Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
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a friendship if you both know what you're getting and you're both delivering it. For example, you might be valuable because you're funny and people say I love being around a funny person. You might be valuable because you're an empath and people say man when I have a problem I sure like talking to X. You might be valuable because your home is a good one for getting together. You might be valuable…

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w the reason that systems are better than goals is because a system is something you can do every day. So what I just described is stuff you could be working on every day, right? Join a group, organize a group, send a text to that organizer person just to remind them who you are, that sort of thing.

And whereas a goal, you know, you might do nothing that day on your goal and you just feel depressed. But the system, you can just work every day to join a gym, right? There's something you can do every day. Join a gym. People with common interests, you'll probably run into something. And then all your friends asked to borrow money. Well that is a very negative comment. Any friends in any mafia organization? That is a weird question.

Now the question was asked, what's the difference between an affirmation and a goal? It's an excellent question. And I like to put it this way. A goal would be I'm going to get that promotion at work. Very specific, right? I'm going to get the promotion that just opened up at work. An affirmation would be I will become wealthy. The affirmation allows you to be wealthy in any way. It's not restrictive. So that's what's good about it.

A goal would be I want to get that promotion at work. You only have one thing. What are the odds that everybody gets that one thing they want? Well not nearly as good as the odds of something good happening, something better. So your affirmation should be in the direction but not too specific.

So let's say you want to be in love. A goal would be I will be in love with that person. Is that always a good idea? Or would it be better to say I will find love or I am loved or I'll have a robust social life? Anything like that.

Let me tell you a real live situation that happened that makes me wonder about the simulation. Without getting into detail

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s, the other day I went into town and one of the people with me was talking about a certain other individual in her life. And you know there'd been some situation there. And as she was talking about this one person in her life who was a problem, that one person walked directly past us. There was only one person we were talking about, one person who was a problem to this one person. I live in a pr…

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