Dislike Job Quotes

When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy - if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this easily managed.

Learn to like what doesn't cost much. Learn to like reading, conversation, music. Learn to like plain food, plain service, plain cooking. Learn to like fields, trees, brooks, hiking, rowing, climbing hills. Learn to like people, even though some of them may be different...different from you. Learn to like to work and enjoy the satisfaction doing your job as well as it can be done. Learn to like the song of birds, the companionship of dogs. Learn to like gardening, puttering around the house, and fixing things. Learn to like the sunrise and sunset, the beating of rain on the roof and windows, and the gentle fall of snow on a winter day. Learn to keep your wants simple and refuse to be controlled by the likes and dislikes of others.

For example, highly sensitive people tend to be keen observers who look before they leap. They arrange their lives in ways that limit surprises. They're often sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, pain, coffee. They have difficulty when being observed (at work, say, or performing at a music recital) or judged for general worthiness (dating, job interviews). But there are new insights. The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive (just as Aron's husband had described her). They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions -- sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments -- both physical and emotional -- unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss -- another person's shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly.

If a woman pushes to get the job done, if she's highly competent, if she focuses on results rather than on pleasing others, she's acting like a man. And if she acts like a man, people dislike her.

I feel sorry for beautiful people. Beauty, from the moment you possess it, is already slipping away, ephemeral. That must be difficult. Always having to prove that there’s more to you, wanting people to see beneath the surface, to be loved for yourself, and not your stunning body, sparkling eyes or thick, lustrous hair. In most professions, getting older means getting better at your job, earning respect because of your seniority and experience. If your job depends on your looks, the opposite is true—how depressing. Suffering other people’s unkindness must be difficult too; all those bitter, less attractive people, jealous and resentful of your beauty. That’s incredibly unfair of them. After all, beautiful people didn’t ask to be born that way. It’s as unfair to dislike someone because they’re attractive as it is to dislike someone because of a deformity.

Although we may hate ourselves, at the same time we find our self-hatred a kind of occupation. In spite of the fact that we may dislike what we are and find that self-condemnation painful, still we cannot give it up completely. If we begin to give up our self-criticism, then we may feel that we are losing our occupation, as though someone were taking away our job.

I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never seems to be able to complete his work. According to him, his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough time to write novels, and that's why he can't complete work and enter it for writing awards. But is that the real reason? No! It's actually that he wants to leave the possibility of "I can do it if I try" open, by not committing to anything. He doesn't want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn't want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it. In another five or ten years, he will probably start using another excuses like "I'm not young anymore" or "I've got a family to think about now

I have come to dislike anything that demands constant attention, whether it is dogs, dishwashers, or finally men. I like things that are independent, and that need you only because they want you, not because they’ll have a breakdown without you.

I am not a fan of supermarkets and I hate shopping there, even for things I can't get elsewhere, like cat food and bin bags. A big part of my dislike of them is the loss of vivid life. The dull apathy of existence now isn't just boring jobs and boring TV; it is the loss of vivid life on the streets; the gossip, the encounters, the heaving messy noise that made room for everyone, money or not.

In a sense, as much as I disliked it, education helped when you were looking at a menu or for a job, especially when you were looking at a menu.

But I came to dislike wanting to find a job. I’m having fun now. That’s enough and isn’t this what life is about?

Highly sensitive people tend to be keen observers who look before they leap. They arrange their lives in ways that limit surprises. They're often sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, pain, coffee. They have difficulty when being observed (at work, say, or performing at a music recital) or judged for general worthiness (dating, job interviews). But there are new insights. The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive (just as Aron's husband had described her). They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art. They feel exceptionally strong emotions -sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments -both physical and emotional -unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss - another person's shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly.

Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him, and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the state of his own mind--or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary duties of directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate the most useful human characteristics, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office. 2. It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual', that is is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rhuematism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards are her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother--the sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's soul to beating or insulting the real wife or son without any qualm. 3. When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face whice are almost unedurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy--if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbablity of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed.

Nelson had an irrational dislike of ‘petabytes’, the recognized term for a particular, and particularly large, wodge of data. Anything that sounded like a kitten’s gentle nip just didn’t have the moxie to do the job asked of it. ‘Godzillabytes’, on the other hand, shouted to the world that it was dealing with something very, very big . . . and possibly dangerous.)

We can joke, as Marlo Thomas did, that “a man has to be Joe McCarthy in order to be called ruthless. All a woman needs to do is put you on hold.” Real change will come when powerful women are less of an exception. It is easy to dislike senior women because there are so few. If women held 50 percent of the top jobs, it would just not be possible to dislike that many people.

I am not able, and I do not want, completely to abandon the worldview that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, to take pleasure in solid objects and scrapes of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.

As writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant recommends to her writing clients: “Eat your frogs first thing in the morning.” Do the most important and most disliked jobs first, as soon as you wake up. This is incredibly effective.

The trick to realize that the boys who talk so much about being rejected that it seems like the’re proud of it aren’t necessarily sweeter or more sensitive than the Bababooey-spouting frat bullies who line up at clubs like SkyBar to run game on girls they want to date rape. There are plenty of nerds who fear women and aren’t sensitive, despite their marketing; they just dislike women in a new, exciting way. Timid racists aren’t sensitive because they lock their car doors when they see a black person on the street. They’re just too scared to get out of the car and shout the “N” word. Fear can be the result of admiration, or it can be a symptom of contempt. When I see squeamish guys passing over qualified women when they’re hiring for a job, or becoming tongue tied when a girl crashes their all-boy conversation at a party, I don’t give them credit for being awestruck. They’re reacting to the intimidating female as an intruder, an alien, and somebody they can’t relate to. It’s not a compliment to be made invisible.

Barbara is on what is called the woman's trip to the exclusion of almost everything else. When she and Tom and Max and Sharon need money, Barbara will take a part-time job, modeling or teaching kindergarten, but she dislikes earning more than ten or twenty dollars a week. Most of the time she keeps house and bakes. "Doing something that shows your love that way," she says, "is just about the most beautiful thing I know." Whenever I hear about the woman's trip, which is often, I think a lot about nothin'-says-lovin'-like-something-from-the-oven and the Feminine Mystique and how it is possible for people to be the unconscious instruments of values they would strenuously reject on a conscious level, but I do not mention this to Barbara.

If you’re chugging through life in a job you kind of dislike, a relationship that you are detached from, eating to cope, staring at Facebook, smoking and fruitlessly fantasizing, you can sit glumly on that conveyor belt of unconscious discontent until it deposits you in your grave.

He didn’t simply dislike the dirty work—he loathed it. But Yukon wasn’t the only one with an assignment. There was one job Gold needed to finish on his own. He drained the last drop of whisky and grabbed his 9 millimeter handgun. His work was almost done.

