Derek Thompson

We see people as we are.

We see others as we believe they are.

This is exactly the intellectual habit that changed my life.

It turns out that so much of our suffering is self-perpetuated, that we build these intellectual cages of suffering of our own device.

And so whether it's personal problems, interpersonal problems, national geopolitical problems, they all have the same source, that we are creating our suffering.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we need to accept things as they are.

It doesn't mean we have to agree with everyone.

It's that we want to reduce our suffering.

I think that's the idea here.

And frankly, increase our motivation to continue to participate.

Maybe I can, a lot of this is highfalutin neuroscience and psychology, but maybe it's useful if I tell a quick story of how this changed my life.

Would that be all right?

Sure, great, do it.

Yeah, so this is a very personal story.

It's always hard to tell, but I think it's illustrative because a lot of people have similar issues.

But this is what happened with my mom a few years ago.

So a few years ago, my mom had her 74th birthday and I wanted to do something very nice for her.

And so I wanted to buy her some flowers.

The problem was that she was in Central Florida where I grew up and I was in Singapore where I was living at the time.

And I went through a lot of trouble to try and get her those flowers.