We need an exit strategy

An argument for not trying to please people: You should never work on something with the sole purpose of adding it to your resume.

• The benefit of this outlook is it makes you highly independent. Satisfaction comes from within, not from other's opinions of you.
• The downside is that you need to deal with people. Trying not to please people might isolate you and your ideas. You might need to get a degree if your dream job requires a degree, even if the degree itself is worthless.

The world is driven by marketing. When you interact with other people, you need to know how to sell yourself. This means that you would want to fill your resume with activities that look good.

• Instead of being focused on yourself, you craft an authentic story around yourself that is driven by a strategy.
• The downside is that its hard to separate your independence from what other people think of you, knowing that you need to market to them.

Logic is not the best strategy for winning a debate. Any logic has plenty of counter logic waiting to pounce on it.

A simple NO can wash over:

1. Any overwhelming facts and proof explaining why one is right.
2. Any valid counterpoints to the other person’s arguments.

We falsely assume that our explanation is bulletproof, and forget that the other person has a choice to not agree with us. We could say the sun exists, and the earth is round, but the other person can simply say ‘No’.

Instead of trying to persuade someone that they are wrong, try to create a different premise. You can debate to learn something, or to see the other person’s viewpoint, understanding why they disagree. You can also politely put on the table what you think about the topic, not waiting for them to change their mind.

The fun part is when you are not trying to win an argument, you usually do.

• Culture is a way of perspective and identity, and people speaking the same language immediately bond and form a connection.
• If an English speaking person learns Spanish, the underlying culture that emphasises ‘passion’ or ‘enjoying the experience’ is a more important cultural value in the countries who are natively Spanish.
• The culture of a certain place may include cuisine, history, music and notable personalities, but language becomes the salt without which the culture is tasteless.

The local language is the preferred route to understand the culture due to 2 reasons:

1. Most people don’t speak English very well, due to their learning it as a second or third language. These people do not represent the real sampling of the country's population, just being the better-educated cosmopolitans who speak a global language.
2. Most translations are poor substitutes for the real cultural essence, and a person needs to learn the original language to fully understand the context and culture.