Willpower Archives - Page 3 of 6

Zen Stories for a Calm, Clear & Open Mind

January 11, 2019February 7, 2023 Nik

My theme for 2019 is ‘focus.’ Focus on the work and projects that matter, the people I really care about, and, most of all, focus of the mind. If you’re anything like me — an overthinking introvert with a mind that’s always on — that last one is especially difficult.

Part of it’s just human nature. Our brains are wired to look for problems. To obsess over an issue we can fix. Until we create a solution, which gives us a short burst of relief. Then, it’s on to the next thing.

But for introverts, it’s particularly easy to get stuck on the obsession part. Our default response to almost anything is to think up a maze in our mind, then zip through it until we’ve explored every corner. Like a mouse looking for cheese, even if there’s none to be found.

One of the few things that’s helped me stop spinning in circles in my own head is Zen stories. I’m not sure why. Maybe, I can relate to the imagery associated with Buddhist monks. Maybe, I’m a sucker for allegories. In any case, while some people might think they’re cheesy, they work for me.

When my mind is cloudy, a Zen story can clear it up. When I’m frantic, it calms me down. And when I’m too close to the trees to see the forest, it helps me see.

You may not be an introvert or compulsive thinker, but I hope you’ll still benefit from the following seven stories. I know they’ve done wonders for me.

How To Avoid a Life of Regret

December 7, 2018October 1, 2022 Nik

I’m sitting alone in my apartment. It’s Sunday night. Too late to be productive, too early to sleep, and I’m too hungry to do either. A flash of insight reveals my immediate fate: dumplings.

I don’t know where the gods of culinary inspiration sent it from, but the thought instantly grows roots. As they wrap around my stomach, squeezing it ever tighter, I message some friends to see if anyone wants to go.

One said he was out of town. Another on a date. Some didn’t reply and one already ate. With “no”s piling up faster than even the speediest cook could fold and fry the delicious dough bags, I began to think.

“Maybe, I should just stay in.”

“I still have food at home.”

“It’s cold out anyway.”

But then, another observation — not sent by a god but my gut — hit me. It took some mental debating, but, eventually, I snapped out of it.

“Screw it. I’m getting dumplings.”

I got dressed, walked to the restaurant, went inside, sat down, ordered, and, within a few minutes, I was munching on a dozen of a Chinese delicacy called wonton. The owner even gave me a free mango pudding for dessert. Score!

I won this round, but the conversation that had to happen earlier in my head for me to do so was just one of the many encounters we all have with a dire, devastating force called ‘potential regret.’ What was really going on was this:

I was afraid of doing what I wanted because I was alone.

A Feature We Can’t Turn Off

Being alone is a weird state for a social animal. First, there’s the physical discomfort, from the silence to the goosebumps to the sensory triggers our brains begin to manufacture. Then, there’s the psychological toll.

If you’ve ever sat with emptiness for a while, you’ll have noticed that, at first, your mind continues to tell the story it always tells. Maybe, it’s the one about work or the one about the friend you just dropped off or the one about what you should eat. Maybe, you’ll even flick through a couple of those. But soon you’ll realize — and this rarely happens in everyday life — that you are telling yourself a story. That most of what you do is just fighting your inner silence.

We’re having this big, public discussion about our technology fostering a culture of escapism, but if we’re honest, that’s nothing we needed devices for. It’s built into the human experience. A feature we can’t turn off. We say we ‘think,’ but mostly we’re just letting whatever thoughts come wash over us.

To some extent, this is normal. Permanently squeezing your gray matter with pressing questions — “Who am I? Why am I? What is life’s purpose? What’s mine? Who am I meant to be? And why am I not there yet?” — only drives you insane. But if we shut them down every time they creep up, we stand to lose our minds just the same.

The way we architect this second, equally inevitable collapse, however, is a lot more fascinating.

Agency Over Accomplishment

When she asked 90-somethings what they regretted most, Lydia Sohn made a fascinating discovery: old people don’t get nearly as much satisfaction out of their past careers than young people expect out of their future ones.

“Their joys and regrets have nothing to do with their careers, but with their parents, children, spouses, and friends.”

As it turns out, it’s not their work, but their relationships that contributed most to their happiness. They didn’t crave a longer list of accomplishments, but more quality moments with their loved ones. This finding contradicts the popular idea that our life’s happiness curve shapes like a U-bend, with spikes early and late and a big trough in the middle. People felt their best while being hard-working fathers and busy housewife mothers (and vice versa).

Bronnie Ware, a palliative nurse, regret researcher, and author of a popular book on the topic, identified a different, but equally powerful source of remorse: living a shadow-life.

