How does fear really feel like? Do we ask ourselves this question or do we simply deny our trepidations? They are a nasty habit though. Just consider how much marketing is based on fears: the fear of getting ill, the fear of dying, the fear of having less than your neighbor etc. I can only describe how fear feels to me. It usually starts with a seemingly irrelevant thought. I try to send it away, but it won’t go. It is as if some dark power kept opening a dangerous computer program file. And then the thought grows. Pretty soon it fills the whole working memory in my brain. I can barely squeeze...

While some degree of the fear of mistakes is useful and healthy, too much of it can prevent our actions. We might never change things for the better. Or we might never meet new friends for instance. It is true that we can avoid pain by not taking any action and thus omitting mistakes. Yet, the moment we see pain as experience, it might decrease the ‘wrongness’ of a mistake. Of course causing a car accident for instance will always feel wrong. But what about changing a job for example? You earn less at the new job and the change might feel as a mistake. Is it really? Is money everything?...

“We dislike losing the things we have more than we appreciate gaining the things we don’t have.” (Bevelin P.: Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger, Third Edition, Post Scriptum AB: 2013, p. 67) For me the most painful loss was the loss of health at the age of 22. The diagnosis was scary and even hard to spell: schizoaffective disorder. My first reaction was denial. I thought for years that psychiatric pills were the only remedy. Later I started to explore lifestyle changes. Today I do many things to stay healthy, taking medication is only one of them. In the morning, before I start writing, I do...

I have been wondering lately, why it is so hard to admit a mistake. Yes, of course, we have to face the consequences, like losing a friend or a job. By denying a mistake we hope to avoid it. And even if it is a tiny mistake without any serious ramifications, it is painful to admit we did something wrong. The feeling of guilt burns in our chest while taking on the responsibility. We all know all that, but let’s dig deeper. At the root of reoccurring mistakes is a conviction. For example, when we keep picking friends, who treat us badly, the underlying conviction might be: “I don’t deserve noble...

I have been observing for some time now, how people with integrity acquire important positions in society and they soon give up, because they get too heavily criticized. The ones with less integrity usually do not care much about criticism and keep their leading positions. What can we do about it? At the first glance, nothing. Especially, if we do not work with people in leading positions. But what if there is a thing we can do anyway? I believe, each human being can add a little bit to the mosaic called a better future. We can start with our family, friends, neighbors, colleagues at work,...