Sometimes, you have to leave people behind, because they're either going to catch wood or drown. You try to help them learn how to swim, and they scream, "I know what I'm doing!" You reply, "Well, it looks a lot like drowning" and they tell you to fuck off.

The lesson? Everybody thinks they know what they're doing, and most won't listen to other people's advice until they've hit bottom. And a lot of people don't even listen then. You can't help them if they won't change - and for most people, changing means admitting that they're wrong.

When helping someone out, you have to think about what you're teaching them. If someone's drinking all the time, giving them money and a sympathetic ear teaches them that they can keep drinking and someone will bail them out. If someone's prone to screaming fits where they call you an asshole and then say they're really sorry, coming back to them teaches them that they can act this way and continue to have friends. If someone's prone to getting too clingy and cries whenever they're upset, giving in and spending all of your time with them teaches them that if they cry hard enough, they will get what they want.

There is a Pavlovian nature to being supportive. If you reinforce negative behaviors with too much kindness, then you wind up getting walked on.

And yet you must find a way to be kind.

A smart, literate person can fuck themselves over far better than dumb people can. Smart people can take bullshit stances, then back them up with half-assed logic and heartfelt emotion to create something that looks really genuine. They can, quite literally, argue their way into being right, even when they're utterly wrong.

Really smart people can use those communicative skills to bully people. Just because you can say it better doesn't mean that you're right. Just because you have people agreeing with you doesn't mean you're right.

The past is meaningless. I don't care whether your mother beat you bloody every Tuesday night for every week of your childhood; all that matters now is what you do today.

Too many people use the past as an excuse to make today's assholism or helplessness okay.

It's harder to learn when you don't have a valid template. I used to think this was bullshit, but then I realized why I was always nervous about being married: I never knew what a married couple looked like. My parents divorced early, and as a result I don't know what married people are supposed to do. I never know when something's good.

There are people who grew up in bad families who never saw what it was like to be married, or how to parent, or how to love. This is not an excuse, but it does make them have to start from scratch.

I think the trick is to acknowledge that and just to start building.

There is a balance between being right and being invested in right. When people are miserable and near-suicidal, they evidently don't know what they're doing - and chances are good that you do, in fact, have a better idea of what's best for them than they do.

But the worst thing you can do is to use that as a club. They may be stupid, and lost, and too arrogant to see that where they are is the result of their own bad decisions... But you have to find a way to put it to them gently.

Empathy, not sympathy.

The average is still a valid baseline. If most people would get upset by what you're doing to a specific person, chances are that either you're either the Messiah or that you're an asshole.

I don't like your odds, Jesus.

Everyone has a few bugs in their program - an instinct that's completely wrong. I want to date psychopathic women, who are needy and make me feel good about myself. Gini hates seeing people fight and doesn't ever want to be the one who ends a friendship.

Both of us wind up in horrible situations when we follow our instincts.

I think a large part to the secret of success is to remember which instincts are wrong, and to go against them. You're outside your comfort zone, which is a bitch... But you get better results.

There is no now. Your life starts here. If you're miserable, you can change that today. You chose to be here, and nobody else.

Any other attitude leads to you blaming other people, which makes it their fault, which blinds you to the things you could have genuinely done, which puts you smack in the middle of helplessville.

It's all you, buddy. You make your world. And even if it ain't true, you'd better believe that with all your heart.

(Tell me I'm full of it)