 Today, I want to talk to you about some common vices that many Linux users suffer from. When I talk about vices, for those of you not familiar with that term of vices, a bad attribute, a bad behavior, things that prevent you from being the best version of yourself. And some of the common vices I want to talk about, I think the first one we should start with is overinflated egos, because this is something that many Linux users suffer from. They're full of themselves. They think more highly of themselves than probably what they should be thinking, because honestly, I mean, there are basically three ways to view each person. There is what that person thinks of themselves, it's what everybody else thinks of that person, and then what that person actually is. And, you know, those ideas don't always match up. Typically, you're always going to think higher of yourself than everybody around you. That's just natural, right? Because you are biased. You're biased towards yourself, and, you know, at the end of the day, you have to realize that you're probably nothing special, right? You're not really all that special. At the end of the day, most of us were really quite ordinary, and it's kind of funny, because no one ever sees themselves as ordinary. We see everyone else in the world as ordinary, but we always see ourselves as being special. And when you have that kind of arrogance that, again, overinflated ego, you're typically not a positive force within the Linux community. A lot of these folks in the community that have these overinflated egos, they typically have kind of an elitist attitude, but an elitist attitude on steroids. They really see themselves as like the king, right? That there are just an amazing person, and everyone around them is just a lower life form, especially those peasants that still use windows, right? Because, you know, those guys, they are so stupid. Why haven't they figured this out? It's because they're not as smart as me. That's why I run Linux. And then, of course, some of them have this overinflated ego, the sense of an elite attitude, right? It's because they use a distribution that not everyone else uses, right? They use that super distro, that super secret distro that only the really special people know about. So I would avoid that if you have any kind of idea that maybe you are traveling along this path, you need to check yourself right away because at the end of the day, that's really not helping anyone. Another common vice that you'll often see within the Linux community and the broader free and open source software community are the people that are overly confrontational. Some people just love being confrontational. They want to start arguments. They want to start fights with everybody about everything. Sometimes I call these people habitual criticizers, and all these habitual criticizers are doing, they spend all their day looking for something to criticize. It doesn't matter who or what, they just want to start an argument with with somebody. And when you encounter these people, it is detrimental to you because they're stealing your time, your energy, your focus because you could be doing great things out in the world. You could actually be getting real world work done work that matters. But these kinds of overly confrontational people, they're draining you of your energy. Some people call these people energy vampires. I love that term. It's a old term goes back many decades. Some people call them psychic vampires. I've heard people label these kinds of people as energy parasites. That's another good one because they are they're like a vampire or a parasite. They're feeding off of you. Instead of sucking your blood, again, they're sucking your energy, your time, your focus. And they're basically diverting you from the things you should be doing. And you have to stay away from these people. These kinds of people should be shunned. Otherwise, you are going to get lured into this trap. These people are very damaging to any group that they're a part of being so confrontational all the time. It's not healthy for any community that these people are in. It's also not healthy for them as individuals, right? These confrontational people, they have some kind of underlying problems that they really need to resolve. And at the end of the day, many of these people are so militant, so angry, even if they had no one else to fight. They'll go out and search for somebody to fight and if they can't find anyone to fight, hell, they'll fight with themselves. Friedrich Nietzsche has a great quote. He says, under peaceful conditions, the militant man will fight with himself. And he is right. If you've ever seen somebody that is an angry person, I mean a really angry person in life, they're always looking for somebody to fight. And I'm sure if they're alone in a room with just themselves, no doubt they're probably angry at themselves and arguing with themselves. One thing to be mindful of any time you need to get into a debate with somebody, a legitimate debate, you're not one of these habitual criticizers, but you do have to confront people on occasion, you know, as somebody that has taught in public schools and live as a teacher, I've always had this idea where I don't ever want to push things on students, right? You never want to push your ideas on to other people. Present an argument, present all the information, and let other people have some input so they can make an informed decision. If you are one of these people that are overly pushy, demanding people think exactly like you, that's not necessarily a positive thing. So don't have this overinflated ego. Don't be overly confrontational. I do want to mention a third advice very briefly, and that is some Linux users in the community, they are way too serious. Do not be way too serious really about anything in life. Don't take everything in life so seriously. If it's not a matter of life and death, don't make it out to be a matter of life and death, right? Some people get so worked up over the most trivial things. Within the free and open source software community, I've seen it many times. I've seen communities fracture completely over the smallest of disagreements because that person that takes something way too serious, they got so fired up over something of really minor importance, but they took it to some level that it really didn't deserve. Again, they are acting like it's a matter of life and death importance when at the end of the day it's something of little consequence. And what's scary about the way too serious person is it usually just takes a few of these people or sometimes even just one way too serious person to destroy a community from within. Now the good thing with this way too serious trait that some people have is if you're one of these way too serious people, you probably know you are, which is great. You can identify it, right? And what you should do is you should ask yourself this question, why am I like this? Why do I act in this way too serious manner all the time? Because until you answer that question you can't really fix it. And when I say ask yourself that question, actually answer it honestly. Too many people will just immediately come back with a total BS answer like, well the reason I'm like this is because I care so much. Come on, right? That's not the truth and you know it. Just some things to think about. Ran over guys. Peace.