But whenever I tried to pin down this idea of self-esteem, the specific qualities we hoped to inculcate, the specific means by which we might feel good about ourselves, the conversation always seemed to follow a path of infinite regress. Did you dislike yourself because of your color or because you couldn’t read and couldn’t get a job? Or perhaps it was because you were unloved as a child—only, were you unloved because you were too dark? Or too light? Or because your mother shot heroin into her veins … and why did she do that anyway? Was the sense of emptiness you felt a consequence of kinky hair or the fact that your apartment had no heat and no decent furniture? Or was it because deep down you imagined a godless universe? Maybe one couldn’t avoid such questions on the road to personal salvation. What I doubted was that all the talk about self-esteem could serve as the centerpiece of an effective black politics. It demanded too much honest self-reckoning from people; without such honesty, it easily degenerated into vague exhortation. Perhaps with more self-esteem fewer blacks would be poor, I thought to myself, but I had no doubt that poverty did nothing for our self-esteem. Better to concentrate on the things we might all agree on. Give that black man some tangible skills and a job. Teach that black child reading and arithmetic in a safe, well-funded school. With the basics taken care of, each of us could search for our own sense of self-worth.

What Hurts the People There are five things that hurt the people: There are local officials who use public office for personal benefit, taking improper advantage of their authority, holding weapons in one hand and people’s livelihood in the other, corrupting their offices, and bleeding the people. There are cases where serious offenses are given light penalties; there is inequality before the law, and the innocent are subjected to punishment, even execution. Sometimes serious crimes are pardoned, the strong are supported, and the weak are oppressed. Harsh penalties are applied, unjustly torturing people to get at facts. Sometimes there are officials who condone crime and vice, punishing those who protest against this, cutting off the avenues of appeal and hiding the truth, plundering and ruining lives, unjust and arbitrary. Sometimes there are senior officials who repeatedly change department heads so as to monopolize the government administration, favoring their friends and relatives while treating those they dislike with unjust harshness, oppressive in their actions, prejudiced and unruly. They also use taxation to reap profit, enriching themselves and their families by exactions and fraud. Sometimes local officials extensively tailor awards and fines, welfare projects, and general expenditures, arbitrarily determining prices and measures, with the result that people lose their jobs. These five things are harmful to the people, and anyone who does any of these should be dismissed from office.

Grab Bag of Questions for Coach and Coachee Who has given you feedback well? What was helpful about how they did it? Have you ever gotten good advice that you rejected? Why? Have you ever received good advice that you took years later? What motivates you? What disheartens you? What’s your learning style? Visual, auditory, big picture, detail oriented? What helps you hear appreciation? What’s something you wish you were better at? Whose feedback-receiving skills do you admire? What did your childhood and family teach you about feedback and learning? What did your early job experiences teach you? What’s the role of time/stages? What’s the role of mood and outlook? What’s the role of religion or spirituality? What has been the impact of major life events? Getting married? Getting laid off or fired? Having children? Death of a parent? What do you dislike most about coaching? About evaluation? What helps you change?

Michael had formed an opinion of Christine on the ride out to the airport. He was impressed with the job of restoration Arnie had done, but he disliked the car itself—disliked it intensely. He supposed it was ridiculous to hold such feelings about an inanimate object, but the dislike was there all the same, big and unmistakable, like a lump in the throat.

Just like that, I was exposed and helpless and being blown apart by the man I apparently couldn’t resist. The man I disliked to the point of not doing my job properly.

Women, quite simply, are not supposed to excel at jobs and tasks that are designated as male in our culture. [If they do,] they are personally derogated, and they are disliked.”5

My job became nothing more than showing up every morning to do what I had already done, the reward for which was simply more of the same. I disliked the lack of adventure.

I want to be successful, but I also want to be happy. I want to be loving and patient with my kids instead of cold, angry, or irritable. I want to have harmony, intimacy, deep sharing, and passionate sex with my wife. I don’t want to be distant, live like roommates, bicker, criticize, or have hurtful fights that involve attacking each other’s vulnerabilities. I want to be an inspiring leader in my business. I want my team to speak freely, challenge me, support me, and have fun working with me. I don’t want them to fear me, secretly dislike me, degrade me behind my back, and wish they had a better job. I want my clients and customers to feel cared about, inspired, challenged, and respected. I want them to feel like they got so much value out of their investment that they can’t put a dollar amount on how much better their lives are now. I don’t want them to feel let down, uncared for, like a bother, and that their growth and success is irrelevant to me. In short, I want to be a “good person” too. However you define that in your world, I’d imagine it’s pretty similar.

The average American is 20 lbs. overweight, $10,000 in debt, slightly depressed, dislikes his or her job, and has less than one close friend. Even if only a fraction of this statistic is true, Americans need some serious waking up.

I wouldn’t say so. I’ve told people I’m a medieval historian when asked what I do. It freezes conversation. If one tells them one’s a poet, one gets these odd looks which seem to say, “Well, what’s he living off?” In the old days a man was proud to have in his passport, Occupation: Gentleman. Lord Antrim’s passport simply said, Occupation: Peer—which I felt was correct. I’ve had a lucky life. I had a happy home, and my parents provided me with a good education. And my father was both a physician and a scholar, so I never got the idea that art and science were opposing cultures—both were entertained equally in my home. I cannot complain. I’ve never had to do anything I really disliked. Certainly I’ve had to do various jobs I would not have taken on if I’d had the money; but I’ve always considered myself a worker, not a laborer. So many people have jobs they don’t like at all. I haven’t, and I’m grateful for that.

Most of you will probably never really discover anything. You may not contribute anything to the great equations that describe the universe to the world. But you will have the good fortune of encountering people of exceptional intelligence. People who are much smarter than you. Never get in their way, never group together in disgruntled circles and play games. Respect talent, real talent. Worship it. Clever people will always be disliked. Don’t exploit that to crawl your way to the top. By the laws of probability most of you are mediocre. Accept it. The tragedy of mediocrity is that even mediocre people shake their heads and mull over how “standards are falling”. So don’t mull. Just know when you’ve to get out of the way. Most of you will be sideshows, extras in the grand unfolding of truth. That’s all right. Once you accept that and let the best brains do their jobs, you will have done your service to science and mankind.

In most professions, getting older means getting better at your job, earning respect because of your seniority and experience. If your job depends on your looks, the opposite is true—how depressing. Suffering other people’s unkindness must be difficult too; all those bitter, less attractive people, jealous and resentful of your beauty. That’s incredibly unfair of them. After all, beautiful people didn’t ask to be born that way. It’s as unfair to dislike someone because they’re attractive as it is to dislike someone because of a deformity.

Maybe your father doesn’t like you as much as his other daughters,” he muttered. She blinked. “Are you implying my father dislikes me and is intentionally botching my rescue?” “Are you calling me shitty at my job?” He raised a brow in her direction. She clamped her lips tight.

Certainly.  In other words, no one is compelling a person to work at a job he doesn’t like or remain in a country against his will.  He actually wants to do the very things he dislikes simply because the alternative is considered worse and he must choose something to do among the various things in his environment, or else commit suicide. 

