Radical Mutual-Improvement

The Style Life Challenge I wrote about a couple days got an interesting response (see the comments). While we're on the topic, I thought I'd also mention the female-equivalent of male-centric The Game… a book called The Rules, written by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. They've sold over 2 million copies since 1995, and have built sort of a mini-movement around this book. Most people consider both the books to be rather sexist, misguided, and full of advice that will only work for the most pathetic and desparate people around. I'm not really trying to convince otherwise… but for some reason I find the information in these books to be really fascinating. What's most interesting about these books, to me, is that they're taking something that's traditionally thought of pretty sacred (the search for romance, love, soul mates, marriage, whatever), and turned it into a deliberate set of rules, exercises, and tricks that people who feel frustrated, unhappy, and limited can use to begin to feel empowered, self-confident, and able to impact their own lives for the better.

Here's a list of a more recent set of rules that Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider came up with for online dating.

1. Don't answer men's ads or email them first
2. Create a good screen name (they gave BlondeBeauty50 as an example of a good screen name)
3. Less is more when writing your ad
4. Post a smiling photo
5. Wait 24 hours to respond
6. Don't answer on weekends or holidays
7. Write light and breezy emails
8. Never email a second time if he neglected to respond to your email
9. For the first three months (!) don't initiate an email, only respond
10. Block yourself from instant messages
11. Don't volunteer your phone number first
12. If he doesn't ask you out within four emails, delete/next
13. Screen out Mr. Wrong
14. Don't waste your time on time wasters
15. Don't force the relationship from email to phone
16. Put safety first
17. Don't ad-interrogate on dates

I know from my experience of online dating that rules sort of evolve out of usage of the system. You learn from experiences and try to avoid making the same mistakes twice. I have my own rules of sorts… most involving clear pictures, short emails, quick and inexpensive first dates, clear and early communication of disinterest when it clearly isn't going to work, and relying on first impressions and not dragging things out simply to prove yourself. Most of the rules above actually don't sound absolutely horrendous, even though several do play into lame gender roles, everyone is different, and to call them rules is more than a little misguided. What do you think?

I love this game because it is simple, and yet endlessly entertaining due to a simple and engaging aesthetic. Most of all, I love the names of the 27 possible gambits. A gambit is a series of three throws in a row, and depending on the order and nature of the three throws, you get a gambit that has a humorous name and a personality of sorts. For example, the most striking of the gambits is the Avalanche… 3 rocks in a row.

Strategy

There are two possible strategies in this game.

The first one is to simply attempt to throw randomly. By throwing randomly, your opponent will most likely not be able to guess your next throw, and will have equal chances of winning and losing no matter how "good" the opponent is at the game.

The second strategy is trickier and potentially more dangerous because it opens you up for being tricked. This strategy is to use mind games, taunting, and pattern matching to try to guess what your opponent is going to throw, and then obviously throwing its superior opponent. This is why the game can be so entertaining… like poker, all the complexity of bluffs, smack talk, intimidation, and taunting can be used to trick your opponent. The only problem is that if both you and your opponent are trying to out-guess one another, there is a chance that your patterns and strategy will become apparent to your opponent and you will be basically slaughtered on the rock, paper, scissors floor.

Gambits

Gambits became a useful tool for paper, rock, scissors competitors because it helps abstract out the possibility of being guessed. Instead of trying to strategize on every throw, you can strategize on every set of three throws. I guess the thought is that they allow you to introduce more randomness by choosing between 27 options rather than only 3. When you only have 3 options to choose from, there is a subconscious desire to balance the three things, and that pressure to balance can be exploited by your opponent if they are paying careful attention.

Tournaments

Believe it or not, there is a pretty serious Rock Paper Scissors tournament every year. This year it'll be in Toronto on September 30th (learn more). There are many more smaller tournaments around the world, and it's actually pretty easy to set up an event yourself if you want (learn more). I'm going to be going to one in Seattle at a local bar (Baltic Room) on July 10th to practice the slightly deviant "drunken rock, paper, scissors" game. If you're in the area, come by.

Links

• World RPS Society
• Rock, Paper, Scissors [Wikipedia]
• Video of previous world tournament [YouTube]
• Variation of RPS that has 25 throws (play the flash game)

The field of self-help is wacky and wild. It has corners that the bravest souls fear to tread… and other corners that are as comfy as your favorite sofa. From learning to get in touch with your inner child, to becoming productive with your computer, to losing weight, to getting a raise, to getting along with your spouse, to traveling into deeper dimensions and talking with dead family members… all of these themes of self-help have entire industries devoted to them, and there's obviously a lot of money. Self-help makes money because people want it badly.