“Of all of the regrets and lessons shared with me as I sat beside their beds, the regret of not having lived a life true to themselves was the most common one of all. It was also the one that caused the most frustration, as the client’s realization came too late. ‘It’s not like I wanted to live a grand life,’ Grace explained in one of many conversations from her bed. ‘But I wanted to do things for me too and I just didn’t have the courage.’”

Everyone is different and no one person’s experience can dictate your own best path of action, but when it comes to aging, the advice of those who’ve done it already is sure worth considering. These two insights are interesting all on their own, but if we piece them together, we can learn even more:

We may be our best self when we’re not focused on it all that much.
In order to feel like we are, we need to decide some things on our own.

Whether they were happily married or not, these people’s relationships with their partners took a back seat as their family grew. But for those where either ended up suppressing their own desires altogether, a busy life turned into an estranged one — and that’s not something we’re fond of looking back to.

Now I’m really glad I decided to go eat those dumplings.

Miserable Always Does The Job

A friend of mine is currently trying to settle on a topic for her thesis. But, as she says of herself, she’s not very decisive. After researching multiple angles and approaching several faculty members, it came down to two options. When she got accepted for only one, I congratulated her. I was wrong.

Having had no clear preference for either topic before, she was now sad about one road being blocked — and back to brainstorming more options. This may sound silly, but it’s not uncommon. A very real struggle for a very real group of people, particularly those around my age. We know we have a wealth of options, so we try to look at them all, and, without ever deciding, feel bad about the ones we miss, the ones we might have missed, and the perfect ones we think should exist somewhere, even though they never do.

We know abundance does this to us from science. Barry Schwartz wrote The Paradox of Choice about this. The more choice, the harder it is to choose and the easier to make mistakes. And even though finding ‘perfect’ is as impossible as it ever was and we know it, we’re still disappointed if we don’t.

What my friend is doing — what most of us are doing — is not distracting ourselves with meaningless entertainment or existential problems.

We do it with an abundance of good options that don’t reflect who we actually are.

For a lot of us, life is too easy. We know we’ll get dinner. A date is just a swipe away. Our work may be boring, but it pays. At worst, we’ll cancel Spotify. But instead of using all this amenity and time to figure ourselves out, instead of saying “this one feels like me” and running with it, we choose whatever outcome we get to be the one that makes us feel miserable.

But, as we learned from those senior to us, being happy is not about choosing the best, but about loving what you have chosen. How much you dictate the outcome won’t matter nearly as much as having had a say. Whatever agency you have, as long as you don’t second-guess yourself, you’ll likely be content.

And sometimes, that is as simple as eating the first food that comes to mind.

Everything Starts Small

Maybe, you really want to try a new style of pasta. Or to go see that movie. Or just get ice cream. But then you ask around and find out no one wants to go. They might be busy. Maybe, they’re not around. Not hungry. Or they don’t want to hang out today. That’s okay.

What’s not okay is what we usually do next: we stay at home.

We choose to feel sorry for ourselves instead of doing what we want, even if no one’s stopping us.

We do it because moving in a state that’s already uncomfortable when you’re still is extra disconcerting. We do it because we pressure ourselves to optimize among a sea of options despite secretly knowing most of them are irrelevant to us. And we do it because of what people would think; what they would say if they caught us being happy on our own.

I love sharing. I love doing things together. But when your support goes down the tube, you can’t just throw your life right after. Don’t stop living when no one’s watching. Have pride. Get dressed. Show up. Not for others. For yourself.

The person who should be most excited about everything you do in life is you.

But if you can’t live true to yourself when no one’s around, how do you expect to do it in the face of a growing set of responsibilities? How do you expect to do it with more and more agents thrown into the picture? A partner, two kids, an elderly parent. A team you’re leading, a host of fans, or a stubborn boss?

What we want is rarely impractical. Eating alone doesn’t make the food taste worse. But sometimes, it is uncomfortable to be authentic. To act on what you know you want. And yet, we can’t let that prevent us from going after it.

Because it starts with dinner or a movie, but that’s not where it stops.

One day we resort to frozen pizza, the next it’s going back to our shitty job. All because we were too scared to be the lone fighter for the right cause. Yes, your friend should not have chickened out on that startup idea. Yes, finding a great job takes time. But you were never meant to face those struggles unprepared.

Because staying true to yourself, like everything, starts small. It’s not about nailing your Ph.D. or choosing the perfect partner. It’s about listening to your gut when you want to eat dumplings.

Even if it means that, sometimes, you’ll have dinner by yourself.

I Spent My 20s in College Libraries and Came Out With a Career

November 16, 2018February 28, 2024 Nik

I’d love to tell you that, to me, the library has always been a magical place – but it wasn’t.

