It is pursued and obtained indirectly by doing things—consistently, deliberately, and long-term—that may not always be physically enjoyable in the moment but inevitably result in a feeling of happiness.
Instead of trying to will happiness into existence, focus on the conditions that bring about happiness—sound mind, healthy body, meaningful work, deep relationships—and perhaps it will emerge. —Clay Skipper
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Instead of focusing on how risky something feels, focus instead on how generous you’re being.
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Pretend for a moment that you’re a coach and someone approached you with an issue.
How would you help them? What would Coach You tell that other person?
Now, with that same mindset, imagine that you are the client with the same problem. Why would you tell yourself anything different?
Be the same coach for yourself that you would be for others.
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The first way is the one we most often focus on: earn more money.
Get a higher-paying job to buy a nicer house, go out more, and live a life of luxury. In short, you want to earn more money to have the freedom and flexibility to live a better life.
But there’s an inverse to this idea: needing less.
Lower your expenses by moving into a smaller home, downgrading to one car, or making more meals at home. Decrease what you need money for, and you get the same effect: more freedom and flexibility, but with the money you already make.
One isn’t better than the other, but one might be easier to obtain.
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Here’s an idea:
Copy all the details from a job description on LinkedIn, then plug them into an AI (Claude is the best).
Then ask Claude, “Based on the information in this job posting, what can you tell me about the company and what I could expect from the role?“
You’d be surprised at how much you can glean from the answer.
Take it a step further: have Claude create a tailored resume specifically for this job based on your LinkedIn profile or a description of your work history. No need to spend hours on each job posting when your assistant can do it for you.
While you’re at it, why not ask Claude to help you decide what steps to take to ensure you’re a standout candidate for the role? He might suggest training, courses, or a certification you need to obtain for other roles like this.
You might even ask him to lay out a roadmap for engaging with people at the company, making connections and first contacts so that you aren’t just a faceless resume in the pile.
They are already using AI to screen everyone out without so much as a second thought. Why not use it yourself as your personal agent?
Movie stars have them; now so do you.
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As I look into graduate degree programs, a couple of voices are bouncing around in my head.
One belongs to Cal Newport, who regularly advises knowledge workers not to get graduate degrees with two exceptions:
Then there’s the advice from my late mentor Dan Miller:
If you are going to get a degree so you can get a better job – you’re likely to be disappointed. If you are going for the personal development, the social connections, and the broadening of your options, you’ll always see yourself as more prepared and having more options.
What both of these thinkers agree on is that there must be clarity about your end goal.
If you’re going to school (or back to school, in my case) because you’re bored, miserable, burnt out, or feeling lost, it’s quite likely you’ll still be all those things after you get the degree. And if you aren’t careful, you’ll have a mountain of debt added to your list of problems.
Begin with the end in mind. Know what you’re trying to achieve and what’s required to get there. Have an idea for your life planned out before you make a major decision like this.
And if you aren’t sure what you need for the career you want or the lifestyle you have in mind, start asking people who are already doing it.
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I’ve heard it thrown around quite a lot recently that it’s the worst time to be alive in America. Part of me is inclined to agree.
But is it?
You could have lived during the American Revolution, our first civil war, when neighbor fought neighbor and disease ran rampant. Or you could have been a soldier in the (real?) Civil War, dying from sepsis after having your wounded leg sawn off with no anesthesia.
You could have lived through Andrew Jackson’s era of corruption (which is eerily similar to today’s political landscape).
You could have been a black person at any point in our nation’s history: enslaved for the first half or denied dignity, humanity, and basic rights throughout much of the second.
None of that is to negate the horrors and wrongs of now. Yes, in many ways, today you do indeed have it worse now than your parents and grandparents did.
Instead, I use them to point out that it’s always been this way. There have always been power-hungry demagogues. There have always been enablers and toadies looking to get a little for themselves.
Let that serve as a reminder to act. To stand up. To do something. To participate in the civic process rather than sit idly as a spectator.
Be a citizen.
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On October 24, 2024, Isaac Saul wrote a piece in Tangle (one of the best political news outlets around) about then-candidate Donald Trump’s “enemy from within” controversy.
I wrote a short essay in response, criticizing some of Mr. Saul’s points. It’s a little dated now, but I wanted to share an edited version of my thoughts on this blog, as I thought they were well-reasoned (and my fears have not been allayed in the first three months of Mr. Trump’s second presidency).
