They are distinct
It’s a really good idea to learn what narcissists and people with BPD are like, because being in a relationship with them is often life destroying, and learning to recognize the warning signs and get out once you begin to realize what they are is the key to not wasting your life on someone who has little regard for you as a human. People with BPD CAN improve, kind of, I still think you should be extremely leery of them, narcissists will wreck your life and make you think it’s all your fault, without a qualm, and never improve because they don’t care if they hurt you. They will both discard you and then try to lure you back in when they need their emotional “supply” or want something else from you. There is NOTHING you can do for a narcissist, so get out before they make it impossible for you to do so. It’s definitely more of a buzz word these days, but if someone you are in a relationship with has chronically toxic and manipulative behavior to you, gaslights you, somehow makes everything your fault, lies, cheats, wrecks your finances, family relationships, etc, they are never going to change. This is not something that they have no control over, it’s deliberate.
(BPD people can progress if they actually get a diagnosis and intensive therapy and have insight, but there’s no question many of them wreck lives. I am sorry if you are a person suffering from BPD and I do wish for healing for you, it’s very difficult, but people do have the right to protect themselves from destructive behaviour, and people have the right to say no to having someone with BPD in their lives who have hurt them irreparably and refuse to get help).
Emulate honorable people instead of popular people.
Never use ‘telling the truth’ as an excuse to speak without thought or compassion.
You are 100% responsible for what you say and what you do. Own your shit.
If someone is trying, but struggling - encourage them. If someone is struggling, but not really trying - encourage them.
Don’t waste your time trying to ‘be a leader’ or climb any corporate ladders. Just do your job and be kind, generous, truthful and compassionate. What is meant for you will be for you.
Read. A lot. From actual books. As many as you can get your hands on.
Stop putting yourself down. Seriously, it’s not fucking helping you. AT ALL.
Stop putting yourself down. Seriously, it’s not fucking helping you. AT ALL.
I’m almost 40 and this has been literally the hardest thing in the universe to do for my entire life. It doesn’t help to do it, but to deny it feels like I’m lying to myself anyway.
I have the absolute worst double standard with this. You drop a pencil and “it’s ok friend, it happens, no one is perfect.” I drop a pencil and it’s “wtf butterfingers jackass, you can’t even hold a pencil properly no wonder you’re still single.” Lol
I think putting myself down does help me. I was raised by a narcissist intent on making me their reflection. I put myself down to counteract 18 years of narcissistic conditioning. Granted, if you weren’t raised to be a narcissist you probably shouldn’t do it. I’m an edge case.
I phrase it as ‘Never put yourself down. It gives people the perfect opportunity to agree with you.’
It’s sort of like “if I keep quiet, they won’t know how stupid I am!”
I can be the quiet “mysterious” (idiot)!
Or just a creepy weirdo. Whatever works Lol
It doesn’t help that our culture - especially internet culture - loooooooves self-deprecating ‘humor’. We even put ourselves down for putting ourselves down! I’ve had a lot of success with trying to focus more on my triumphs than my failures. It’s all about the language I use with myself, I’ve found. When I have a victory (even a small one), I say “Good job! You nailed it!”. When I fail, I say “Well, that sucked…but you’ll get it next time. Keep trying!”. Most of us don’t have our own personal cheerleaders, so we have to become our own. :)
Take care of your teeth.
Set unbreakable rules for yourself BEFORE you are in a high pressure or mind altering situation. (Don’t trust the drunk or stressed out version of you to make good choices. If you decide that you won’t be driving BEFORE you take the first drink, drunk you won’t have to make that decision later.)
Most people are too busy worrying about that super embarrassing thing THEY did to think about the super embarrassing thing YOU did.
People who are different from you do not add or remove value from who you are.
Knowledge is knowing how to make french fries.
Wisdom is to know when to stop eating them.
I’m not very wise.
You stop eating them when they’re gone, duh!
The most profound wisdom so far on this thread.
You’ll often have to choose between being right and being kind.
Make sure you choose what you’re willing to live with later.
Treat people with love, respect and patience. For the vast majority, you won’t get a second chance.
There will never be a time in your life when bad things stop happening, but the same is true of good things. Don’t get too high or too low.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
“Man who runs in front of car gets tired. Man who runs behind car gets exhausted.” - Confucius
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now”
Results that require a long time to from work are ultimate started long before you need the results. However that isn’t always clear at the time back then. Sometimes it is and procrastination means you’re without the results today because you never started and the time has passed anyway. That doesn’t mean that you should simple discard the idea the results were needed for. You can still achieve the results, but delaying the start of the work now is the worst thing you can do. Starting right now is the best choice to move forward to get the results you want.
You can only be sure of something if you know too little.
- me, 2025
Unearned wisdom sounds like hollow platitudes and is easily forgotten, synthesis without thorough analysis is a waste of time.
This is one of my personally learned lessons of wisdom that took me far too long to figure out:
“A lot of the time you just need to let people continue to be wrong”
I’m not talking about when you’re going in for surgery and your doctor told you he is going to amputate the wrong leg. I’m talking about when someone says something that is factually or morally incorrect. There is an infinite amount of wrong people in the world. You will encounter dozens of them on a daily basis. You would have an opportunity to personally correct quite a few of them. Don’t do it. Smile, nod, and walk away.
Lets say you want to correct them and in the best case you’re successful. They now know what they said was wrong. Most people really don’t like to be corrected, even if they were wrong. They are embarrassed, possibly shamed, and at worst, humiliated. What kind of interaction do you think you’re going to have with that person going forward into the future. Do you think they will embrace you as the really intelligent person that took your time to help them out? No. They will think you a pompous, arrogant, know-it-all. And for what? You spent all this time and energy on something you don’t even really care about. Your purpose in life is not to be “Defender of the truth, hero of logic” or anything. You’re just a regular person, and the guy on the subway does not give two shits that he mispronounced the word “nuclear” as “nucular”.
In the professional world its a bit different, but even then, most of the above applies. You have to be careful where and how you correct someone. Even if the ultimate outcome is for the good of the organization, you can alienate those that you need to like you for you to effectively get your job done. You can quickly develop a reputation as an uncooperative “Diva”. That is career poison and no matter how good your subject matter expertise, this reputation can forever limit your advancement.
So unless the outcome of something really and truly matters to the outcome pf your life or your job, and sometimes even then…let it go without saying anything. Let them be wrong, and leave them behind you never to be seen by you again in your entire life.
Wisdom as distinct from knowledge is a performance of one’s experience. Think on your experiences, and how to portray them for an audience. That will appear to be wisdom.
Another version of wisdom is a lack of self-seriousness. Unlearn your self regard to achieve this.
My interpretation of what that means is something like “knowledge about how to live well”.
One thing I wish I knew when I was younger is that no matter how smart you are, you’re not that smart. Basically, unless you have a positive argument why someone else hasn’t thought of a thing, they have.
A simple corollary to that is that meritocracy doesn’t exist, which is also why this fact gets played down in public discourse.