Having grown up in a pile of books in a home where the walls were already lined with literature, library visits were rare and, often, disappointing. Our local, small-town book collection didn’t feel as refined as the one we had at home and due to funding issues, the place itself always seemed to teeter on the brink of foreclosure.

Today, you can get most books rather cheaply right from your couch, but there are still many reasons to go to the library beyond selection and price. Sadly, I never found those reasons when I was younger.

But when I started college, all of that changed. I’ve spent the majority of my 20s in campus libraries and, to this day, they’re the only kind of office I know. As it turns out, the library is more than a place of knowledge and wonder.

If you want to shape, even invent your own career, it’s a factory of dreams.

The Hero in All of Us

September 5, 2018August 14, 2023 Nik

In the early 1960s, the team of a Manhattan comic book company was on a roll. They had just created a slew of characters that quickly became popular among fans. But when they wanted to create yet another hero, they got stuck:

“The thing with a superhero that you have to get is a unique superpower. Well, we already had somebody who was the strongest guy in the world, somebody who could fly, and so forth. I was thinking: ‘What else is left?’”

As they thought about what to do, one of the writers looked up and saw a fly, crawling up the office wall. He thought to himself:

“Wow! Suppose a person had the power to stick to a wall, like an insect…”

The name of that writer was Stan Lee. And then, he created the best superhero Marvel ever made.

Numbers Don’t Lie

When you ask people who their favorite superhero is, most of them will tell you it’s Batman, or Superman, or maybe Wonder Woman. But when it comes to holding a place in our hearts, there is an undisputed #1. No other character is printed on more t-shirts, embossed on more mugs, featured in more video games, or sells more Halloween costumes than him.

When the cards are on the table, Spider-Man is the most popular hero of them all. We might be more curious to see the latest Superman blockbuster, but when we have to vote who we’ll stand for with our money, who we’re proud to side with in the most public of ways, we will choose Spidey every time.

But why?

The World Before Spider-Man

On the surface, it doesn’t make much sense for a teenager with the abilities of a spider to be the most beloved by fans. After all, he’s just a kid, and a nerdy one at that. Plus, for a supposed superhero, he sure has the weirdest set of powers. Aren’t our idols meant to be larger than life? Inspiring figures we can look up to?

I think that, until our awkwardly dressed web slinger came around, they were.

With the exception of Captain America, prior names in history’s long chronology of superheroes mostly credited their abilities to supernatural causes. Their back-stories are full of meteor impacts and secret alien societies on planets far, far away. This somewhat isolated them from readers before they even turned the first page. And yet, it made for a great escape. Who wouldn’t want to fly like an eagle, swim like a fish, or see through walls with their eyes? If even just for a few hours and only in their own head.

But when Spider-Man swung along, he did something no magic savior that came before him ever could: he brought the realm of heroes down to earth.

Our Friendly Neighborhood Loser

When you examine the origins of Spider-Man, it’s easy to wonder about the reasoning behind many of the creators’ choices. Why would they make him a teenager? The teenager was usually the sidekick at best. Why even make him human at all? And not a particularly strong specimen either.

While I don’t think Marvel made all these decisions on purpose, they happened to come together in a fascinating way:

Everything that initially made Spider-Man a weaker hero also made him a stronger human being.

He’s not the heir of a billion dollar empire. He’s not an immortal, bulletproof alien. Or born a genetic freak. Peter Parker’s parents died when he was very young, but that aside, he’s a normal kid from a normal family, living a normal life. Like the majority of comic book readers, he goes to school. And his biggest struggle is one most of us are painfully familiar with: being a nobody.

Until, one day, he gets bitten by a radioactive spider and everything changes.

A Familiar Transformation

It’s not just Peter Parker’s life pre-costume that resonates. Even his path to becoming a hero contains elements that speak to us on a subconscious level. His abilities have their roots in scientific experiments, not wizardry. They’re a stretch, sure, but they still feel believable.

What’s more, unlike an exaggeration of existing traits, like superhuman strength or the ability to run at lightning speed, being equipped with an awkward combination of new physical features forces our hero to figure out who he is all over again. Something we all go through in puberty. In that sense, even his strange set of new skills contributes to his relatedness.

To top it all off, even after Peter Parker’s physique has changed, he is still a loser. A teenager in way over his head. If he doesn’t learn fast, he won’t be a very useful guardian. But the more he practices, the more he’s forced to sacrifice his relationships, even his dreams. Sound familiar? That’s the pain of anyone trying to accomplish anything meaningful ever. As a result, Spider-Man is the most relatable superhero of all time.