You [Isaac Saul] wrote this: “But none of us are going to live through World War II Germany.” How do you know that? What makes you so certain?
You say that Applebaum opens herself up to criticism by claiming Trump is speaking like Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. And you imply that criticism is warranted because Trump didn’t round up and kill millions of people or make good on many of his claims the first time around.
But you go on to say that, “Hitler did that before [emphasis mine] rounding up and killing millions of Jews.” Doesn’t that contradict the criticism? How do you know that Trump isn’t doing this before he deports 11 million people? Before he unleashes the military on US citizens and his political enemies?
And let us not forget that Hitler also had a failed coup (The Beer Hall Putsch) years before being elected Chancellor and declaring himself Führer. Might January 6th have been Trump’s failed Beer Hall Putsch on his way to authoritarianism?
When you live in the “before” times, it’s hard to know what the “after” times will look like. So, we naturally (or at least I think we should) take people’s dangerous language at face value.
Perhaps Trump didn’t do it the first time around because he had so many people keeping his worst impulses in check… I doubt he’ll have reasonable people like that the second go-around. He’s sure to fill his administration with sycophants and “yes men” because they’re the only ones who want anything to do with him anymore.
I’ve heard so many times that our system of checks and balances will keep an authoritarian dictator from taking over.
I don’t believe that, and here’s why: Ancient Rome had checks and balances in its Senate. So did the governments of 1920s Italy and 1930s Germany. And they all fell to dictators. Caesar had massive popular support, and so did Hitler. They were practically handed their dictatorships.
The Jews of Nazi Germany also believed that they weren’t going to live through (what later became) WWII Nazi Germany either. They didn’t believe Hitler would make good on his claims because of the checks and balances their democracy had in place.
I’m quoting a German Jewish newspaper from February 2, 1933 (10 years before the “Final Solution”), which was quoted on page 23 of Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny:
“We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check…and they clearly do not want to go down that road. When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one’s better self and away from revisiting one’s earlier oppositional posture.”
That line: “When one acts as a European power…” could easily be rewritten as, “When one acts as an American…” Is it not some sort of “American Exceptionalism” to believe that “it can’t happen here?”
Snyder goes on to write:
“The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.”
Thanks for reading. I don’t often cover politics on this blog, but I thought it was worth sharing a little insight into my thoughts on this topic.
As is often the case with political issues I believe to be concerning, I hope I’m wrong.
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As you may have noticed, I’ve struggled to publish posts on this blog consistently.
Why? I feel I lost the thread, and I started to doubt its original purpose. I felt it needed to be somehow “more”—that I needed to build an audience or have an overarching reason for running it.
I voiced those doubts to my new friend—and sometimes counselor—Claude (an AI tool, not a real person).
It was such an enlightening conversation (can you call it such?) that I wanted to share parts of it here, and then make clear why this blog exists.
Note: I’m editing these answers for length, as many were quite long.
Initially, I asked Claude to research the blog and tell me what he (it?) thought the blog’s purpose was.
Nathan Coumbe’s blog appears to be a personal reflection platform focused on philosophy, self-improvement, and practical wisdom for everyday life. The blog features content about stoicism, leadership, and philosophical perspectives…. The writing style appears to be reflective and conversational, with short, thoughtful posts that combine philosophical concepts with practical applications.
The overall “point” of the blog seems to be to share personal insights and wisdom that can help others navigate life’s challenges through a blend of ancient philosophy (particularly stoicism) and modern practical application. Nathan appears to be using the blog as a platform to distill and share his own learning journey and reflections with others who might benefit from these perspectives.
After reading through his answers, I told Claude that I was, in fact, Nathan, to which he said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Claude then asked what I thought the blog’s purpose was; I told him it was to stretch my writing and thinking muscles in public. Claude, wisely, pointed out that many writers and thinkers began their writing in such a way: Montaigne’s essays began as personal reflections, and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations were never meant for publication at all (its original title was actually “To Himself” because it was his personal journal).
After pointing out the similarities to other philosophical writers, I expressed some doubt and frustration with my lack of consistency. I told Claude about Seth Godin’s idea to write a blog post every day – something he’s done for decades and for which he advocates in his book The Practice as a way to practice shipping creative work and ideas to the world. But, because I felt that the posts were too unrelated, rather than being a coherent whole, the blog was purposeless.