Paul He paces the hallway getting more and more impatient with every stride. Having decided to go into work late today, he didn’t expect his flatmate, Lee, to make him even later. Paul has known Lee for five years. They first met whilst attending an interview for an IT support role. On the day of the interview the company decided to do a group interview with all the candidates for the positions that were available. Paul was paired with Lee and instantly disliked him as, only a few seconds after being introduced, Lee stole his pen. During the interview process, several technical questions were asked which Paul had answered correctly, but Lee’s answers were always incorrect with Paul having a feeling that Lee was making things up as he went along. The interview stages went well for Paul and, after being told that he had got the job, on his first day at the company, he was surprised to see Lee start work as well. Puzzled, Paul put it down to fact that Lee’s flirting with the HR lady that day had helped him get the job.

the more you know about others, the less you know about yourself. After a time, you might forget your likes and even your dislikes. You can lose your politics, along with any and all respect for the political process that you might have had. Everything gets subsumed by the job, which begins with a denial of character and ends with a denial of conscience. “Mission First.

So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.

They have difficulty when being observed (at work, say, or performing at a music recital) or judged for general worthiness (dating, job interviews). But there were also new insights. The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive (just as Aron’s husband had described her). They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions—sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments—both physical and emotional—unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss—another

Our polarization, and the increasing reality that we simply don’t know each other, makes it too easy to settle for dislike and contempt. I first experienced reaching out and being reached out to as the child of a Foreign Service Officer. In my child’s mind, I had been given a personal mission, parallel to my father’s, to befriend the people of all the foreign countries my father’s job took us to. I was instructed to reach out, I imagined, to people who spoke, dressed, walked, looked, and worshipped differently than we did. Had my father asked me to do this? I don’t think so. […] Curiously, I felt that same gratitude for connection when, many decades later, I drove from plant to plant with Sharon, and when I talked to the many others I met in the course of researching this book. I felt I was in a foreign country again, only this time it was my own.

The main political reaction to our awareness that half the time we are engaged in utterly meaningless or even counterproductive activities—usually under the orders of a person we dislike—is to rankle with resentment over the fact there might be others out there who are not in the same trap. As a result, hatred, resentment, and suspicion have become the glue that holds society together. This is a disastrous state of affairs. I wish it to end.

He was fat. He was not very good looking. He didn’t play up to the press. But he tried. Boy did he try. I could still see him stretching from first to third on a single to center and belly-whopping into the bag, invariably safe. I related to Thurman. I had been a catcher in Little League, I was chunky, I played tough, and I too was pretty ugly. I always took Thurm’s side in arguments, and somehow I could feel what he was going through in that Yankee dugout, sensing his fear and dislike for Reggie (Jackson). I understood Thurman Munson’s terribly private ordeal, trying to simply play ball without wanting to be on the cover of a magazine, avoiding the fanfare in a town that breathes glamour and ignores dedication. His death signifies to me how difficult life really is, how hard it is to do what you want, to love and maintain your family and still do your job. The American dream drags onward….

When you are having trouble getting your thinking straight, consider an extreme or simple case. This will often give you the insight you need to move forward. More generally, make a problem as simple as possible without losing its essence – but no simpler. The world is full of uncertainty, much more than you think. Almost every important decision you make will be in the face of uncertainty. Therefore, learning to think probabilistically (assessing subjective probabilities of various scenarios and updating these probabilities with new information) is a critical life skill. Because of uncertainty, some good decisions will result in poor outcomes. In fact, for some decisions there are no good outcomes. Your job will be to choose the option likely to lead to the least bad outcome. Also, resist the tendency to dislike more the errors resulting from your actions (errors of commission) than the errors resulting from your inactions (errors of omission). These two types of errors are equally bad; what matters is their consequences, not their source.

Kat Godwin, Kipps’s right-hand operative, was a Listener like me, but that was about all we had in common. She was blonde, slim and pouty, which would have given me three good reasons to dislike her even if she’d been a sweet lass who spent her free time tending poorly hedgehogs. In fact she was flintily ambitious and cool-natured, and had less capacity for humour than a terrapin. Jokes made her irritable, as if she sensed something going on around her that she couldn’t understand. She was good-looking, though her jaw was a bit too sharp. If she’d repeatedly fallen over while crossing soft ground, you could have sewn a crop of beans in the chin-holes she left behind. The back of her hair was cut short, but the front hung angled across her brow in the manner of a horse’s flick. Her grey Fittes jacket, skirt and leggings were always spotless, which made me doubt she’d ever had to climb up inside a chimney to escape a Spectre, or battle a Poltergeist in the Bridewell sewers (officially the Worst Job Ever), as I had. Annoyingly, I always seemed to meet her after precisely that kind of incident. Like now

More often than not, these attempts at sociability ended in painful silence. His old friends, who remembered him as a brilliant student and wickedly funny conversationalist, were appalled by what had happened to him. Tom had slipped from the ranks of the anointed, and his downfall seemed to shake their confidence in themselves, to open the door onto a new pessimism about their own prospects in life. It didn't help matters that Tom had gained weight, that his former plumpness now verged on an embarrassing rotundity, but even more disturbing was the fact that he didn't seem to have any plans, that he never spoke about how he was going to undo the damage he'd done to himself and get back on his feet. Whenever he mentioned his new job, he described it in odd, almost religious terms, speculating on such questions as spiritual strength and the importance of finding one's path through patience and humility, and this confused them and made them fidget in their chairs. Tom's intelligence had not been dulled by the job, but no one wanted to hear what he had to say anymore, least of all the women he talked to, who expected young men to be full of brave ideas and clever schemes about how they were going to conquer the world. Tom put them off with his doubts and soul-searchings, his obscure disquisitions on the nature of reality, his hesitant manner. It was bad enough that he drove a taxi for a living, but a philosophical taxi driver who dressed in army-navy clothes and carried a paunch around his middle was a bit too much to ask. He was a pleasant guy, of course, and no one actively disliked him, but he wasn't a legitimate candidate?not for marriage, not even for a crazy fling.

She named the people who embodied these attributes “highly sensitive.” Some of these twenty-seven attributes were familiar from Kagan and others’ work. For example, highly sensitive people tend to be keen observers who look before they leap. They arrange their lives in ways that limit surprises. They’re often sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, pain, coffee. They have difficulty when being observed (at work, say, or performing at a music recital) or judged for general worthiness (dating, job interviews). But there were also new insights. The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive (just as Aron’s husband had described her). They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions—sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments—both physical and emotional—unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss—another person’s shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly.

have any skeletons in my closet that can’t be allowed out.” He didn’t seek any control over what I wrote, or even ask to read it in advance. His only involvement came when my publisher was choosing the cover art. When he saw an early version of a proposed cover treatment, he disliked it so much that he asked to have input in designing a new version. I was both amused and willing, so I readily assented. I ended up having more than forty interviews and conversations with him. Some were formal ones in his Palo Alto living room, others were done during long walks and drives or by telephone. During my two years of visits, he became increasingly intimate and

The spectrum of hatred against “irregardless” might be unmatched. Everyone claims to hate the word “moist,” but the dislike is general and jokey: ew, gross, “moist,” bleh. People’s hatred of “irregardless” is specific and vehemently serious: it cannot mean “without regard to” but must mean “with regard to,” so it’s nonsensical and shouldn’t exist; it’s a double negative and therefore not allowable by anyone with sense and judgment; it’s a redundant blend of “irrespective” and “regardless,” and we don’t need it; it is illogical and therefore not a word; it is a hallmark of uneducated speech and shouldn’t be entered into the dictionary. All of these complaints point in one direction: “irregardless” is evidence that English is going to hell, and you, Merriam-Webster, are skipping down the easy path, merrily swinging the handbasket. The truth is I felt for the complainant. “Irregardless” was just wrong, I thought—I knew this deep down at a molecular level, and no dictionary entry was going to convince me otherwise. But sharing my personal linguistic beef with the world was not part of the job, so I buttoned my yap and answered the correspondence. Yes, it’s entered, I said, but please note that it’s marked “nonstandard” (which is a fancy way of saying it’s not accepted by most educated speakers of English) and we have a very long usage paragraph after the one-word definition that explains you should use “regardless” instead. We are duty-bound to record the language as it is used, I concluded, gritting my teeth and mentally sprinkling scare quotes throughout the entire sentence.