But there’s something more to the story. A connection that runs even deeper.

The Origins of Ambition

There’s one more thing that sets Spider-Man apart from his contemporaries: he never wanted to be a hero. He didn’t choose to pick up that cape, to become a symbol, to take the serum. Instead, he’s the victim of an accident at the science fair.

Like a kid being pushed into a pool, Peter Parker is a guy like us, thrown into exceptionally cold water. Only once the damage is irreversibly done does he decide to take responsibility and tackle the task life’s burdened him with. That’s the most honest explanation of ambition I’ve ever seen.

I think in our own lives, it works just the same. Some day, a vial breaks and the liquid is released. Like the spider venom seeping into Peter Parker’s veins, it permeates slowly, but the switch can never be un-flipped. It’s impossible. You can’t go back. And, as in Spider-Man’s case, a great many variables must simultaneously fall into place to cause this triggering event.

Usually, it’s a mix of trauma, naiveté, regret, fear, anger, and, out of all things, self-love. Before I started writing, I began to fear a conventional desk job career. I regretted not starting anything earlier and I was naive enough to believe I could make a living telling stories. Adversity inspires humans to do great things.

Sometimes, it’s a small crisis, like what character can keep up your winning streak, or wishing desperately for a beautiful stranger’s kiss. Sometimes, it takes an outright catastrophe, like a cheating spouse or a terrible illness. But it always takes some crisis for humans to see they have great power.

And with that power comes great responsibility.

A Calling for All of Us

People love to split the world into two camps. They think there are the superheroes, and then there’s us. The losers. From day one of his fictional existence, this is the biggest misunderstanding Spider-Man was meant to clarify. He teaches us is that, in reality, the loser and the hero are the same.

Due to his lackluster, mundane life and his accidental, almost traumatic transformation, Spider-Man cannot be a hero defined by his feats or even his features. He must be a hero defined by his character. And we all have one of those. If some heroes are nothing but the random result of their environment, then what’s to stop us?

For if the only thing that really sets Spider-Man apart is his courage in the face of adversity, then he’s the first to send a message all superheroes were actually meant to send. A message one of his masked colleagues put so eloquently:

A hero can be anyone.

It’s not just that we, as individuals, feel we could be Spider-Man. It’s that we collectively realize any one of us could be Spider-Man. Because all he did, despite struggling with the hand he was dealt, is give his best to do good in this world. I think this is incredibly empowering.

It is also a good reminder to never belittle those with less ambition. Because no one ever knows if your switch has already been flipped. You might not notice it today, or even tomorrow, but in time, you will show us all. For all we know, you’re just like Spider-Man. Or all of us, really.

A superhero in the making.

Will Smith: The Semantics of Success

August 24, 2018February 28, 2024 Nik

In the summer of 1985, the king of Philadelphia’s DJ scene threw down at a house party. That night, his hype man was missing. You know, the dude shouting around, getting folks excited, and prompting chants. Luckily, a local MC lived just down the street and offered to fill in.

The name of that MC was Will Smith. He and DJ Jazzy Jeff instantly hit it off. So much, in fact, that Jeff sent his former sidekick packing and the two joined forces. Less than a year later, they dropped their debut single “Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble” just in time to take the 1986 prom season by storm and allow Will to graduate high school as a rap star. Jeff recalls:

“Once Will and I made a record, we killed Philly’s hip-hop and ballroom scene. Nobody wanted two turntables. Now they wanted one turntable, a drum machine and some guy rapping. It wasn’t about Philly anymore. It was about conquering the world.”

And conquer the world they did.

Why Silver Linings Playbook Is One of the Best Films About Love

August 11, 2018September 30, 2022 Nik

“Hey!”

She almost runs into him as she cuts him off, then chases him down the street.

“How do you know when I run?”
“I wanted to clarify something. I just want us to be friends.”

He keeps running.

“Did you hear what I said? Why are you giving me such a hard time?”
“No, I’m not giving you a hard time.”
“I don’t know how to act with you when you do this shit.”

After a few more strides, he finally stops. On the building in front, it says ‘Llanerch’ in bright, red letters. He turns around.

“You wanna have dinner at this diner?”

The first time I watched Silver Linings Playbook, I was alone in my room. The second time was yesterday. Once again, it was just me, myself, and I.

In the five years between now and then, a lot’s changed. I’m about to finish my second degree, I make my own money, and I’ve finally upgraded the room to an apartment, even though it took moving eight times. The fact that I’m single is one of the few things that’s stayed the same.

Not that I didn’t have any relationships. There were some short ones, some long ones, and a great deal more that never really left the ground. It’s just that after this part of the journey, I’ve landed back in a familiar place. And yet, I’ve come a long way.