That's why I respect Neil Strauss and his latest reinvention of himself that was enjoyably and informatively documented in his latest book, "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists". He's bringing the somewhat scary world of pickup artists and casual dating and plain old social skills into a new era. In a way, he's a bit of a self-help startup, and he has a lot of passion.

His most recent venture is called The Stylelife Challenge. His market seems to be the socially awkward, the relationshiply-inexperienced, the low self-esteem crowd of people who, either through bad luck, choice, or futility have never been on a date, have never been in a relationship, and have never gotten laid… but who now want to experience this facet of human existence… as early as next month.

It's free, and it seems like it's going to be pretty interesting to watch. Between July 1st and July 31st, he's going to walk as many people as sign up through a 31 day course… with the attempt to get everyone a date by the end of the month.

It's geared mostly towards guys (sorry ladies… but I think this is where more of the work needs to happen anyway), and I think the spirit of it is that you're going to have to go out there and make a bit of a fool of yourself until you get the hang of it.

Here are the guidelines:

On July 1, you will begin receiving daily assignments in the Forum. These assignments may be video, audio, or text. They will contain exercises for you to complete, articles to read, and goals for you to meet. They will begin at a very basic level and grow more advanced as the challenge continues.

In addition, discussion boards have been set up to assist you with your personal growth. You should be posting all questions, obstacles, field reports, and successes there. Style, Rourke (of The Final Five), and the other participants will be there to help you with constructive criticism.

In addition, if you would like feedback on your personal appearance, dress, and the first impression you create, post a picture in the Style Critique section of the Forums, and Style, Rourke, and other participants will offer tips and pointers. You win when at any point between day one and day thirty-one, you get a date and submit a field report about the experience in the Winner's Circle section of the Forums.

A date is defined as a 'planned second encounter' with a woman you have just met.

For example, if you meet a woman at a bar, exchange phone numbers, and meet her for coffee two days later, that is a date. If you meet a woman at the mall, arrange to meet that night at a club, and she shows up specifically to meet you, that is a date. Even if you don't exchange phone numbers.

Basically, any scenario where you approach a woman and she agrees to see you at a later date or time - and shows up - constitutes a date. Once you win, don't forget to add your field report to the Winner's Circle. Feel free to remain on the boards afterward, carry out the daily assignments, and help your fellow competitors.

Read more about it on stylelife.com, or join here.

The tendency for people to scrutinize evidence that contradicts their previous beliefs and to uncritically accept evidence that supports it.  Useful because it helps us catch (aka pay attention to) information that might result in altering our behavior and beliefs.  Harmful because existing beliefs continue to attract unscrutinized "evidence" at a much quicker rate than information that contradicts our beliefs.  Weak beliefs become stronger over time simply by the fact that they encourage us to validate them more than they encourage us to invalidate them.

As most people are probably noticing, most of these biases are simply shortcuts that we take in order to make quick decisions.  They are the various filters we put on incoming information to know when to pay close attention to something and when not to.  As such, there's really no easy cure for a cognitive bias.  To lower these filters is not only very difficult, but simply not practical… we would revert to the overstimulated confusion of childhood… paying attention to meaningless details while letting important new information slip accidentally by.

What would be useful, however, is if we were able to know at any given point which of our cognitive biases were used in the most recent deluge of information.  The best way to do this that I can think of is to simply know the names for all of them… giving something a name makes it easier to spot.

To review the cognitive biases we've covered so far:

1. The Bandwagon Effect
2. Bias Blind Spot
3. Choice Supportive Bias
4. Confirmation Bias
5. Contrast Effect

Being on the west coast, I don't wear ties very often.  Going to church, weddings, funerals, and the occassional party is about it.  Every time I need to put on a tie, though, I panic because I have this feeling that there is some kind of tie magic that everyone else has and that I don't have.  I tie bad ties.  So, on this quiet Sunday, I decided that I was going to learn how to tie a tie… four ways!

Here's a website that explains the four ways: Learn how to tie a tie.