1. First, we admire people who work hard. We dislike passengers who don’t pull their weight in the boat. 2. We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great advertising agency without brainy people. 3. We admire people who avoid politics – office politics, I mean. 4. We despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates. 5. We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments. 6. We admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior specimens as their subordinates. 7. We admire people who build up and develop their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and I look forward to the day when that will never be necessary. 8. We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you. 9. We admire kindly people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings – particularly the people who sell things to us. We abhor quarrelsome people. We abhor people who wage paper warfare. We abhor buck passers, and people who don’t tell the truth. 10. We admire well-organized people who keep their offices shipshape, and deliver their work on time. 11. We admire people who are good citizens in their communities – people who work for their local hospitals, their church, the PTA, the Community Chest and so on.

I’m afraid that your sister, Marissa Ferguson, was gleaned by Scythe Curie today at one fifteen p.m. I’m very sorry for your loss.” The man didn’t seem upset or shocked, merely resigned. “Is that all?” “Is that all? Didn’t you hear me? I just told you that your sister was gleaned today.” The man sighed. “That which comes can’t be avoided.” If she didn’t already dislike the Tonists, she certainly did now. “Is that it?” she asked. “Is that your people’s ‘holy’ line?” “It’s not a line; it’s just a simple truth we live by.” “Yeah, whatever you say. You’ll need to make arrangements for your sister’s body—because that’s coming and can’t be avoided either.” “But if I don’t step forward, won’t the Thunderhead provide a funeral?” “Don’t you care at all?” The man took a moment before answering. “Death by scythe is not a natural death. We Tonists do not acknowledge it.” Citra cleared her throat, biting back the verbal reaming she wanted to give him, and did her best to remain professional. “There’s one more thing. Although you didn’t live with her, you are her only documented relative. That entitles you to a year of immunity from gleaning.” “I don’t want immunity,” he said. “Why am I not surprised.” This was the first time she had ever encountered anyone who refused immunity. Even the most downhearted would kiss the ring. “You’ve done your job. You may go now,” Brother Ferguson said. There was only so long Citra could restrain her frustration. She couldn’t yell at the man. She couldn’t use her Bokator moves to kick him in the neck or take him down with an elbow slam. So she did the only thing she could do. She picked up the mallet and put all of her anger into a single, powerful strike at the tuning fork.

3. When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother’s eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy—if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed. 4. In civilised life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face. To keep this game up you and Glubose must see to it that each of these two fools has a sort of double standard. Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother’s utterances with the fullest and most over-sensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention. She must be encouraged to do the same to him. Hence from every quarrel they can both go away convinced, or very nearly convinced, that they are quite innocent. You know the kind of thing: ‘I simply ask her what time dinner will be and she flies into a temper.’ Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offence is taken.

Roth blinked, then nodded slowly. “I hate making them. I haven’t gotten where I am on the job by indulging my temper or apologizing for it. Neither, I imagine, have you. Women are still more closely scrutinized in the department and more strictly judged.” “That may be true, Captain. I don’t let it concern me.” “Then you’re a better woman than I, Dallas, or a great deal less ambitious. Because it burns the living hell out of me.” She inhaled, hissed the breath out through her teeth. “My coming at you as I have has been an emotional reaction, an indulgence again, that was both inappropriate and ill-advised. I’m going to tell you that I overreacted to Kohli’s death because I liked him, very much. I believe I overreacted to Mills because I disliked him. Very much.” She glanced back at the car. “He was a son of a bitch, a mean-spirited man who made no secret that, in his opinion, women should be having babies, cooking pies, and not wearing a badge. He disliked blacks, Jews, Asians . . . hell, he disliked everyone who wasn’t just what he was: an overfed white male. But he was my cop, and I want whoever opened him up that way.

Even male children of affluent white families think that history as taught in high school is “too neat and rosy.” 6 African American, Native American, and Latino students view history with a special dislike. They also learn history especially poorly. Students of color do only slightly worse than white students in mathematics. If you’ll pardon my grammar, nonwhite students do more worse in English and most worse in history.7 Something intriguing is going on here: surely history is not more difficult for minorities than trigonometry or Faulkner. Students don’t even know they are alienated, only that they “don’t like social studies” or “aren’t any good at history.” In college, most students of color give history departments a wide berth. Many history teachers perceive the low morale in their classrooms. If they have a lot of time, light domestic responsibilities, sufficient resources, and a flexible principal, some teachers respond by abandoning the overstuffed textbooks and reinventing their American history courses. All too many teachers grow disheartened and settle for less. At least dimly aware that their students are not requiting their own love of history, these teachers withdraw some of their energy from their courses. Gradually they end up going through the motions, staying ahead of their students in the textbooks, covering only material that will appear on the next test. College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had significant exposure to the subject before college. Not teachers in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A colleague of mine calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school to make room for more accurate information. In no other field does this happen. Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. Professors of English literature don’t presume that Romeo and Juliet was misunderstood in high school. Indeed, history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become. Perhaps I do not need to convince you that American history is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8

What is it like to be made vice-president? On one level, it's a nearly hallucinatory degree of success. I was barely forty years old, and a shaky, sixty-three-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the entire Western world. It was also like throwing up in convention-hall bathrooms before giving speeches, and after. It was sitting through dinners with men and women with whom I had nothing in common. Spending an enormous amount of time on trains. Promising thins and agreeing to things as advised by people I had barely met, on very little sleep. Huge sums of money were changing hands and everything happening on the grandest scale imaginable while still in most moments remaining pointless and usually outright seedy. I pretended to learn to fly-fish; I watched sporting events. In Maine I was assaulted by a lobster; it seized my lapel in a threatening manner. I tasted local foods and admired factories,farms, department stores, hotels, and (unless I'm misremembering) several empty plots of land.... It was like being given what was almost the nation's highest honor by a man you held in infinite esteem and regarded with perhaps a certain amount of terrified suspicion, a man who disliked you and clearly wanted nothing to do with you, who would scowl and change the subject at the mention of your name. And then being given a very important and very nasty job by that person, and despised for it, almost as much as you despised yourself.

Zac dangled his legs off the edge of the building, hanging onto every word I said as though I were some old time bard telling an epic war tale. I tried to be as detailed as possible, and I knew that I was doing a good job when he'd lean back and shut his eyes. He'd breathe slowly and watch the pictures that I painted for him with my words. He'd smile, not a cunning toothy one, but a sincere smile that comes only from being truly happy. I'd sit across from him and just watch his reactions. We could be up there for hours. I would see the sunset across his face and be as captivated with his skin's changing colours as he was with my everyday stories. That's when I learned to dislike winters.