When I first saw one of 2012’s biggest surprise hit films, I was instantly swept away. But I couldn’t have told you why. Now I know. By taking us through the love story of two people with mental problems, Silver Linings Playbook lets us view the world through the eyes of the ideal lovers we all aspire to be.

More so, it shows us the price we’d have to pay: the world thinks we’re insane.

The Delusional Optimist

Pat Solitano is the embodiment of the American Dream. He’s sharp, he’s honest, he’s upbeat. He’s a perpetual optimist and he always has a plan. Striving ever higher, even his personal motto is engraved on the official New York coat of arms: Excelsior!

Sadly, Pat suffers from bipolar disorder. In a fit of violent temper, he beat his cheating wife’s affair half to death. And so he returns from his stint at a mental hospital with a massive stigma: society has branded him insane. But Pat isn’t swayed. Neither this, nor his wife’s restraining order are going to keep him from making things right. From getting the love he deserves.

Pat is the hero of the movie because as lovers, most of us start out in his place.

We indulge in all these delusions about what we’re gonna do, about who we’re gonna be. How we’re going to be united with people we barely know and how our lives will play out. I know I sure did. I would fantasize about life with a girl I had a crush on and then go to bed high on that feeling. Even though most of the time, I never actually did anything.

The one thing Pat’s got going over most of us is that the world already knows he’s out of his mind. He’s free to say what he wants, to live his crazy plans, and to call out everyone else on their own. Because he’s the purest form of the delusional, optimist lover we’ve ever seen.

Until he meets Tiffany.

The Broken Realist

Tiffany Maxwell is a more grown up version of Pat, who’s hopelessly lost in his dream. Her bubble popped just as suddenly, but in a more definite way. After her husband died, she became depressed and went on a hookup spree. She was fired and force-medicated, so now people believe she’s deranged.

Having been broken ten ways to Sunday, Tiffany is so sick of love, she doesn’t even want to try. Zero expectations. That’s why the second Pat meets her, his optimism cracks. From that moment on, he clings to his plan like a tempted child. Because he too feels the chemistry, but her realism pulls his focus away.

Tiffany is the lover we become when life strikes us down.

We learn the same, hard-earned lessons. Maybe not as rapidly, but also through countless mistakes. And sometimes, we get so frustrated that we too resign. That’s it, I’m out, no more dating, I’m sick of this game. But at least, because of her stained reputation, Tiffany is also free. If you have no expectations, there’s no one you need to please.

She’s the broken realist that’d rather live with nothing than die for a lost cause. Despite her capitulation, Tiffany knows true love is built, not found. So while Pat keeps talking about a silver lining that’s not there, she can see he’s hers.

That’s why she starts literally chasing him down the street.

The Fine Line Between Genius and Madness

Watching these two crazies is marvelous, because their social outcast status allows them to do and say everything we’re afraid to let ourselves be.

We’d love to swear whenever we feel like it, live our sexuality, call others on their bullshit, ignore people’s opinions and bluntly, relentlessly demand what we want. But we don’t. Because what would our friends and families say?

If even just for a few brief moments, Silver Linings Playbook allows us to escape. But that’s not what makes the movie so great. Its message is bigger than that. Occasionally, the two even allude to it. Like when Tiffany says that they’re “not liars, like they are.” Or when Pat suggests that “maybe we know something that you guys don’t know, okay?”

As it turns out, they do.

Catching Up

To top the madness off, Pat and Tiffany briefly switch roles near the end of the film. Hope carries the broken realist away, while reality finally punches Pat in his face. The key scene, however, is not what you’d expect it to be.

After achieving a self-imposed, somewhat arbitrary score at a competition, the whole Solitano family celebrates. It’s when the puzzled looks of observers extend beyond our two heroes that we’re given a chance to understand:

Every character in this film is already insane. Crazy. Every single one.

There’s Pat’s friend from the hospital, who’s obsessed with his hair and constantly tries to escape. His OCD, choleric, superstitious, illegally bookmaking dad. The neighbor suffocating in a needless, crushing debt spiral. His wife, Tiffany’s consumerist sister. Even Pat’s mom, his straight-A brother and his therapist. The list goes on and on.

I fell in love with this movie not because of who it showed me I could be, but because it gave me the comfort that, in a world where everyone’s an idiot, staying true to yourself isn’t such a big deal. Life itself is mental. It is an absolutely crazy experience that no one survives anyway. Silver Linings Playbook reminds us that regret, not being different, is what’s insane.

