0 Temptation always wins over determination

Temptation always wins over determination. Will power doesn't work. Human will power is weak, the environment is strong. Anyone who is close to foods will eat, who is close to turned-on TV will watch TV. Ulysses tied himself on a mast because he knew that he would act differently in front of the great temptation, the Sirens.

"The fittest survives", this expression from Darwin highlights that individual can't escape from the environtment. Environment is alway stronger than will power. If you go to the south pole, you can't survive on your willpower just wearing t-shirt and shortpants.

Most people overestimate their will power over temptation. Such individuals often end up as losers. Anyone who behaves irrationally will not succeed. Their over confidence derives from their ignorance and wishful thingking. For example, most new year resolutions will fail only few months after the new year, most people studying new languages give up after few months or few years, most new business collapse after few months. People are often fail on their diet programs. These things won't happen if we know that we are not as good and as strong as we thought. We need to set the environtment to minimize or even remove the temptations.

Learnt from Ulysses you should set the environment to work for you not against you. If you want to diet, stay away from foods, do not store any foods in the refrigerator, make it difficult to access your temptations. If you want to read more, always bring book everywhere, put away your phones in silent mode, stay away from anything that can distract you.

If you read a lot of books about freewill, you will find great minds such as Spinoza and Immanuel Kant don't believe in free will, your behavior is either the reactions of or caused by the environment, the outsides. If hot you will sweat, if cold you will shiver, and so on. You are not at all bulletproof to temptations, you are open and fragile to temptations. And you will lose. From now on, forget about will power, set the strategy to shape the environment for our benefit.

0 the importance of education

Good morning teachers and friends,

I am very happy to be here today to talk about the importance of education.

As we know that today we can enjoy technology and better living condition because of the human capacity to create and invent new things. With such big brain, human has capacity to build the world become better and better. Thanks to education that today most people can read and share knowledge freely through internet. The importance of education is obvious that no one can deny it. Actually the living standard has positive correlation with the education level, more education leads to more prosper and wellbeing. The challenge is that the gap between countries in the access of education is still high. In this chance I won’t address this problem, I will focus only to the importance of education today and in the future.

As I mentioned before that education has positive correlation with economic prosperity. The more educated a person is, the more chance he has to be successful in any field of his works. Long ago most people worked in rice field as farmers. They used their muscles to do the works. At the time not many farmers had good education. Most people couldn’t read and write. Under such condition, their living situation is stagnant and they often faced big problem when flood or drought happened. They didn’t know what to do. Later on, people had education. They invented machines and better tools to do their works. Soon the living situation changed a lot. Later on, less and less people work in rice field anymore. Machines and modern tools enabled the farmers to work more efficient and effective. Instead, today most people work in providing services. They don’t use their physical strength anymore. They use their brain.

Most work today requires high level skills. This is where education plays its role. In such condition, the more educated you are, the more successful you are. We can easily point out professions such as doctors, politicians, entrepreneurs, and artists that have higher salaries compare to janitors, farmers, or porters. In the level of country, Singapore, a small country has a lot better living condition compare to most countries in Asia and Africa that have less education level. Singapore has very little natural resources but it has high human resources due to better education.

So, it’s easy for me to conclude that education is very importance to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. Therefore it’s very important for us to pay attention to our education. We must prioritize education over anything else, for example entertainment. Let us use our time and money to improve our education, let us play less games and read more books for even better future. Because in the future more and more low skill level works will disappear, if we don’t prepare ourselves with proper education, we will be obsolete and useless, we will be unsuccessful and suffer the consequences.

Thank you so much for your attention.

0 A person can get used to anything

There was a study about happiness. They studied people who won lotteries and got accidents that lost their limbs, hands, legs or both. The study concluded that after a year, they have more or less the same happiness level as the previous year before "the big event" happened. People get used to anything. You can suddenly lose someone you really love or marry your high school sweetheart, and then you get used to it. Someone can put you in a jail and then you get used to it. Even when hollocaust happened, people inside the camp got used to it. No matter horrible and unimaginable it seems, people can adapt.
Knowing this, now you can add 1 hour exercise and 1 hour meditation to your daily routine. Soon you will get used to it. You can read 10 pages or even 100 pages everyday and you will get used to it as well. Most people spend their life on social media and tv, become fat, stupid, and sick, they get used to it.
You choose, to be or not to be. You think it is impossible to read 100pages everyday or to meditate several hours. But when suddently you got accident and have to stay in hospital for months, you din't say it's impossible. When one says impossible, s/he has decided not to try.

Note: "no matter you do it or you don't do it, you will regret both" according to Kierkegaard, prior Budha said "life is suffering", Spinoza believed that nothing brings happiness except understanding.
No one in this world is more fortunate than others. All suffers, all desires, all lacks.