Reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" is a terrifying revelation. You realize that navigating people is nothing more than tiptoeing through a minefield of feelings.

Everything you know, everything you can prove, all of your carefully cultivated opinions mean nothing. Nothing in this world moves forward unless you treat everyone that is blocking progress like an emotional atom bomb that has to be defused with compliments, empathy, conceding immaterial points they are nonetheless fucking wrong about; debasing yourself and what you know to be true.

And the book simply tells you what you already know is true, because you realize you are just as much an egotistical pissbaby as everyone else, having rarely conceded a point or given ground without having had your need for relevance and validation first served.

Chilling.