We must love with all our heart and live life to the fullest. Because there are no normal people. Just those, who are crazy in similar ways. That’s the big lesson. One everyone — the characters, the audience, even the film’s creators — can take away. It’s also why in the end, it’s Pat’s turn to chase Tiffany.

Like him, the only thing I’m sorry about is that it took me so long to catch up.

This Question Will Make You Immune To Failure

July 8, 2018September 22, 2022 Nik

On Monday, a guy cut in line at the hairdresser. Not the grocery store, the hairdresser. Where you already wait for some 30 minutes and each person’s treatment takes forever. But just as I was about to get angry, I finally got sick of my own bullshit.

I was angry a lot over the past three months. At people, at events, at myself. Often for valid reasons. But having a good reason to be angry does not make being angry a good reaction. It almost never is. I remembered a Buddhist quote:

“Anger is a hot coal you’re holding, waiting to throw it at someone else.”

Since I had a little more time to pass, I started digging: Why was I holding so many coals?

The Third Option

Looking back, I realized most of the times I was angry came from some sort of failure or rejection. It was never anything major, just obstacles on the road towards my goals. Unexpected speed bumps, paid for in money, energy, and time.

Speed bumps are a good analogy, because the people who set them up are only doing their job. Most of the time, they do it at someone else’s command, and they never do it specifically targeting you. So when you see one coming up, it’s your decision to go full throttle and potentially blow out your suspension. Or, you can just slow down.

There is a scene in How I Met Your Mother, in which Ted is chasing his ex-fiancée in a cab, ready to confront her. After leaving him at the altar, she moved in with her ex-husband, having previously told Ted he’d have to come live with her. That’s a very good reason to be angry. But then, Ted slows down:

“So I got out of the cab, ready to say all of that stuff. Ready to explode. But then…it all just went away. And that was it. In that moment, I wasn’t angry anymore. I could see Stella was meant to be with Tony.
Kids, you may think your only choices are to swallow your anger or to throw it in someone’s face. But there’s a third option: you can just let it go. And only when you do that is it really gone and you can move forward.
And that kids, was the perfect ending to a perfect love story. It just wasn’t mine. Mine was still out there, waiting for me…”

While I found letting go to be a great solution in the past, it’s often hard to do in the midst of failure, when the sting of rejection is still fresh. It hurts. And, as humans, when we’re hurt, we want to do something. Getting yourself to where you can let go is a process and that process takes time. Inaction makes it feel drawn out, while doing things distracts us, usually just enough for our subconscious to begin dealing with everything.

By now I was sitting in the chair, looking in the mirror. I asked myself: “What else can I do here? How can I use these failures, these rejections, these objective and indifferent speed bumps, really, to get to the next level?”

Then, I remembered another quote.

The Simple Ethos of a Billionaire

All humans have desires. Growing up is fulfilling our duty of separating the good ones from the bad. The template we then use to chase those desires is as follows: We alternate between taking action and waiting until we hit either failure or success. If we succeed, we can pursue another desire. If we fail, we need to go back and restart the cycle.

Every time we get angry is a sign that the waiting part is broken. We want our rewards now and we can’t stand the thought of resetting the cycle. It’s almost as if slowing down itself hurts, regardless at what speed you end up taking the bump. But if you load up on coals, eventually, your car will stop altogether.

As I was thinking about what I want the most and how I can do more than just let go, I remembered an idea from Charlie Munger’s 2007 USC commencement address:

“I got at a very early age the idea that the safest way to try and get what you want is to try and deserve what you want. It’s such a simple idea, it’s the golden rule, so to speak. You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end. There is no ethos, in my opinion, that is better for any lawyer or any other person to have.”

Deserve what you want. A simple idea indeed, but a very nuanced one. I first heard it four years ago, but I used to focus too much on the getting part. Now, I finally realized that even someone who deserves to have certain things might still never get them. Note also that Munger didn’t call it a sure way, just a safe way. Except death, there are no guarantees in life.

But if you give your best to deserve what you want every step along the way, something funny happens to your template for fulfilling desires. Suddenly, every iteration of the cycle reroutes to success.

One Question to Rule Them All

The difference between when I first heard Munger’s quote and now is that this time, I don’t see it as a shortcut in the goal-setting process. I see it as an upgrade.

Think of it as charging all your actions with integrity. To do that, you can either imagine virtue as your highest desire or a filter to run all your wants through. Whichever perspective you choose, if you practice it successfully, the result of every action will be the same.

Once the waiting begins, you’ll eventually detach from the outcome, knowing you’ve done the best you can. The right thing, whatever it may have been. That in itself is a success. Because regardless of what’ll happen with your goal, you’ve fulfilled your desire to be virtuous. That, you can take pride in and then restart the cycle. You’re not immune to failure happening to you, but to much of the self-inflicted stumbling, falling, and cursing that usually follows.

