3 Minute Monday
Hi friend,
“Life has to win every day, death only has to win once.” — Roy Baumeister
This is the foundation of the negativity bias.
When emotions of equal intensity occur, things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on our psychological state than neutral or positive things.
In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person’s behaviour and cognition than something equally emotional but negative.
This is borne out in the aftermath of the Brighton Hotel Bombing on October 12th 1984.
Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet ministers were targeted by the IRA at a Conservative Party conference.
A long-delay time bomb was planted in the hotel by Patrick Magee before Prime Minister Thatcher and her cabinet arrived at the hotel.
Although Thatcher narrowly escaped the blast, five people were killed, including a Conservative Member of Parliament, and 31 injured.
After the event, the IRA released a statement:
“Mrs. Thatcher will now realise that Britain cannot occupy our country and torture our prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with it.
Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once.
You will have to be lucky always.”
This is the fundamental asymmetry at the heart of all anxiety.
It’s the reason we fear change and new things.
Yeah sure, the new thing could make us a bit more alive, which would be good.
But it also might make us a lot more dead, which would be very bad.
We’re finite creatures surrounded by infinite complexity, the fears and worries and concerns we have, whilst painful and illogical, are there for a reason.
The reason is just a few million years old.
Human existence has never been safer, whatever problem you’re facing is probably going to be no issue, and you’ll deal with whatever happens when it arrives.
You’re doing just fine.
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MODERN WISDOM
I do a podcast which has had 40 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
This week’s upcoming episodes:
Monday.
Louise Perry – how the sexual revolution has ruined dating, family life, households, sex and friendships. Very very good.
Thursday.
David McRaney – a breakdown of how human beliefs and opinions are formed and what causes our minds to change.
Saturday.
Vitaliy Katsenelson – how putting your Soul In The Game helps you to achieve a meaningful life.
THINGS I’VE LEARNED
1.
Women are hurt more by breakups but recover more fully.
Researchers asked participants to rate emotional and physical pain of a breakup.
They found that women tend to be more negatively affected by break-ups, reporting higher levels or both physical and emotional pain.
While breakups hit women the hardest, they tend to recover more fully.
Men, on the other hand, never fully recover.
h/t Rob Henderson
2.
Two-Step Flow Theory.
“Most people’s opinions are copied from their favourite influencers, who in turn copy the opinions of their favoured mass media.
As such, politics is largely a battle between two armies of puppets being ventriloquised by a handful of actual thinkers.”
— Gurwinder Bhogal
3.
“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” — Marcus Aurelius
LIFE HACK
Always do as much decorating as possible when you first move in.
Once you’re in a new home with your possessions everywhere, any decorating or upgrades are harder to do.
Also you need to stop being in the “living” mindset and go back into the “DIY” mindset.
Frontload as much decoration, handyman, Gumtree/Facebook Marketplace stuff as you can and just take the pain for a couple of weeks.
I have a single electrical socket in my living room which I forgot to switch from plastic to metal when I moved in 7 years ago.
The un-fitted socket is still in the packaging on the shelf underneath it.
Big love,
Chris x
Join the Modern Wisdom Community.
PS
Andrew Huberman filming this Wednesday in Austin. LFG.