No one wants to suffer. But much as we would all like to live a totally happy life, suffering is an inescapable fact of our human existence. The observation that ‘Man is born unto trouble, as sparks fly upward’ may not have been much consolation to Job but, nevertheless, remains an uncomfortable truth. Generally speaking, suffering arises through our encounters with problems and difficulties; this is why much of our time is spent trying to avoid them, even though they are inherent in life. In trying to avoid problems, however, we are often simply putting off the inevitable to a future date, by which time the trouble has usually grown much more difficult to resolve. Personal relationships are a good example of this. The failure to tackle a problem between two people — a clash of desires, for instance – usually for fear of not knowing what the consequences will be, or perhaps simply because of a dislike of conflict, can very easily lead to a build-up of resentments which, when finally expressed, can be immensely destructive. The story of the ‘mild-mannered’ civil servant who, in 1987, was jailed for strangling his wife after twenty-six years of marriage, ostensibly because she simply moved his favourite mustard from its usual place at the dinner table, is an extreme, but true, example of this.

For example, here are a few things you could try to learn in a new conversation: -Something she is passionate about -Why she decided to live in a particular city -What she likes (or dislikes) about her job -A place she’s traveled to – and how she felt about it -What kind of music she’s into -What her aspirations are -Something she’s excited about

Everyone seemed to have more to do than was possible in a forty-hour week. This was by design. “Microsoft’s theory is if it takes two people to do a job, hire one,” Shannon explained. “It’s a stated policy. I’ve seen it in memos. It’s called the N-minus-one policy.” In the abstract, the approach made good sense. For all the complaints about workers lacking initiative, most bosses disliked employees who did too much or broke with tradition or set their own priorities. At Microsoft most managers, finding themselves shorthanded, had no choice but to let their people run away from them. Smaller numbers of people, especially on a huge project such as NT, made communications between teammates easier. And it helped the bottom line. Microsoft earned twenty-five cents on every dollar of sales mainly because it offered hot products in a growing market, but the company also knew how to pinch pennies.

When trying to be recognized by others, almost all people treat satisfying other people’s expectations as the means to that end. And that is in accordance with the stream of thought of reward-and-punishment education that says one will be praised if one takes appropriate action. If, for example, the main point of your job turns out to be satisfying other people’s expectations, then that job is going to be very hard on you. Because you’ll always be worried about other people looking at you and fear their judgment, and you are repressing your “I-ness.” It might come as a surprise to you, but almost none of my clients who come for counseling are selfish people. Rather, they are suffering trying to meet the expectations of other people, the expectations of their parents and teachers. So, in a good way, they can’t behave in a self-centered fashion.

And you say you want a new job, but something keeps you holding on to the old one, justifying why he’ll get better this year,” Mina added, holding her iced almond-milk latte in one hand as she swiped through a dating app with the other. “And he’s so clingy and expects you to be there for him twenty-four seven,” Ellen added. “And when you do finally get another offer, you get cold feet because you can’t even remember who you were without Mr. Wall Street in your life.” “You’ve got to get out,” Mina said, tilting her head to evaluate a digital suitor on her phone. “It’s time,” Ellen agreed. “Sarah agrees with us.” Rae felt the panicked sensation of a door that had closed before she’d managed to reach it, but she avoided interpreting their words as truth. She just went into defensive mode, disliking how the rest of the Scramblettes had apparently started a separate group chat to stage an intervention. “Things have been getting better,” Rae said. “I think I’ll be able to present my market size analysis to a client at a pitch meeting next week.” “You’re doing that thing,” Ellen said, “where the shitty boyfriend does one mediocre thing, but relative to everything else he’s done it’s amazing, and so you think this means he’s really changed.” The glare from Ellen’s engagement ring felt very bright, and Rae didn’t like the sight of it.

The Barrier or Boundary: General Considerations The cornerstone of setting limits at night is ensuring that your child stays in the room where he should be sleeping. If he doesn’t stay in the room, you can’t enforce any nighttime rules at all; to enforce them, you must be prepared to use a barrier. Taking him back to his room over and over is not effective—in fact, he will probably perceive it as a game, especially if he has to be chased around the house, or if he can sneak out of the room when you’re not watching. Threats and punishments are counterproductive: a young child should not be punished for a lack of self-control at night, when self-control is hardest. Do not insist that your child take on a job that he cannot yet handle; you must take it over for him. If you dislike the idea of having a barrier, remember that in any case your young child cannot be allowed to wander freely around the house while you sleep. He may usually go to your room, true, but he could just as easily go somewhere more hazardous, such as the kitchen. He may also be confused in the middle of the night, half-awake and unsure of where he is going and why, and that will put him at additional risk. (Some children consciously and intentionally head away from their parents at night so they can do things that they are not normally allowed to do.) A strategically placed gate at the top of the stairs or in the hallway will keep your child in a restricted part of the house and probably safe. But you are still better off requiring him to stay in the room where he sleeps and putting the gate at the doorway of that room to enforce the rule.

[A]s an anthropologist, my job is not to love or hate, like or dislike, admire or disdain others. My purpose is primarily to understand not only how things are, but how/why they became the way they are…if I could sum up the most valuable thing I have learned from anthropology, it is this: the problems we have in this world are not Black, Muslim, Russian, Chinese, white, and so on. Our problems are simply human problems. They happen because we are born or thrown into certain contexts, places, circumstances, and structures that are often much bigger than ourselves, and we then try to make sense, resist, fight, accept, or give in to our circumstances in various ways. All our human successes and failures highly depend on our will, awareness, and the resources available to us to make individual or communal changes. [From “The Trump Age: Critical Questions” published on CounterPunch on June 23, 2023]

Ted, your job is not to try to make me happy or to make the decision you think I’d most approve of. It’s to do what’s right for the business. You are not allowed to let me drive this company off a cliff!” At most companies, the boss is there to approve or block the decisions of employees. This is a surefire way to limit innovation and slow down growth. At Netflix, we emphasize that it’s fine to disagree with your manager and to implement an idea she dislikes.

The main political reaction to our awareness that half the time we are engaged in utterly meaningless or even counterproductive activities—usually under the orders of a person we dislike—is to rankle with resentment over the fact there might be others out there who are not in the same trap. As a result, hatred, resentment, and suspicion have become the glue that holds society together. This is a disastrous state of affairs.

Roger enjoyed this time of the day. It was four o’clock, and he only had thirty minutes left at work. It wasn’t that he disliked his job, but he was swept up in the anticipation of spending the rest of the evening with his wife. In fact, his job was exactly what he wanted to do after college. Following high school, he was accepted to his first choice school, Penn State. It wasn’t the party atmosphere or venerable football history that drew him; it was the tradition. His grandfather attended the university to study business management, and his father graduated from there after studying economics. It was fitting that Roger took the baton and

had chewed and swallowed it, he said: “I don’t generally let the language flow around here. People, the richer they get, the more they dislike to hear a Negro express himself in well-chosen words. I guess they feel there’s no point in being rich unless you can feel superior to somebody. I study English on the college level, but if I talked that way I’d lose my job. People are very sensitive.

