A difficult fact of life is that experiencing something doesn’t make you an expert on it. Even experiencing it a lot – even experiencing it more than someone who is, in fact, an expert.

Getting shot doesn’t make you a ballistics expert.

When we suffer, we look for all sorts of ways to justify that suffering. Nobody likes feeling victimized. Nobody likes feeling like they’ve wasted their time, either. So if you get mugged, it’s perfectly natural for your mind to want to create some positive as a result, and often that positive looks something like your brain saying “Well hey, at least I’m now an expert on crime, street smart and savvy. Won’t happen again, and I can tell others how to avoid it, too.” And if you spend ten years doing something that you didn’t like doing, like a job you hated, you at least want to be able to say that you’re good at it!

Experience isn’t nothing, of course. You learn something from everything you do. But it’s only one way to learn, and it’s not always the best way, and not everything you learn from experience is even correct. But again, that’s a hard pill to swallow. If you get mugged, and in response you form certain very strong views on crime, and then someone tries to tell you that not only did you get mugged, but as a result you became more wrong about how, why, and where crime happens than you were before? You feel victimized all over again. Most brains will do a lot to not feel that way, including being very stubborn about what they think they know.

When something bad happens to you, there’s definitely opportunity for growth. I truly do view every experience as such an opportunity! But you have to be very deliberate about what you learn. Don’t let it become a door for new biases to enter through. Instead, let it be fertile soil for your emotional growth.

And whenever someone voices an opinion to you that is clearly based on their own traumatic event, be graceful – and don’t expect any good results from trying to change their mind.

I try not to interfere with anything I can’t truly take responsibility for. In other words, I keep my nose out of other people’s business. If someone asks for my help, I’m more than happy to give it! But otherwise, that’s a good general rule: don’t touch things you can hold securely.

Three years today since my father died.

It hurts like it was yesterday. And I’m glad of it – I would rather hurt every day than ever forget a second.

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?