Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Viewing The Market As Organized Chaos
December 17 2011| Filed Under » Capital Market, Financial Theory, Organizational Theory, Warren Buffett
There are two competing theories in the financial world: the Random Walk Theory and the Efficient Market Hypothesis. In the random market you can spread the financial section of the "Washington Post" on the floor and toss pennies on it, picking the stocks that a penny lands on, and expect the same results as a professional stock picker. In the case of an organized market, you can choose stocks based on a system of valuations and, coupled with a world of full disclosure, come out ahead of the penny tossers.
The theories clash and the debate rages, but with a little help from 20th-century physicist Erwin Schrödinger and a cat in a box, we'll learn that both theories are correct and incorrect, depending entirely upon your vantage point. Read on to learn how the market is just like a cat in a box, and how the entire history of the market can be viewed as a massive forest, with investors nothing more than short-sighted insects crawling across its surface. It's going to be a wild adventure.
Two Worlds One Cat
Not many people would draw similarities between quantum physics and the financial markets, but this type of unconventional thinking can shed light on the random market versus efficient market paradox that Wall Street lives under.
In the 1930s, Schrödinger was puzzling over why the laws of physics that govern our everyday lives are so difficult to apply at the subatomic level. Essentially, at subatomic levels, particles needed to be in more than one mutually exclusive state at the same time. A difficult idea to wrap your head around. The thought experiment he came up with to explain this is now famous. It involves a cat in a box. Along with the cat, inside the box you place a vial of hydrocyanic acid with a hammer suspended above it. There is a switch attached to the hammer that will cause the hammer to drop and break the vial. Next, you attach a Geiger counter to the switch, making it so that the switch will trip if the counter registers any radioactive activity in the box. Finally you place a very small piece of radioactive material inside the box that has a 50-50 chance, each hour, of releasing a particle. Now you can probably guess how this elaborate system all comes together:
1. A particle is released.
2. The Geiger counter senses it.
3. The switch is flipped.
4. The hammer falls.
5. The vial breaks.
6. The kitty dies.
Ah, but wait. It is equally probable that a particle wasn't released and our fuzzy friend still lives. Now, if we open the box after an hour we'll know for sure. However, if we don't open the box and do not observe, then the kitty is neither alive nor dead. It exists in both states simultaneously. The observation itself affects the outcome. This is sometimes called the "observer's paradox."
Now, let's jump back over to the world of investing and our own paradox. Remember, there are two states for the market, random and efficient; the penny tossers versus the market scholars. Those who believe things are random have plenty of observable evidence to prove that it is random, so too do those who believe it is efficient. However, as with tearing the box open to see the cat, observing the market has an effect upon the results. Let's move to the jungle to see how this works. (To learn more, check out Efficient Market Hypothesis: Is The Stock Market Efficient.)
Where the Wild Things Roam
When we scrutinize the market as a whole, there does seem to be a lot of unpredictability. If you were to tilt the stock market's history on its side and then convert every listed company into a plant, you would see a vast forest with thousands of plants shooting up and dying in seconds and clutches of saplings and trees here and there. Some of these trees would start from separate roots only to grow together and split again. Some of the grasses may spontaneously become a sapling or be absorbed by one. The random market proponents are like ladybugs. From their vantage point, the world is chaotic and random. Which plants (companies) thrive and succeed versus those that die off and fail is unpredictable and overwhelming. (To learn more, read Mad Money ... Mad Market?)
It is the inability to see everything that makes stock markets look random. Rush hour traffic looks like chaos when you are in it, but from far above it looks as well designed as the circulatory system. This is where a structured market comes in. You have to make generalizations and somewhat marginal decisions to clear-cut the forest and get down to a few promising plants. In a truly random market, this would be impossible.
People like Warren Buffett, however, continue to prove that both structure and chaos exist simultaneously. Buffett is an expert at generalizing and, if you read his letters to his shareholders, you will realize that he rarely speaks about specifics.
The Buffett Paradox
The Oracle of Omaha proves that there is a structure to the markets, but he also states that he doesn't believe the markets are always efficient. If they were completely efficient, he wouldn't be able to beat the market because everyone would act in same way, buying the exact right stocks at the exact right time. If the market were completely random, he would be a statistical anomaly of immense size. In truth, Buffett and many of the other market mavens profit from moments of chaos and inefficiency in an otherwise efficient market. The inefficiency is all the other people involved in the market. Investor reaction, either overreaction or a lack of reaction, to the data is anything but predictable.
This uncertainty is what makes trading in growth stocks so exciting. You are not looking at the companies represented by the stocks, companies that are in all likelihood trading at many multiples of their earnings; intsead, you are trying to understand the reactions of other investors toward that stock. There are some people who are very good at this, more who are occasionally good at it, and the rest who break even if they are lucky, but often do worse. Even the introduction of structure to the practice of trading, in the form of new metrics and computer software, has not been able to tame the uncertainty. This uncertainty exists in all parts of the markets, but it has the most pull in growth stocks where ranks of traders and analysts cultivate it for their own ends. (To learn more, read Venturing Into Early-Stage Growth Stocks.)
Choosing Your Own World
You, as an investor, control what the market is in a very real sense. If you approach it believing it to be random, you will see a lot of numbers arbitrarily flipping about on a graph or newspaper sheet. These numbers will coalesce in patterns that start you down the path to day trading. When you make a mistake, you will attribute it to the unpredictable nature of investing. You may also become skilled at tossing pennies. (If this theory appeals to you, check out Day Trading: An Introduction, Would You Profit As A Day Trader? and Day Trading Strategies For Beginners.)
On the other hand, if you approach investing like you would approach learning how to become a surgeon, you will see that there are forces at work that generally act the same in all situations: bubbles burst, companies with advantages flourish, people need goods. You will also see that, like surgery, there are instructions and techniques to help you get better results. True, there are people who invest successfully owing to some inner talent, but talent will only take you so far. Most people need some form of a blueprint and a grasp of the fundamentals first or they end up with a dead bodies and malpractice lawsuits. (If order and structure are more your style, check out Using The Price-To-Book Ratio To Evaluate Companies and Warren Buffett: How He Does It.)
The Bottom Line
In order to be an effective investor, you have to do what quantum physicists do, consider the market as both random and efficient. There will never be a perfectly efficient market as long as there are investors buying into it. This doesn't, however, mean that the market is so random that no effort on your part can help you profit. You should never remove uncertainty, or by extension, risk, from your thinking, but you should act as if forces that are generally efficient rule the market. After that, leave the debate up to the economists who are paid to keep it going, because sometimes being a ladybug in a giant forest is enough to worry about on its own.
The Uncertainty Principle
April 2003
As the past few months have clearly shown, the war not only dominates the news but our domestic and international politics, the economy and also, obviously, the markets in which we invest. In fact, the parallels between the war and today's financial markets are striking:
First, the real-time, embedded media coverage of this conflict makes today's rapid-fire market players seem downrightpatient. The TV coverage has been truly amazing and first-rate - captivating in both its immediacy and realism. Yet we recognize a familiar pattern in all of this. Each bit of news from the front lines seems to require its own analysis and conclusive verdict from one of the ex-generals on screen, reminiscent of the cheerleading talking heads on CNBC during the Bubble. Initial expectations for a quick resolution in Iraq were high; thus, the first few hours of the conflict invited backslapping celebrations as troops neared Baghdad, only to be followed by despair as casualties mounted and many commentators began to question U.S. military strategy. The problem, of course, is that the single live camera in the field - literally and figuratively - sees only individual clashes rather than the broader context. In both joy and despair, it seemed few observers were willing to take a step back and see the forest rather than the trees.
Of course, the market has suffered from this short-term focus for some time, and we have noted this fact quite regularly. Over recent years investors have shown an increasing tendency to take small bits of data and "over-interpret", drawing far-reaching conclusions when thoughtful analysis would be more appropriate. The Bubble provided scores of examples: Company A sees increasing activity on its web site, so profitability must be rising, thereby making the stock a great buy, etc.; or Company B has not yet added ".com" to its corporate name and logo, implying doom for all its shareholders! Sadly, the phrase "Shoot first and ask questions later" seems to be a common factor in both environments; from our perspective, a lot more patience and measured analysis would serve us all well. In fact, the Pentagon may want to even consider adopting one of Corporate America's recent innovations: "No Guidance". Perhaps a bit less real-time information might actually lead to fewer missed expectations and more reasoned judgment. We'll see.
Second, the media coverage of the war brings to mind a concept some of us might remember from high school physics class: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Don't be scared off by the quantum physics reference - the principle, in layman's terms, merely states that the more accurately one tries to measure something, the less certain one can be of its characteristics because the act of measuring actually disturbs the subject. Even though Werner Heisenberg's work in the 1920s focused on subatomic particles and helped advance quantum mechanics, the principle has found applications in philosophy, sociology and other academic areas. In Iraq, one could certainly argue that the media scrutiny of the conflict - an act of "measuring" - has the potential to affect the conflict itself. For example, embedded reporters have not only been near-participants, but their broadcasts from the field have probably affected decisions on both sides as public opinion is considered. As Heisenberg might have framed the issue, the exact path of the war is uncertain because of these outside influences. Some paths and outcomes are more likely than others, and we can assign probabilities to assess such alternatives. But even though there is never 100% certainty as to the exact path, it is still possible to predict the most likelyoutcome with reasonable assurance. In other words (and from our perspective), given all the data and probabilities, the ultimate outcome of the war in Iraq is not really in doubt.
This principle has interesting applications in our financial markets today. Heisenberg's work introduces an unavoidable element of unpredictability or randomness. Even if one wanted to believe there is a "science" to the financial markets - i.e. price movements can be predicted by certain relationships among the data - the Uncertainty Principle argues such relationships are not etched in stone. Again, the Bubble offers a real-life example: the prices of hundreds of stocks went higher than most rational theories would have predicted. The confluence of some self-reinforcing outside influences - the strong economic environment, cheerleading by the media and analysts, complicity by some accountants - created a one-in-a-million outcome. Today, "measuring" the actual state of the markets and the economy itself has become as challenging as ever because so much short-term scrutiny by investors and the media affects the systems themselves.
And so, in the midst of great uncertainty created by the state of the economy, tax policy, SEC investigations, as well as the feedback effects as investors and consumers react to each short-term blip in the war, our analysis takes on a Heisenberg-like quality. We are aware of the inherent uncertainty in the investment environment, yet we remain focused on the most likelylong-term outcomes for the companies we follow and the contexts in which they act.
Economic growth is clearly weaker than most would prefer. From our vantage point, however, the profit picture does not appear as bleak as the headlines imply. For the companies currently in our portfolios, 2002 profits actually grew about 15% over 2001 levels, and for the broad economy, profits in the fourth quarter grew to their highest level since mid-2000 (helped by cost-cutting and lower interest rates). In fact, we believe the U.S. economy has proven to be remarkably resilient the past few years given the bursting of the Bubble, terrorist threats, numerous corporate scandals and the approach of war. Looking forward, our own cash flow estimates recognize the potential for further economic difficulty over the coming quarters, due at least in part to weak spending among consumers and businesses. But while we believe our estimates are reasonably conservative (earnings for the median company we follow should rise close to 10% in 2003, helped by the same forces as last year), we are also aware there is room for positive surprise. Interest rates and tax policy - remember the tax cuts of 2001 - remain decidedly stimulative, and lower oil prices could add another positive boost. While timing is never certain, we believe the most likely outcome for the economy supports continued cash flow growth for the businesses we monitor.
As for the market, no one is really having much fun these days. With most investors focused on the macro issues, it's difficult for even the best performing businesses to stand out - stocks are moving as a broad group rather than being influenced by company-specific fundamentals. We would argue this bodes well for our portfolios. First, as disciplined, fundamentally-driven investors we should be able to take advantage of the market's indiscriminate treatment of individual issues. Our experience tells us that over time, fundamentals drive stock prices, so we continue to position our portfolios in the strongest businesses with the most attractive valuations we can find. Fortunately, we have been able to "upgrade" our portfolios without being forced to pay an additional premium for these higher quality businesses. Furthermore, our portfolios increasingly reflect opportunities across a wide spectrum of industries, and this too should prove to be a source of strength over time. Today, our Approved List is populated by better-than-average businesses, yet 40% of the names trade at a P/E ratio of 12 or less on 2003 estimates.
Second, the intense scrutiny of the daily news has pushed many equity investors to the sidelines. Trading volumes are low, cash continues to build in sub-1% money market funds and there are willing buyers for 10-year Treasuries (despite the math which says even a collapse in yields from record lows will generate returns of - at best - about 5% annualized over the next five years). No one, it seems, is willing to look past the war itself. This manifestation of Caution, we should all understand from the Uncertainty Principle, makes a clear assessment of the current state of the markets challenging at best. There are lots of uncertainties today - just as there always have been. Sure, it is possible that bonds are the place to be, but our experience, sense of history and knowledge of the businesses we invest in lead us to believe that the probabilities favor equity investors over the next five years. Valuations are attractive and we like the businesses owned in our client portfolios. Uncertainty is at times frustrating, but it is central to our daily lives. And it offers opportunity to those who grasp this fact.
As the past few months have clearly shown, the war not only dominates the news but our domestic and international politics, the economy and also, obviously, the markets in which we invest. In fact, the parallels between the war and today's financial markets are striking:
First, the real-time, embedded media coverage of this conflict makes today's rapid-fire market players seem downrightpatient. The TV coverage has been truly amazing and first-rate - captivating in both its immediacy and realism. Yet we recognize a familiar pattern in all of this. Each bit of news from the front lines seems to require its own analysis and conclusive verdict from one of the ex-generals on screen, reminiscent of the cheerleading talking heads on CNBC during the Bubble. Initial expectations for a quick resolution in Iraq were high; thus, the first few hours of the conflict invited backslapping celebrations as troops neared Baghdad, only to be followed by despair as casualties mounted and many commentators began to question U.S. military strategy. The problem, of course, is that the single live camera in the field - literally and figuratively - sees only individual clashes rather than the broader context. In both joy and despair, it seemed few observers were willing to take a step back and see the forest rather than the trees.
Of course, the market has suffered from this short-term focus for some time, and we have noted this fact quite regularly. Over recent years investors have shown an increasing tendency to take small bits of data and "over-interpret", drawing far-reaching conclusions when thoughtful analysis would be more appropriate. The Bubble provided scores of examples: Company A sees increasing activity on its web site, so profitability must be rising, thereby making the stock a great buy, etc.; or Company B has not yet added ".com" to its corporate name and logo, implying doom for all its shareholders! Sadly, the phrase "Shoot first and ask questions later" seems to be a common factor in both environments; from our perspective, a lot more patience and measured analysis would serve us all well. In fact, the Pentagon may want to even consider adopting one of Corporate America's recent innovations: "No Guidance". Perhaps a bit less real-time information might actually lead to fewer missed expectations and more reasoned judgment. We'll see.
