impact on the world around you and have things run ab it better. Trying to do so without trusting anyone you meet is no good.

On the other hand, highly trusting souls who look to do significant things frequently find they've misplaced that trust. A majority of people are well-meaning, but details get fudged, enthusiasm fades, memory is poor, interpretations are different, judgments get clouded, and external circumstances intervene.

Hence, the counsel of the humorist Finley Peter Dunne --

"Trust everyone, but cut the cards."

It's an entirely solid policy -- give everyone large degrees of trust and goodwill, but don't put them in a position where they'd be tempted or benefit from doing wrong. Don't hand off mission critical tasks to people who aren't vetted; don't bet on people if you can't afford to lose those bets and haven't gone to war with them before.

Interesting NY Times article from a couple years ago -- "Net Worth, Self-Worth and How We Look at Money."

It gives a brief summary of an academic paper that found four basic patterns around money:

1. Money avoidance2. Money worship3. Money status4. Money vigilance

The first was avoiding money by being worried about its negative effects, or thinking it's dirty to have. People with money avoidance tend to have low incomes, low net worths, and are young.

Money worship means people think that money will solve all their problems, which has its own negative effects. While these people get wealthier (obviously), it places a lot of personal self-worth on having money and leads to risky and neurotic behavior.

In Western society, middle managers are routined satired, looked down on, and made fodder for all sorts of jokes and bad feelings. They're almost never celebrated.

And perhaps rightfully so, in most companies. No-one aspires to be a middle manager, so if you're stuck there long-term in the average company, you probably ain't any good as an executive or senior manager.

But middle managers are better at one thing than the vast majority of us:

"Perfect or bust" is a terrible way the live. And often, you wind up going bust.

Two very important principles --

1. Trend upwards: Constantly be improving a little bit and moving in the right direction.

2. Be very, very realistic about where you're at: Seeing things exactly as they are lets you make rapid improvements.

The principle of using "Hard Rules" says that hard rules make life easier. Nailing down extremely precise, unambiguous guidelines on how you're going to do things is easier than having a loose wishful thinking in an area.

I'd like your feedback, especially if you don't usually comment. (Veteran commentors' opinions are obviously very important to me too! But I'd especially like to hear from a few of the thousand+ people who read here daily and don't comment, if you can spare me a couple minutes.)

Some rough questions (though reply however you like) --

Why do you read here?

What do you try to get out of the site?

What does it mean to you personally?

Well-structured events include a lot of activities and fill the schedule -- because most people enjoy that, and find it useful to have a set calendar.

But with just a little bit of pre-planning, you can almost always do better. Events get set with a calendar that's to appeal broadly to everyone. So if you're going on a tour or going to a conference, there's a good chance that at least 20% of the activities there are less useful or appealing to you.

What to do? Make your own calendar! Sometimes it's not possible, but you'd be surprised how often it is. When you skip out of an event that's not your forte to do your work, to lift weights, or even just to get a breather and recharge, you give yourself a better chance of continuing what you're working on AND enjoying the rest of things.

I just skipped a technical session at a conference I was at, and lifted weights in the gym. I'm sure it was fantastic, but I knew I wasn't interested and wasn't likely to implement anything from it in the next couple months (and past that, the memory retention wouldn't be good anyways).

I left my hotel keycard in the gym by accident, and while I was waiting in line to get a new one, I mentioned I'd left the card in the gym to a couple co-attendees. I was asked incredulously, "When did you find time to do that?"

If you want to level up your skills, change the world, and connect with amazing people at the same time, volunteer at GiveGetWin.

Hell, "volunteer" sounds all very old fashioned -- what you're going to be able to do is fast-paced, highly enjoyable, high impact, rapidly-skills-imparting stuff and be able to have as much personal responsibility, ability to experiment, and access to amazing people as you can handle.

Here's two roles we're explicitly looking for --

1. Recruiter

The heart of GiveGetWin is putting great people and companies together with those who are interested in what they’re doing. As a GGW Recruiter, you’ll use your social skills:

Hard rules make life easier.

"I don't drink soda."

"I don't go online until I write 1,000 words."

"I turn the computer off at 11PM."

"I don't watch television."