Nate Soares

I often bump into people who want to do something big, interesting, or important, but who utterly lack the ability to commit themselves to a particular action (often because they »

Here's a question I get asked pretty regularly: OK, I'm sold on this whole "do the best you can" thing, but how do you actually commit? When I look at »

"Believe in yourself" is perhaps the most common trope to be found in self-help books and motivational texts. It appears in fiction (especially children's books), film (especially sports films), and »

I often see friends run into a failure mode I call "false consistency," especially in the Effective Altruism and Rationality circles, where consistency is an important virtue. The False Consistency »

Today marks the end of my series on replacing guilt (table of contents). I began the series by discussing the "restless guilt," that people feel when some part of them »

After nearly a year of writing, my "replacing guilt" sequence is coming to a close. I have just one more thing to say on the subject, by pointing out a »

The third dubious virtue is defiance. As with the other dubious virtues, it can get you into trouble. Remember the law of equal and opposite advice. Used correctly, it can »

The second dubious virtue is recklessness. As with desperation, there are many bad ways to be reckless. There is a nihilistic recklessness, in those with a muted ability to feel »