Wisdom Is The Most Important Thing?

"...those who live without being consumed by business or distractions can find their lives to be more than sufficient."
-Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

Seneca believed that pursuing wisdom was the most important exercise of the human experience. I'm of the opinion that health and relationship are also important to live a fulfilling life as without those life becomes an annoyance and lonely.

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
-Seneca

Monetary gains is important to live but one shouldn't dedicate their lives to it as it's relatively meaningless. There's no limit to the amount of things we can acquire and we carry nothing with us when we die.

Savings Could Be The Plan

“Why should God bring an opportunity your way if you are not in a position to take advantage of it? If you were God, to whom would you give opportunities? Wishful thinkers? Dreamers? Or planners?”
-Andy Stanley

If you don't have a plan for your life then being able to save money may open opportunities you otherwise wouldn't of had.

Years ago, I moved to a new city and the word on the street was that the local I.T. company had been sold. Before signing the papers, the owner had given his employees the opportunity to buy shares of the company - many became overnight millionaires in the deal.
I always wondered what happened to those that weren't able to take advantage of the opportunity... 

While life is short, and we only have the one, we ought to save part of what we earn. If an opportunity ever present itself then we'll be ready.

Self-Improvement In the A.I. Age

A.I. is an accumulation of all human knowledge - it's not possible to know more than it does. 

What does that mean for Self-Improvement?

Self-Improvement is about improving the self. What will "self" be once we're all interconnected with A.I.? What will there be to improve if we all have access to all the information we've ever produced? Will we be better once we're all starting from the same point? Will we just be copies of each other?

Even today, some people don't make any major decisions without first consulting an A.I. However life is unpredictable - can a user blame A.I. for making the wrong decisions? Will the user learn from the A.I.'s mistake the same as he would from learning from his own mistakes?

There are a lot of unknowns about the future of A.I.'s relationship with humanity. For now, Self-Improvement still has value and A.I. can be our greatest assistant.

We Can Only Go Nuclear Once

"Full-scale nuclear war has never happened. Somehow this is taken to imply that it never will. But we can experience it only once."

-Carl Sagan (Cosmos)

Our destructive capabilities has grown at a faster rate than our overall growth. With great destructive abilities comes great responsibilities yet most people with access to the "big red button" today have questionable moralities.

Why build nuclear weapons if we never intend to use it? Why is the survival of the entire planet at the hands of a so few individuals? It's nothing short of an accident waiting to happen.

Nobody knows who will be the first to initiate the end of all things but it does feel like we've never been so close to finding out.

Success for Everyone

Too often, perhaps instinctively, we think of success as a finite resource like water - in limited supply and once claimed there's less for everyone else. 

While success means different things to different people it isn't a finite resource. Instead of being jealous of other people's successes we ought to be supportive of them as there's nothing stopping us from also achieving success for ourselves.

If you're not competing, and are fortunate enough to live in a country with rights, then the only person stopping you from winning is yourself.