Insights at 8am

Alain de Botton - A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

That's why I love TEDtalks, because talks like the one from Alain de Botton suddenly give me a new insight, a different perspective to look at things and because I'm made to think differently.

Love his thoughts on how we have replaced god with nature, to worship something non-human. Oh, and his explanations of "snobbery":

(...) A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are, that is snobbery. And the dominant kind of snobbery that exists nowadays is job snobbery. You encounter it within minutes at a party when you get that famous, iconic question of the early 21th century, "What do you do?". And according to how you answer that question, people are either incredibly delighted to see you or look at their watch and make their excuses." (...)

No wonder we care about our careers so much :)

(...) So what I want to argue for, is not, that we should give up on our ideas of success, but we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas, and make sure that we own them, that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it’s bad enough, not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out at the end of the journey, that it isn’t in fact what you wanted all along. (...)