I actually read it with a more cynical mindset. The examples he gives like the one in the 1st chapter about the gangster who was in a shootout with the police—

I actually read it with a more cynical mindset. The examples he gives like the one in the 1st chapter about the gangster who was in a shootout with the police—he’d killed and robbed people—but he didn’t blame himself for the situation he was in. He actually felt very sorry for himself. Then Carnegie says “people don’t blame themselves for anything”, which in general is very, very true. It’s not a feature of human nature that makes it easier to care about others so much as it’s confirmation of my own suspicions about human behavior. There are many such confirmations in that book that made me realize I didn’t have it wrong this whole time. It made me look at human nature more objectively, take it less personally, and navigate it more effectively.