(Godzillabytes: Nelson had an irrational dislike of ‘petabytes’, the recognized term for a particular, and particularly large, wodge of data. Anything that sounded like a kitten’s gentle nip just didn’t have the moxie to do the job asked of it. ‘Godzillabytes’, on the other hand, shouted to the world that it was dealing with something very, very big . . . and possibly dangerous.) Nelson

Steve didn’t believe in reviews,” remembers Jon Rubinstein. “He disliked all that formality. His feeling was, ‘I give you feedback all the time, so what do you need a review for?

If you dislike Michigan winters so much,” Connell said, “why did you move here? Why didn’t you stay in New York?” At least there she’d be away from wild lumber camps and towns. The sunshine in her face disappeared. She took a longer drink of coffee before looking at him. The heartache in her expression socked him in the stomach. “I wish we could have stayed. Then maybe Daisy wouldn’t have gotten herself into this predicament.” Her voice was soft. “If you find her, do you think you’ll move back?” “There’s nothing left for us there. No one who wants us. No one who ever did.” She spoke so low, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. And he couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the rest of her family and how she had ended up with the cranky old photographer. “When I find Daisy—not if,” she said, her voice growing louder and ringing with the passion he’d heard before. “When I find her, I’ll never let her go. And I’ll give her the kind of home she deserves—finally.” He took a slurp of coffee, not quite sure how to answer her. If he did the math, he could come up with the slim percentage she had of finding her sister, especially alive. But he didn’t think she’d be too happy with the statistic. “I’m old enough now that I’ll be able to get a job and find a place for the two of us,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes, as if somehow she could convince him. “I’ll take care of her. We’ll make it this time.” He prayed she was right. But he had the gut feeling she was in for far more challenges than she expected. But who was he to contradict her and discourage her plans? He hardly knew her. In a few short weeks, she’d move on with Oren to another town and Connell would likely never see her again. And yet, down in the dark depths of her eyes, there was a spark that drew him in, a flicker of loneliness and longing, and it tugged on him, pulling him deeper. . . . And he was afraid

Isn't it interesting how much we dislike the days that allow us to enjoy our weekends? The days that pay. If you don't like Monday's, you're not living your authentic life! You’re in the wrong job! What do you really want to do with your life…?

And indeed today as it struggles with its financial crisis, the central issue in Greek politics remains resentment of the influence of Brussels, Germany, the International Monetary Fund, and other external actors, which are seen as pulling strings behind the back of a weak Greek government. Although there is considerable distrust of government in American political culture, by contrast, the basic legitimacy of democratic institutions runs very deep. Distrust of government is related to the Greek inability to collect taxes. Americans loudly proclaim their dislike of taxes, but when Congress mandates a tax, the government is energetic in enforcement. Moreover, international surveys suggest that levels of tax compliance are reasonably high in the United States; higher, certainly, than most European countries on the Mediterranean. Tax evasion in Greece is widespread, with restaurants requiring cash payments, doctors declaring poverty-line salaries, and unreported swimming pools owned by asset-hiding citizens dotting the Athenian landscape. By one account, Greece’s shadow economy—unreported income hidden from the tax authorities—constitutes 29.6 percent of total GDP.24 A second factor has to do with the late arrival of capitalism in Greece. The United States was an early industrializer; the private sector and entrepreneurship remained the main occupations of most Americans. Greece urbanized and took on other trappings of a modern society early on, but it failed to build a strong base of industrial employment. In the absence of entrepreneurial opportunities, Greeks sought jobs in the state sector, and politicians seeking to mobilize votes were happy to oblige. Moreover, the Greek pattern of urbanization in which whole villages moved from the countryside preserved intact rural patronage networks, networks that industry-based development tended to dissolve.

Now Archer and Ratcliffe and, to a lesser degree, John Martin, another of the original settlers whose laziness had angered Smith in the colony’s early days, and who had departed in 1608 only to return on the Falcon, all saw their chance to repay Smith for his cheek by stripping him of his office. Of course, Smith was not about to give up without a fight. He said, with justification, that since the colony’s new leaders and the new charter authorizing the change in leadership were somewhere out on the Atlantic (or at its bottom), there was neither need nor authority for him to give up his post. And he certainly did not want to turn the leadership of the colony over to men he knew were ill suited to guarantee its safety or survival. For his part, if Smith had known what lay in store in the next few weeks, he might well have simply thrown up his hands and ceded control to the men he found so distasteful. As it was, at one point, he said he would give up his commission to Martin, a man he apparently found slightly less offensive than Ratcliffe and Archer. Martin accepted, but kept the job for only three hours before deciding the responsibility was more than he wanted to shoulder and turning the task back to Smith. As much as Smith disliked Ratcliffe, Archer, and Martin, he felt no better when he surveyed the new settlers dispatched by the Virginia Company. They were, in Smith’s view, a pretty sorry lot.

Still, he always approahed the job with a faint reluctance, disliking the manner of it more than the result. Chopping down a tree for timber was straight-forward; girdling it seemed somehow mean-spirited, if practical, leaving the tree to die slowly, unable to bring water from its roots above the ring ot bare, exposed wood. It was not so unpleasant in the fall, at least, when the trees were dormant and leafless already; it must be rather like dying in their sleep, he thought. Or hoped.

THREE DISQUALIFIERS FOR APPLYING THE CRAFTSMAN MINDSET The job presents few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing relevant skills that are rare and valuable. The job focuses on something you think is useless or perhaps even actively bad for the world. The job forces you to work with people you really dislike.

Not that it would have prevented the shooting. That was a drive by inspired by a case Peter Bradford had been working on at the time. It would have happened anyway. It could still happen. But the security measures made Megan feel better. I stood slightly behind Hayden, aware of the tension in his shoulders. He disliked this new security protocol. I didn’t blame him. It seemed rather useless to me, too. We could have had badges that could be swiped or something like that, something more modern than clicking a name on a computer screen. But it wasn’t my job to worry about that. And it was a nice excuse to spend a little more time with Hayden. I found myself searching for something to talk about when I noticed Peter up ahead of us. “Everyone seems to be pairing off.” “What?” I gestured toward Peter. He was talking into his cellphone to his girlfriend, a very pregnant woman who was due to give birth practically any moment. I could hear him trying to calm her down, saying something about false labor. Hayden watched him thoughtfully, something

If I wanted to spend the day with people I dislike immensely, I'd get a paying job.

The shame surrounding being a sex worker is probably the hardest part of my job. The way society makes me feel like I have to hide it or be ashamed of it, as if taking this job is any worse than taking one at the gas station or library. Work is work. To be able to say I don’t dislike my job is more than most people can say.

