Our brains become full of useless lessons.
We acquire them throughout life and unconsciously store them in our minds. A tweet the other day helped remind me of all the lessons we should unlearn if we want to be successful.
“You have to pick a side”
No you don’t. I refuse.
Life isn’t so black or white. People want you to pick a side so they can go to war. But war solves nothing. It simply divides society and prevents solutions from revealing themselves.
We need less divisiveness and less of this pick-a-side nonsense that belongs in the kindergarten sandpit.
That’s why I don’t favor one race — only humans. And I am neither right nor left. All sides of politics have pros and cons. Even communism has a few benefits if you study history. Then there’s the economic model.
Capitalism is nice. It gives us all jobs. But it also creates billionaires which you could argue is bad for society.
The lesson: no issue is simple. Anyone telling you it is lives in a Utopia inside their head.
Turn off outrage. Turn on compassion.
“Life is about being productive every second”
I’m guilty your honor.
When you spend so much time trying to get a lot done you get stuck in the future and can’t enjoy the present.
But the present is where happiness is found. Getting things done feels nice. Enjoying the fruits of your labor is nicer. Take a chill pill. Most of what you achieve and call a legacy won’t matter when you’re dead.
Alive people have lives to live and won’t be sitting around all day jerking off to your achievements.
“Wealth is the result of intelligence “
There’s this idea that people who make a lot of money must be smart.
Wealthy people were my clients in my banking career. Most of them weren’t that smart. They simply didn’t have the psychological capacity to doubt themselves.
In many ways they were stupidly naive so they didn’t know the limit of possibilities in their chosen field.
“A penny saved is a penny earned”
Government-issued currencies are trash.
If you save the value you create in a savings account with a bank, the tax of inflation will destroy it over a short time.
Then you’ll have to keep getting back on the hamster wheel to out-earn a game designed for most people to lose. Save the value you create in assets, not currency.
Assets appreciate, currency depreciates.
“The accumulation of knowledge will make you successful”
The information age is dead.
Any monkey can memorize information and recite it on command in an exam. Some would even call that learning disguised as procrastination.
What matters is the application of knowledge.
To apply knowledge you need:
- Habits
- Courage
- Systems
- Work ethic
- Gamification
- An experimental mindset
These are the modern-day components of a successful life. Everything else is a 6-figure college clown show. Oh, and you need to be able to unlearn knowledge when it no longer serves you or the facts change.
“The end of a relationship or divorce equals failure”
Divorce in society is frowned upon. It pisses me off.
Some of the happiest people I know got divorced. By getting out of a bad situation they found an alternative. And what’s weird is most of them get on just fine with their ex and often share custody of kids.
Humans are complicated. There’s zero obligation to stay attached to one person for your entire life. Maybe a relationship works forever. Maybe it works for a period of time. Nothing wrong with that.
Don’t get me started on single people. The idea that single people are unhappy and fooling themselves is a lie.
You can be happy without being married.
“Opinions on social media are mostly rationale”
Not really. There are a lot of crazies on social media.
The reason is hurt people hurt people.
Talking smack to you in a comment on Facebook is how many people release pain and deal with the bad situation they find themselves in daily. It’s sad but it explains a lot.
Know how social media works so you won’t be easily affected. Thick skin helps you use these platforms for good, not evil.
Tweet Credit: @ItsBluey_
“Work now so you can enjoy retirement later”
This is the unofficial slogan of the corporate world.
Work hard now. Stay in the office late. Get your bonus. Get promoted. Work for a brand name company. Do it all. Don’t say no.
But at what cost?
The best time to enjoy life is when you’re young, not old and wrinkly and desperately running out of energy. Instead, take mini-retirements throughout life. Or learn about how money works so you can retire earlier.
Just don’t wait until 65 to buy the caravan and travel around the world.
“Economics helps us make sense of what’s going on”
There’s nothing more intellectually stupid. It’s freaking liar’s poker.
Current economic models cause governments and central banks to try to control the free market. First they create money out of thin air and hand it out for free in the form of stimulus checks and infrastructure bills.
So much new money enters the system that it causes inflation and prices to go through the roof. To stop the madness they raise interest rates to create job losses and persuade people to stop spending.
Through each step of the economic cycle, that repeats like clockwork, eventually, they break something. They go too far in one direction and cause a deep recession (like the one we’re in now).
All of this interference just makes the poor less wealthy, and the rich wealthier. As the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets wider, society begins to break down and that’s when we see either war or a new empire take the lead.
The economy should be left alone.
Let the free market decide prices. Better than a bunch of grandpas making out-of-date decisions while trying to ban the advancement of technologies they don’t understand.
“Credit Cards give good rewards”
No. They purposely get you into debt to trap you.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”
The trouble with humans (particularly in Western Culture) is our bodies are never without calories.
We keep stuffing our faces with more food every few hours so the stomach has no time to rest and break everything down.
We’re not facing a skinny epidemic. We’re facing an obesity one.
One way to reduce calories naturally is to wake up from a good night’s sleep and not immediately eat. Your body is already in a fasted state so it’s easier to stay that way a little longer.
It’s fine to hate fasting … but it has benefits. Skip or delay breakfast to unlock them.
“Doctors know what they’re doing because they went to medical school”
Most doctors have no training in nutrition. Let that sink in.
What other training did they miss out on? Who knows. A lot of the time doctors are glorified salespeople for big pharmaceutical companies.
Doesn’t mean you stay away from doctors or look down upon them. Just means you do your research and get multiple medical opinions.
Good rule of thumb: Don’t take everything experts say as gospel.
“Being nice is easy, so just do it”
Hardly.
Most people are fake-nice. They tell you what you want to hear so they can benefit from your position in society — or not be crushed by it.
Being nice takes courage because it can lead to risks and even rejection.
But when you start being yourself the whole freaking world opens up to you, because it’s uncommon in a business world where we’re trained to be actors to get salary treats like good little dogs.
Choose the hard life to make life easier.
This article is for informational purposes only, it should not be considered financial, tax or legal advice. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
