It doesn’t have to be “vent and feel bad about this” or “find a solution and move forward.” You’re allowed to do both! In fact, sometimes safely venting to a friend will help you get to a solution. So don’t be too hard on yourself. If you can whistle while you work, it’s okay to gripe sometimes, too.

Don’t confuse “current status” with “permanent feature.”

There is a series of “status steps” that are often necessary to change a particular status, and the flow is usually this:

“Unpleasant Status” -> “Unpleasant Status + Additional Discomfort” -> “Pleasant Status + Residual Discomfort” -> “Pleasant Status.”

Consider the unpleasant status, for example, of being cold. In order to go from being cold to the (presumably) desired status of being warm, you first have to be cold and inconvenienced by looking for warmer clothes, shelter, etc. In a very strict, very short-term sense, you’re worse off now than a few seconds ago! Before you were only cold; now you’re cold and you have to do something. But soon that task yields results – you get your jacket or you go indoors or whatever. Then there’s a stage where you’re warm but you have to deal with the residual effects of whatever task you took to get there – did you have to buy the jacket? But soon that’s resolved, and now you’re just warm.

Simple enough when you lay it out like that. But the pattern is easy; the steps sometimes are more complex. And that pattern has enough steps that some people start to see a particular “unpleasant status” as a permanent feature of their life. An iron-clad caste instead of something that can shift, like being cold or being wet.

For example, if you’re in bad shape, that’s not permanent. “Overweight” isn’t a species. But if you want to not be overweight, the next step is “overweight, tired, and hungry,” and if you’re a short-term thinker, that certainly feels like being worse off! It’s especially unappealing if you’ve fooled yourself into thinking that “overweight” is something you can’t change anyway. Why be tired and hungry if it won’t change anything, right?

Not every status will be worth changing for every person. Actions have costs, and a fact of life is that you can’t do everything. My goals are not your goals, and that’s okay. But don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking you can’t have goals at all, because your life is carved from stone.

It’s not. You can warm up or dry off or anything you like.

Very recently, I had someone tell me that I’m someone who “always thinks I’m right.” I take this seriously!

It’s a hard accusation to argue with, of course. You’re kind of in a box as soon as someone levies that one at you. But that should give anyone pause – I mean, if you’re the kind of person who would argue against that accusation even in the face of the utter ridiculousness of doing so, then maybe the claim has a lot of merit!

But even more broadly, I seriously consider any aspersions on my character. Suppose I take it as a given that I’d prefer people generally to not have opinions of me like that. In that case, I have to grapple with the fact that one of two things is true: Either the opinion itself is warranted, or I’ve done something to make them think the opinion is justified, and either is cause to examine my behavior.

So, what sorts of things might make someone view me this way? This is someone who interacts with me pretty regularly, though usually only in a few contexts. So their opinion isn’t based, presumably, on one interaction. I tend to think of myself as someone who regularly re-examines his beliefs, updates his priors, considers sound arguments, and generally tries to stay humble about the state of his own knowledge. I certainly write about those things frequently here! Humorously enough, in the same week as I received the comment that inspired this post, a different person equally close to me paid me a compliment directly to that effect. So I’m somehow showing different aspects of myself to these people!

It could be in the way I talk about different topics. There are certain topics or areas of expertise where I’ve done considerably more research, reflection, and experimentation than others. In those areas, I may be more prone to state my views more strongly. Of course I’m more likely to think I’m right in areas where I have substantial knowledge, but I’d also like to convey that I’m open to new information even in those areas.

Some of it may be that I tend not to voice any opinions at all in cases where I’m not very certain. Since you can’t directly observe when I hold my tongue, it can make it seem like I “think I’m right about everything,” when in fact I just only speak up when I do think I’m right. Then again, this is a good area to reflect on – you should have more reason to speak than just thinking you’re right! If what you’re about to say isn’t helpful, entertaining, or rapport-building, then being “correct” hardly gets you closer to a happy life.

Another aspect to consider: The person who told me that I think I’m always right is also someone whose intelligence and emotional maturity I respect, so I don’t tend to walk on eggshells with them. Frequently I’ll hold my tongue with people simply because I see almost no reason to argue with virtually anyone. If someone has shown me a great deal of character in this regard, however, I can be more likely to simply voice opinions to them – they become someone who I consider part of the great crucible in which I test my own thoughts. In order to test thoughts and views, they need to be presented strongly – if their weakest, most hedged version can be countered, that doesn’t necessarily refute the underlying idea. But if I present the strongest case for a view or opinion to a smart and reasonable person and they can counter it, then that tells me the view is likely flawed.

A final thought – it may be that I simply don’t voice it enough when I do change my opinion. People convince me of new stuff all the time! Sometimes I write about it here, sometimes I simply incorporate this new information into my actions, sometimes I talk about it to others. But not enough, perhaps, do I tell the source directly: “You caused me to examine this belief and I’ve changed my view on it. Thank you!” (The person who paid me the opposite compliment is someone I have said that to, so that’s evidence for that!) So if nothing else, that’s a strong course of action for me to consider moving forward.

I wonder what I’ll be wrong about tomorrow?

Happy New Month!