You create this sort of moral contrast to a vision of your future self. A self you can aspire to. And while it’ll never exist in its purest form, if you get close enough, you’ll inevitably attract what you desire. I was already on my way home, but still thinking about how I could implement this idea in my life. Eventually, I came up with a daily reminder, a question:

“What would the guy do who deserves everything I want?”

Like the idea itself, it’s simple, but nuanced. When I say “everything I want,” I have a few specific goals in mind, but it applies to all of them and they’re free to change. When I use “the guy” instead of “the person” or “someone,” it’s easier to imagine the virtuous ideal as my future self. But above all, I like this question for three reasons.

1. It is always relevant.

You can ask this question right after waking up in the morning, as you’re about to leave work, or at 3 AM during a horrible fight with your wife. It doesn’t matter whether you just failed, succeeded, or learned a certain path is blocked altogether. The answer will be useful at any time, always and forever.

2. It is limitless.

Maybe you want to be the first human being on Mars. Maybe you’d like nothing more than a stable, five-figure job. Maybe you dream of making it on broadway. Or, maybe you want to pick up your son and get a haircut yourself, without losing too much family time. Whether you have a single, ubiquitous mission, or a dozen small goals, this question has room for them all. It doesn’t care if what you want is possible, because behaving morally always is.

3. It is detached from all outcomes.

You can always choose to act with integrity, right now. Deciding in the present moment does not require what you did over the past ten years, or last week, or even five minutes ago. Your moral compass usually has a clear answer, too. And it’ll still be the right answer, even if you should fail. There’s no need for what-ifs.

The Road Worth Taking

Every morning, I look at my phone and sit with that question. It’s an experiment that’s just beginning, but I already feel a lot better about my decisions.

There’s one caveat though: Aspiring to more integrity is not a substitute for sacrifice. It’s a layer on top. You’ll find that, often, what is right, what is hard, and what is the most beneficial to your goals are one and the same. Especially in the long run.

For the few times they differ, you’ll never regret taking the high road. It has a lot less speed bumps. But, most importantly, you won’t spend your life holding hot coals.

Why It’s Important to Say No to Free Stuff

June 26, 2018May 8, 2022 Nik

Last week I got hoodwinked. Walking out of the school canteen, a friend and I passed a guy standing next to his car’s open trunk, handing out free drinks and note pads. Except they weren’t free. As soon as he’d offered us his ‘gifts,’ he made us sign trial subscriptions to a newspaper. To his credit, we didn’t need any payment info and he was a nice guy.

But he still blindsided us. Most of the time, however, I do it to myself.

Free Lunch All Over the Place

Whoever says there’s no free lunch has never been to a German college. We don’t pay insane tuition, yet there are still more freebies than anyone could handle. Drinks, food, events; young people will build the future and these are the things they covet. But that doesn’t mean we want our lives to be a 24/7 pitch fest in which we’re the prize.

So when yet another poor devil hands out flyers, the result is often the same: trash cans full of paper, littered floors, and shreds of parchment flying through the streets. 19 out of 20 times, 19 out of 20 people aren’t interested. And yet, we end up with an ad in our hands anyway. Why is that?

Sometimes, we get blindsided. We’re too startled to say no and boom, we agreed. Sometimes, we don’t want to be rude. And sometimes, it’s straight pity. It speaks volumes about your product if the best buyer motivation you can hope for is people wanting to eliminate some of the inherent discomfort in your sales process. A friend says she often takes flyers to make the other person feel better and help them get on with their unrewarding job.

That’s a noble goal, but I think there’s a hidden price we pay for it. Because now, the joke’s on us.

The Scales Inside Your Mind

Taking some stupid flyer doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is. Now you’re not just responsible for the piece of paper, but unless you really wanted to take it, which, let’s face it, almost never happens, you’ve also just broken a previous deal with yourself: “I will do what I trust is best for me.”

This deal isn’t explicit. It’s not one we sign and one we rarely voice out loud. But it’s built into us from birth and rightfully so.

Acting in our own best interest is, on a long enough timeline, the only way to act in everyone else’s best interest also.

Deep inside your mind, there’s a scale. Every time you break or live up to that deal, you throw a small stone in one of its trays. One side is confidence — complete and utter trust in yourself. The other is insecurity. A constant scratching at your decisions, full of self-doubt and second-guessing yourself. And whichever side is heavier tends to make your next decision.

