When you encounter the person that acts virtuous but at the same time might be pure evil, remember that your intuition may be just as right as it is wrong. Better to give that person the benefit of the doubt — they are, and are not, both virtuous and evil. Better still, let that person go. They are not the ones you need to serve. Be kind. Take a step back.Their story is not yours. Vice versa.

Always leave a little left undone.It gives you something to look forward to.

This is a good time to remind each other of a few things.Every news outlet has an incentive. To get you to consume more news.News is not science. it’s original meaning described novel or noteworthy events or happenings. A collection of “new” things. News outlets have owners, and owners are people, and people have agendas. It’s okay.We are naturally biased to seek out negative news. Most news is negative — it sells.Surrounding ourselves with negative news may stress us out. Ever wondered why Zebras don’t get ulcers? Newsflash: they’re not exposed to a 24/7 negative news cycle. If you want to know what’s going on in the world, look to old books. The older the better. Look for primary sources — people telling first hand accounts. Nassim Taleb suggests reading last week’s newspapers. In order to understand the Covid19 I read “The Great Influenza” — that book might as well have been written today, it was astonishingly (or perhaps not) accurate. HT to Shane Parrish at Farnam Street for the reminder (click here).

My new favorite app, and I don’t enjoy apps, is “Universe Splitter” (iOS only). The “Universe Splitter” costs $1.99 and it splits the universe for you. No, I haven’t lost my mind. Here’s why I like it.In 1957 physicist Hugh Everett III introduced the idea of “Many-Worlds Interpretation” of quantum physics as part of his Princeton thesis. Imagine a person walking down the street — let’s call that person a particle. The person gets to a Y-intersection where they can go right or left. We observe the person going left. Everett’s thesis is that the person went both left AND right. Since we saw the person go left, we are therefore in the universe where the person goes left; however, there is a parallel universe where we see the person go right… we’ll just never be able to see it. Assuming you haven’t unsubscribed and you’re still with me… this is a powerful mental model, and why the “Universe Splitter” app is my favorite investment.Imagine yourself stressing about a decision — “Should I do A or B?” You can ask the “Universe Splitter” to split the universe for you and tell you which decision you should take. Whatever you decide, rest assured that quantum physics thinks there’s a version of you that’s doing the opposite and they may or may not be quite happy about it.All of that to say — at the end of the day — it doesn’t really matter.Stop stressing the small things. Enjoy your coffee.Bugger on.

The world, as I see it, is a place for realists. Nature doesn’t care for our hopes and dreams, it deals with what’s here and now - the present. In the present, there seems to be only a few states: entropy and decay. If that’s true, then nature’s nature is to be insensitive. If that’s true, how do those who are most sensitive thrive? It’s difficult. I’m a sensitive human, and I find that my way to thrive is to acknowledge a few things:What I feel about a thing is only truly important to me.What I feel is not the same as what I perceive.What I perceive is not necessarily what I know. Therefore, when I feel especially sensitive about a topic or situation, I do the following to process and move on:I make every attempt to label the emotion. I acknowledge that it’s my emotion, and it’s important to me. I seek to understand the situation. What did I see or notice just before I felt what I felt? I determine what I I can do to prevent or improve the situation for myself and others. I thank my feeling for me being the indicator I needed to make change happen.I’m getting better at it. The goal is incremental progress. I’m less stuck and paralyzed by my thoughts. Instead, I’m moving forward and making change happen. I’m improving my situation, and hopefully, the situation of others. In an insensitive world, I’m leveraging my sensitive nature to improve what I can.Give it a try.

Playing and winning the long game may be all about positioning — being in the best position possible to take advantage of fate and fortune. That might be challenging for you because positioning for the long terms runs afoul with short term goals. Short term wins that are not tied to a long term goal rarely yield long term benefits. I find these ideas especially true when developing customer-facing products and services.

The truth of things isn’t always interesting — it’s often detailed, boring, and not as exciting as the embellished story. The types of stories that are detailed, boring, and not exciting are often long. The truth of a thing can also be ultra elegant — one or two words, astonishingly simple. The truth isn’t short… and it is.

I wonder if life is becoming too much of a zero sum game. Google “US Politics” and you’ll find hundreds of examples of people playing zero sum games. Are these games productive? Who ultimately wins? My working theory is that all but a small fraction of a fraction of people win these games. With so many people losing, why do we tolerate them?Perhaps it’s because of what it means to be part of a team. Leaders wield a great power - the power to wage war or create alliances with or against competing teams. With that great power, comes great responsibility — to look after the people — all of them — in their charge. What good is winning if everybody must suffer?

You can whittle a stick into a spear by applying angular strokes of force against the stick with a knife. In the same way, your ideas can go from “this might work” to “this will work” by applying the angular stroke of outside critique to them. As much as it might be painful to listen to the ideas of those you loathe and hate, ultimately their force acting upon you will shape your work.

If you want to improve yourself, you are required to step back and get a vector — where are you right now?Then, once you know where you are, you have to move forward through space and time. There is no other way. Movement creates disorder, and disorder allows for growth. Stay still and paralyzed in your own thoughts, doesn’t help.