Attend a university if you possibly can. There is no content of knowledge that is not pertinent to the work you will want to do. But before you attend a university work at something for a while. Do anything. Get a job in a potato field; or work as a grease-monkey in an auto repair shop. But if you do work in a field do not fail to observe the look and the feel of earth and of all things that you handle — yes, even potatoes! Or, in the auto shop, the smell of oil and grease and burning rubber. Paint of course, but if you have to lay aside painting for a time, continue to draw. Listen well to all conversations and be instructed by them and take all seriousness seriously. Never look down upon anything or anyone as not worthy of notice. In college or out of college, read. And form opinions! Read Sophocles and Euripides and Dante and Proust. Read everything that you can find about art except the reviews. Read the Bible; read Hume; read Pogo. Read all kinds of poetry and know many poets and many artists. Go to and art school, or two, or three, or take art courses at night if necessary. And paint and paint and draw and draw. Know all that you can, both curricular and noncurricular — mathematics and physics and economics, logic and particularly history. Know at least two languages besides your own, but anyway, know French. Look at pictures and more pictures. Look at every kind of visual symbol, every kind of emblem; do not spurn signboards of furniture drawings of this style of art or that style of art. Do not be afraid to like paintings honestly or to dislike them honestly, but if you do dislike them retain an open mind. Do not dismiss any school of art, not the Pre-Raphaelites nor the Hudson River School nor the German Genre painters. Talk and talk and sit at cafés, and listen to everything, to Brahms, to Brubeck, to the Italian hour on the radio. Listen to preachers in small town churches and in big city churches. Listen to politicians in New England town meetings and to rabble-rousers in Alabama. Even draw them. And remember that you are trying to learn to think what you want to think, that you are trying to co-ordinate mind and hand and eye. Go to all sorts of museums and galleries and to the studios of artists. Go to Paris and Madrid and Rome and Ravenna and Padua. Stand alone in Sainte Chapelle, in the Sistine Chapel, in the Church of the Carmine in Florence. Draw and draw and paint and learn to work in many media; try lithography and aquatint and silk-screen. Know all that you can about art, and by all means have opinions. Never be afraid to become embroiled in art of life or politics; never be afraid to learn to draw or paint better than you already do; and never be afraid to undertake any kind of art at all, however exalted or however common, but do it with distinction.

Gaynor disliked reformers. The ones he knew were hypocrites who wanted to tell the poor when they could consume alcohol or conduct business. Too often, in Gaynor’s view, reformers were the same people who paid slave wages, then turned around and called East Siders prostitutes and criminals. “Such people think it is the mayor’s job to not have a single criminal on the streets,” Gaynor once wrote. “I ask these good people what they have done to rescue a single unfortunate woman from the life she is leading.” But if Gaynor had to deal

I don’t dislike you. Far from it. I regret every nasty word, every lousy fucking errand I sent you on, and every dirty job I got you to do. I think you’re incredibly brave to have agreed to do this with me, and the reasons you did it are astonishing to me. You are selfless and kind, and the fact you’ve become so important to me is a testament to how special you are.

My seven-year-old daughter, Emma, is standing at the doorway to our bedroom, watching me contemplate what to do with her father’s favorite T-shirt. Even though we’ve already had breakfast, she’s still wearing her Frozen pajamas, which are royal blue with little snowflakes all over them. I guiltily shove the T-shirt back into the drawer and turn to smile at Emma. She doesn’t smile back. While her big brother is excited about the idea of staying with Aunt Penny for a week, Emma is decidedly freaked out. For the last week, Emma has crawled into our queen-sized bed every single night to sleep. Fortunately, Noah and I sleep with a gap the size of the Atlantic Ocean between us. “What’s wrong, honey?” I ask. Emma’s lower lip trembles. She runs over to me and wraps her skinny arms around my hips. “Don’t go, Mommy. Please.” “Emma…” I attempt to pry her off me, but she’s stuck like glue. It’s sweet. As much as I dislike my husband, I love my children. I’ve always loved children. It’s part of the reason I became a teacher. Nothing makes me happier than seeing the smiles light up those little faces. I reach down and wipe Emma’s damp light brown curls from her face. Her hair looks like mine, but it’s still baby soft. I lean in and bury my face in it—it smells like her watermelon shampoo. “It’s just a week, sweetheart,” I say. She looks up at me with her little tear-streaked cheeks. “But what if something happens to you?” I don’t know how my seven-year-old daughter got so neurotic. She worries about everything, including things no child has any business worrying about. Like when there was talk of a teacher strike last year, she was worried I wouldn’t have a job and we wouldn’t be able to afford food. What seven-year-old worries about that? “Why are you so worried, Emma?” She chews on her little pink lip. “Well, you’re going to be in the woods.” I don’t blame her for worrying if that’s what she thinks. Neither of her parents is what you would call “the outdoorsy type” by any stretch of the imagination. “Don’t worry,” I say. “We’re staying in a nice hotel. It will be really safe.

Steve didn’t believe in reviews,” remembers Jon Rubinstein. “He disliked all that formality. His feeling was, ‘I give you feedback all the time, so what do you need a review for?’ At one point I hired an executive coach so I could do three-sixty reviews with my own team. He was a really good guy, and I tried to get Steve to talk to him, but he wouldn’t. In fact, he asked me, ‘What do you need that for? That’s a waste of time!

The oxymoron “working vacation” has entered the European vernacular, which again testifies to an “Americanization” of Europe’s work life. European managers are taking ever fewer vacations, and when they do take them, their vacation time is basically useless since the managers just keep thinking about work all the time and are even working on their holidays. Yet, rarely, if ever, have I read anything about a purported “Japanization” or—of increasing relevance—“Chinazation” of European work life in the context of decreasing vacations and leisure time and growing pressure on managers. And yet, being on the job with little time off is practiced and extolled far more prominently in those two countries than it is in America.

It is not my intention to diminish genuine grievances, but rather to make it clear that the concept of “Americanization” (or even “American conditions”) is used as a label, a stigma, and adds little in terms of explanation or analysis. How and why is the increase in stress in Europe “American”? What exactly is “American” about this? Have American firms introduced these trends into Europe? Is it really more stressful to have a job with Ford in Cologne than it is with Volkswagen in Wolfsburg? There are many problems that cry out for discussion here, and many issues that need to be illuminated. But blaming everything on “Americanization” is, of course, easier and (above all) much more popular. “Americanization” becomes a complacent shorthand expression that, while doing nothing to explain complex processes, goes a long way toward offering everyone concerned a welcome bogeyman.

Regular meditation enhances our ability to be mindful. Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. We'll all experience loss, grief and heartache at some point. But whether or not we keep dwelling on it and torturing ourselves with it is something in which we have a choice - although it may not feel that way at the time. It's not our circumstances that make us happy or unhappy, it's whether or not they are an authentic reflection of what matters to us. Your mind is brighter, lighter and clearer in a clean and tidy environment. Speed, distraction and instant gratification are the enemies of nearly everything that matters most in our lives. If you typically wake up feeling resentful about having to get out of bed, go to a job you dislike, or undertake disagreeable tasks, you're immediately setting yourself up for unhappiness. Every day most of us do sensuously enjoyable things. Ironically we rob ourselves of the full pleasure of our sensuous enjoyments because our minds are elsewhere. Most people already possess the causes for many pleasures, but don't stop to enjoy them. If our purpose in life is to be happy, before looking for new causes of happiness, it makes sense first to identify the happiness-creating experiences we already have in our lives and to leverage them using mindfulness. The real voyage of discovery exists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes. Regular meditation practice is the foundation for a calmer, more insightful and contented experience of reality. The self-inflicted pain of attachment: the inability or unwillingness to step away from a spiral of negative interpretations, beliefs and emotions. Exploring your own mind may very well be the most valuable, surprising and liberating undertaking of your life. When we change our mind, we change our reality.

