Jeannette Daniel > Recent Status Updates

Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.

My heart breaks reading this paragraph. She was robbed of her childhood: “Without even spotting them, a vacant puppetlike smile crosses my face automatically. My eyes are dead, my soul is nowhere to be found, but a smile is on my face and that’s all that counts.”

“‘From him, I learnt that to carelessly judge a person and their situation is violence. I think it’s rare to meet someone like (Primo) Levi, who makes the effort to really understand the complexities of humanity…’”

“Life is like a pendulum swinging between utter despair and a reluctant acceptance of fate. We live under the bleakness that society imposes on us.”

I learned that ‘unputdownable’ is a word… “That’s why a good novel is unputdownable”

“You’ll need something,” he said. “If you expect to be happy. My dad always said a person needs three things to be happy: something to do; someone to love; and something to look forward to.”

He could tell by the taste the words left in his mouth: bitter, metallic, covered in rust from years of being unused.

“She was so old now. Even her ears looked old, withered, like creatures that had abandoned their shells and crawled from the sea and attached themselves to the side of her head.”

The main character on describing his 70-yo mom which I thought was unique - “Her ankles had a stegosaurian horniness to them, and her feet were deflated, deeply wrinkled, and black with dirt. They looked unsalvageable.”

Asami hadn’t married, but whether someone was married or not was no measure of their happiness.

When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out. This is especially the case when you are trying to hide your sadness or vulnerability.

Lesson learned? When people say, “You really, really must” do something, it means you don’t really have to. No one ever says, “You really, really must deliver the baby during labour.” When it’s true, it doesn’t need to be said.

We should leave people alone about their weight. Being skinny for a while (provided you actually eat food and don’t take pills or smoke to get there) is a perfectly fine pastime. Everyone should try it once, like a super-short haircut or dating a white guy.

I believe this haircut was executed by folding my face in half and cutting out a heart.

Hahahah too funny Tina!

“Everyone is jittery, and when the pilot makes the unfortunate choice of testing the PA system by saying, “Bravo, bravo,” you can almost hear people’s b-holes tighten. A collective cartoon-mouse squeak of b-hole.”

I laughed so much. Hahaha

I inquired what the day had been like for him. He thought, and replied that “when your bills come due, you have to pay them. At my company, I pay my bills. Here at this restaurant, I pay my bill. It is the same with feelings. When the feelings come, the fear of death, I must feel those feelings. I must pay my bill. It is being alive.”

Define the game you’re playing, and make sure your actions are not being influenced by people playing a different game.

Compounding works best when you can give a plan years or decades to grow. Endurance is key. We should also come to accept the reality of changing our minds.

The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, “I can do whatever I want today.”

On luck & risk : they both happen because the world is too complex to allow 100% of your actions to dictate 100% of your outcomes. They are driven by the same thing: You are one person in a game with seven billion other people and infinite moving parts. The accidental impact of actions outside of your control can be more consequential than the ones you consciously take.

The school of Stoicism which centers on the idea that there is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures as long as they do not take control of your life as you enjoy them. You have to be prepared for those pleasures to disappear. Aim to curb our ego and control our negative emotions.

The people standing at the two extremes are the happiest people in the world. At both ends. Do you know why? Because they don’t ask why. Never. Not at all. There’s no point, because either they believe there’s no answer, or they believe that someone is responsible for the answer and that it’s none of their business.

“No man wishes to end his life by taking off his life jacket.”

“That we’re suffering beings. It’s our nature. We suffer from the want of what we don’t have. The fear of losing what we do have. We are acquisitive; we’re grasping. We’re attached to our desires.”

Great book so far! Interesting references to topics around Motivation, Teams, & Focus. Been trying to use some recommendations told in the book in real life too. 🌟

Hope no one’s judging me with this book. 🤣 I’m already skeptical from the title but it was just some random buy I made from Big Bad Wolf. Let’s see how this goes.

“Even the ugliest person’s cellulite is more attractive than the most beautiful supermodel’s lower intestine.” 😂😂😂

“You learn to appreciate the fact that what drives you is very different from what you’re told should make you happy. You learn that it’s okay to prefer your personal idea of heaven rather than someone else’s idea that fame/fortune/parties are the pinnacle we should all reach for. And there’s something surprisingly freeing about that.”

“Okay. This magazine says that you can tell what you should do with your life if you just take away all thoughts of risks. So what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

“I know humans consider it a grave insult to be called an animal. Well, I would never give a human the fine distinction of being called an animal, because an animal may kill to live but an animal never lives to kill. Humans have to earn the right to be called animals again.”