Second, the media coverage of the war brings to mind a concept some of us might remember from high school physics class: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Don't be scared off by the quantum physics reference - the principle, in layman's terms, merely states that the more accurately one tries to measure something, the less certain one can be of its characteristics because the act of measuring actually disturbs the subject. Even though Werner Heisenberg's work in the 1920s focused on subatomic particles and helped advance quantum mechanics, the principle has found applications in philosophy, sociology and other academic areas. In Iraq, one could certainly argue that the media scrutiny of the conflict - an act of "measuring" - has the potential to affect the conflict itself. For example, embedded reporters have not only been near-participants, but their broadcasts from the field have probably affected decisions on both sides as public opinion is considered. As Heisenberg might have framed the issue, the exact path of the war is uncertain because of these outside influences. Some paths and outcomes are more likely than others, and we can assign probabilities to assess such alternatives. But even though there is never 100% certainty as to the exact path, it is still possible to predict the most likelyoutcome with reasonable assurance. In other words (and from our perspective), given all the data and probabilities, the ultimate outcome of the war in Iraq is not really in doubt.
This principle has interesting applications in our financial markets today. Heisenberg's work introduces an unavoidable element of unpredictability or randomness. Even if one wanted to believe there is a "science" to the financial markets - i.e. price movements can be predicted by certain relationships among the data - the Uncertainty Principle argues such relationships are not etched in stone. Again, the Bubble offers a real-life example: the prices of hundreds of stocks went higher than most rational theories would have predicted. The confluence of some self-reinforcing outside influences - the strong economic environment, cheerleading by the media and analysts, complicity by some accountants - created a one-in-a-million outcome. Today, "measuring" the actual state of the markets and the economy itself has become as challenging as ever because so much short-term scrutiny by investors and the media affects the systems themselves.
And so, in the midst of great uncertainty created by the state of the economy, tax policy, SEC investigations, as well as the feedback effects as investors and consumers react to each short-term blip in the war, our analysis takes on a Heisenberg-like quality. We are aware of the inherent uncertainty in the investment environment, yet we remain focused on the most likelylong-term outcomes for the companies we follow and the contexts in which they act.
Economic growth is clearly weaker than most would prefer. From our vantage point, however, the profit picture does not appear as bleak as the headlines imply. For the companies currently in our portfolios, 2002 profits actually grew about 15% over 2001 levels, and for the broad economy, profits in the fourth quarter grew to their highest level since mid-2000 (helped by cost-cutting and lower interest rates). In fact, we believe the U.S. economy has proven to be remarkably resilient the past few years given the bursting of the Bubble, terrorist threats, numerous corporate scandals and the approach of war. Looking forward, our own cash flow estimates recognize the potential for further economic difficulty over the coming quarters, due at least in part to weak spending among consumers and businesses. But while we believe our estimates are reasonably conservative (earnings for the median company we follow should rise close to 10% in 2003, helped by the same forces as last year), we are also aware there is room for positive surprise. Interest rates and tax policy - remember the tax cuts of 2001 - remain decidedly stimulative, and lower oil prices could add another positive boost. While timing is never certain, we believe the most likely outcome for the economy supports continued cash flow growth for the businesses we monitor.
As for the market, no one is really having much fun these days. With most investors focused on the macro issues, it's difficult for even the best performing businesses to stand out - stocks are moving as a broad group rather than being influenced by company-specific fundamentals. We would argue this bodes well for our portfolios. First, as disciplined, fundamentally-driven investors we should be able to take advantage of the market's indiscriminate treatment of individual issues. Our experience tells us that over time, fundamentals drive stock prices, so we continue to position our portfolios in the strongest businesses with the most attractive valuations we can find. Fortunately, we have been able to "upgrade" our portfolios without being forced to pay an additional premium for these higher quality businesses. Furthermore, our portfolios increasingly reflect opportunities across a wide spectrum of industries, and this too should prove to be a source of strength over time. Today, our Approved List is populated by better-than-average businesses, yet 40% of the names trade at a P/E ratio of 12 or less on 2003 estimates.
Second, the intense scrutiny of the daily news has pushed many equity investors to the sidelines. Trading volumes are low, cash continues to build in sub-1% money market funds and there are willing buyers for 10-year Treasuries (despite the math which says even a collapse in yields from record lows will generate returns of - at best - about 5% annualized over the next five years). No one, it seems, is willing to look past the war itself. This manifestation of Caution, we should all understand from the Uncertainty Principle, makes a clear assessment of the current state of the markets challenging at best. There are lots of uncertainties today - just as there always have been. Sure, it is possible that bonds are the place to be, but our experience, sense of history and knowledge of the businesses we invest in lead us to believe that the probabilities favor equity investors over the next five years. Valuations are attractive and we like the businesses owned in our client portfolios. Uncertainty is at times frustrating, but it is central to our daily lives. And it offers opportunity to those who grasp this fact.
Oliver Burkeman: a skeptical happiness expert
For six years, Oliver Burkeman has written This Column Will Change Your Life, a look at the world of self-help, happiness studies and pop psychology, for Britain’s The Guardian. For two years, I wrote Happiness, a column in this paper.
The weekly exercise often makes him grumpy. “I just thought 80 per cent of this is rubbish,” he tells me by phone from Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lives.
My experience made me tired. All that happiness research can be very annoying. I actually grew to dislike Gretchen Rubin, author of the bestselling The Happiness Project and Pollyanna of the happiness world who figures that every hint of sadness can be fixed with a little determination, change of habit or a mantra.
For his new book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, the Cambridge-educated 37-year-old Mr. Burkeman set out to find the “negative path” to contentedness. He thought that all the effort to get happy may be part of the problem. Not only that, he figured that the self-help culture is not very good at helping itself, if it had to keep coming up with happiness schemes. He was going to find a better way.
Finally, a skeptical happiness expert who seems to make sense.
Why are we so obsessed with happiness?
I think we always have been obsessed but under different guises. If you go back to ancient Greece and Rome, philosophy is meant to be therapeutic: The reason for asking what is the nature of the good life is so that you can put it into practice.
But new scientific findings about happiness increase interest, no?
There have been real breakthroughs in how to measure, or roughly measure, well-being in ways such that you can actually get at real truths about them. But the other part of this is, the current modern self-help movement is very much capitalism’s answers to these eternal questions. The happiness literature is an ideological instrument that promotes this individualist philosophy that you’ve got to deal with it on your own.
Were you an unhappy man before writing the book?
I didn’t start the book and research process in a state of terrible misery and end up in some place of complete contentment. But on the other hand, these are things that I have grappled with, and journalism is a brilliant cover for investigating all sorts of things that you’re totally obsessed by.
You basically pooh-pooh positive thinking.
There’s definitely a distinction to be made between positive thinking and positive psychology. You can see positive psychology as a very broad movement to look at the causes of happiness as well as the psychology of problems, and so I have a lot of time for that. But positive thinking is about actually trying to make your mental state something that it isn’t, trying to fill your mind with happy thoughts and feelings. What I wanted to get at is that sometimes the real skill you need is a not-doing skill, sort of learning to resist the urge to always try to do everything right.
Compared with your book, Gretchen Rubin’s to-do approach to happiness (The Happiness Project and Happiness at Home) is much easier to grasp. You’re asking people to incorporate some complicated ideas.
Fundamentally, this is about seeing the world differently – a shift in perspective, the moment when the optical illusion slips from being one thing to another. It’s about trying to trigger that. On the other hand, there are things you can do, and I suggest a few of them. I’m saying, “Look, you don’t need to become a full-time stoic or a full-time Buddhist. Use this technique.” I don’t object to a practical approach.
Your funniest example was going on the London Underground and calling out the names of the stops loudly in a deliberate ritual of self-humiliation. You were inviting negative feelings. That must be hard for a well-behaved Englishman.
The basic idea of it is derived from stoic exercises, which [in ancient times] obviously didn’t involve public transport. But the same idea is behind it. The point is not that it’s fun to do or that it isn’t quite embarrassing but that there’s a huge disproportion between the anxiety that’s provoked by thinking about it and actually doing it. It has this effect of sort of training a muscle, to ask yourself what the worst in any situation could be as a way of defeating anxiety. It’s very contrary to the positive-thinking culture.
Have you used the technique often?
I use it on a daily basis in small ways. If you’re running late for some appointment or you’re going to give some talk that you’re sort of nervous about, it’s always really useful to stop and realize that a certain amount of public embarrassment is the worst that could happen. And yet the thoughts that you’ve been having on a semi-conscious level are a bit more equivalent to the world exploding.
I loved the discussion of how our beliefs or judgments about certain things cause unhappiness, not the things themselves. You give the example of how we might become irritated by a colleague in the next cubicle who won’t stop talking. We think it’s the colleague who’s irritating. But the stoics would say that what is actually causing distress is our own belief that getting work done without interruption is an important goal.
It’s interesting because the cult of optimism would say: Try and force your belief about everything being as upbeat and cheery as possible. But the stoics will say to just remember that it’s your beliefs that are mediating between events and your emotions. You don’t need to, and it’s probably not a good idea, to struggle to make those beliefs totally upbeat.
True. But you even suggest the same holds true when someone we love falls ill. What causes our suffering is the belief that it’s not a good thing for our loved ones to fall ill. That’s interesting from a philosophical point of view, but not very comforting.
You don’t need to let go of the belief. You just need to recognize that it is a belief that is causing what’s happening, and that can trigger a certain amount of calm into the situation that remains a very sad one. I suspect that this mythic stoic sage would remain untouched by emotions, but I’m not sure I would endorse that stance. I want to retain the ability to feel very sad when sad things happen, but it’s just a slightly more calm way to go about it.
But you also discuss uncertainty, a fundamental human discomfort, in a way that’s very poetic, but again, not necessarily helpful. You quote American philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who writes that “the ethical life … is based on a trust in uncertainty … on being more like a plant than a jewel: something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.” That’s lovely, Oliver, but very hard to do.
I know. But how we think about something often exacerbates the problem we’re trying to solve. So by constantly chasing after feelings of security and certainty is to somehow deny the fundamental reality of loss, which is that everything changes all the time. The ultimate target, if you can consider it, is to just plug completely into that uncertainty and to recognize it. But don’t get me wrong: The idea of embracing groundlessness is a hard thing, and I have not got it licked.
You got to meet Eckhart Tolle. As a skeptical journalist, were you won over?
I concluded from meeting him and reading his books that he’s the real deal. People assume that a lot of books with weird New Age titles are going to be suggesting that you swing crystals over your liver. But actually if you read someone like Tolle, it’s an exercise in introspection. It’s not some dodgy scientific claim about how the world works. It’s saying, ‘Look inside yourself. Are we not accompanied by this chattering inner voice all the time? What might it mean to consider that you are not your mind.’ That’s really an incredibly profound idea: you can start to watch and observe your thoughts instead of being completely identified with them.
Basically. your book is trying to encourage a self-awareness about the way we think.
Yes, absolutely. It’s about saying that positive thinking says to just change your thoughts. Whereas these approaches say change your relationship to your thoughts and emotions. Don’t struggle to change the thoughts and emotions themselves.
Some people have called your approach to happiness Grinch-like. Does that bother you?
It doesn’t affect me, really. The thing I try to be clear about is that this is a question of balancing imbalance. If I were saying that all positivity should be shunned and avoided, just as positive thinkers say all negative thinking should be shunned, that would be futile and irritating.
Do you get push back from the positive folk?
A little. But I think that I don’t hear as much from positive people who object because it would require them to be negative.
The weekly exercise often makes him grumpy. “I just thought 80 per cent of this is rubbish,” he tells me by phone from Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lives.
My experience made me tired. All that happiness research can be very annoying. I actually grew to dislike Gretchen Rubin, author of the bestselling The Happiness Project and Pollyanna of the happiness world who figures that every hint of sadness can be fixed with a little determination, change of habit or a mantra.
For his new book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, the Cambridge-educated 37-year-old Mr. Burkeman set out to find the “negative path” to contentedness. He thought that all the effort to get happy may be part of the problem. Not only that, he figured that the self-help culture is not very good at helping itself, if it had to keep coming up with happiness schemes. He was going to find a better way.
Finally, a skeptical happiness expert who seems to make sense.
Why are we so obsessed with happiness?
I think we always have been obsessed but under different guises. If you go back to ancient Greece and Rome, philosophy is meant to be therapeutic: The reason for asking what is the nature of the good life is so that you can put it into practice.
But new scientific findings about happiness increase interest, no?
There have been real breakthroughs in how to measure, or roughly measure, well-being in ways such that you can actually get at real truths about them. But the other part of this is, the current modern self-help movement is very much capitalism’s answers to these eternal questions. The happiness literature is an ideological instrument that promotes this individualist philosophy that you’ve got to deal with it on your own.
Were you an unhappy man before writing the book?
I didn’t start the book and research process in a state of terrible misery and end up in some place of complete contentment. But on the other hand, these are things that I have grappled with, and journalism is a brilliant cover for investigating all sorts of things that you’re totally obsessed by.
You basically pooh-pooh positive thinking.
There’s definitely a distinction to be made between positive thinking and positive psychology. You can see positive psychology as a very broad movement to look at the causes of happiness as well as the psychology of problems, and so I have a lot of time for that. But positive thinking is about actually trying to make your mental state something that it isn’t, trying to fill your mind with happy thoughts and feelings. What I wanted to get at is that sometimes the real skill you need is a not-doing skill, sort of learning to resist the urge to always try to do everything right.
Compared with your book, Gretchen Rubin’s to-do approach to happiness (The Happiness Project and Happiness at Home) is much easier to grasp. You’re asking people to incorporate some complicated ideas.
Fundamentally, this is about seeing the world differently – a shift in perspective, the moment when the optical illusion slips from being one thing to another. It’s about trying to trigger that. On the other hand, there are things you can do, and I suggest a few of them. I’m saying, “Look, you don’t need to become a full-time stoic or a full-time Buddhist. Use this technique.” I don’t object to a practical approach.
Your funniest example was going on the London Underground and calling out the names of the stops loudly in a deliberate ritual of self-humiliation. You were inviting negative feelings. That must be hard for a well-behaved Englishman.
The basic idea of it is derived from stoic exercises, which [in ancient times] obviously didn’t involve public transport. But the same idea is behind it. The point is not that it’s fun to do or that it isn’t quite embarrassing but that there’s a huge disproportion between the anxiety that’s provoked by thinking about it and actually doing it. It has this effect of sort of training a muscle, to ask yourself what the worst in any situation could be as a way of defeating anxiety. It’s very contrary to the positive-thinking culture.
Have you used the technique often?
I use it on a daily basis in small ways. If you’re running late for some appointment or you’re going to give some talk that you’re sort of nervous about, it’s always really useful to stop and realize that a certain amount of public embarrassment is the worst that could happen. And yet the thoughts that you’ve been having on a semi-conscious level are a bit more equivalent to the world exploding.
I loved the discussion of how our beliefs or judgments about certain things cause unhappiness, not the things themselves. You give the example of how we might become irritated by a colleague in the next cubicle who won’t stop talking. We think it’s the colleague who’s irritating. But the stoics would say that what is actually causing distress is our own belief that getting work done without interruption is an important goal.
