Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal.
—Samuel Johnson
I haven’t detected anything in you and I don’t mean to assume any sort of superiority, but I believe that if you rant about something more than three times you should write it down. Here are a few suggestions I’ve often repeated to my friends which I’m passing along for your consideration:
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Mother Night (1962)
The rich man thought he was hoarding freedom, but he couldn’t stop and in the end it all turned out to be money.
—James Richardson, Vectors 3.0: Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.
—Cassio, Othello, II:iii
Two concepts that have helped me make career decisions are:
Mimesis