The four ways are:

1. Windsor Knot: A thick professional knot.  The one I was taught.
2. Half Windsor Knot: A modest version of the Windsor… good for thick ties.
3. Four in Hand Knot: A narrow, more discreet knot.
4. Pratt Knot (aka the Shelby Knot): A medium knot.

There's a video for sale on his site too.  Seems a little silly.  Here are a few funny videos (with encouraging soundtracks) I found on YouTube that might help… 

• The Four in Hand
• The Half Windsor
• The Full Windsor

You're on your own with the Pratt knot, I guess.

Steve Pavlina has a ridiculously organized mind.  He must not have killed all of his brain cells like I have.  I don't know how he does it but he takes very vague and ambiguous ideas and turns them into steps and sub-steps until something as confusing and potentially frustrating as thinking about your purpose becomes as easy as making popcorn.

The quest for purpose is broken down into four components, and an ideal purpose would satisfy each component equally.  The pieces are related to body, mind, heart, and spirit.   

1. Body.  What do you need to survive? Your purpose should satisfy your survival needs… this includes not only food, water, air, and shelter, but also financial needs.  How much money do you need?
2. Mind.  What can you do?  Your purpose should be within your abilities.  What skills do you have?  What skills do you have the ability to acquire? 
3. Heart.  What do you want to do?  Your purpose should be something you're passionate about.  What do you absolutely love to do?  What kinds of things do you love to do?
4. Spirit.  What should you do?  What does your conscience make you feel like you should do, as a member of your family, your friend circle, your country, and the world?

Each of these components needs to be satisfied in a purpose.  Fill out each of these circles and see if there are any things that fit into all four circles?  If nothing immediately pops out (if it were that easy, most likely you would have solved this problem long ago) you can begin working on the circles themselves.  Maybe you can explore surviving on less, or learning something new, or experimenting with new activities and projects to see if they strike a passionate nerve, or exploring your conscience and trying to get to the bottom of what you feel your contribution to this world really should be.

I went through these steps and think that my purpose is to invent new ways to improve the lives of friends, neighbors, and acquaintences.  Invention includes creating new businesses, events, games, and ideas, each of which exist in markets that reward invention.  I feel like I'm on a good roll with increasing the boundaries of creativity that I exist within.  I love rallying myself and the people near me to new adventures, experiments, and realizations about the world we live in.  And just recently I think I've come to terms with the true value of mutual-improvement… by engaging in a non-zero sum game of collaboration, participation, and edification, everyone can win and grow together.

Steve Pavlina's podcast goes into a lot more detail and organized articulation of the subtleties of this exercise.  Listen to it here:

Pavlina-015-What-Is-Your-Purpose.mp3
(Time = 30:10, Size = 13.8MB)

And, to follow up, read up on more of his purpose-related blog posts here.  Nice work, Steve.

I.

In my flickr stream I noticed that Edward Tufte's new book, Beautiful Evidence, was out. I think I'll try to get it at the library. It's too nice to own.

II.

It led me to an interesting statement he makes about designing plaques for spaceships in such a way that their message might be understood by illiterate aliens. He proposes putting a magic trick on it… a human defying gravity. Because gravity is a universal law, he suggests the possibility that this magic trick would be funny anywhere.

Thinking about how to make aliens laugh is probably one of the most enjoyable activities one can partake in. The original plague, with explanation, is here.

III.

Looking around the site a little more led me to this essay of Daniel Gould's titled The Median Isn't the Message. And, other than being a delightful read, it also allowed me to brush up on my understanding of means and medians and misunderstanding statistics in general:

The mean is our usual concept of an overall average - add up the items and divide them by the number of sharers (100 candy bars collected for five kids next Halloween will yield 20 for each in a just world). The median, a different measure of central tendency, is the half-way point. If I line up five kids by height, the median child is shorter than two and taller than the other two (who might have trouble getting their mean share of the candy). A politician in power might say with pride, "The mean income of our citizens is $15,000 per year." The leader of the opposition might retort, "But half our citizens make less than $10,000 per year." Both are right, but neither cites a statistic with impassive objectivity. The first invokes a mean, the second a median. (Means are higher than medians in such cases because one millionaire may outweigh hundreds of poor people in setting a mean; but he can balance only one mendicant in calculating a median).

He also touched on the very mysterious fact that the best way to fight cancer is to be cheery and optimistic about it. I love it when self-help philosophies collide with medicine and things as serious as cancer treatment.