As my father likes to say, “Humans are the only animals on the planet that self-domesticate.” The relationship between the boy and his grandmother forms a part of the Dream of the Planet, and the lunch between the grandmother and her grandson is a basic example of how domestication and self-domestication within the Dream occurs. The grandmother domesticated her grandson in that moment, but he continued to self-domesticate himself long after that. Self-domestication is the act of accepting ourselves on the condition that we live up to the ideals we have adopted from others in the Dream of the Planet, without ever considering if those ideals are what we truly want. While the consequences of finishing a bowl of soup are minimal, domestication and self-domestication can take much more serious and darker forms as well. For instance, many of us learned to be critical of our physical appearance because it wasn't “good enough” by society's standards. We were presented with the belief that we weren't tall enough, thin enough, or that our skin wasn't the right color, and the moment we agreed with that belief we began to self-domesticate. Because we adopted an external belief, we either rejected or tried to change our physical appearance so we could feel worthy of our own self-acceptance and the acceptance of others. Imagine for a moment the many industries that would cease to exist if we all loved our bodies exactly the way they are. To be clear, domestication regarding body image is different from wanting to lose weight in order to be healthy, or even having a preference to look a certain way. The key difference is that with a preference, you come from a place of self-love and self-acceptance, whereas with domestication you start from a place of shame, guilt, and not being “enough.” The line between these two can be thin sometimes, and a Master of Self is one who can look within and determine his or her true motive. Another popular form of domestication in the current Dream of the Planet revolves around social class and material possessions. There is an underlying belief promulgated by society that those who have the most “stuff” or who hold certain jobs are somehow more important than the rest. I, for one, have never met anyone who was more important than anyone else, as we are all beautiful and unique creations of the Divine. And yet many people pursue career paths they dislike and buy things they don't really want or need all in an effort to achieve the elusive goals of peer acceptance and self-acceptance. Instances such as these (and we can think of many others) are the ways in which domestication leads to self-domestication, and the result is that we have people living lives that aren't their own.

If, for example, the main point of your job turns out to be satisfying other people’s expectations, then that job is going to be very hard on you. Because you’ll always be worried about other people looking at you and fear their judgment, and you are repressing your “I-ness.” It might come as a surprise to you, but almost none of my clients who come for counseling are selfish people. Rather, they are suffering trying to meet the expectations of other people, the expectations of their parents and teachers. So, in a good way, they can’t behave in a self-centered fashion.

The following rules are the fundamental differentiators to keep in mind throughout this book. 1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance. Retirement planning is like life insurance. It should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario: in this case, becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive. Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons: a. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice. b. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs-for-dinner standard of living. Even one million is chump change in a world where traditional retirement could span 30 years and inflation lowers your purchasing power 2–4% per year. The math doesn’t work.3 The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending. c. If the math does work, it means that you are one ambitious, hardworking machine. If that’s the case, guess what? One week into retirement, you’ll be so damn bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes. You’ll probably opt to look for a new job or start another company. Kinda defeats the purpose of waiting, doesn’t it? I’m not saying don’t plan for the worst case—I have maxed out 401(k)s and IRAs I use primarily for tax purposes—but don’t mistake retirement for the goal.

I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in services. I am strongly against anything that leads to inefficiency and second-rate standards.

Here’s a common scenario. You’re working with a frustrating coworker or a difficult boss. They ask you to do something and, because you dislike the messenger, you immediately object. There’s this problem or that one, or their request is obnoxious and rude. So you tell them, “No, I’m not going to do it.” Then they retaliate by not doing something that you had previously asked of them. And so the conflict escalates. Meanwhile, if you could step back and see it objectively, you’d probably see that not everything they’re asking for is unreasonable. In fact, some of it is pretty easy to do or is, at least, agreeable. And if you did it, it might make the rest of the tasks a bit more tolerable too. Pretty soon, you’ve done the entire thing. Life (and our job) is difficult enough. Let’s not make it harder by getting emotional about insignificant matters or digging in for battles we don’t actually care about. Let’s not let emotion get in the way of kathêkon, the simple, appropriate actions on the path to virtue.

When we have negative emotions such as anger, anxiety and dislike or hate, or think negative thoughts such as ‘I hate my job,’ ‘I don’t like so and so’ or ‘Who does he think he is?’, we experience stress and our energy reserves are redirected,

apparently, some disgruntled patient had called and warned them about me. I felt terrible that a patient disliked me enough to do that, but I tried to put it out of my head. At least I have the job now.

These experiences established a pattern for all the years and careers that came afterward. Always do your best, no matter how difficult the job, or how much you dislike it, your bosses, the work environment, or your fellow workers. As the old expression goes, if you take the king’s coin, you give the king his due.

Of course, some young people dislike the conformity and yearn for a sense of choice and exploration. One college senior at Princeton remarked to me, “Once you’re here, you become awfully risk-averse. It’s more about not failing than doing anything in particular.” Another said, “I’m so busy here. I’d love some time to think,” as if thinking and college didn’t belong in the same sentence.

THREE DISQUALIFIERS FOR APPLYING THE CRAFTSMAN MINDSET The job presents few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing relevant skills that are rare and valuable. The job focuses on something you think is useless or perhaps even actively bad for the world. The job forces you to work with people you really dislike.7

PHILOSOPHER: Yes. I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but who never seems to be able to complete his work. According to him, his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough time to write novels, and that’s why he can’t complete work and enter it for writing awards. But is that the real reason? No! It’s actually that he wants to leave the possibility of ‘I can do it if I try’ open, by not committing to anything. He doesn’t want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn’t want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it. In another five or ten years, he will probably start using other excuses like ‘I’m not young anymore’ or ‘I’ve got a family to think about now.

So much is learned by seeing how well or how poorly someone accomplishes a job he dislikes.

you?” said Ron to Harry as they watched Hermione teaching Neville a Scouring Charm to remove the toad guts from under his fingernails. “Yeah,” said Harry. “Moody.” It was common knowledge that Snape really wanted the Dark Arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year running. Snape had disliked all of their previous Dark Arts teachers, and shown it — but he seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody. Indeed, whenever Harry saw the two

It's easy to dislike senior women because there are so few. If women held 50 percent of the top jobs, it would just not be possible to dislike that many people. (p.50)

I would like this book to be an arrow aimed at the heart of our civilization. There is something very wrong with what we have made ourselves. We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself. We have come to believe that men and women who do not work harder than they wish at jobs they do not particularly enjoy are bad people unworthy of love, care, or assistance from their communities. It is as if we have collectively acquiesced to our own enslavement. The main political reaction to our awareness that half the time we are engaged in utterly meaningless or even counterproductive activities—usually under the orders of a person we dislike—is to rankle with resentment over the fact there might be others out there who are not in the same trap. As a result, hatred, resentment, and suspicion have become the glue that holds society together. This is a disastrous state of affairs. I wish it to end.