Month: March 2022

A common predicament people face: Should I be proven right or do the right thing?

We can’t have both. Either we feed the ego or forgo it.

However, when examing these decisions, hindsight is much more difficult to understand than we think. If something doesn’t work out we just say we would have made a different decision. Perhaps, we even have an Option B we should have bet on. It’s easy to be a critic once the decision is made. But every decision is a crossroad. The next turn is unknown with so many different paths to take.

We can easily pick apart our decisions later of how they happened. But we don’t think enough about why these things happen. The more we open up to explore, the more difficult it is to understand.

Hindsight is more of a fallacy than we realize. We can’t possibly know how people or the environment will react when acted upon. Learn what you can from the past but don’t expect desired outcomes to just show up because different decisions are made.

Take for example the Roman Empire. Some of the key factors why the Roman Empire collapsed was a combination of economic crisis, barbarian attacks, farming issues from exhausted soil due to over-cultivation, inequality between the rich and the poor, detachment of local elites from public life, and economic recession as a result of overreliance on slave labor. Keep in mind that 21% of the world’s population was under Roman rule at the height of their power.

I wonder if there were Romans who thought their empire would never fall? And I also wonder which ones were sounding the alarms? Were they just laughed at? (Remember not too long ago there were many that truly believed the Titanic was unsinkable.)

It wasn’t just the Roman Empire either. You also have Persian Empire, Han Dynasty, Mongols, Spanish…every great empire has fallen in human history. So, what makes us so special? Because we have more technology? Because we have history to learn from? All true. But knowledge is not enough. How you apply the lesson learned is everything.

Perhaps it was gradual before it was sudden. Difficult to see in the future but easy when it was on our doorstep. How many of us today ignore or scoff at the warnings of climate change or destabilization of democracy? Maybe the problem with these great empires was they just didn’t pay attention. After all, it is difficult to see what is happening around the corner when we are so focused on our next TikTok video.

Axioms are statements that establish self-evident truths.

When people are discussing religion, politics, sex, human rights…we must have a starting point for our train of thought.

This starting line must be something both parties must agree upon. If two plus two doesn’t equal four then you are going to have a hard time discussing imaginary numbers.

If you are going to change someone’s mind then you must find something in common first.

Emotional labor was first coined in 1983 by Arlie Hochschild in her book The Managed Heart.

Today, it is often used to mean the invisible tasks that are done (particularly by women) that go unnoticed, unappreciated.

The original definition, however, was bringing the right feelings to a job. In other words, bringing emotional labor to make connections. To delight someone when you are not in the mood. It is the chef who at the moment doesn’t want to make moussaka but does it with care and love anyway because that’s what the customer ordered. It’s the flight attendant that extends a helping hand to a first-time flyer. It’s the person at the DMV who carries a calming presence in a stressful situation.

It’s a choice. To show up and be passionate about your work, regardless of what the work is. The best jobs in the world still involve work that we would prefer to skip. What then will you do when you don’t want to be there?

That posture, I believe, carries over into other facets of our lives. Are you a passionate person or are you waiting to find work you can be passionate about?

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – This one may already be my book of the year. An incredible look at human history and easily digestible.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – A short story will get you thinking deeply about the systems that take advantage of people. You can read it in 10 minutes then spend the next 10 hours in a daze.

The Wizard and the Prophet – A remarkable book that had me switching both sides. Sometimes I think technology is going to be the solution to the problems that lay ahead and, at the same time, I feel a pull that we need to return to a more sustainable model. Every problem has a solution otherwise it would be a situation.

On Anarchism – Anarchy is not the western definition we have been indoctrinated to believe. Rather, any person or structure that exercises authority over someone must be intensely scrutinized. And if that system cannot be justified we must replace it with something more just.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark – Humans are more easily duped into believing things we cannot see and instead of putting their faith in what we can test. Everyone has faith, where then do you choose to put yours?

