Good Living

Thomas Edison once said, “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” Kelvin Doe, a teen in Sierra Leone, spent the better part of his youth digging through trash bins in search of electronics parts. Finding the junk was relatively easy. Figuring out how to build…

It's rare that I find an article on mental strength to be 100 percent correct. This one is. I have no reason to believe that either Amy Morin or Cheryl Conner is an Objectivist, but their views expressed in “Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid” are fully consistent…

In a recent interview in the New York Times, comedian Louis C.K. turned the questions on interviewer David Itzkoff to tease out the cause of C.K.’s success: DI: Does it matter that what you’ve achieved, with your online special and your tour can’t be replicated by other performers who don’t…

It’s only March, and statistics show that by now many people have abandoned their New Year’s resolutions. If you haven’t lived up to yours, you may be able to get back on track. Alex Epstein (of the Center for Industrial Progress) has a short video course which, if followed, can…

Congratulations to Anne Hathaway for taking home the Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance in the film Les Misérables. Congratulations to her also for correctly understanding the nature of sacrifice—and for refusing to describe her value-achieving actions with the term. Although many people describe hard work as a…

How do we maximize the likelihood of achieving our values and minimize little risks that can become big problems? In a recent article for the New York Times, anthropologist Jared Diamond points out that, as a 75-year-old man, one of the major risks in his life is falling in the…

Daniel Wahl reviews The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills, by Daniel Coyle.

In the aftermath of the horrific murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School—while various federal and state legislators have proposed numerous bills restricting the sale and possession of guns, magazines, and ammunition—many Americans have wondered about or discussed the propriety of self-defense and of gun ownership. My father, Linn Armstrong, is…

From everyone at The Objective Standard to everyone who thinks, produces, trades, and thereby creates the values on which human life and happiness depend: Thank you. Thank you profit-seeking businessmen who produce and sell everything from groceries to computers to automobiles to electricity. Your work—although often condemned—is in fact supremely…

I approach recreational poker as entertainment, not gambling. I enjoy playing, even though I’m a novice and often lose. As a game, poker offers some meaningful lessons. 1. Act on reason, not emotions. Praying, hoping really hard, or performing some superstitious ritual will not change the sequence of cards. The…