Henry David Thoreau said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. - Eric Barker

But Bernstein says this is a trap. Explaining is almost always veiled dominance. You’re not trying to educate; you’re still trying to win. The subtext is, “Here’s why I am right and you are wrong.

Psychologist Shelley Taylor says that “a healthy mind tells itself flattering lies.” The pessimists were more accurate and realistic, and they ended up depressed. The truth can hurt.

If you want to do well in school and you’re passionate about math, you need to stop working on it to make sure you get an A in history too. This generalist approach doesn’t lead to expertise. Yet eventually we almost all go on to careers in which one skill is highly rewarded and other skills aren’t that important. Ironically,