Capital in the Twenty-First Century – A very demanding book. The old adage that, “It takes money to make money” is true for a reason. This book proves why so many can’t get ahead regardless of the number of hours one works. Without business, financial, or real estate capital, it is very difficult to see upward mobility. I would recommend an audiobook for this one (if you can find it). The last 60 pages or so are really eye-opening and tie it all together.

Why We Sleep – Another good choice for audio. I get tired just listening to it (in a good way). If we are not prioritizing sleep we are robbing ourselves from a higher quality of life.

Once you put yourself in a slot, it’s difficult to get yourself out.

You tell yourself you lack the experience, you don’t have enough education, you are not good enough at your craft. And it’s easy to point to thousands that can do it better.

You’re now stuck, precisely because of the boundaries you have set. Indeed, the invincible forces of the status quo are persistent in crushing our dreams.

How then, does one stick out when everyone seems to be the same?

Create a whole new category. One for yourself. One where you can be the best in the world at. It’s not easy. I’m not pretending it is. But it’s worth it to be the best at something small and obscure. A meaningful specific rather than a wandering generality.

A friend once told me, “The right explanation is often the simplest one.”

I think there is some truth to this.

That often times we are working so hard for the outside world to fit our narrow worldview, we do mental gymnastics to make sense of things. Creating drama or making something way more complicated or worse lying to ourselves instead of seeing the world as it really is.

The world, the universe is complex. The systems we have created are a reflection of this. It’s hard work to do the math to make sense of it all. So, instead, we create hoops to jump through. Sometimes these shortcuts can be really useful so we don’t cripple our abilities to make decisions. It can also make things way more complicated rather than seeing what is right in front of their nose all along.

No one is surprised to read another headline that Facebook messed up or lied to its consumers or is spreading disinformation or that it isn’t good for our mental health.

It’s because most of us don’t give Facebook the benefit of the doubt anymore. We don’t trust them even if you still have an account (like me).

As a result, we say, “Facebook again…”

However, the benefits of Facebook, at least in some of our minds, far out way the disadvantages. That some who use it as a way to stay “informed” can simultaneously believe that big corporations are controlling the media and will still go there to consume it.

How can a product that brings so much unhappiness still have such a hold on the public? Yes, it is addicting. Yes, it plays on our evolutionary biology. Yes, it is designed to keep us on the hook. But I think the part that is most difficult to break from is the fear of missing out. That we don’t know what other people are speaking about around the water cooler. You don’t need to watch the Bachelorette to know something controversial happened. Your feed will let you know if it went viral enough.

When our lives become so boring that we need social media to make them more interesting, we have a problem. It’s ironic really when our lives are rich and fulfilled, there is no hole for social media to fill.

In the world of measurement, it is easy to get down on yourself.

Checks scale: “I am not fit enough.”

Checks bank account: “I am not rich enough.”

Checks Twitter: “I am not good enough.”

After a while, we begin to believe that happiness is a number. That if we can somehow achieve that number then everything would be better.

By contrast, if we find a new way to measure happiness and success, open the door of possibility a whole slew of things begin to open up.

Did you help someone that needed your help?

Did I create something that made someone smile?

Did I learn something new?

Possibility is endless. Numbers are an illusion.

Archaic humans had a hard time talking to each other behind their backs. Because on the savannah, when someone said there is a lion over by the river, everyone needed to trust that the person speaking was telling the truth to stay alive. After all, the skeptic that went to investigate wouldn’t have made it home.

That is so different from the language of today. Email, text messages, phone calls, television, magazines, Twitter, YouTube, the internet is all built on gossip. Most of the language we use today is to scrutinize every word of each other in order to build better bonds of trust. If you receive a good stock tip, you are more likely to listen to that person again.

We simply just don’t give the benefit of the doubt to each other anymore. You have to earn it. Because trusting in people automatically can cause vaccine hesitancy, the splinter of democracy, wars, and so much more.

Evolutionary speaking, that is so different from what we were taught to do. It is natural to believe in what we hear but we can’t just trust everything we hear anymore either. Everyone trusts someone. What you choose to give your attention to is providing a larger platform for that person to speak up. The question is, are these the voices we want to hear? Are they steering us toward a better world?