It’s interesting because the cult of optimism would say: Try and force your belief about everything being as upbeat and cheery as possible. But the stoics will say to just remember that it’s your beliefs that are mediating between events and your emotions. You don’t need to, and it’s probably not a good idea, to struggle to make those beliefs totally upbeat.
True. But you even suggest the same holds true when someone we love falls ill. What causes our suffering is the belief that it’s not a good thing for our loved ones to fall ill. That’s interesting from a philosophical point of view, but not very comforting.
You don’t need to let go of the belief. You just need to recognize that it is a belief that is causing what’s happening, and that can trigger a certain amount of calm into the situation that remains a very sad one. I suspect that this mythic stoic sage would remain untouched by emotions, but I’m not sure I would endorse that stance. I want to retain the ability to feel very sad when sad things happen, but it’s just a slightly more calm way to go about it.
But you also discuss uncertainty, a fundamental human discomfort, in a way that’s very poetic, but again, not necessarily helpful. You quote American philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who writes that “the ethical life … is based on a trust in uncertainty … on being more like a plant than a jewel: something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.” That’s lovely, Oliver, but very hard to do.
I know. But how we think about something often exacerbates the problem we’re trying to solve. So by constantly chasing after feelings of security and certainty is to somehow deny the fundamental reality of loss, which is that everything changes all the time. The ultimate target, if you can consider it, is to just plug completely into that uncertainty and to recognize it. But don’t get me wrong: The idea of embracing groundlessness is a hard thing, and I have not got it licked.
You got to meet Eckhart Tolle. As a skeptical journalist, were you won over?
I concluded from meeting him and reading his books that he’s the real deal. People assume that a lot of books with weird New Age titles are going to be suggesting that you swing crystals over your liver. But actually if you read someone like Tolle, it’s an exercise in introspection. It’s not some dodgy scientific claim about how the world works. It’s saying, ‘Look inside yourself. Are we not accompanied by this chattering inner voice all the time? What might it mean to consider that you are not your mind.’ That’s really an incredibly profound idea: you can start to watch and observe your thoughts instead of being completely identified with them.
Basically. your book is trying to encourage a self-awareness about the way we think.
Yes, absolutely. It’s about saying that positive thinking says to just change your thoughts. Whereas these approaches say change your relationship to your thoughts and emotions. Don’t struggle to change the thoughts and emotions themselves.
Some people have called your approach to happiness Grinch-like. Does that bother you?
It doesn’t affect me, really. The thing I try to be clear about is that this is a question of balancing imbalance. If I were saying that all positivity should be shunned and avoided, just as positive thinkers say all negative thinking should be shunned, that would be futile and irritating.
Do you get push back from the positive folk?
A little. But I think that I don’t hear as much from positive people who object because it would require them to be negative.
Feel like a failure at happiness? Try embracing uncertainty
You, too, might be a failure at happiness. Do strangers tell you to smile? Are you wearing black? As an ’80s teen, were your peers reading The Babysitters Club and listening to Wham while you read Nausea and listened to the Smiths?
These are tough times for melancholic types, constitutionally wary of the happiness movement. Marketdata Enterprises Inc. reports that the U.S. self-improvement market, ever resilient, was worth an estimated $11.17-billion in 2011. Those seeking personal happiness can attend seminars, hire coaches, take university courses. Even the United Nations commissioned a World Happiness Report (they’re cheeriest in Denmark).
It’s fashionable to strive to be happier. In Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin’s recent follow-up to the bestseller The Happiness Project, the joy guru moves her formula into the domestic sphere. She describes personal schemes to make her home life cheerier, through decluttering and avoiding chocolate-covered pretzels. Somewhere around the chapter where she embraces good smells and decides to commission a diorama for her kitchen cupboard, I thought: Getting happy seems exhausting. Somehow happiness has ended up on the DIY spectrum with Martha Stewart crafts and other things that are supposed to make me feel good but just make me feel inadequate.
Burkeman sums up that sensation of happiness failure: “The effort to try to feel happy is actually precisely the thing that makes us miserable.” This is borne out by Gabriele Oettingen, a psychologist at New York University who studied how the removal of obstacles through positive thinking can actually lull people into the false sensation that success has already been achieved. Subjects who were asked to picture a particularly successful week achieved fewer of their goals than a group asked to simply think about their week realistically, without the pressure of visualizing unusually high achievements.
Instead of picturing only the desired end result, Oettingen’s team proposes “mental contrasting,” acknowledging the problems ahead while picturing the end goal. In a study involving managers at four German hospitals, those who were trained in mental contrasting ended up reaching their goals more quickly than those without training. Negativity, it turns out, is a useful tool. Tell that to your boss at the next corporate-team-building-quarterly-goal-setting retreat.
The problem with the call to shut out negative thoughts is that it elides suffering, a part of life that can’t – and shouldn’t – be glossed over. In a series of vignettes, Burkeman undertakes “the negative path” toward happiness. He hangs out with modern Stoics, who believe in confronting worst-case scenarios head on rather than shunning them. This leads Burkeman to ride the London tube shouting out the stop names, confronting his fears of embarrassment (no one cares, it turns out). He also endures a week-long silent meditation retreat, a kind of physical hell where he can’t get the song Barbie Girl out of his head. But all of this suffering actually makes him feel pretty good. Trying to control negativity is actually worse than negativity itself.
The vogue for relentless happiness can seem like a harmless pastime or a modern virtue, imbued with a kind of righteousness once reserved for religious pursuits. But it also has wider social repercussions. In her 2009 book Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich argues that a mindset of relentless optimism fostered the conditions for the collapse of the American economy in 2008. Upbeat economists ignored warning signs, and “prosperity preachers” informed their congregations that “God wants everyone to be prosperous” – charge it! As Ehrenreich points out, spending without saving – and household debt is at an all-time high in Canada – is an incredibly optimistic act.
There’s no dinner-party companion more annoying than he who has manifested his own happiness and announces it loudly. These happiness hobbyists rarely seem happier, just more self-involved. Shutting out the negative and turning life into a game that can be beat by strategy and attitude makes for a jockish, inner-facing worldview.
Burkeman’s book ends with a plea to put aside the fuzzy word happiness, and aim for something that philosopher Paul Pearsall called “openture,” the opposite of closure: “The strange excited comfort of being presented with, and grappling with, the tremendous mysteries life offers.” It’s a vision of existence that embraces the variegated experience of life, one that includes uncertainty, fear – even unhappiness. I’m going to make “openture” my new daily affirmation; anything to escape the tyranny of the get-happy industry.
These are tough times for melancholic types, constitutionally wary of the happiness movement. Marketdata Enterprises Inc. reports that the U.S. self-improvement market, ever resilient, was worth an estimated $11.17-billion in 2011. Those seeking personal happiness can attend seminars, hire coaches, take university courses. Even the United Nations commissioned a World Happiness Report (they’re cheeriest in Denmark).
It’s fashionable to strive to be happier. In Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin’s recent follow-up to the bestseller The Happiness Project, the joy guru moves her formula into the domestic sphere. She describes personal schemes to make her home life cheerier, through decluttering and avoiding chocolate-covered pretzels. Somewhere around the chapter where she embraces good smells and decides to commission a diorama for her kitchen cupboard, I thought: Getting happy seems exhausting. Somehow happiness has ended up on the DIY spectrum with Martha Stewart crafts and other things that are supposed to make me feel good but just make me feel inadequate.
Burkeman sums up that sensation of happiness failure: “The effort to try to feel happy is actually precisely the thing that makes us miserable.” This is borne out by Gabriele Oettingen, a psychologist at New York University who studied how the removal of obstacles through positive thinking can actually lull people into the false sensation that success has already been achieved. Subjects who were asked to picture a particularly successful week achieved fewer of their goals than a group asked to simply think about their week realistically, without the pressure of visualizing unusually high achievements.
Instead of picturing only the desired end result, Oettingen’s team proposes “mental contrasting,” acknowledging the problems ahead while picturing the end goal. In a study involving managers at four German hospitals, those who were trained in mental contrasting ended up reaching their goals more quickly than those without training. Negativity, it turns out, is a useful tool. Tell that to your boss at the next corporate-team-building-quarterly-goal-setting retreat.
The problem with the call to shut out negative thoughts is that it elides suffering, a part of life that can’t – and shouldn’t – be glossed over. In a series of vignettes, Burkeman undertakes “the negative path” toward happiness. He hangs out with modern Stoics, who believe in confronting worst-case scenarios head on rather than shunning them. This leads Burkeman to ride the London tube shouting out the stop names, confronting his fears of embarrassment (no one cares, it turns out). He also endures a week-long silent meditation retreat, a kind of physical hell where he can’t get the song Barbie Girl out of his head. But all of this suffering actually makes him feel pretty good. Trying to control negativity is actually worse than negativity itself.
The vogue for relentless happiness can seem like a harmless pastime or a modern virtue, imbued with a kind of righteousness once reserved for religious pursuits. But it also has wider social repercussions. In her 2009 book Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich argues that a mindset of relentless optimism fostered the conditions for the collapse of the American economy in 2008. Upbeat economists ignored warning signs, and “prosperity preachers” informed their congregations that “God wants everyone to be prosperous” – charge it! As Ehrenreich points out, spending without saving – and household debt is at an all-time high in Canada – is an incredibly optimistic act.
There’s no dinner-party companion more annoying than he who has manifested his own happiness and announces it loudly. These happiness hobbyists rarely seem happier, just more self-involved. Shutting out the negative and turning life into a game that can be beat by strategy and attitude makes for a jockish, inner-facing worldview.
Burkeman’s book ends with a plea to put aside the fuzzy word happiness, and aim for something that philosopher Paul Pearsall called “openture,” the opposite of closure: “The strange excited comfort of being presented with, and grappling with, the tremendous mysteries life offers.” It’s a vision of existence that embraces the variegated experience of life, one that includes uncertainty, fear – even unhappiness. I’m going to make “openture” my new daily affirmation; anything to escape the tyranny of the get-happy industry.
The positive power of negative thinking
The book, by the very smart, very funny Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman, is Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.
But the title is a sly one. It may sound like all those other oppressive self-help books exhorting you to “get Motivated” and “succeed,” but don’t be put off; Burkeman’s book isn’t spiritual entertainment. Or perhaps it is – spiritual entertainment of a perverse kind. Because what he has written is a kind of debunker’s bible. And lucky you. The book arrives in time for the Christmas season which, for many, entails a forced march to the land of relentless good cheer.
Relentlessness is something Burkeman excels at, but in his case it has to do with the chapter-by-chapter skewering of the “cult of optimism,” better known as the idea that the secret to human happiness lies in your being positive at all times.
He also suggests a deeper form of personal happiness, one that embraces, with grace and equanimity, life’s bad bits, as well as its good ones.
So let’s start with being stoical in the face of the overbearing exhortation to find happiness through the practice of positive thinking. Burkeman gives the Stoics a full chapter, and deservedly so. They were, he notes, “among the first to suggest that the path to happiness might depend on negativity.”
Negativity, as derived from the early Greek Stoics who were writing around the third century BC, forms the core of Burkeman’s thesis. It’s a tough-minded approach that involves “developing a kind of muscular calm in the face of trying circumstances,” and is nothing less than reasoned thinking with a dash of Buddhism thrown in to keep things nicely non-attached.
“Happiness reached via positive thinking can be fleeting and brittle,” Burkeman writes. “Negative visualization generates a vastly more dependable calm.”
Bending circumstances to your will, he says, is doomed to failure. Better to embrace all of life, and not waste your time in the desperate, and usually failed, pursuits of happiness, security, wealth, and so forth.
Then there’s the wonderfully edgy psychologist, Arthur Ellis, whose work Burkeman recounts at length. Ellis wrote that the worst thing about any event is “usually your exaggerated belief in its horror.” Asking yourself what’s the worst that can happen in a situation can work as an antidote here. Diffusing beliefs and judgments and confronting reality as it is, Ellis claimed, as well as accepting that you are “a fallible human being, just like everyone else,” will go a long way toward having a more meaningful, less deluded existence. “If you accept that the universe is uncontrollable,” Burkeman says via Ellis, “you’re going to be a lot less anxious.”
Burkeman travelled widely to research his book – to the remote Insight Meditation Center in Massachusetts, to Mexico City to experience Day of the Dead festivities, to Ann Arbor, Mich., and a warehouse there containing failed consumer products that “stands as a memorial to humanity’s shattered dreams,” and to a hilarious Dr. Robert H. Schuller motivational seminar in a Texas stadium – hilarious in Burkeman’s hands.
He also interviewed Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) to explore the ways in which the pursuit of happiness and success seem to backfire, and he sought the counsel of Chris Hayes, a former stockbroker turned “expert on organizational behaviour,” to discover all that is wrong with relentless goal-setting. As well, there’s a nifty chapter on the denial of death and on personal failure, both of which, Burkeman contends, the culture of positive thinking “strives to avoid at all costs.”
So now you have it. And all you have to do to benefit from Burkeman’s refreshing ideas is to find a quiet, tinsel-free place to read his book. Being miserable on occasion, he will tell you, can be good for you, and can even make you happy. And how’s that for an early Christmas present?
But the title is a sly one. It may sound like all those other oppressive self-help books exhorting you to “get Motivated” and “succeed,” but don’t be put off; Burkeman’s book isn’t spiritual entertainment. Or perhaps it is – spiritual entertainment of a perverse kind. Because what he has written is a kind of debunker’s bible. And lucky you. The book arrives in time for the Christmas season which, for many, entails a forced march to the land of relentless good cheer.
Relentlessness is something Burkeman excels at, but in his case it has to do with the chapter-by-chapter skewering of the “cult of optimism,” better known as the idea that the secret to human happiness lies in your being positive at all times.
He also suggests a deeper form of personal happiness, one that embraces, with grace and equanimity, life’s bad bits, as well as its good ones.
So let’s start with being stoical in the face of the overbearing exhortation to find happiness through the practice of positive thinking. Burkeman gives the Stoics a full chapter, and deservedly so. They were, he notes, “among the first to suggest that the path to happiness might depend on negativity.”
Negativity, as derived from the early Greek Stoics who were writing around the third century BC, forms the core of Burkeman’s thesis. It’s a tough-minded approach that involves “developing a kind of muscular calm in the face of trying circumstances,” and is nothing less than reasoned thinking with a dash of Buddhism thrown in to keep things nicely non-attached.
“Happiness reached via positive thinking can be fleeting and brittle,” Burkeman writes. “Negative visualization generates a vastly more dependable calm.”
Bending circumstances to your will, he says, is doomed to failure. Better to embrace all of life, and not waste your time in the desperate, and usually failed, pursuits of happiness, security, wealth, and so forth.
Then there’s the wonderfully edgy psychologist, Arthur Ellis, whose work Burkeman recounts at length. Ellis wrote that the worst thing about any event is “usually your exaggerated belief in its horror.” Asking yourself what’s the worst that can happen in a situation can work as an antidote here. Diffusing beliefs and judgments and confronting reality as it is, Ellis claimed, as well as accepting that you are “a fallible human being, just like everyone else,” will go a long way toward having a more meaningful, less deluded existence. “If you accept that the universe is uncontrollable,” Burkeman says via Ellis, “you’re going to be a lot less anxious.”
