Ch 3 competition

 Chapter 3 started off good, with the author describing a wealthy business man, who seems to spend his work life on a never-ending treadmill, towards success; and goes on to list the things that his focus on success takes away from him in the long run, such as not really knowing or spending time with his wife and children. Although the author seems to have more of a sexist outlook; I would agree that sometimes the higher paying job leads to less life satisfaction, for either a man or a woman.

But then the author seems to contradict himself again in this chapter, after saying all of that, he then says that a man who makes a lot of money is "a clever fellow," and "a man who does not, is not." He says that "money made, is the accepted measure of brains." He says someone to stock market goes down men feel like adolescents do during an examination." I take it he means scared of failure. Lol.

He does some of his thoughts on driving for success however by saying that the issue lies and putting too much emphasis on competitive success. I do very much agree with him here: I feel that one should only be competitive within oneself- striving for your own personal best, rather than competing to be better than someone else. Comparing your accomplishments to your own standards and previous levels of achievement, not only sets realistic goals, that are achievable; but also there are vices that come along with trying to be better than someone else, such as envy & greed, and I don't think those are ingredients of happiness.

And he does clarify his earlier comment on money by saying that it is capable of increasing happiness, but only to a certain extent; which we have already read that studies have proven, and we can all agree on.

I really like how he says that success (not necessarily money,) "can only be one ingredient in happiness;" and that "if all other ingredients have been sacrificed in obtaining it," then basically, it came at too high of a cost.

He says; and again kind of contradicts his earlier measurement (using money to measure how smart someone is,) and says that money does not necessarily measure success. I would agree with that as well. He says that we would not view a respected general admiral or sergeant of the armed forces as poor. As I would agree their success lies in the respect for the position in which they hold. I do also strongly agree with him that professors although I would not call them hired servants of businessmen but would agree that they are not accorded the respect in which they deserve, in terms of salary. I always tell my son that I believe teachers should make more money. 

He says that education used to be consumed as training in the capacity for enjoyment. It says in the 18th century it was one of the marks of the gentleman to take a interest in a pleasure like literature, pictures, and music. He says that today is rich man is different, and that he does not partake in things like reading, and that he doesn't even know what to do when it comes to leisure; and says that basically the man becomes so busy in modern society, that when he finds he has five extra minutes, he can't even figure out what to do with it.

I start to view him as a little more of a hypocrite again. Throughout this whole book, he criticizes others for being pessimistic; and then on page 54 he says "there are two motives for reading a book one is that you enjoy it and the other is that you can boast about it." I feel as though that's a very pessimistic outlook. I feel as though people probably read he's right to enjoy it, but the second would probably be to learn from it. But I feel like his outlook on this comes from personal experience probably and observation. He said that it became popular for women to read in America and that they have these books laying about their house but that they only read the first chapter or maybe the reviews- maybe being a reader himself he had come across some people along his journey and found that this was the case for them; maybe he asked them about the book and judging by their answers, it was apparent to him that they had not read it. Lol.

He goes on to talk about how the art of good conversation has died out in society as well as the knowledge of good literature. And then he describes the time in which he received a tour of the campus that was filled with exquisite wildflowers except he says that the tour guidance did not know the names of the flowers (so I take it he had asked them lol;) and he accredits this lack of knowledge about a small detail, as something that the campus should value but because that particular detail does not bring in income, it is unfortunate that it's overlooked as something important for the tour guide to know. He attributes this monetary goal of the institution to the contest and competition within our society for instance amongst other institutions to gain applicants and therefore more money. It says that our society has chosen power over intelligence, and other societies too mimic us in that sense. He called these people of power and wealth modern dinosaurs of their prehistoric prototypes; and says that the actual prehistoric dinosaurs ultimately killed each other out, and that the intelligent bystanders inherited their Kingdom. He says that these modern dinosaurs as he calls them on average do not have more than two children per marriage and don't enjoy life enough to wish to have children. He says that you don't wish to have children are in biologically doomed. I am guessing because he doesn't believe that there is a heaven, so he believes that your only way to live on is through your children. Which regardless of religion, most do with to carry on their bloodline when they are gone through their children, and hope that they will carry out their lives by using at least some of what we taught them.