I like to travel without luggage.  I just went to San Jose for three days and only brought a bag left over from a trip to Kenneth Cole.  Not having luggage makes you think twice about what you bring and how you bring it.  My flimsy bag might fall apart in the rain, and can't carry anything too heavy.  Also, it might spill out anywhere.  You may not need to be as extreme in your own travels, but here's a good set of tips on traveling light:

Carrying off the art of one carry on [via 43 Folders]

Another interesting link from the comments on 43 Folders was this site: One Bag: The art and science of traveling light.

This is the enhancement or diminishment of a weight or other measurement when compared with recently observed contrasting object. [Wikipedia]
I think this is one of the more powerful and disturbing cognitive biases that we have to deal with.  Our brains are designed to notice change in value rather than value itself, and there are endless ways to trick us into thinking something is a good simply because it is not as bad as it used to be, and something is bad simply because it is not as good as it used to be. 

Another more dramatic name for this bias could be Value Blindness. We simply can't judge a things value in itself without having a context in which the value is determined.  Context serves as a bag of comparison possibilities.  Think about it for a second.  Do you realize that people purposefully limit their scope of understanding about the size and magnificence of the universe in order to keep their own significance in the universe in check?  We purposefully underestimate the amount of happiness and intelligence in the world in order to support our own sense of happiness and intelligence.  This isn't done with malicious intent, we simply have trouble believing in our own significance while also understanding our literal insignificance relative to the entire country, world, solar system, galaxy, and universe.  In some cases, feeling insignificant, feeling like a tiny speck in a grand universe, feeling like the tiniest almost invisible speck in all of space time, can lead to depression and maybe even suicide.  Words like insignificant, hopeless, impossible, and futile are a result of contrast effect with too large of a perspective of the world or too small of a perspective of yourself.

The reason that this is dangerous is because we know about it and people who have motivation to make things appear better or worse than they really are have a very simple tool to do so.  People can make money off of you with this bias. The most obvious examples are in marketing, with sales and aspirational items, and determining your status and wealth by comparing yourself to your neighbors, but like I mentioned already it can go very deeply into our own understanding of self and meaning.
What tools are there to help correct for the contrast effect? There is the brute force willpower way of correcting for it by making note of what you're comparing everything with.  But is it possible to stop noticing contrast in value?  I don't think it is.  We're doomed!  Haha.

One other stopgap duct tape option is to make sure you regularly calibrate your comparison systems.  Experience a wide range of lifestyles, philosophies, and attitudes towards your world.  Travel frequently and meet new people and try new things and keep as much variety in your life as possible.  This way, you can be sure to have a broad palette of comparisons available, and you can influence your comparisons to go in a direction of your choice.

Andy Baio and Leonard Lin mentioned an interesting game to me yesterday, appropriately named Flow.  Other than being insanely calming, the game is unique in that you have some control on the games difficulty.  You can go down levels if you want it to be more challenging, or up levels if you want it to be less challenging.  The game creator, Jenova Chen, created the game as part of her fascinating thesis: Flow in Games.  One of the goals is to understand what makes games fun; where does the enjoyment of games come from, and why do our brains find them interesting.  

20 years ago, with an intention to explain happiness, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found Flow, the feeling of complete and energized focus in an activity, with a high level of enjoyment and fulfillment. [Debold 2002]

Csikszentmihalyi developed a series of theories to help people get into their Flow state. Since then, these theories have been applied to various fields for designing better human interactive experiences. One of his most inspiring achievements in these theories is the definition of the Flow Zone, also known as “the Zone” by the gamers:

 

In order to maintain a person’s Flow experience, the activity needs to reach a balance between the challenges of the activity and the abilities of the participant. If the challenge is higher than the ability, the activity becomes overwhelming and generates anxiety. If the challenge is lower than the ability, it provokes boredom. Fortunately, human beings have tolerance, there is a fuzzy safe zone where the activity is not too challenging or too boring, and psychic entropies like anxiety and boredom would not occur. [Csikszentmihalyi 1990]

Due to the special relationship between challenge and ability, Flow has been used in fields like sports and tutoring. The famous GRE test is a good example of design based on the concept of the Flow Zone.

