Technology provides a gateway to information. I read about Yale's Well-Being course, a popular choice among first-year students, and decided to check it on Coursera. The class helps students be happier and more productive.

In a series of posts, I'll share my favorite lessons from the course, along with thoughts and a few criticisms.

It's said that there is no such thing as science with a capital "S." The very idea of "the Science" is opposite the entire notion of real science. When the goal becomes consensus building, it is politics, not science. Further, a consensus is only valid to the extent that one has the freedom to disagree. When individual freedom is torn away, it's far worse than consensus building; it's coercion.

If you want to be often wrong and always miserable, you should be pessimistic. Pessimism might be the human default. It served us well during more dangerous eras of human existence when the outcomes of poor decisions were often deadly. But in the modern world, pessimism isn’t likely to save your life. Contrarily, pessimism leads to a life of stress, anxiety, and fear.

As Aristotle pointed out, “For what one has to learn to do, we learn by doing.” Public speaking mistakes helped me become a better public speaker. Horrendous investing mistakes helped me become a better investor. The fact is, errors are unavoidable, so we must welcome them as opportunities to get better.

First-order thinking is what most people engage in most of the time. Marks described it as "simplistic and superficial," noting that "just about everyone can do it." It's not that first-order thinking is wrong or inferior. In contrast, second-order thinking is complex and requires significantly more effort.

As someone who truly enjoys the hustle and bustle, I often find myself with a lot of obligations, both personal and business (maybe to a fault at times). No tool or application can make us productive; that's a personal decision and requires discipline to follow through. But certain tools jive with my methodology and mental processes. Here are five tools that I use daily to help me kick ass.

In music, the slight raising or lowering of pitch can brighten a song or alter its spirit. In paintings, a subtle color variation can change the tone of a work. And in fashion, nuance can tie a look together with "a little bit more, or a little bit less." But nuance is important far beyond the arts; it's key to a high functioning free society.