Burkeman travelled widely to research his book – to the remote Insight Meditation Center in Massachusetts, to Mexico City to experience Day of the Dead festivities, to Ann Arbor, Mich., and a warehouse there containing failed consumer products that “stands as a memorial to humanity’s shattered dreams,” and to a hilarious Dr. Robert H. Schuller motivational seminar in a Texas stadium – hilarious in Burkeman’s hands.
He also interviewed Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) to explore the ways in which the pursuit of happiness and success seem to backfire, and he sought the counsel of Chris Hayes, a former stockbroker turned “expert on organizational behaviour,” to discover all that is wrong with relentless goal-setting. As well, there’s a nifty chapter on the denial of death and on personal failure, both of which, Burkeman contends, the culture of positive thinking “strives to avoid at all costs.”
So now you have it. And all you have to do to benefit from Burkeman’s refreshing ideas is to find a quiet, tinsel-free place to read his book. Being miserable on occasion, he will tell you, can be good for you, and can even make you happy. And how’s that for an early Christmas present?
The Power of Negative Thinking
LAST month, in San Jose, Calif., 21 people were treated for burns after walking barefoot over hot coals as part of an event called Unleash the Power Within, starring the motivational speaker Tony Robbins. If you’re anything like me, a cynical retort might suggest itself: What, exactly, did they expect would happen? In fact, there’s a simple secret to “firewalking”: coal is a poor conductor of heat to surrounding surfaces, including human flesh, so with quick, light steps, you’ll usually be fine.
But Mr. Robbins and his acolytes have little time for physics. To them, it’s all a matter of mind-set: cultivate the belief that success is guaranteed, and anything is possible. One singed but undeterred participanttold The San Jose Mercury News: “I wasn’t at my peak state.” What if all this positivity is part of the problem? What if we’re trying too hard to think positive and might do better to reconsider our relationship to “negative” emotions and situations?
Consider the technique of positive visualization, a staple not only of Robbins-style seminars but also of corporate team-building retreats and business best sellers. According to research by the psychologist Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues, visualizing a successful outcome, under certain conditions, can make people less likely to achieve it. She rendered her experimental participants dehydrated, then asked some of them to picture a refreshing glass of water. The water-visualizers experienced a marked decline in energy levels, compared with those participants who engaged in negative or neutral fantasies. Imagining their goal seemed to deprive the water-visualizers of their get-up-and-go, as if they’d already achieved their objective.
Or take affirmations, those cheery slogans intended to lift the user’s mood by repeating them: “I am a lovable person!” “My life is filled with joy!” Psychologists at the University of Waterloo concluded that such statements make people with low self-esteem feel worse — not least because telling yourself you’re lovable is liable to provoke the grouchy internal counterargument that, really, you’re not.
Even goal setting, the ubiquitous motivational technique of managers everywhere, isn’t an undisputed boon. Fixating too vigorously on goals can distort an organization’s overall mission in a desperate effort to meet some overly narrow target, and research by several business-school professors suggests that employees consumed with goals are likelier to cut ethical corners.
Though much of this research is new, the essential insight isn’t. Ancient philosophers and spiritual teachers understood the need to balance the positive with the negative, optimism with pessimism, a striving for success and security with an openness to failure and uncertainty. The Stoics recommended “the premeditation of evils,” or deliberately visualizing the worst-case scenario. This tends to reduce anxiety about the future: when you soberly picture how badly things could go in reality, you usually conclude that you could cope. Besides, they noted, imagining that you might lose the relationships and possessions you currently enjoy increases your gratitude for having them now. Positive thinking, by contrast, always leans into the future, ignoring present pleasures.
Buddhist meditation, too, is arguably all about learning to resist the urge to think positively — to let emotions and sensations arise and pass, regardless of their content. It might even have helped those agonized firewalkers. Very brief training in meditation, according to a 2009 article in The Journal of Pain, brought significant reductions in pain — not by ignoring unpleasant sensations, or refusing to feel them, but by turning nonjudgmentally toward them.
From this perspective, the relentless cheer of positive thinking begins to seem less like an expression of joy and more like a stressful effort to stamp out any trace of negativity. Mr. Robbins’s trademark smile starts to resemble a rictus. A positive thinker can never relax, lest an awareness of sadness or failure creep in. And telling yourself that everything must work out is poor preparation for those times when they don’t. You can try, if you insist, to follow the famous self-help advice to eliminate the word “failure” from your vocabulary — but then you’ll just have an inadequate vocabulary when failure strikes.
The social critic Barbara Ehrenreich has persuasively argued that the all-positive approach, with its rejection of the possibility of failure, helped bring on our present financial crises. The psychological evidence, backed by ancient wisdom, certainly suggests that it is not the recipe for success that it purports to be.
Mr. Robbins reportedly encourages firewalkers to think of the hot coals as “cool moss.” Here’s a better idea: think of them as hot coals. And as a San Jose fire captain, himself a wise philosopher, told The Mercury News: “We discourage people from walking over hot coals.”
Oliver Burkeman is the author of the forthcoming book “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.”
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Power of Negative Thinking
The holiday season poses a psychological conundrum. Its defining sentiment, of course, is joy—yet the strenuous effort to be joyous seems to make many of us miserable. It's hard to be happy in overcrowded airport lounges or while you're trying to stay civil for days on end with relatives who stretch your patience.
So to cope with the holidays, magazines and others are advising us to "think positive"—the same advice, in other words, that Norman Vincent Peale, author of "The Power of Positive Thinking," was dispensing six decades ago. (During holidays, Peale once suggested, you should make "a deliberate effort to speak hopefully about everything.") The result all too often mirrors the famously annoying parlor game about trying not to think of a white bear: The harder you try, the more you think about one.
Just thinking in sober detail about worst-case scenarios can help to sap the future of its anxiety-producing power.
Variations of Peale's positive philosophy run deep in American culture, not just in how we handle holidays and other social situations but in business, politics and beyond. Yet studies suggest that peppy affirmations designed to lift the user's mood through repetition and visualizing future success often achieve the opposite of their intended effect.
Fortunately, both ancient philosophy and contemporary psychology point to an alternative: a counterintuitive approach that might be termed "the negative path to happiness." This approach helps to explain some puzzles, such as the fact that citizens of more economically insecure countries often report greater happiness than citizens of wealthier ones. Or that many successful businesspeople reject the idea of setting firm goals.
One pioneer of the "negative path" was the New York psychotherapist Albert Ellis, who died in 2007. He rediscovered a key insight of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome: that sometimes the best way to address an uncertain future is to focus not on the best-case scenario but on the worst.
Seneca the Stoic was a radical on this matter. If you feared losing your wealth, he once advised, "set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?' "
To overcome a fear of embarrassment, Ellis told me, he advised his clients to travel on the New York subway, speaking the names of stations out loud as they passed. I'm an easily embarrassed person, so in the interest of journalistic research, I took his advice, on the Central Line of the London Underground. It was agonizing. But my overblown fears were cut down to size: I wasn't verbally harangued or physically attacked. A few people looked at me strangely.
Just thinking in sober detail about worst-case scenarios—a technique the Stoics called "the premeditation of evils"—can help to sap the future of its anxiety-producing power. The psychologist Julie Norem estimates that about one-third of Americans instinctively use this strategy, which she terms "defensive pessimism." Positive thinking, by contrast, is the effort to convince yourself that things will turn out fine, which can reinforce the belief that it would be absolutely terrible if they didn't.
In American corporations, perhaps the most widely accepted doctrine of the "cult of positivity" is the importance of setting big, audacious goals for an organization, while employees are encouraged (or compelled) to set goals that are "SMART"—"Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely." (It is thought that the term was first used in a 1981 article by George T. Doran.)
But the pro-goal consensus is starting to crumble. For one thing, rigid goals may encourage employees to cut ethical corners. In a study conducted by the management scholar Lisa Ordóñez and her colleagues, participants had to make words from a set of random letters, as in Scrabble. The experiment let them report their progress anonymously—and those given a specific target to reach lied far more frequently than those instructed merely to "do your best."
Goals may even lead to underachievement. Many New York taxi drivers, one team of economists concluded, make less money in rainy weather than they could because they finish work as soon as they reach their mental target for what constitute a good day's earnings.
Focusing on one goal at the expense of all other factors also can distort a corporate mission or an individual life, says Christopher Kayes, an associate professor of management at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Prof. Kayes, who has studied the "overpursuit" of goals, recalls a conversation with one executive who "told me his goal had been to become a millionaire by the age of 40…and he'd done it. [But] he was also divorced, and had health problems, and his kids didn't talk to him anymore." Behind our fixation on goals, Prof. Kayes's work suggests, is a deep unease with feelings of uncertainty.
Research by Saras Sarasvathy, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia, suggests that learning to accommodate feelings of uncertainty is not just the key to a more balanced life but often leads to prosperity as well. For one project, she interviewed 45 successful entrepreneurs, all of whom had taken at least one business public. Almost none embraced the idea of writing comprehensive business plans or conducting extensive market research.
They practiced instead what Prof. Sarasvathy calls "effectuation." Rather than choosing a goal and then making a plan to achieve it, they took stock of the means and materials at their disposal, then imagined the possible ends. Effectuation also includes what she calls the "affordable loss principle." Instead of focusing on the possibility of spectacular rewards from a venture, ask how great the loss would be if it failed. If the potential loss seems tolerable, take the next step.
The ultimate value of the "negative path" may not be its role in facilitating upbeat emotions or even success. It is simply realism. The future really is uncertain, after all, and things really do go wrong as well as right. We are too often motivated by a craving to put an end to the inevitable surprises in our lives.
This is especially true of the biggest "negative" of all. Might we benefit from contemplating mortality more regularly than we do? As Steve Jobs famously declared, "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way that I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."
However tempted we may be to agree with Woody Allen's position on death—"I'm strongly against it"—there's much to be said for confronting it rather than denying it. There are some facts that even the most powerful positive thinking can't alter.—Adapted from Mr. Burkeman's book "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking," published in November by Faber & Faber.
So to cope with the holidays, magazines and others are advising us to "think positive"—the same advice, in other words, that Norman Vincent Peale, author of "The Power of Positive Thinking," was dispensing six decades ago. (During holidays, Peale once suggested, you should make "a deliberate effort to speak hopefully about everything.") The result all too often mirrors the famously annoying parlor game about trying not to think of a white bear: The harder you try, the more you think about one.
Just thinking in sober detail about worst-case scenarios can help to sap the future of its anxiety-producing power.
Variations of Peale's positive philosophy run deep in American culture, not just in how we handle holidays and other social situations but in business, politics and beyond. Yet studies suggest that peppy affirmations designed to lift the user's mood through repetition and visualizing future success often achieve the opposite of their intended effect.
Fortunately, both ancient philosophy and contemporary psychology point to an alternative: a counterintuitive approach that might be termed "the negative path to happiness." This approach helps to explain some puzzles, such as the fact that citizens of more economically insecure countries often report greater happiness than citizens of wealthier ones. Or that many successful businesspeople reject the idea of setting firm goals.
One pioneer of the "negative path" was the New York psychotherapist Albert Ellis, who died in 2007. He rediscovered a key insight of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome: that sometimes the best way to address an uncertain future is to focus not on the best-case scenario but on the worst.
Seneca the Stoic was a radical on this matter. If you feared losing your wealth, he once advised, "set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?' "
To overcome a fear of embarrassment, Ellis told me, he advised his clients to travel on the New York subway, speaking the names of stations out loud as they passed. I'm an easily embarrassed person, so in the interest of journalistic research, I took his advice, on the Central Line of the London Underground. It was agonizing. But my overblown fears were cut down to size: I wasn't verbally harangued or physically attacked. A few people looked at me strangely.
Just thinking in sober detail about worst-case scenarios—a technique the Stoics called "the premeditation of evils"—can help to sap the future of its anxiety-producing power. The psychologist Julie Norem estimates that about one-third of Americans instinctively use this strategy, which she terms "defensive pessimism." Positive thinking, by contrast, is the effort to convince yourself that things will turn out fine, which can reinforce the belief that it would be absolutely terrible if they didn't.
In American corporations, perhaps the most widely accepted doctrine of the "cult of positivity" is the importance of setting big, audacious goals for an organization, while employees are encouraged (or compelled) to set goals that are "SMART"—"Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely." (It is thought that the term was first used in a 1981 article by George T. Doran.)
But the pro-goal consensus is starting to crumble. For one thing, rigid goals may encourage employees to cut ethical corners. In a study conducted by the management scholar Lisa Ordóñez and her colleagues, participants had to make words from a set of random letters, as in Scrabble. The experiment let them report their progress anonymously—and those given a specific target to reach lied far more frequently than those instructed merely to "do your best."
Goals may even lead to underachievement. Many New York taxi drivers, one team of economists concluded, make less money in rainy weather than they could because they finish work as soon as they reach their mental target for what constitute a good day's earnings.
Focusing on one goal at the expense of all other factors also can distort a corporate mission or an individual life, says Christopher Kayes, an associate professor of management at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Prof. Kayes, who has studied the "overpursuit" of goals, recalls a conversation with one executive who "told me his goal had been to become a millionaire by the age of 40…and he'd done it. [But] he was also divorced, and had health problems, and his kids didn't talk to him anymore." Behind our fixation on goals, Prof. Kayes's work suggests, is a deep unease with feelings of uncertainty.
Research by Saras Sarasvathy, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia, suggests that learning to accommodate feelings of uncertainty is not just the key to a more balanced life but often leads to prosperity as well. For one project, she interviewed 45 successful entrepreneurs, all of whom had taken at least one business public. Almost none embraced the idea of writing comprehensive business plans or conducting extensive market research.
They practiced instead what Prof. Sarasvathy calls "effectuation." Rather than choosing a goal and then making a plan to achieve it, they took stock of the means and materials at their disposal, then imagined the possible ends. Effectuation also includes what she calls the "affordable loss principle." Instead of focusing on the possibility of spectacular rewards from a venture, ask how great the loss would be if it failed. If the potential loss seems tolerable, take the next step.
The ultimate value of the "negative path" may not be its role in facilitating upbeat emotions or even success. It is simply realism. The future really is uncertain, after all, and things really do go wrong as well as right. We are too often motivated by a craving to put an end to the inevitable surprises in our lives.
This is especially true of the biggest "negative" of all. Might we benefit from contemplating mortality more regularly than we do? As Steve Jobs famously declared, "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way that I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."
However tempted we may be to agree with Woody Allen's position on death—"I'm strongly against it"—there's much to be said for confronting it rather than denying it. There are some facts that even the most powerful positive thinking can't alter.—Adapted from Mr. Burkeman's book "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking," published in November by Faber & Faber.
