[T]he values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.
Interpretation
People often hold onto values that once brought them success, even when those values are no longer suitable.
Jared Diamond's quote highlights the tendency of individuals to cling to certain values and beliefs that once led them to significant achievements, despite changes in circumstances that may render those values less effective or appropriate. This attachment can be a double-edged sword, providing a sense of identity and strength but also risking stagnation and failure when adaptation is required.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth, one might say, 'Remember, the values that brought you success before may not be the ones that serve you now, as Jared Diamond stated.'
For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes, environmental problems do constrain human societies, but the societies' responses also make a difference.
The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean β once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.
But this was the only way of life that humans knew for their first 6m years on the planet. In giving it up over the past few thousand years, we have lost our vulnerability to disease and cold and wild animals, but we have also lost good ways to bring up children, look after old people, stave off diabetes and heart disease and understand the real dangers of everyday life.
We scientists have fantasies of being uniquely qualified to make great discoveries. Alas, reality is cruel: most of us are replaceable. For the vast majority of scientific contributions, if scientist X hadn't achieved it that year, scientist Y would have achieved the same result or something very similar soon thereafter.
All human societies go through fads in which they temporarily either adopt practices of little use or else abandon practices of considerable use.
AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion... It's, what, a few months in Iraq.
Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement.
So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: βIs this person in between me and what I want to do?β If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when youβre in charge, donβt hire the people who were jerky to you.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Morning comes every day; the sunrise does not fail, nor the sunset. _x000D_ Give it time. That is all that may be required. Just give it time. Do not try to push the river. The cycles of life present themselves, play themselves out, and make smooth every passage and terrain. _x000D_ Try not to get caught up in your story of the moment. Look, rather, to the Long Story. Therein will be found your peace. The cycles will redeem this moment, if you let them, and even this shall pass.
But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm... in the middle of the web there were the words 'Some Pig'... we have no ordinary pig." "Well", said Mrs. Zuckerman, "it seems to me you're a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.
I learned to focus my energy on high-quality, long-term projects rather than lower-quality projects with quicker payoffs.
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