The description of Flow is identical to what a player experiences when totally immersed in a video game. During this experience, the player loses track of time and forgets all external pressures. It is obvious that gamers value video games based on whether or not those games can provide Flow experiences. [Holt 2000]

Clearly, there are a lot of familiar concepts here.  Happiness, stress, challenge.  Video games are a very lucrative industry, and because learning what creates flow will help create better, more profitable, video games, the field will likely be pouring lots of money into it.  Luckily, we can then take those same learnings and apply them to less lucrative fields with a little cut and paste and find and replace.

Elements of flow, or fun, include:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernable).
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time - our subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is not too easy or too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

Look for things in your life that have these qualities, and also look for things in your life that lack these qualities.  And play this game.  It's great.

Links:

• Flow, the game
• Flow, the thesis
• Flow [Wikipedia]
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience [Amazon]
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [Wikipedia] 

This is a fascinating post about a woman who simplified her life: My Frugal Life
A couple changes she made:

1. Move from a 3,000 sq ft house to a 1,200 sq ft house
2. Sell everything that didn't fit into the new house
3. Cook at home instead of going out to eat
4. Have only 2 pairs of jeans
5. Cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions (use the internet instead)
6. Make coffee at home instead of going to coffee shops
7. Put daily change and dollar bills into savings instead of carrying them around
8. Deposit salary directly into savings… transfer out what you need to spend
9. Sell your car (they went from 2 to 1, so some people can also go from 1 to 0)
10. Participate in free events in your city instead of expensive ones
11. Have only 1 credit card, and keep the montly balance at $0
12. Use the internet to find new ways to live more frugally

I like pretty much all of these changes. I went through a pretty similar frugalization period when I was quitting my corporate job and looking to start my own business. One fear of simplifying your life is that it will become more boring. Eating out, going to shows, etc, these are fun things! Well, I would suggest that you keep the activities that you truly enjoy, but be aggressive about removing activities that you merely feel compelled to do: like going to the opera, or watching the latest lame blockbuster movie. Also, try things out even if you think you might not like them. Getting rid of a car is difficult because it's easy to remember times when having a car came in really handy. But this logic is a bit of a confirmation bias in the sense that you might have found an equally handy alternative to the car if it hadn't been there. Walking more is an easy way to improve any life. So is simply doing fewer errands, and finding places that are closer to your house to do them. People take long trips to giant stores largely because they can… even though smaller and nearer stores may have the things they're looking for. Purchasing things on the internet also saves a lot of time. Constraints lead to creativity and efficient new solutions to old problems.

This article is definitely worth a read.

My Frugal Life [via Lifehacker]

We all have a complex set of beliefs about money which in turn dictate how we deal with money and what we expect from money.  At the same time that we realize that almost everyone has different beliefs about money, none of us really examine and consciously choose our own beliefs about money.  Beliefs about money are self-fulfilling, and our own relationship with money will be determined largely by our beliefs about it.

Ask yourself some of these questions about money to find out what you are telling yourself about money:

• Do you believe more money will make you happier?
• Do you spend money as soon as you get it?
• Do you have enough money?
• Where does money come from?
• Does making money require hard work?
• Does money corrupt?
• What can money buy?
• Is there a shortage of money in the world?
• Do you want to be rich?
• Do you deserve to be rich?
• How much money does it take to be rich? 

It's interesting to think about these questions because they expose so much about our outlook on life.  Money is a unit of the universe that's almost on par with space and time.  So many people feel like they don't have enough money, enough time, or enough space to live and feel free.  But at the same time,  people will consciously answer that they don't really think money will make them ultimately happier.  So where is the tipping point where you have enough money, and you are as happy as you'll ever be even if you make more, or win a lottery, or dig up lost treasure?  Think really hard about it and come up with an exact figure.  Fill in this blank:

I would be rich in money, and derive as much possible happiness from money, if I had $_______.

Then, ask yourself this question:

Do I deserve to have $X (the amount from the blank above), and have what it takes to get it?

If you answered "no" to the second question, you are self-sabotaging yourself.  You are setting up a goal for an ideal setup and then simultaneously cutting yourself off from realizing it.  This is a very dangerous and harmful mindset to live with, because even if opportunities for this money came about, you would subconsciously talk yourself out of them because you don't believe you deserve to have it.  I would suggest that you either lower the amount of money that you think you deserve until you feel like it's something you truly deserve, or better yet, ask yourself why you don't think you have what it takes to reach your financial goals.  Many beliefs about money are centered around the assumption that there's not enough money for everyone.  Why not?  What beliefs about the universe and yourself are leading to this belief? 

