The marginal benefits of moving from a shortage to an abundance of anything decline.

Your unique power of reflectiveness—your ability to look at yourself, the world around you, and the relationship between you and the world—means that you can think deeply and weigh subtle things to come up with learning and wise choices. Asking other believable people about the root causes of your pain in order to enhance your reflections is also typically very helpful—especially others who have opposing views but who share your interest in finding the truth rather than being proven right. If you can reflect deeply about your problems, they almost always shrink or disappear, because you almost always find a better way of dealing with them than if you don’t face them head-on.

To be clear, I am not saying people should not be helped. I believe that people should be helped by giving them opportunities and the coaching they need to become strong enough to take advantage of their opportunities. As the saying goes, “God helps those who help themselves.” But this isn’t easy, especially with people you care about. To be effective in helping people learn from painful experiences, you must explain the logic and caring behind what you’re doing clearly and repeatedly. As you read in “Where I’m Coming From,” this was a large part of what compelled me to explain my principles.

Your ability to see the changing landscape and adapt is more a function of your perception and reasoning than your ability to learn and process quickly.