“Accept the inevitable as gracefully as possible, simultaneously positioning yourself so it looks not only like you expected it, but caused it to happen.”
The underlying principle here is to exhale, release, and adjust yourself in as relaxed a manner as possible to the situation so that you not only survive, but also come out looking completely awesome. Take credit for everything cool that happens around you.
Hacker’s Law of Success (in 4 parts):
1. Stop beating yourself up or I will do it for you.
2. Quit worrying about what you imagine I or anyone else might think of you.
3. Courage is NOT the absence of fear. It is being scared shitless and doing it anyway.
4. Shut the fuck up and DO IT.
After that, all that’s left is to risk, trust the process, and learn from it. Failure, viewed and treated properly, is a great success.
“The degree to which someone will shoot off their mouth on the internet is inversely proportional to the amount of actual, real experience that they have in the subject.”
This one doesn’t require much explanation. The “younger” you are (not chronologically, but experientially), the more likely you are to try to sell yourself online as some kind of authority, especially when talking to people who seriously outclass you.
The “older” folks among my 4 readers are nodding their heads. You, however, are rushing to think up a response.
Do us both a favor… drop a magnet on your lappy.
“Any use of emotion (whether it be fear, patriotism, love, guilt, or any of the others in the pantheon of feelings) that is designed to sway your opinion is manipulation.”
When someone attempts to prey upon your guilt over having “too much,” your fear of another “terror attack,” your anger over “the rich” making a killing at your expense, or your fear of being labeled a “racist” or of being ostracized from the “cool” crowd… they are manipulating you. Their arguments are weak; because they cannot appeal to you through logic, they go through the less heavily-guarded back door of emotions. Beware.