Monday, January 21, 2013
郭鹤年:任何生意都有风险 ，"怕"就永远当穷人
“做每一種生意都有危險，怕就走開，如果有更好機會不是問題，可把握第二次，但如果每一次膽量太小，永遠是窮人。”
郭鹤年极少谈起他的所谓成功秘诀。多思，寡言，是郭鹤年最能区别于其他富豪的特征。但在“2012中国经济年度人物”颁奖典礼上，这位年近90的老者，用他一生的经历和经验，给年轻人提了四个建议：
“一个，将来无论做什么事业，要抓住机会，不要东想西想，找到好的项目，要抓紧，推动力要大；第二，必须有耐心，路程中肯定有不少困难，但是不要很容易的克服掉，我记得邓小平先生叫做不倒翁，打倒了站起来，打倒了又站起来，做生意一定要这样；第三，成功以后，赚多钱以后要特别小心。几十年前讲失败是成功之母，我本人的经验，成功也是失败之母，请你们大家要注意这点；最后，赚到的钱也最好回归给社会一部分，越多越好。”
郭鹤年名言
~ 做生意要有一种胆量，如果每次胆量都太小，永远是穷人。
~ 做生意要有胆量，但胆量要对生意，不要用胆量对人。
~ 做生意90%靠自己勤奋和智慧，要不断收集讯息等，看准时机要快。
~ 比我聪明的人多，但一些聪明的人夜生活比较乱，第二天他们可能在桌上睡着而我没，所以我的马儿就跑得比较快。
~ 无论什么事业要多做几种，因为这些都有连带关系。
~ 我本人不爱钱，但是我很想每年公司结帐都有钱赚，给同事花红。
郭鹤年先生的母亲留给他的几句家训是："儿孙能如我，何必留多财，倘若不如我，多财亦是空，不为自己求利益，但愿大众共安宁。”
他说，如果妈妈还在，肯定会不断提醒他，做人要谦虚，要继续帮助穷人。
任何生意都有风险 “怕，就永远当穷人”
26岁创办郭氏企业，40岁成为亚洲糖王，曾经在高峰时期控制全球二十分之一的砂糖，回忆创业过程，郭鹤年说，当时做了决定，将全部资金投入炼糖业，当时大马也没有其他人经营此行业。“市场最容易的行业不是化工、石油化工，这些有时有人要，有时没人要，那时也未进入IT时代，最简单，最聪明的方式就是，便宜的原糖就可发财。”
他形容，经营糖业大部份时候顺利，惟一次在1963年，基于胆量太大，把现货抓了20吨，也到期货市场注资，原以为市场会涨，谁知反降，资力不足会因此破产，惟，一场事故帮了他。
“当时台风打到古巴，古巴砂糖业大破坏，国际糖价一直高涨，好像老天要帮我一样。”他提及，做生意90%靠自己的勤奋和智慧，不断收集讯息，研究供求、生产、消费、运输等，看准时机，要快。
他提及，做每一种生意都有危险，怕就走开，如果有更好机会不是问题，可把握第二次，但如果每一次胆量太小，永远是穷人。
郭鹤年极少谈起他的所谓成功秘诀。多思，寡言，是郭鹤年最能区别于其他富豪的特征。但在“2012中国经济年度人物”颁奖典礼上，这位年近90的老者，用他一生的经历和经验，给年轻人提了四个建议：
“一个，将来无论做什么事业，要抓住机会，不要东想西想，找到好的项目，要抓紧，推动力要大；第二，必须有耐心，路程中肯定有不少困难，但是不要很容易的克服掉，我记得邓小平先生叫做不倒翁，打倒了站起来，打倒了又站起来，做生意一定要这样；第三，成功以后，赚多钱以后要特别小心。几十年前讲失败是成功之母，我本人的经验，成功也是失败之母，请你们大家要注意这点；最后，赚到的钱也最好回归给社会一部分，越多越好。”
郭鹤年名言
~ 做生意要有一种胆量，如果每次胆量都太小，永远是穷人。
~ 做生意要有胆量，但胆量要对生意，不要用胆量对人。
~ 做生意90%靠自己勤奋和智慧，要不断收集讯息等，看准时机要快。
~ 比我聪明的人多，但一些聪明的人夜生活比较乱，第二天他们可能在桌上睡着而我没，所以我的马儿就跑得比较快。
~ 无论什么事业要多做几种，因为这些都有连带关系。
~ 我本人不爱钱，但是我很想每年公司结帐都有钱赚，给同事花红。
郭鹤年先生的母亲留给他的几句家训是："儿孙能如我，何必留多财，倘若不如我，多财亦是空，不为自己求利益，但愿大众共安宁。”
他说，如果妈妈还在，肯定会不断提醒他，做人要谦虚，要继续帮助穷人。
任何生意都有风险 “怕，就永远当穷人”
26岁创办郭氏企业，40岁成为亚洲糖王，曾经在高峰时期控制全球二十分之一的砂糖，回忆创业过程，郭鹤年说，当时做了决定，将全部资金投入炼糖业，当时大马也没有其他人经营此行业。“市场最容易的行业不是化工、石油化工，这些有时有人要，有时没人要，那时也未进入IT时代，最简单，最聪明的方式就是，便宜的原糖就可发财。”
他形容，经营糖业大部份时候顺利，惟一次在1963年，基于胆量太大，把现货抓了20吨，也到期货市场注资，原以为市场会涨，谁知反降，资力不足会因此破产，惟，一场事故帮了他。
“当时台风打到古巴，古巴砂糖业大破坏，国际糖价一直高涨，好像老天要帮我一样。”他提及，做生意90%靠自己的勤奋和智慧，不断收集讯息，研究供求、生产、消费、运输等，看准时机，要快。
他提及，做每一种生意都有危险，怕就走开，如果有更好机会不是问题，可把握第二次，但如果每一次胆量太小，永远是穷人。
X-wave
In physics, X-waves are localized solutions of the wave equation that travel at a constant velocity in a given direction. X-waves can be sound, electromagnetic, or gravitational waves. They are built as a non-monochromatic superposition of Bessel beams. X-waves carry infinite energy. Finite-energy realizations have been observed in various frameworks.
In optics, X-waves solution have been reported within a quantum mechanical formulation.
Quantum mechanical waves
Quantum mechanical waves
Main article: Schrödinger equation
See also: Wave function
The Schrödinger equation describes the wave-like behavior of particles in quantum mechanics. Solutions of this equation are wave functions which can be used to describe the probability density of a particle.
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[edit]de Broglie waves
Main articles: Wave packet and Matter wave
Louis de Broglie postulated that all particles with momentum have a wavelength
where h is Planck's constant, and p is the magnitude of the momentum of the particle. This hypothesis was at the basis of quantum mechanics. Nowadays, this wavelength is called the de Broglie wavelength. For example, the electrons in a CRT display have a de Broglie wavelength of about 10−13 m.
A wave representing such a particle traveling in the k-direction is expressed by the wave function as follows:
where the wavelength is determined by the wave vector k as:
and the momentum by:
However, a wave like this with definite wavelength is not localized in space, and so cannot represent a particle localized in space. To localize a particle, de Broglie proposed a superposition of different wavelengths ranging around a central value in a wave packet,[29] a waveform often used in quantum mechanics to describe the wave function of a particle. In a wave packet, the wavelength of the particle is not precise, and the local wavelength deviates on either side of the main wavelength value.
In representing the wave function of a localized particle, the wave packet is often taken to have a Gaussian shape and is called a Gaussian wave packet.[30] Gaussian wave packets also are used to analyze water waves.[31]
For example, a Gaussian wavefunction ψ might take the form:[32]
at some initial time t = 0, where the central wavelength is related to the central wave vector k0 as λ0 = 2π / k0. It is well known from the theory of Fourier analysis,[33] or from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (in the case of quantum mechanics) that a narrow range of wavelengths is necessary to produce a localized wave packet, and the more localized the envelope, the larger the spread in required wavelengths. The Fourier transform of a Gaussian is itself a Gaussian.[34] Given the Gaussian:
the Fourier transform is:
The Gaussian in space therefore is made up of waves:
that is, a number of waves of wavelengths λ such that kλ = 2 π.
The parameter σ decides the spatial spread of the Gaussian along the x-axis, while the Fourier transform shows a spread in wave vector k determined by 1/σ. That is, the smaller the extent in space, the larger the extent in k, and hence in λ = 2π/k.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Avena sativa Benefits
Are you feeling stressed, tired, depressed, fed-up, run down or even lacking your usual sexual desire? If so, have you considered a daily dose of Avena sativa (also known as Oats or Oatstraw)?
This wonderful herb is thought to be soothing to the brain and nervous system, whilst at the same time increasing sexual desire, and performance, in both men and women!
Avena sativa is quickly becoming a popular natural alternative to pharmaceutical erection enhancers without the dangerous side effects. Also known as Oats Milky Seed or Oatstraw, Avena Sativa is used to stimulate both men and women quickly and effectively. It is often described as the "Natural Viagra"! Its stimulating effects are well known in the animal world, especially with horses where it is widely known that if you feed them oats their behaviour will be wild and energetic! And we've all heard the term "sowing your oats".
Dr. Larry Clapp has studied alternative virility medicines extensively and concludes that "ten drops, under the tongue, twice a day works very powerfully to enhance erectile function." Other studies have also suggested powerful results in both sexes.
In women, the effect seems to be that of increasing sexual desire rather than physical performance. Avena sativa contains compounds which are both sedative and soothing to the brain and nervous system, hence it is said to be a good herb as a nerve restorative. In women the aphrodisiac effect seems to work by relaxing the body which in turn allows a natural increase in desire.
In men it appears to be effective for treating impotence and premature ejaculation, probably by increasing healthy blood flow.
As a food, oats are known to be good for the heart because they keep blood fats under control. They also have other medicinal properties.
