Downplaying the significance of luck can increase the probability of a successful outcome. If I perceive an outcome to be uncertain, then I am less likely to invest effort into it, further decreasing my chances of success. This is where the delusion becomes useful, believing that I am in full control of my destiny. If I believe that I am not in control, and it's random chance, then I lack certainty about the outcome, and my locus of control is outside myself.

Overlooking lucky breaks makes it easier to justify my place in society. I did this, it's because of intelligence, effort, perseverance, not because of random luck. Psychologists would tell me this makes it easier to accept inequality.

Once status is achieved, it becomes easy to feel like I deserve it.

Raising awareness of happy events can make me happier because it allows me to feel gratitude.

Believe that I am in complete control of my own destiny, and believe my success comes down to my talent and hard work. I must also know this is not true, not for me, or for anyone else. If I do achieve success, luck played a significant role. I live in this state of delusion, anchored to reality, but floating above in the dirigible of delusion.

Imagine she asked if she could not work and build a business or go to school. It would be a choice, and we would do it and make it. I don't imagine she would feel stuck by this choice. If I were more supportive of the difficulties being faced, then perhaps the lack of choice wouldn't feel so confining because the lack of choice was the choice. I chose to go through this, and I choose to do everything I can to make this work. You are high maintenance, and I love maintaining you.

When she felt like a burden, I was dismissive instead of supportive. She's the burden I chose. Not a burden at all. I heard once that life is a burden, we choose our burden. I choose what problems I want to have. This was my choice, and I don't complain about what comes with my choices. I can be surprised when I learn about new requirements, but I just regroup and go at the situation with new information.

It's like the Wasteland, always getting sidetracked by bullshit. I tend to get pissed off and angry about the new shit, and then use that anger to fuel me in getting it done, fuck these motherfuckers, I'm doing this shit. That's one way to do it. It can be reasonably effective. Is there a gentler way to handle it that doesn't give rise to anger about circumstances? My argument here is the anger helps because it's fuel. Living an angry life is not a happy life. Why am I not excited about the new challenge? I used to be...

Maybe I've been trying so hard to change her into something more like me. And maybe, just maybe, that "me" is something I need to not be. (I promise I'm not trying to rhyme, it just happens sometimes.)

I'm at a huge disadvantage here, and it's because of my past behavior. If we need to look at a future and predict the outcome and be able to connect the web of events that leads to where we are trying to get, we may conclude that the uncertainty of the one future causes it to be disfavored when compared with the certain result of that different decision.

I've been giving advice and not taking advice. That's a righteous way to live, but not really in a good way. Can lead to me being perceived as preachy. Oh I miss this, the ability to think and see the thoughts take shape, exploring the mind, questioning self, and coming to the different conclusions based on the feedback. The words that flow give some freedom, I don't need to inhibit, and I don't necessarily need to stop saying stuff. I can just delete it if I don't want you to see it. I get the freedom. And if the thoughts need context, they can get the context, there's no attempt to jump in and argue. I'm not thrown off track by the injections of my own mind about wait, stop, don't say it like that. In this way, I can just say it like that, then be all like, "okay, that probably won't work, chill bro, be nice." But, I already got the emotional benefit of saying, "fuck this stupid shit." And I can back off the black and white ledge of the fuck-its. Giving credence to my initial rejection of the idea, while letting it settle. This is a cool way to do that. It gets me asking the question though, how do we have the correct thought from the beginning? I have heard of the concept of neuroplasticity and how I can change my brain to do different things, train my brain to scan for the positive. I have trained my brain to look for things before, let's train it again.

This is the real life, How to Train Your Dragon. The Dragon is me.