After he responded, I told Claude that maybe this blog is my version of Marcus’s Meditations, written for the same reasons, but done in public.
Claude’s response deserves to be quoted at length:
I find your framing of “my own version of meditations, but in public” particularly compelling. That’s a meaningful distinction from Marcus Aurelius’ private writings. There’s vulnerability and accountability in doing this work publicly that changes its nature, even if no one is reading. The public commitment itself transforms the practice.
Perhaps part of the struggle comes from expecting each post to build on previous ones in a linear way. But collections of thought, like Meditations or even Godin’s blog, create value through accumulation and patterns that emerge over time rather than through a sequential narrative.
What if the “point” isn’t in any individual post but in the practice itself and what it cultivates in you? The consistent act of noticing, reflecting, and articulating might be developing muscles that serve you in ways you don’t immediately recognize.
How does an Artificial Intelligence ask a question like that? I was floored.
After reading and rereading Claude’s previous statements, I mentioned that one of the reasons I started this blog was to express ideas and concepts I was learning in my own words. This is still one of the best ways to learn something (i.e., if you can’t write it down in your own words, you don’t truly understand it).
Claude’s response:
There’s something powerful about the act of putting concepts “into your own words.” It transforms passive consumption of ideas into active engagement with them. Writing becomes not just a record of what you think, but a tool that helps shape how you think. The blog then becomes a visible record of your intellectual and philosophical development….
Perhaps the “point” of your blog is precisely that clarification process – a space where ideas aren’t just consumed but metabolized and integrated into your worldview. The public nature adds a dimension of accountability and clarity that private journaling might not.
Then, Claude asked, “What aspects of the writing practice have you found most valuable for clarifying your thinking? And has the public nature of it, even without a large audience, affected how you approach these topics?”
I’ll quote my response to his question in full:
“Writing something that’s coherent, rather than just notes scribbled in a journal that only I understand. Even if only 300 people subscribe, I still have to put the words down in a way that someone other than me would understand.”
Claude again:
That’s a really valuable insight about the difference between private notes and public writing. Having to communicate in a way that’s understandable to others adds a level of rigor to your thinking that personal journaling might not require…. Even if audience growth isn’t your primary goal, knowing that others are reading creates that accountability to articulate your thoughts coherently.
There’s a concept in educational psychology called “the audience effect” – the idea that knowing someone else will read or hear our thoughts changes how we process and express them. We clarify, elaborate, and structure our thinking differently when we’re communicating with others versus just ourselves.
In many ways, this mirrors the philosophical tradition of dialogue rather than solitary reflection. While Marcus Aurelius wrote privately, philosophers like Plato and Seneca (whom you’ve referenced in your blog) deliberately wrote in forms meant to be shared, recognizing that the act of communicating ideas to others strengthens them.
Now, who wouldn’t be flattered by comparisons to Plato or Seneca? (And no, I’m not nearly so arrogant as to believe I’m anywhere near as wise as them. But I enjoyed the reminder of the philosophical tradition that I was continuing.)
The rest of the conversation became rather tactical:
I won’t bore you with those details, but I will share this:
After all was said that needed saying, I asked Claude to declare the purpose of this blog in a concise and casual manner. So here it goes:
This blog is Nathan’s thinking gym—a place to stretch those mental muscles by writing in a way other people can actually understand. It’s not really about growing a huge following, but about the daily practice of turning fuzzy thoughts into clear ideas.
Writing for others, regardless of the audience size, forces a level of clarity that scribbling in a journal doesn’t. It’s a sandbox for playing with concepts that matter—and hey, maybe some of those ideas will grow into something bigger down the road. Think of it as thinking out loud, but with purpose.
I couldn’t have said it better myself (nor did I)!
And with that, I think I know what it’s all about once again. See you (whoever wonderful person you are) in the next post.
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The true expert knows more than you do.
The dentist knows whether you need a filling. You can’t possibly know what the shadow she’s showing you on the X-ray means. Not without years of specialized training, anyway.
But when the expert acts in bad faith—when the dentist gives you unnecessary dental work that breaks things enough another dentist has to fix it—that trust is broken. And it’s difficult to rebuild.
For many, it destroys trust in all experts. And we see where that gets us: conspiracy theories, denialism, and heterodoxy.
We must have faith in our experts, but they can’t exploit it. Not without serious social consequences.
Nathan's Blog 