Avena sativa seeds are not only a rich source of carbohydrate and soluble fibre, they also have the highest content of Iron, Zinc and Manganese of any grain. It is said to be useful as a nerve restorative.
Avena sativa has no known side effects, unlike the sometimes dangerous sexual prescription drugs. It is used as a nervous system general tonic as well as a general health tonic.
Avena sativa is often the primary ingredient in expensive sexual formulas and in the popular alternatives Herbal V, Cobra and Biogra. There is no need to purchase expensive herbal formulas. The pure herb is more powerful and is not expensive to use.
Avena sativa does not appear to interact with drugs so it is often used as a safe alternative to other herbs that are used for anxiety, such as St John's wort, which cannot be taken with many prescription medications. Avena sativa may also be of use in helping with drug withdrawal and is often combined with valerian and skullcap.
Oats are sometimes added to the bath as a topical treatment for the skin condition eczema. Generally, there are no side effects or contra-indications from using avena sativa herbal supplements.
杨受成：《争气》的背后
作为香港英皇集团主席的杨受成博士，一生充满戏剧性的传奇，他的自传《争气》（陶杰执笔），记录了他风云变色的前半生。传记讲述了杨家父子在商海中浮浮沉 沉，几经起落，从逆境中翻身的「打不死」的传奇。杨受成的故事，就是香港的真相，杨受成的灵魂折射出真正的香港精神。要阅读战后六十年的香港，必先要阅读 杨受成。
杨受成的父亲杨成20多岁从潮安县只身到香港闯天下，做过苦力，卖旧表、旧眼镜、墨水笔，摆地摊，辛勤地积累了一小笔资金，1942年在上海街买了一个舖 位，取名「成安记」，经营钟表零售和维修，曾风光一时，不过因为误堕天仙局陷阱，家财尽失兼欠下一身债。眼见家道中落，父亲受债主侮辱，十多岁的杨受成逃 学到街头向洋人兜售手表帮补家计。又为表行奔走，助父打天下。到二十岁便向父亲借钱自立门户，于弥敦道买第一间舖，迈出建立自己王国的第一步。
对于自己在做生意方面的才能，杨受成在采访时说道：“说到做生意，我父亲绝对不是正面教材，他是个好人，一生勤俭敬业，虽有头脑，但性格内向不善交际，欠 冒险进取精神，只是守住上海街的成安记，实不算杰出生意人。不过，他教识我许多人生哲理，营商守则我一生受用。”
杨受成行走江湖几十载，段段经历都艰辛惊险，他在回忆自己的商场打拼经历时，认为最难忘的就是1983年8月30日他的上市公司『好世界地产』因投资过 度，资不抵债，遭清盘，欠债三亿，豪宅、游艇、金卡、名车全被没收，面临破产，身无长物的屈辱，他从大老板变月薪二万的打工仔，还要撑起一个家族的重担， 经历世态炎凉的场面。其后为求翻身，破釜沉舟，只身往科威特做金融生意，那段苦难岁月让他始终铭记于心。这段经历也让杨受成从此学识了商场如人生，要知所 进退。
“我生平做人哲学，千头万绪，可提炼为两字：『争气』。面对四周的奚落与嘲辱，我必固守『争气』原则，遇到命运的挫折压力，必冷静应对。青年人读完书就想 向上爬是应该，但君子爱财取之有道，不必急于赚快钱，应该一步步来，打好根基，做事要勤力，不要怕蚀底。”这就是杨受成的“争气”之道。
杨受成的父亲杨成20多岁从潮安县只身到香港闯天下，做过苦力，卖旧表、旧眼镜、墨水笔，摆地摊，辛勤地积累了一小笔资金，1942年在上海街买了一个舖 位，取名「成安记」，经营钟表零售和维修，曾风光一时，不过因为误堕天仙局陷阱，家财尽失兼欠下一身债。眼见家道中落，父亲受债主侮辱，十多岁的杨受成逃 学到街头向洋人兜售手表帮补家计。又为表行奔走，助父打天下。到二十岁便向父亲借钱自立门户，于弥敦道买第一间舖，迈出建立自己王国的第一步。
对于自己在做生意方面的才能，杨受成在采访时说道：“说到做生意，我父亲绝对不是正面教材，他是个好人，一生勤俭敬业，虽有头脑，但性格内向不善交际，欠 冒险进取精神，只是守住上海街的成安记，实不算杰出生意人。不过，他教识我许多人生哲理，营商守则我一生受用。”
杨受成行走江湖几十载，段段经历都艰辛惊险，他在回忆自己的商场打拼经历时，认为最难忘的就是1983年8月30日他的上市公司『好世界地产』因投资过 度，资不抵债，遭清盘，欠债三亿，豪宅、游艇、金卡、名车全被没收，面临破产，身无长物的屈辱，他从大老板变月薪二万的打工仔，还要撑起一个家族的重担， 经历世态炎凉的场面。其后为求翻身，破釜沉舟，只身往科威特做金融生意，那段苦难岁月让他始终铭记于心。这段经历也让杨受成从此学识了商场如人生，要知所 进退。
“我生平做人哲学，千头万绪，可提炼为两字：『争气』。面对四周的奚落与嘲辱，我必固守『争气』原则，遇到命运的挫折压力，必冷静应对。青年人读完书就想 向上爬是应该，但君子爱财取之有道，不必急于赚快钱，应该一步步来，打好根基，做事要勤力，不要怕蚀底。”这就是杨受成的“争气”之道。
英皇争气“大佬”杨受成
“ 你觉得你的性格与哪个角色最相近？”当这个问题轻轻抛出时，刚推出自传《争气》简体版的英皇集团主席杨受成称不知道，但沉思数秒后笑答：“我希望我做韦小宝。”这一语惊四座的回答掀开了杨受成的神秘面纱。韦小宝风流好赌，聪明世故，重朋友情义。为甚么杨受成认为自己最像韦小宝？按照金庸的分析，韦小宝这个角色的性格特征是适应环境，讲义气。
杨受成把一个负债累累的钟表店，到如今横跨金融、地产、钟表珠宝、娱乐电影、酒店、出版印刷、家具与餐饮等八个行业的多元化集团。如今，英皇集团旗下五家香港联交所主板上市公司市值逾160亿港元。
杨受成“争气”的故事俨然一本励志教科书。然而，他本人则是诽誉随行，历经风雨跌宕，饱尝酸甜苦辣。最为人熟知的英皇娱乐电影业务，则给他带来了最多的名声与争议，令杨受成的名字总与纸醉金迷不可分离。
“一个杰出的商人，与一个优秀的作家一样，像张爱玲说的‘天生是被人误解的’。”有“香江才子” 之称的作家陶杰在为杨受成撰写的《争气》自传一书后序中称。
杨受成的《争气》传奇
“从小到大，我是在一家表铺长大，自小看着父母做生意。看见过很多债主追债，他们到店铺之中往往是凶神恶煞，拍桌子、破口大骂，让父母受了不少委屈，我还常常要去当铺当表套现来还债。”杨受成的一生始于这样的童年，而童年对人的影响往往超乎想象。
从20岁至40岁那二十年，杨受成少年得志、左右逢源，地产、钟表珠宝和金融的生意顺风顺水。但在1983年9月著名的“黑色星期五”前夜，杨受成重重地摔了一跤。因地产市场一落千丈、银行利息飙升，好世界地产欠债高达3.2亿港元，1983年8月30日被汇丰银行接收，英皇钟表珠宝各分店也被汇丰 银行接管。
40岁那年，杨受成顷刻间一无所有。“面对我家人，面对我的爸爸妈妈，我很没有面子，面对我的员工，我很没有面子。我跟我的秘书讲，对不起我不能请你了，你薪水太高了，你去找别的工作；我跟我的司机讲，我不能聘请你了，我自己开车。”寥寥数句，勾勒出杨受成中年破产的痛楚。
争气是杨受成多年的座右铭。一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳。杨受成此后每天随身携带四五万港元已成为人尽皆知的秘密，而他还总是不厌其烦地从裤兜里掏出那一叠叠钞票向好奇的来客展示。
向西行炒金炒外汇，成杨受成他绝处逢生的转折点。在世外高人陈郎的指点下，杨受成从中东科威特杀到了泰国和印度尼西亚，据说两年内便赚够还清了3.2亿港元的债，收回了“失地”。这让杨受成深深迷上了金融业务，“我最喜欢金融证券业务，很有挑战性，回报高，满足感大”，他承认。
此后，英皇集团的发展方向便以金融、地产和钟表珠宝为主。1989年后，英皇经过系列人事和行政改革，走上西方风格企业化道路，逐步拓展至如今的八大行业，至今二十年来金融和地产业务占比保持在六至七成。
对英皇事业及家庭生活的希冀
初秋的一个晚上，香港会展中心内衣香鬓影，政商界翘楚和娱乐电影名人齐聚英皇集团七十周年晚宴，俨然香港精英社会的一个缩影。在饱经岁月沧桑之后，这位极具传奇色彩的英皇大佬，对曾经的是是非非似乎都已释怀。正如韦小宝的风流成性，在自传中，杨受成讲述了被前妻捉奸的过程。
显然，杨受成更希望人们不要罔顾他对家人、朋友和员工的情义。“在我一生，我赚了很多友谊，”杨受成说，“李嘉诚先生、郑裕彤先生、何鸿燊先生，很重视我们之间的友谊，这证明我差不到哪里去。”这几名大商家都在杨受成自传《争气》中写出自己对杨受成的评价。
尽管精神状态依然出奇的好，杨受成早在上世纪九十年代初便成立了家族基金、立好了遗嘱，且坚持每六个月按照儿女表现修改一次。
杨受成育有两子三女，次子杨政龙自13岁便跟随父亲学习，将来大部分生意将由其打理，目前任英皇集团行政主任并担任深圳政协委员；长子杨其龙则主理娱乐场所，长女杨诺思负责钟表珠宝，幼女杨诗诗协理，次女杨玳诗主理金融业务。
如今，位于北京长安街的英皇集团中国总部正在兴建中，另辟蹊径以娱乐影视业打入内地的英皇正在伺机扩展其核心业务。“我跟我的小儿子(杨政龙)讲，我说你是太幸运了，内地将来很多财富很多生意很多钱等着你赚，你一定要重视内地，要好好在内地做事。”杨受成称，如 今房地产业务70%在香港，希望五年以后可以有一半甚至六成业务在内地。金融方面他认为早晚要开放，“两年三年不开放，五年以内一定开放”。
杨受成把一个负债累累的钟表店，到如今横跨金融、地产、钟表珠宝、娱乐电影、酒店、出版印刷、家具与餐饮等八个行业的多元化集团。如今，英皇集团旗下五家香港联交所主板上市公司市值逾160亿港元。
杨受成“争气”的故事俨然一本励志教科书。然而，他本人则是诽誉随行，历经风雨跌宕，饱尝酸甜苦辣。最为人熟知的英皇娱乐电影业务，则给他带来了最多的名声与争议，令杨受成的名字总与纸醉金迷不可分离。
“一个杰出的商人，与一个优秀的作家一样，像张爱玲说的‘天生是被人误解的’。”有“香江才子” 之称的作家陶杰在为杨受成撰写的《争气》自传一书后序中称。
杨受成的《争气》传奇
“从小到大，我是在一家表铺长大，自小看着父母做生意。看见过很多债主追债，他们到店铺之中往往是凶神恶煞，拍桌子、破口大骂，让父母受了不少委屈，我还常常要去当铺当表套现来还债。”杨受成的一生始于这样的童年，而童年对人的影响往往超乎想象。
从20岁至40岁那二十年，杨受成少年得志、左右逢源，地产、钟表珠宝和金融的生意顺风顺水。但在1983年9月著名的“黑色星期五”前夜，杨受成重重地摔了一跤。因地产市场一落千丈、银行利息飙升，好世界地产欠债高达3.2亿港元，1983年8月30日被汇丰银行接收，英皇钟表珠宝各分店也被汇丰 银行接管。
40岁那年，杨受成顷刻间一无所有。“面对我家人，面对我的爸爸妈妈，我很没有面子，面对我的员工，我很没有面子。我跟我的秘书讲，对不起我不能请你了，你薪水太高了，你去找别的工作；我跟我的司机讲，我不能聘请你了，我自己开车。”寥寥数句，勾勒出杨受成中年破产的痛楚。
争气是杨受成多年的座右铭。一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳。杨受成此后每天随身携带四五万港元已成为人尽皆知的秘密，而他还总是不厌其烦地从裤兜里掏出那一叠叠钞票向好奇的来客展示。
向西行炒金炒外汇，成杨受成他绝处逢生的转折点。在世外高人陈郎的指点下，杨受成从中东科威特杀到了泰国和印度尼西亚，据说两年内便赚够还清了3.2亿港元的债，收回了“失地”。这让杨受成深深迷上了金融业务，“我最喜欢金融证券业务，很有挑战性，回报高，满足感大”，他承认。
此后，英皇集团的发展方向便以金融、地产和钟表珠宝为主。1989年后，英皇经过系列人事和行政改革，走上西方风格企业化道路，逐步拓展至如今的八大行业，至今二十年来金融和地产业务占比保持在六至七成。
对英皇事业及家庭生活的希冀
初秋的一个晚上，香港会展中心内衣香鬓影，政商界翘楚和娱乐电影名人齐聚英皇集团七十周年晚宴，俨然香港精英社会的一个缩影。在饱经岁月沧桑之后，这位极具传奇色彩的英皇大佬，对曾经的是是非非似乎都已释怀。正如韦小宝的风流成性，在自传中，杨受成讲述了被前妻捉奸的过程。
显然，杨受成更希望人们不要罔顾他对家人、朋友和员工的情义。“在我一生，我赚了很多友谊，”杨受成说，“李嘉诚先生、郑裕彤先生、何鸿燊先生，很重视我们之间的友谊，这证明我差不到哪里去。”这几名大商家都在杨受成自传《争气》中写出自己对杨受成的评价。
尽管精神状态依然出奇的好，杨受成早在上世纪九十年代初便成立了家族基金、立好了遗嘱，且坚持每六个月按照儿女表现修改一次。
杨受成育有两子三女，次子杨政龙自13岁便跟随父亲学习，将来大部分生意将由其打理，目前任英皇集团行政主任并担任深圳政协委员；长子杨其龙则主理娱乐场所，长女杨诺思负责钟表珠宝，幼女杨诗诗协理，次女杨玳诗主理金融业务。
如今，位于北京长安街的英皇集团中国总部正在兴建中，另辟蹊径以娱乐影视业打入内地的英皇正在伺机扩展其核心业务。“我跟我的小儿子(杨政龙)讲，我说你是太幸运了，内地将来很多财富很多生意很多钱等着你赚，你一定要重视内地，要好好在内地做事。”杨受成称，如 今房地产业务70%在香港，希望五年以后可以有一半甚至六成业务在内地。金融方面他认为早晚要开放，“两年三年不开放，五年以内一定开放”。
韦小宝的“厚黑学”
难听地说，鹿鼎记是一部“厚黑学”，好听地说，鹿鼎记是一部人际关系百科全书。无论如何，它都可以说是最不像武侠小说的武侠小说，也是最真实的武侠小说。或许正因为它的真实，金庸不敢给这些众所周知的历史人物太离奇的武功，康熙鳌拜自然只是摔跤厉害，吴三桂郑克双塽罗刹公主没有了军队就只能任人宰割，有点武功的当然都是虚构人物，如陈近南神龙教主之流，但比起乔峰慕容这点武功实在是稀疏平常。
韦小宝的智慧，平淡地说，就集中在“平衡”两字，他能平衡好自己的各种身份，不会相互之间冲突已经是非常不容易的事了，而他利用各种身份，互惠互利，一次达到多个目标更是让人觉得匪夷所思。而他之所以能平衡好，最主要的原因就是见人说人话，见鬼说鬼话。
对“上司”他能充分拿捏喜好。
陈近南是大义凛然的人，韦小宝对他怀着如对父亲的尊敬，所以在陈近南面前他既有孺子可教的姿态，也有紧尊师命的精神，这最能满足陈近南这种有理想，渴望影响别人的人“济世”的心理诉求，所以也深得陈近南的信任。
而康熙则不一样，平时养尊处优，万人之上，缺少的是一个能和自己没有拘束和羁绊的知心朋友，而韦小宝正是抓住康熙这种心理，无所忌言，直话笑话粗话都能讨康熙欢心；而且康熙是一个很有主见的人，他的很多想法与世俗不同，这些想法他既希望得到旁人的承认又不敢轻易透露给别人，于是韦小宝就占了便宜，甭管他懂不懂，每次他都和康熙一个鼻孔出气，拍马屁又拍到康熙的心窝里，再加上他又确实办事得力，总不会让康熙失望，所以能得到康熙的兄弟般的友谊。
洪教主也是韦小宝的上司，但韦小宝对他更多的是利用而毫无感情，再加上他又爱慕虚荣喜欢听吹捧的话，所以韦小宝只需要脸皮厚地海夸几句，也轻而易举地达到了自己的目标。
