Category: How To People

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Satisficing: you don’t have to give 100% of yourself

Today I saw this Instagram video about how “give 100%” doesn’t mean you have to give 100% of yourself, but rather give 100% of your available resources.

It’s sort of like looking at your gross income vs your net income (after taxes) vs your take-home pay (after retirement, savings, investment, etc are taken care of). (Note that some people use that collection of words differently!)

The fact that I do NOT have to spend my entire being on Being The Best I Can Possibly Be is something I figured out in my twenties, and in my mind it’s closely linked to the concept of “Satisficing.” Basically, that’s a portmanteau of Satisfy and Suffice. Something that is “good enough” but “not optimal” would fall into this category, because it’s not possible to fully optimize everything ever. You would just burn out.

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Stop mumbling!

Whewww.

When I first started noticing that everyone around me was mumbling, I realized that if I thought everyone was mumbling, it meant that I was the problem.

I’m so grateful that I did not turn into the guy from this advice column. Full link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/09/24/asking-eric-husband-hearing-loss/

Full link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2024/09/24/asking-eric-husband-hearing-loss/

Gift link: https://wapo.st/3N4orKx

PSA, folks: if someone close to you says you should get tested for a thing, or that something about your health is affecting their life? Please believe them.

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The better part of valor

Something I’ve had to learn over the years of being on the Internet is that sometimes I am wrong, and need to take a seat and be introspective instead of explaining why I think the way I do.

This was surprisingly difficult to do. I think part of it is the desire to not have people dislike me; but both learning that that’s not something I can control, and starting to care less if they DO like me, makes me better at figuring out what I did wrong and being a better person in the future, which (counter intuitively?) makes me more likeable as a person.

We all fuck up on occasion. (Or, even, frequently.)

We all have the ability to say “Sorry, will do” when a mod tells us to step off or take a break.

I like to joke that I learned How To People by reading a book. But that’s not so far from the truth. Thinking about things and analyzing social situations is how I managed to get social skills in the first place.