> Live with total integrity. Be transparent, honest, and authentic. Do not ever waiver from this; white lies and false smiles quickly snowball into a life lived out of alignment.
Words to live by
Words to live by
Simple example: I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like primarily because they have wide social circles. Through those people, I've met individuals who I do genuinely like.
> If you don't understand how to employ false smiles as needed, you won't get very far in life.
We all have our subjective distances. But if you are a human being, some combinations of the following will be that distance:
1. Sustenance (food, water, housing, money)
2. Community (belonging, love)
3, Self-expression
4. Self-transcendence (altruism)
This is a gross simplification of Maslow, but give me some slack. If you question every person saying "you won't get very far in life" with "how do you measure getting very far", you are not only annoying the other person, but also yourself. Spend that time trying to measure how far you have come.
> Spend that time trying to measure how far you have come.
Formulating into words how far you've come can only happen while you know how far you've come. And while you're in the state of knowing how far you've come, you don't need to repeat to yourself how far this is. You know.
If you find yourself smiling and nodding at the above, however, bear this in mind also: we geeks often err in the direction of undervaluing social status. If you haven't acquired basic skills in areas like networking and office politics, X effort invested there might do more for you than 10X effort invested in further honing your technical skills.
It works if "yourself" has certain characteristics and doesn't work if the "yourself" doesn't or has other attributes, based on the context.
> Simple example: I maintain friendships with people I don't genuinely like primarily because they have wide social circles. Through those people, I've met individuals who I do genuinely like.
That's genuinely good advice. You don't have to like or please everyone in your social network. There's simply not enough time or effort, but it doesn't mean you can't have fruitful transactions with those people.
This is one of the better discussions about this: https://antiblog.quora.com/The-One-Piece-Puzzle-Chapter-2
Some excerpts:
"When people talk about true self in Western culture, the discussion normally tends toward "the Snowflake Model" of identity. That's my phrase for the notion that your true self is discovered by polishing up your understanding of the way in which you are utterly unique, special, and valuable - a "wonderful little snowflake unlike any other.""
... and ...
"Am I like a box, or am I like light? Consider the difference: a box has a boundary, it has fixed characteristics, it has contents. A box wants to survive, it wants its contents kept safe, it wants to be properly labeled, it wants to be approved of when it passes through customs, it does not want to be crushed at the bottom of a huge pyramid of boxes.
A box, ideally, wants to be at the top of the pyramid. Or maybe off by itself, so that it doesn't have to feel anxious about being judged relative to other boxes. A box is an ego.
Light isn't like that: light wants to go everywhere, and it weighs very little."
I don't get this. What does the author mean by "pie-slicing"?
That's not friendship. That's an acquaintance you're using for ulterior motives.
If you don't genuinely like someone you're acquainted with, you're not being a friend when you pretend you do. You're being a manipulative, self-interested social investor, keeping a volatile asset around because of its potential payoff. Friendship, like romance (but less intensely), means an aconditional (not unconditional) acceptance of another's flaws - not just tolerance for a potential benefit.
I actually agree very much with your main point, that false smiles and "white lie" smalltalk really do have their place. I grew up enamored with the practice of radical honesty, but it only works when in a group of individuals with very high self-esteem. The point of faking nice isn't to dissemble, but to make a goodwill attempt to ensure that the people around you can feel comfortable to practice genuineness without judgment.
Not that that isn't a selfish and manipulative goal itself. I prefer being genuine in my interactions across the board, the only way to do that is to gradually accustom the people in my life to being comfortable being genuine back.
tl;dr you're not maintaining "friendships", but I don't think your choices are more or less selfish than any other.
I think, its a spectrum between extreme honesty and extreme dishonesty, and when very young extreme honesty has an appeal. But of course it's not healthy, just like any extreme.
Like you, I am totally for pragmatism, but still can't maintain contacts with people whom I don't like, even if they can help me with other useful contacts etc. Because, I feel, its possible to attain the same level of success, by taking a higher road.
There is beauty in preserving intellectual vanity. I know you didn't imply that, but total pragmatism, seems soulless to me. For example, in an earlier corporate life, I knew some people who were the "manager" sort and very aggressive, which yielded them dividends. When they entered the Startup world, sometime after I did, they tried to maintain the similar (aggressive) equation in the communication. I humored them with one meeting, which didn't go so well, from my perspective. I felt, that in my easy speaking manner, I'd given a lot of gyan to them, but still came out of the meeting taking away some vacuous corporate BS kind of gyan. Since I was left with a bad taste, after the meeting, I declined all further meeting requests simply because I could. Felt happy.
So life is a very complex experience and there never are any fixed rules. Some times you fake it till you make it. Other times you are brutally honest. Yes, but integrity, is a must have quality at all times. That's the only non-negotiable IMHO.
Edit: gyan means knowledge & minor typos
I'm generally very honest about what I think and feel. I never lie. It certainly hasn't earned me many friends.
In contrast, I have a colleague who is constantly cheerful and friendly. Even when she's secretly having a terrible day and even when she doesn't particularly like you. The result is that everyone in the office likes her and she has a very rich/happy private life too. Even if her day starts off poorly, the positivity she receives back from people turns it around.
The worst part about trite articles like this is that they provide literally no evidence for their feel-good conclusions. In fact, they seem to contradict actual research which shows that modulating our feelings and smiling (even when we don't want to) can improve happiness. [0]
If you want to be happy, pretend you're happy. Eventually it won't be an illusion.
[0] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-forc...
There has got to be a better regulation mechanism than '+1' and the received wisdom.
Wild guess, you entered the world of online interactions after mailing lists. These buttons address the need of people to be "contributing". Before "+1"/"like", we had "me too". People want to feel like they're supporting views they like, and that button gives them that way, leaving space for more meaningful contributions in the actual text.
It's the same thing as a nod in a 1:1 conversation. "I'm paying attention, I'm here, I agree, continue".
That's where they help, allowing a flow of communication that suits people. Looking at the cumulative number of those... "Narcissism" comes to mind.
The "me too" is fine, but ultimately, what does all these clicks entail in a long run? Have they helped reduce the clutter and/or enhance the value of the conversation? What about the value of the commentator and his/her aggregate contribution? Do the number value provide any insight? Say that I may be an expert on Topic A, and I have gathered a whole lot of numbers (karma, or whatever else) due to my expertise on Topic A. What does that say to the reader, on my lack of expertise on Topic B, C, D?
The "me too" does not actually add anything to the value and diversity of opinion (other than it adds to the group-think).
At least that's the vague impression I have gleaned.