在我看来，如果韦小宝最后一定要选一个效忠的人而抛弃其他，康熙还是最好的选择，不但因为康熙最能给他优厚的生活条件，更因为康熙是能理解他真的把他当兄弟的人，起码在相当长的时间里，康熙都不是因为韦小宝有利用价值才与他结交，这是陈近南也无法相比的。跟着又能让你有米吃，又能跟你肝胆相照的老大走，何乐而不为呢？可是韦小宝无论怎么唯利是图老奸巨滑，他都毕竟是有底线的人，让他死忠康熙他当然是千百个愿意，但前提是不出卖朋友。可话又说回来，也正是因为这种原因他才能保持各种身份，完成各种任务，说不定要是他真的背叛其他的人而向康熙投降，康熙反而会对他厌倦了。
对朋友和下属，他也能因人施诱。
茅十八是除了康熙以外唯一一个不因为韦小宝的任何身份而与他结交的人，对这种热心肠的人，韦小宝也是最讲义气最真诚的。而对一些同样直心肠的下属，比如吴三桂的几个旧部，韦小宝也打感情牌，所以得到了他们的敬重和死忠。
天地会、沐王府等反清复明的义士，既不图利，对韦小宝又不是真心实意，这种人韦小宝用的则是三件武器，一是附和这伙人的“企图”（或者说理想，价值观），首先赢得共鸣，和这伙人打成一片；二是炫耀自己的经历，“擒鳌拜”是最能让天下英雄臣服的功绩，可以手刃吴三桂的机会更是让这伙人可望而不可及，再加上对里面的很多人都有救命之恩，他们自然对韦小宝有颇深的敬意；最后一件是搬出陈近南这位“名师”，有“高徒”的身份和背景，别人还有不信任，不敬佩之理吗？
相比较，多隆、索额图这些朝廷里的人就要单纯很多，这些人里没有一个不是因为韦小宝是皇上身边的红人而毕恭毕敬的，而韦小宝一方面在得宠以后也不显示出盛气凌人的姿态，经常慷慨地用大量金钱巴结身边的同僚和下属，在官场留下一个“哥们”的好名声，另一方面又对他们有所防范，不动真感情，利用他们贪心、怕事的心理，这也是韦小宝能轻松办事，少有阻拦的原因之一。对待这些重利的人，韦小宝使用的当然也是利益这把利剑。
而神龙教的人又稍有不同，他们为韦小宝办事的原因主要是出于对洪教主的畏惧，所以韦小宝一方面建立起自己深得洪教主信任，并且经常把洪教主搬出来吓唬他们，另一方面时刻揣摩神龙教复杂的内部关系，掌握信息源的优势，经常拿一些似是而非的消息吓唬他们，神龙教的人只能对他唯唯诺诺。
对少林寺里的痴僧韦小宝也有一套本领，故弄玄虚，用看似高超的本领迷惑人，也能引起这些顽固而又只认本领的人的尊敬。
不能不提的还有他的一帮老婆，韦小宝绝对不属于女孩子心目中的“白马王子”类型，可是他却能紧紧抓住女人的心，一方面他的甜言蜜语当然起了作用，另一方面他对她们没心没肺的真诚，保护甚至是牺牲，更是感动了她们的所有人。
对敌人他也不是一概而论。
对刘师哥、吴知县这样本来就让韦小宝厌恶，而又没有什么后台的人，韦小宝当然是把他们往死里踩，落井下石，无所顾忌，毫不留情。
对鳌拜这种眼里根本就没有自己，又穷凶极恶的人，韦小宝则先是低调，尽量不引起注意，真正要动手的时候也是让康熙和其他打手暴露在矛盾正面，等鳌拜疲于应付的时候才被后来一刀，这样既能神不知鬼不觉得以自保，又能除掉眼中钉，甚至还把自己包装成“救世主”，可见杀鳌拜既是韦小宝的成名作，也是最值得他得意的代表作。
对吴三桂这种表面毕恭毕敬，背后想着暗算你的人，韦小宝首先是坚定立场，树立起自己大义凛然必是汉奸的光辉形象，让对方出遇道德劣势，为千夫所指，然后和对方斗智斗勇，防范对方暗算的同时也想方设法栽赃，嫁祸，暗算，无所不用，以其人之道还治其人之身。当然，光从博弈来看韦小宝并不是吴三桂的对手，但他利用自己的道德优势赢得康熙、天地会、沐王府等等的支持，吴三桂并不是死于韦小宝之手，而是众叛亲离的结果。
而对郑克爽这种恨之入骨，但又有一些后台不能贸然下手的人，韦小宝采取的则是借刀杀人，“软刀子”杀人的方法，自己不能动手的，就借别人的手除之而后快，又把责任推得一干二净；不能动手杀的，就用各种手段折磨对方，让对方求生不得求死不能跪地求饶，这种手段更高明更痛快。
韦小宝的智慧，平淡地说，就集中在“平衡”两字，他能平衡好自己的各种身份，不会相互之间冲突已经是非常不容易的事了，而他利用各种身份，互惠互利，一次达到多个目标更是让人觉得匪夷所思。而他之所以能平衡好，最主要的原因就是见人说人话，见鬼说鬼话。
对“上司”他能充分拿捏喜好。
陈近南是大义凛然的人，韦小宝对他怀着如对父亲的尊敬，所以在陈近南面前他既有孺子可教的姿态，也有紧尊师命的精神，这最能满足陈近南这种有理想，渴望影响别人的人“济世”的心理诉求，所以也深得陈近南的信任。
而康熙则不一样，平时养尊处优，万人之上，缺少的是一个能和自己没有拘束和羁绊的知心朋友，而韦小宝正是抓住康熙这种心理，无所忌言，直话笑话粗话都能讨康熙欢心；而且康熙是一个很有主见的人，他的很多想法与世俗不同，这些想法他既希望得到旁人的承认又不敢轻易透露给别人，于是韦小宝就占了便宜，甭管他懂不懂，每次他都和康熙一个鼻孔出气，拍马屁又拍到康熙的心窝里，再加上他又确实办事得力，总不会让康熙失望，所以能得到康熙的兄弟般的友谊。
洪教主也是韦小宝的上司，但韦小宝对他更多的是利用而毫无感情，再加上他又爱慕虚荣喜欢听吹捧的话，所以韦小宝只需要脸皮厚地海夸几句，也轻而易举地达到了自己的目标。
在我看来，如果韦小宝最后一定要选一个效忠的人而抛弃其他，康熙还是最好的选择，不但因为康熙最能给他优厚的生活条件，更因为康熙是能理解他真的把他当兄弟的人，起码在相当长的时间里，康熙都不是因为韦小宝有利用价值才与他结交，这是陈近南也无法相比的。跟着又能让你有米吃，又能跟你肝胆相照的老大走，何乐而不为呢？可是韦小宝无论怎么唯利是图老奸巨滑，他都毕竟是有底线的人，让他死忠康熙他当然是千百个愿意，但前提是不出卖朋友。可话又说回来，也正是因为这种原因他才能保持各种身份，完成各种任务，说不定要是他真的背叛其他的人而向康熙投降，康熙反而会对他厌倦了。
对朋友和下属，他也能因人施诱。
茅十八是除了康熙以外唯一一个不因为韦小宝的任何身份而与他结交的人，对这种热心肠的人，韦小宝也是最讲义气最真诚的。而对一些同样直心肠的下属，比如吴三桂的几个旧部，韦小宝也打感情牌，所以得到了他们的敬重和死忠。
天地会、沐王府等反清复明的义士，既不图利，对韦小宝又不是真心实意，这种人韦小宝用的则是三件武器，一是附和这伙人的“企图”（或者说理想，价值观），首先赢得共鸣，和这伙人打成一片；二是炫耀自己的经历，“擒鳌拜”是最能让天下英雄臣服的功绩，可以手刃吴三桂的机会更是让这伙人可望而不可及，再加上对里面的很多人都有救命之恩，他们自然对韦小宝有颇深的敬意；最后一件是搬出陈近南这位“名师”，有“高徒”的身份和背景，别人还有不信任，不敬佩之理吗？
相比较，多隆、索额图这些朝廷里的人就要单纯很多，这些人里没有一个不是因为韦小宝是皇上身边的红人而毕恭毕敬的，而韦小宝一方面在得宠以后也不显示出盛气凌人的姿态，经常慷慨地用大量金钱巴结身边的同僚和下属，在官场留下一个“哥们”的好名声，另一方面又对他们有所防范，不动真感情，利用他们贪心、怕事的心理，这也是韦小宝能轻松办事，少有阻拦的原因之一。对待这些重利的人，韦小宝使用的当然也是利益这把利剑。
而神龙教的人又稍有不同，他们为韦小宝办事的原因主要是出于对洪教主的畏惧，所以韦小宝一方面建立起自己深得洪教主信任，并且经常把洪教主搬出来吓唬他们，另一方面时刻揣摩神龙教复杂的内部关系，掌握信息源的优势，经常拿一些似是而非的消息吓唬他们，神龙教的人只能对他唯唯诺诺。
对少林寺里的痴僧韦小宝也有一套本领，故弄玄虚，用看似高超的本领迷惑人，也能引起这些顽固而又只认本领的人的尊敬。
不能不提的还有他的一帮老婆，韦小宝绝对不属于女孩子心目中的“白马王子”类型，可是他却能紧紧抓住女人的心，一方面他的甜言蜜语当然起了作用，另一方面他对她们没心没肺的真诚，保护甚至是牺牲，更是感动了她们的所有人。
对敌人他也不是一概而论。
对刘师哥、吴知县这样本来就让韦小宝厌恶，而又没有什么后台的人，韦小宝当然是把他们往死里踩，落井下石，无所顾忌，毫不留情。
对鳌拜这种眼里根本就没有自己，又穷凶极恶的人，韦小宝则先是低调，尽量不引起注意，真正要动手的时候也是让康熙和其他打手暴露在矛盾正面，等鳌拜疲于应付的时候才被后来一刀，这样既能神不知鬼不觉得以自保，又能除掉眼中钉，甚至还把自己包装成“救世主”，可见杀鳌拜既是韦小宝的成名作，也是最值得他得意的代表作。
对吴三桂这种表面毕恭毕敬，背后想着暗算你的人，韦小宝首先是坚定立场，树立起自己大义凛然必是汉奸的光辉形象，让对方出遇道德劣势，为千夫所指，然后和对方斗智斗勇，防范对方暗算的同时也想方设法栽赃，嫁祸，暗算，无所不用，以其人之道还治其人之身。当然，光从博弈来看韦小宝并不是吴三桂的对手，但他利用自己的道德优势赢得康熙、天地会、沐王府等等的支持，吴三桂并不是死于韦小宝之手，而是众叛亲离的结果。
而对郑克爽这种恨之入骨，但又有一些后台不能贸然下手的人，韦小宝采取的则是借刀杀人，“软刀子”杀人的方法，自己不能动手的，就借别人的手除之而后快，又把责任推得一干二净；不能动手杀的，就用各种手段折磨对方，让对方求生不得求死不能跪地求饶，这种手段更高明更痛快。
这个世界充满谎言，谁都逃避不了欺骗
昨天，把45集陈小春版本的鹿鼎记 看完了。看完了，心里很空落落的，感觉好似失去了什么
最后42集很关键，康熙皇帝知道了韦小宝的身份
那么对他的态度多少是不同了，几年后有了子嗣，连对话都让小宝要先思虑过后才能出口
皇帝这边，天地会这边，都逼着他，逼着他
他怎么办！
是的，忠义，小宝都做到了，他既没有背叛皇帝，也没有对不起天地会
在那山洞快要坍塌的紧要关头，他既救了皇帝，又不扔下被下了蒙汗药的天地会的弟兄
小宝对索额图说：“他们（天地会的兄弟）不仁，我不能不义。”
可见他是真正的学到了陈近南的 仁义之气
他和皇帝是兄弟，和天地会的是兄弟，他如此对这样误解胁迫威逼他的两方，都做到了仁义
不得不说，就算，几集前他如此“荒淫”，也可以接受
人物需要正面化，需要衬托，阿珂遭到郑克爽得迫害和辱骂时，才想起韦小宝当初对她的轻薄和“誓言”
才发现，那个愿意发誓誓死都要娶她的人，那个一度轻薄她而又对她的打骂甚至杀念都不在乎的人，那个一度破坏她和郑克爽的“姻缘”而死缠不休的人，那个一而再再而三得寻找她为她苦闷担心她放心不下她的人，才是真正在乎她爱她的人啊！
虽然韦小宝对阿珂 采用了 “迷奸”的卑劣手段，而且还“强奸”他人老婆（神龙教教主夫人）
可是，试问，为什么每个女子到最后都愿意跟他，愿意不在意他的“三心二意”的爱情
愿意和其他六个女子一同分享这个男人
那是，这个男人虽然贪生怕死，虽然贪图小利，虽然油嘴滑舌，虽然没有上层的武功
但是，他运用了他的聪明伶俐的头脑借助自己的“权力”一而再再而三得保护自己的老婆，他无论对皇帝还是天地会，都算得上“好兄弟，讲义气。”
所以，七个女子知道他的为人，知道他的忠义之心，仁义之气，都愿意和睦相处跟他一辈子
虽然韦小宝对 多隆那一刺，让我大为震惊，但危机关头，剧本既然如此要求，那么就必然要“以你之小我，完成我之大我”
所以事后小宝看到还健在人世的多隆时，愿意把郑克爽欠他的三百八十万两（要知道，当时皇帝为了替台湾受灾的人民筹集款项，让宫中省吃俭用也才省下50万两而已）都送给多隆
虽然当初那一刀，要是多隆死了，就算是再多的钱也是赔不过来的
小宝这么做，也算弥补过失了
再说神龙教教主夫人——荃姐姐，剧里不足之一，就是结尾那几集过于仓促
对于荃姐姐对韦小宝的感情变化，没有再加点戏份来刻画
以至于，从陸高轩和胖头陀拿大喇嘛桑结和蒙古王子换回苏荃之后，到洪教主与其他人大打出手时苏荃却要跟着韦小宝走，让我对这中间连一点过渡都没有的感情产生了丝丝怀疑
不过，剧情没有添加这部分的需要，那么我再怀疑也没什么意思。
再说方怡，我对这个女人不满的地方是，她三番四次得害小宝
我知道，站在她的立场来说，小宝是不够关心她，明明有四十二章经却不拿去换她和沐剑屏
害她们在神龙岛上受苦
可是一次两次也罢，虽然她可能不是自愿的，但我就是有点看不下去
但是，我们的韦小宝同学，却很能忍受她的不是并且还报有一颗仁爱的心，不计前嫌原谅了方怡
可见，小宝是重情重义之人
双儿对韦小宝来说是最了解他最细心最“宽宏大量”的人
她不仅帮韦小宝找他的“俏老婆”而且，还为了知道小宝的下落而冒险进入深宫来寻找小宝
这份情意，连看守的亲兵和多隆大哥 都为之感动，问其有无姐妹，好娶这样重情重义的女子为妻
曾柔和沐剑屏算是此剧中，一直都很乖巧的两个老婆了
曾柔戏份不算多，但也可以见出她一直收藏着那三颗筛子对小宝的心意
沐剑屏在整部剧中都是很乖巧的一个女孩，虽然韦小宝觉得她是个“傻丫头”，但是也是好女孩
多次在方怡面前为小宝说情，害羞可爱的样子，我很喜欢
最后说建宁公主了，对于公主的脾性我不是很能接受
但是她对韦小宝也算是情到深处为其死也愿意的地步
虽然，他们两个简直就是一对活宝，又气又搞笑
最经典之一是，韦小宝带七个老婆跪在陈近南的坟前，希望师傅早点投胎，入其夫人之腹成其子
建宁公主却说，那我宁愿不生儿子
小宝很是经典来了一句：“生儿子有赏，生女儿自己养！”
公主呜呜的哭了
两人的玩笑事其实挺多的，在此也就不多说了
韦小宝从一开始进入我的视野，他就在说谎，对亲人、对朋友、对“坏人”、对师傅、对任何人，他都说过谎；整部戏里，他练就了一套极为完满的谎话套路
武功不成，谎话连篇
但是，就是这样机灵的谎话一次又一次得让他逃离了难关、逃离了鬼门关
不仅升官发财而且还赢得美人心
鹿鼎记，这个故事很深刻，很深刻
它告诉我，这个世界充满了谎言，谁都逃避不了欺骗！
真的，真的如此
我一点都不讨厌韦小宝的谎话，反倒是，我觉得很真实很真实，
我最喜欢的一段要数小宝数落刘一舟那段，在吴三桂面前抖露了自己所有的真实身份，还一路开杀并将局面反掰回来，让刘一舟落得个欺瞒的境地
这一招太绝太狠太精彩，我来回看了三次
鹿鼎记，还让我明白，人都是贪生怕死的，但也是人之常情
人都是贪图富贵，希望自己的地位（官位）、权力越来越大
不为政也为财，人世不过而已
同时还应证了“人不为己，天诛地灭”这句话的深刻道理
但是，它也说明了，朋友（兄弟）很重要，宁死都不能出卖朋友，因此才得忠义而字的小宝
在我眼中如此完满如此让人喜欢
韦小宝，身上体现了世人身上的各种不是
但就是这种常人身上的不是，让我觉得真实觉得喜欢
你敢说自己没有他身上任何一种缺点，我不信！
就是陈小春如此将韦小宝活生生得演绎在我的面前，如此，我不能接受其它任何版本的韦小宝
如此，我才对多年前一直没有完全看完的此部 鹿鼎记 观后之感 如此这般
我想这是一部很好的教育片子，它让我看清楚人世，看清楚人世中的种种，种种之中的丑恶和美好
而这，就是真实
一个不会武功却胜过那些仁义道德 遵守清规戒律的人百倍
一个人不可能正直到没有一丝人类的缺点
首先，说谎就是，你不可能不说谎，而经常说谎也不见得是坏事，但看你说在哪方面
韦小宝，一个十句有九句都可能是谎话的人物，道尽了人世百态
就是这样一个谎话连篇油嘴滑舌机灵过人不出卖朋友的人物，让我喜欢
最后42集很关键，康熙皇帝知道了韦小宝的身份
那么对他的态度多少是不同了，几年后有了子嗣，连对话都让小宝要先思虑过后才能出口
皇帝这边，天地会这边，都逼着他，逼着他
他怎么办！
是的，忠义，小宝都做到了，他既没有背叛皇帝，也没有对不起天地会
在那山洞快要坍塌的紧要关头，他既救了皇帝，又不扔下被下了蒙汗药的天地会的弟兄
小宝对索额图说：“他们（天地会的兄弟）不仁，我不能不义。”
可见他是真正的学到了陈近南的 仁义之气
他和皇帝是兄弟，和天地会的是兄弟，他如此对这样误解胁迫威逼他的两方，都做到了仁义
不得不说，就算，几集前他如此“荒淫”，也可以接受
人物需要正面化，需要衬托，阿珂遭到郑克爽得迫害和辱骂时，才想起韦小宝当初对她的轻薄和“誓言”
才发现，那个愿意发誓誓死都要娶她的人，那个一度轻薄她而又对她的打骂甚至杀念都不在乎的人，那个一度破坏她和郑克爽的“姻缘”而死缠不休的人，那个一而再再而三得寻找她为她苦闷担心她放心不下她的人，才是真正在乎她爱她的人啊！
虽然韦小宝对阿珂 采用了 “迷奸”的卑劣手段，而且还“强奸”他人老婆（神龙教教主夫人）
可是，试问，为什么每个女子到最后都愿意跟他，愿意不在意他的“三心二意”的爱情
愿意和其他六个女子一同分享这个男人
那是，这个男人虽然贪生怕死，虽然贪图小利，虽然油嘴滑舌，虽然没有上层的武功
但是，他运用了他的聪明伶俐的头脑借助自己的“权力”一而再再而三得保护自己的老婆，他无论对皇帝还是天地会，都算得上“好兄弟，讲义气。”
所以，七个女子知道他的为人，知道他的忠义之心，仁义之气，都愿意和睦相处跟他一辈子
虽然韦小宝对 多隆那一刺，让我大为震惊，但危机关头，剧本既然如此要求，那么就必然要“以你之小我，完成我之大我”
所以事后小宝看到还健在人世的多隆时，愿意把郑克爽欠他的三百八十万两（要知道，当时皇帝为了替台湾受灾的人民筹集款项，让宫中省吃俭用也才省下50万两而已）都送给多隆
虽然当初那一刀，要是多隆死了，就算是再多的钱也是赔不过来的