In this month of beginnings, my resolution is an aspirational one – I want to extend the umbrella of my tribe. I’ve been making a concerted effort recently to pull people closer, to reach out more, and to involve myself more in my communities. Friends and neighbors will always need a hand, and I want to continue to extend mine.

If you need anything, let me know. I’ll see how I can help. May you have more to offer than you ever need, my friends!

Let us hope without reason. Let us be excited without expectation. Let us share joy as an act of defiance, breaking our pattern of logic and deduction. No matter how bad things have been, let us know in our hearts they will be better. Shed the old times like a snake, born anew from its molting. We need drag nothing with us but what we choose.

As a general rule, try not to anchor too much emotion to very small moments in time. Improve the average of your life, don’t just rest on the extremes. If you lose at something, the moment of loss is a split second, and instant – and then it’s gone. The time you spent having fun or the time you spend getting ready to go again make up such a larger percentage of your life. Don’t make all that experience rely solely on the split second to have meaning. Have fun all the time.

Some things I want to do as infrequently as possible, even though they’re essential. Car insurance, for example, often has the ability to pay for six months at once as opposed to making it a monthly bill; I always choose that option. Apart from usually getting a small discount, I just like not thinking about it for longer.

You can’t do that with everything, of course. Some things are essential, but you can’t do them in bulk. You could pay all your bills for the year on January 1st if you had the cash, and that would be great. But you can’t call your mother 52 times on January 1st instead of once a week (and why are you only calling your mother once a week, anyway?!).

Side note: Unfortunately, eating appears to be one of those things you have to do every day, instead of in bulk. I really wish I could eat like a snake – just swallow a whole deer, sleep for two days, and then not worry about eating again for a month.

The point is that since there are many things you’ll have to do on a regular basis, you should make those things enjoyable. You shouldn’t view those things as chores. You should, as best as you can, find ways to be proud of them, or enjoy them, or combine them. For instance, you have to clean your house every day. You also have to play with your kids every day. So hey, make cleaning up the house a game you play with your kids!

These little maintenance things aren’t tasks to get through in order to live your life; they are your life. Knowing that, try to choose tasks that you can find ways to enjoy. And all the ones you can do in bulk and just get them out of the way? Do so! Remove extra stressors and decisions from your life so you can give more mental energy to enjoying the things you have to do anyway.

Craft your life in such a way as to enjoy it. If you aren’t, break it. There’s no deeper prize, so tune the radio to the station you want to listen to, you know?

When you seek to improve yourself (and hey, since you’re reading this, I hope you are – this blog is 90% about self-improvement so what are you doing here if not?), there can actually be a very dangerous mindset shift that happens. Be careful, because this can harm you far in excess of whatever benefit you’re getting from your chosen path.

The dangerous shift is this: You start to resent others who aren’t doing what you’re doing.

You’ve seen it happen. Someone who’s been a lazy slob their whole life starts to get in shape and healthy, and suddenly they’re admonishing people who live the way they only recently used to. Or someone starts donating their time to a charity and then starts to get mad at all the people who don’t. Or even someone just trying to be more kind and considerate getting bitter about it not being reciprocated.

This is a poison, and you need to spit it out.

You can’t improve yourself and then get mad that the world hasn’t come along with you. It isn’t about the world – it’s about you. The world will get better, bit by bit, as the people in it do. But you have plenty of work to do on yourself, and getting mad at others who aren’t is hindering that work.

Look at it this way: the very definition of being the best person you can be is to rise above the average expectations of your society. The average society in your time and place condones or allows many things that you truly should rise above, or at least attempt to. But if you’re even marginally successful, that means that most people won’t be doing that same thing. That, by itself, is good! But don’t let it turn you into an isolationist, an island, a judgmental jerk.

Be better so you can help more. Improve, above all else, your soul.

My father taught me that if you can do something for the humans around you, then you have a responsibility to do so. This is not an admonishment to others, but a maxim for the self. You have tremendous superpowers if you simply have a roof over your head, food in your cabinet, boots on your feet. If you have hands that can lift and eyes that can read, you can do wonders for the world. A safe space, a hot meal, and a kind word for the people around you might mean everything – they do mean everything, when you don’t have them.

The interactions between people are complex. Sometimes we hurt each other, and rarely is that hurt contained in a single, discrete word or action. Far more often, there are patterns and sequences that we get caught up in, webs of hurt we weave around each other, even when we don’t mean to.

If you are genuinely remorseful of that (and hopefully you are!), you may be driven to apologize. Good! Do it sincerely. When you do though, you may discover that the thing you feel the most need to apologize for isn’t the thing the other person was most hurt by. (And vice versa.) The thing you’re apologizing for, the thing that weighed so heavily on your soul, barely registered to the other person. Meanwhile, some other thing you thought so minor it wasn’t worth mentioning has been lodged in their heart ever since.

This can be complex, difficult, and painful to navigate. But there’s a benefit, too – if you truly care about that person and want to use the opportunity for apology as a way of strengthening a personal relationship, then you’re in luck. You can use this experience as a way of truly getting to know something deep and meaningful about another person – how they experience pain. We almost never get the opportunity to really understand another person’s pain, and seeking that knowledge, even if it bruises your own ego, is an essential part of expressing ownership of the harm that you caused.

It isn’t punishment. It’s growth.