Throwing the First Stone

Also last week, I went out to grab drinks with friends one night. Around 10 PM, our metaphorical Thursday night camel train wanted to move on. There was a midterm party hosted by the school, but the group wanted to go pregame at another place first.

I fancied the party, but what I didn’t wanna do was drive all across town to sit in someone’s apartment and drink first. Especially since I’m not in the mood for alcohol these days. So I decided to go home. Of course the usual ‘come on’s and ‘just an hour’s ensued. You know how it goes, you’ve been in that situation before.

See how similar this is to the people handing out flyers? Except it’s all intensified. Because now you’ve made an actual deal with yourself and it’s not a stranger pitching, but your friends. The scale in your mind, however, remains the same. It doesn’t matter what’s reasonable or what’s fun. The only important question is:

Which tray of the scale will you throw the next stone on?

Another friend says she once met someone who’d always joke she was “a weak person” when it comes to going with the group consensus. It’s a fun anecdote when you’re actually indifferent about an outcome, but I told her I’m worried about what happens if she tells it too many times. Humans work in funny ways. The more you tell yourself you’re the type of person who throws stones on the doubt-side of the scale, the more you’ll end up actually doing it.

For 99% of our decisions, it doesn’t matter all that much, but in 1% of moments, the state of the scale is everything.

Seconds of a Lifetime

There’s one last thing that happened last week. We were watching the Germany vs. Sweden world cup match at a burger place. For every goal Germany scored, we got free shots. I passed on the first one, because again, I don’t feel like drinking these days. But since we won in the last minute, we got another round.

Once more, I declined when the waiter offered, but as we were all about to toast, a friend noticed I didn’t have one, while another friend had ended up with two. I said it was alright and that I didn’t want it, but my buddy was adamant I take it. After a short, but suddenly intense “YES!”-“NO!”-yelling-match, he handed the shot over, I set it down and saluted with my Sprite.

Imagine how awkward that is. Twelve people with raised glasses, with two dudes arguing over who takes the last shot in the middle. Moments like these only take seconds, but unlike listening to sales pitches or deciding where to eat, they fundamentally impact who you are. And yet, the shots are just like flyers. You either cave and take the damn thing or stick to your guns and make things awkward.

No one will even remember, let alone care about the situation two weeks down the line. But you will. Because taking the shot, or the shitty job offer, or forgiving the asshole boyfriend who cheated is like ripping that trust contract you have with yourself to shreds. With a snap of your fingers, you’ve dropped an anvil on the scale. Self-doubt all the way.

What all of this comes down to in the end is this:

The reason I can say no to drinking in a room full of people with raised glasses is that I’ve practiced saying no to people with flyers for the past 10 years.

Getting ambushed by a guy selling newspaper subscriptions is bad. But blindsiding yourself is much worse. We tell ourselves these little, mundane decisions aren’t important, but they are. Because everything you do matters. Life isn’t a collection of fragments. It all ties together into who you are.

The choices you make when no one cares are the ones that determine what you’ll do when you care the most.

So, I’m sorry if you ended up with one of those crappy promotion jobs. I feel for you. But no, I don’t want your flyers.

How To Be Kind in a World That Never Taught You to Be

June 6, 2018September 17, 2023 Nik

“Well, some things you just can’t get for money.” The older I get, the more I think this is just something we, the not-yet rich and successful, tell ourselves to feel better. There is almost nothing money can’t buy. Because even for what you can’t trade straight for dollars, there’s almost always a proxy.

You can’t buy time, but not having to work 40 hours a week sure helps. You can’t buy health, but I bet your cancer treatment fares better if you can drop $2 million into it. You can’t buy happiness, but there’s a material sweet spot around $75,000/year.

Money makes the world go ‘round. I don’t think that’s bad, it’s just the way it is. Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s helped us do good things, and I believe for many, the struggle for money is the right choice. But I also believe in being kind along the way. Work hard, be nice, win. There’s enough to go around for everyone.

And that’s where the road forks, because most people don’t think you can do both at the same time. Not every struggle is a battle, but if your only options are competing and conceding, they might as well be the same. If you tend to view the world as this dark place that you have to fight tooth and nail against to get what you deserve, I feel for you.

We don’t agree, but I have an idea where it came from. And it’s not your fault.

Habit Tracker: Which One’s The Best? + 100 Habits To Track

April 14, 2018June 15, 2021 Nik

“What gets measured gets managed.”

That’s a quote from Peter Drucker, considered the father of modern management. Contrary to what you’d think, he wasn’t a big fan of complex business models or convoluted strategies. He mostly talked about habits. Businesses are run by people and people run on habits. That’s why managing our habits is important. Measuring them, however, is hard.

That’s where habit trackers come in. Read More

Category: Willpower