What other beliefs are possible?

Is it possible to believe that there's enough money for everyone?  That money is not directly related to greed, corruption, and evil?  What do these beliefs mean to you, and are they worth trying to adopt?  If not, why?

This is our uncanny tendency to search for, or interpret, information that agrees with our preconceptions. For example, if you suspect that a certain person is a certain way (whether it be evil, lazy, or perfect), you will tend to notice and interpret that person's behaviors in such a way that support your belief, and consider evidence to the contrary as the result of errors of your own perception and judgement, or anomalies.

This is why, in the scientific method, it is useful to conduct an experiment in such a way as to attempt to disprove your theory, rather than prove it.  In order for something to be true, it has to also be falsifiable.  In other words, there has to be a way to prove it to be false, and those ways have to be tested, in order for it to be considered true. 

The best way to help correct for this bias is to be open to contradictory evidence and to test our hypothesii by attempting to prove them wrong.

Read more: Confirmation Bias [Skeptics Dictionary] 

A great excerpt from a commencement address by Stephen Colbert which nicely articulates one of my favorite personal mottos: Accept All Offers.  In improve comedy, you build a story by saying "yes, and…", basically accepting what is there, and building on it.  It's a great philosophy for life, I think.

You seem nice enough, so I’ll try to give you some advice. First of all, when you go to apply for your first job, don’t wear these robes. Medieval garb does not instill confidence in your employers—unless you’re applying to be a scrivener. And if someone does offer you a job, take it. You can always quit later. Then at least you’ll be one of the unemployed as opposed to one of the never-employed. Nothing looks worse on a resume than nothing.

So, say “yes.” In fact, say “yes” as often as you can. When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City and other places, there was really only one rule I was taught about improv. That was, “yes-and.” In this case, “yes-and” is a verb. To “yes-and.” I yes-and, you yes-and, he, she or it yes-ands. And yes-anding means that when you go onstage, they provide a theme, no script. You have no idea what’s going to happen, maybe with someone you’ve never met before. To build a scene, you have to accept. To build anything onstage, you have to accept what the other has provided or initiated on stage. They say you’re doctors—you’re doctors. And then, you add to that: We’re doctors and we’re trapped in a cave. That’s the “-and”. And hopefully they “yes-and” you back. You have to keep your eyes open when you do this. You have to be aware of what the other performer is offering you, so that you can agree and add to it. And through this agreement, you can improvise a scene or a one-act play. And because, by following each other’s lead, neither of you are really in control. It’s more of a mutual discovery than a solo adventure. What happens in a scene is often as much a surprise to you as it is to the audience.

Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. No script. No idea what’s going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say “yes.” And if you’re lucky, you’ll find people who will say “yes” back.

Now will saying yes get you in trouble at times? Will saying yes lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blinder, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.

The full commencement address is definitely worth reading: 2006 Commencement Address to Knox College 

I'm an introvert, and before last year, shuddered at the thought of throwing a party. I was a party-attender, not a party-thrower, and the thought of inventing a reason, recruiting people, and preparing whatever it was that party-throwers prepared made me freeze up and/or run away. At the same time, I've always envied the life of event and party planners.

Throwing a party, especially if it's not normally your thing, is a great chance to create an entire experience for your friends. From music, to food, to choice of attendees, to entertainment (if any), you can create a vision of a couple hours length and let it explode into a life of its own.

I just threw a party this last weekend for my 30th birthday, and though it was rather stressful and worrisome at times, the stressful and worrisome aspects of it were probably the most enjoyable… as they helped me work towards the vision with more focus. Few things get you to act with the determination and attention that fear of public failure. Haha, I am mostly kidding.

The great thing about parties is that they can be any size in scope… from a small gathering of close friends to a rented venue with bands, djs, or performers, to a multi-day festival out in the desert. Choose a scope that feels uncomfortable to you, tap your social circle for people who can help you think about how to do it right, and pick a date not too far in the future. Start telling people about it right away.

The other great thing about parties is that they are over quickly. An evening is over almost as soon as it is begun, and other than cleaning up and apologizing for drunk dials of the previous night, there's very little follow-up.

Throwing a big party is a great way to inject momentum into your life. Once you throw one, you'll begin to think about the next one, and the next, and the snowball of fun will roll right over you, and carry you along with it.