小宝这么做，也算弥补过失了
再说神龙教教主夫人——荃姐姐，剧里不足之一，就是结尾那几集过于仓促
对于荃姐姐对韦小宝的感情变化，没有再加点戏份来刻画
以至于，从陸高轩和胖头陀拿大喇嘛桑结和蒙古王子换回苏荃之后，到洪教主与其他人大打出手时苏荃却要跟着韦小宝走，让我对这中间连一点过渡都没有的感情产生了丝丝怀疑
不过，剧情没有添加这部分的需要，那么我再怀疑也没什么意思。
再说方怡，我对这个女人不满的地方是，她三番四次得害小宝
我知道，站在她的立场来说，小宝是不够关心她，明明有四十二章经却不拿去换她和沐剑屏
害她们在神龙岛上受苦
可是一次两次也罢，虽然她可能不是自愿的，但我就是有点看不下去
但是，我们的韦小宝同学，却很能忍受她的不是并且还报有一颗仁爱的心，不计前嫌原谅了方怡
可见，小宝是重情重义之人
双儿对韦小宝来说是最了解他最细心最“宽宏大量”的人
她不仅帮韦小宝找他的“俏老婆”而且，还为了知道小宝的下落而冒险进入深宫来寻找小宝
这份情意，连看守的亲兵和多隆大哥 都为之感动，问其有无姐妹，好娶这样重情重义的女子为妻
曾柔和沐剑屏算是此剧中，一直都很乖巧的两个老婆了
曾柔戏份不算多，但也可以见出她一直收藏着那三颗筛子对小宝的心意
沐剑屏在整部剧中都是很乖巧的一个女孩，虽然韦小宝觉得她是个“傻丫头”，但是也是好女孩
多次在方怡面前为小宝说情，害羞可爱的样子，我很喜欢
最后说建宁公主了，对于公主的脾性我不是很能接受
但是她对韦小宝也算是情到深处为其死也愿意的地步
虽然，他们两个简直就是一对活宝，又气又搞笑
最经典之一是，韦小宝带七个老婆跪在陈近南的坟前，希望师傅早点投胎，入其夫人之腹成其子
建宁公主却说，那我宁愿不生儿子
小宝很是经典来了一句：“生儿子有赏，生女儿自己养！”
公主呜呜的哭了
两人的玩笑事其实挺多的，在此也就不多说了
韦小宝从一开始进入我的视野，他就在说谎，对亲人、对朋友、对“坏人”、对师傅、对任何人，他都说过谎；整部戏里，他练就了一套极为完满的谎话套路
武功不成，谎话连篇
但是，就是这样机灵的谎话一次又一次得让他逃离了难关、逃离了鬼门关
不仅升官发财而且还赢得美人心
鹿鼎记，这个故事很深刻，很深刻
它告诉我，这个世界充满了谎言，谁都逃避不了欺骗！
真的，真的如此
我一点都不讨厌韦小宝的谎话，反倒是，我觉得很真实很真实，
我最喜欢的一段要数小宝数落刘一舟那段，在吴三桂面前抖露了自己所有的真实身份，还一路开杀并将局面反掰回来，让刘一舟落得个欺瞒的境地
这一招太绝太狠太精彩，我来回看了三次
鹿鼎记，还让我明白，人都是贪生怕死的，但也是人之常情
人都是贪图富贵，希望自己的地位（官位）、权力越来越大
不为政也为财，人世不过而已
同时还应证了“人不为己，天诛地灭”这句话的深刻道理
但是，它也说明了，朋友（兄弟）很重要，宁死都不能出卖朋友，因此才得忠义而字的小宝
在我眼中如此完满如此让人喜欢
韦小宝，身上体现了世人身上的各种不是
但就是这种常人身上的不是，让我觉得真实觉得喜欢
你敢说自己没有他身上任何一种缺点，我不信！
就是陈小春如此将韦小宝活生生得演绎在我的面前，如此，我不能接受其它任何版本的韦小宝
如此，我才对多年前一直没有完全看完的此部 鹿鼎记 观后之感 如此这般
我想这是一部很好的教育片子，它让我看清楚人世，看清楚人世中的种种，种种之中的丑恶和美好
而这，就是真实
一个不会武功却胜过那些仁义道德 遵守清规戒律的人百倍
一个人不可能正直到没有一丝人类的缺点
首先，说谎就是，你不可能不说谎，而经常说谎也不见得是坏事，但看你说在哪方面
韦小宝，一个十句有九句都可能是谎话的人物，道尽了人世百态
就是这样一个谎话连篇油嘴滑舌机灵过人不出卖朋友的人物，让我喜欢
韦小宝的最大法宝
本人生性喜读金庸，而最爱者是《鹿鼎记》，前前后后看了四遍之多。
韦小宝乃一市井流氓，生于烟花之地，父亲不详，母亲是一**。既不知诗书礼仪，也不知经史春秋。喝酒，偷东西，赌博他无一不沾。可就是如此一个既无才，也无德的人却是金庸小说里最幸福的人。相比自称“十全老人”的乾隆有过之而无不及。处江湖之中，他是陈进南的嫡传弟子，天地会青木堂香主。又是神龙教白龙使，并得洪教主亲传武功。他又是独臂神尼的徒弟，得传神行百变，多次救沐王府的人与危难之中.....。居庙堂之上，他是康熙的最好朋友和亲信，他杀敖拜，去了康熙的心头之患，使康熙作稳了江山；揭穿了假太后的真面目，使康熙报了杀母之仇，救出了真太后；保护老皇帝顺治免遭毒手，使康熙父子团圆；被封赐婚使，到云南揭穿了吴三桂造反的阴谋，使康熙有了防备之心；拉拢**，蒙古，使吴三桂失去了左膀右臂，丧失了两大军事同盟；后又率兵“水淹萨克城，冰冻鹿鼎山”，打的罗刹国大败....因此，他能官运亨通，平步青云，官至剿骑营副都统，爵至鹿鼎公。而且，他竟能频获美人心，竟收七女，此之为何？
今读李宗吾的《厚黑学》一书，不禁大笑，原来如此！真有李宗吾读史而得厚黑学时大叫“得之矣！““得之矣！“时的那种兴奋。韦小宝的成功秘诀不外乎“脸厚心黑”四字。
李宗吾在《厚黑学》一书中评点三国时的刘备，曹操，孙权。言刘备得其厚，曹操得其黑；孙权脸厚不及刘备，心黑不及曹操，然孙权兼二家之长，故能抵抗刘备和曹操，形成三足鼎立之势。如果没有司马懿的出现，三国之势可能会支持更长的时间。司马懿诚为得厚黑学之精华者，脸厚超过刘备，心黑胜过曹操。因此，三国得以结束，司马家族能够统一天下。
反观《鹿鼎记》一书，韦小宝脸皮之厚可比刘备，心黑达于曹操，诚为司马懿一般的人物。
江湖人鄙视那种撒石灰粉坏人眼睛，背后伤人的人。但韦小宝出牌不论规则，只求结果，故能多次相救茅十八，可见其脸皮之厚。他与茅十八被海大富所擒，带于皇宫，为求脱身，他毒瞎海大富，杀死小桂子，其时他仅十二，三岁，却无任何惊慌之色，可见其心肠之黑；沐王府夜袭皇宫，刘一舟等人失手被擒，方怡被韦小宝所救。韦小宝以救刘一舟相挟，要方怡作他老婆，可见他脸皮之厚；苏荃本为洪安通的老婆，但韦小宝在丽春院来个霸王硬上弓，强奸了苏荃，后更是杀死洪安通，完全占了苏荃。杀人夺妻，心黑者无过于此。
难道正应了阮籍那句话“时无英雄，使竖子成名”？非也。无论是江湖之中，还是庙堂之上，决不缺乏人才。江湖之上，首推陈进南,武功高强，侠义为怀，并创建天地会，拥有会众近十万。另外，洪安通，钟辛树，李自成等那一个不是武林高手。庙堂之上，康熙，明珠，索额图等那一个不是在政治上翻手为云，覆手为雨的家伙，可看看《鹿鼎记》一书，陈进南屡遭郑克爽的陷害，最后还是被他偷袭成功，洪安通不用说，老婆被人完了不说，自己还被韦小宝给干了。其他角色更不用提了。康熙总以为自己比韦小宝强，其实，要是他去闯江湖，不被洪安通抓去喂神龙，也会被吴三桂捉过去祭旗。
总之，一句话， 韦小宝除了“宝刀，宝衣，神行百变和双儿外”，他的最大法宝应该是“厚脸黑心”。
Saturday, January 12, 2013
9 Jan
Will there be a housing oversupply in Singapore in 2013-2014?
Under Market Trends, we presented the following chart on the Singapore Population to Housing Stock Ratio.
The chart suggests that we may have a housing oversupply when the ratio of population to housing stock falls below 3.9 as in the years 2000-2005 and when the ratio is above 4.2 as in the years 1991-1996 and 2008-present, we may have an undersupply of housing.
Some analysts have warned that there could be a housing oversupply in 2013-2014. Does the population to housing stock ratio indicate a housing oversupply in the years ahead? In this section, we shall attempt to answer this question.
Housing Supply Outlook
For our analysis, we have assumed the following housing supply figures:
| Year | Private Residential | Change | HDB Flats | Change | Total Housing Stock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 268,768 | 10,525 | 914,102 | 15,570 | 1,182,870 |
| 2012 | 281,342 | 12,574 | 931,802 | 17,700 | 1,213,144 |
| 2013 | 295,124 | 13,782 | 959,802 | 28,000 | 1,254,926 |
| 2014 | 314,955 | 19,831 | 984,802 | 25,000 | 1,299,757 |
| 2015 | 341,014 | 26,059 | 1,004,802 | 20,000 | 1,345,816 |
The figures for private residential developments are extracted from URA's forecast of the supply in pipeline by development status and expected year of completion in the statistical report for 2012Q2. The figures for HDB flats are based on the BTO supply figures announced by HDB for the years 2010-2012. We have assumed that the BTO flats will take 2 years to be completed from the year they are launched.
Population Growth Rate
We have assumed the following scenarios:
- Scenario 1 - Population grow at 0.5% per annum
- Scenario 2 - Population grow at 1% per annum
- Scenario 3 - Population grow at 1.5% per annum
| Scenario 1 | Scenario 2 | Scenario 3 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Population | Change | Population | Change | Population | Change |
| 2011 | 5,183,700 | 107,000 | 5,183,700 | 107,000 | 5,183,700 | 107,000 |
| 2012 | 5,209,619 | 25,918 | 5,235,537 | 51,837 | 5,261,456 | 77,755 |
| 2013 | 5,235,667 | 26,048 | 5,287,892 | 52,355 | 5,340,377 | 78,922 |
| 2014 | 5,261,845 | 26,178 | 5,340,771 | 52,879 | 5,420,483 | 80,106 |
| 2015 | 5,288,154 | 26,309 | 5,394,179 | 53,408 | 5,501,790 | 81,307 |
| 2016 | 5,314,595 | 26,441 | 5,448,121 | 53,942 | 5,584,317 | 82,527 |
| 2017 | 5,341,168 | 26,573 | 5,502,602 | 54,481 | 5,668,082 | 83,765 |
| 2018 | 5,367,874 | 26,706 | 5,557,628 | 55,026 | 5,753,103 | 85,021 |
| 2019 | 5,394,713 | 26,839 | 5,613,204 | 55,576 | 5,839,400 | 86,297 |
| 2020 | 5,421,687 | 26,974 | 5,669,336 | 56,132 | 5,926,991 | 87,591 |
Population to Housing Stock Ratio Outlook
Based on the above assumptions, we can derive the following population to housing stock ratios :
| Scenario 1 | Scenario 2 | Scenario 3 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Population Growth | Ratio | Population Growth | Ratio | Population Growth | Ratio |
| 2011 | 2.1% | 4.38 | 2.1% | 4.38 | 2.1% | 4.38 |
| 2012 | 0.5% | 4.29 | 1.0% | 4.32 | 1.5% | 4.34 |
| 2013 | 0.5% | 4.17 | 1.0% | 4.21 | 1.5% | 4.26 |
| 2014 | 0.5% | 4.05 | 1.0% | 4.11 | 1.5% | 4.17 |
| 2015 | 0.5% | 3.93 | 1.0% | 4.01 | 1.5% | 4.09 |
Graphically, this is how the chart will look:
Conclusions
The population to housing stock ratios for 2013-2014 range from 4.05 to 4.26 under the 3 scenarios. If we use past history as a guide and assuming that the supply projected for completion in 2015 are not brought forward to 2013-2014 and bearing any external shocks, we are unlikely to have an oversupply of housing in 2013-2014.
Of concern though, will be if our population only grows at 0.5% per annum as in Scenario 1, housing oversupply may be an issue in 2015 or later. However, Scenario 1 is unlikely if Singapore wants its population to reach 6 million in 2020.
Afternote
Posted: 12 December 2012
The Singapore Department of Statistics has in its Population Trends 2012 report released on 28 September 2012, said that our population stood at 5.31 million as at end June 2012, up 2.5 per cent from a year ago.
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