3 Minute Monday
Hi friend,
I watched a video where Charlie Munger shares an amazing insight.
“Greed isn’t what drives the world, instead it’s envy.
Our lives are objectively the best humanity has ever had yet complaining & dissatisfaction is as high as ever.”
Humans don’t want their lives to just be better, they want them to be better than their neighbours.
And their parents.
And the people they see on social media.
In this way, a highly connected life is influencing your expectations and envy through comparison.
Tracking your status in the local-tribe hierarchy was incredibly important ancestrally, unfortunately we haven’t learned how to knock that switch off now that we’re connected to 7 billion other people’s lives on the internet.
If Theodore Roosevelt was right and comparison is indeed the thief of joy, then a world in which we can compare more will commensurately be one with less happiness.
Some solutions:
Reduce down how many people you follow on social media (since limiting myself to 100 on Twitter 4 years ago, my experience has been blissful).
Spend more time offline.
Get really serious about working out your life’s values and take pride in them.
MODERN WISDOM
I do a podcast which has had 100 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
This week’s upcoming episodes:
Monday.
Stephen J. Shaw – one of the most important conversations you’ll hear this year. A data scientist and researcher explains just what is happening with declining birthrates and population collapse. Shocking, fascinating, sobering.
Thursday.
Dr Gloria Mark – a leading researcher explains how humans actually focus. How does attention work? Why is everyone so easily distracted? What can you do to regain control over your mind?
Saturday.
Edward Slingerland – a fun historical assessment of how alcohol helped humans trust, bond, civilise and survive in the past, and a breakdown of what its role should be in the modern world.
THINGS I’VE LEARNED
1.
A small number of men are having more sex than ever.
“While the number of young men who report having no sexual experiences is increasing, there are also some men who have more sex partners than ever before.
In 2002 the most sexually active top 20% of American heterosexual men had 12 lifetime sex partners while the top 5% had 38.
Ten years later, the most sexually active top 20% now reported 15 lifetime sex partners and the top 5% of men reported 50.
During the same time, there was no such change in the number of sex partners for heterosexual women.”
This suggests that an increasingly small number of men are capturing an increasingly large portion of sexual interest from women, while an increasingly large number of men are having no sex at all. — h/t Rolf Degen
2.
Lots of people still live at home.
“About 60% of adults under age 35 now live without a spouse or a partner.
One in three adults in this age range live with their parents, making that the most common living arrangement for the cohort.
43% of 25-year-old men still live at home with their parents, compared to just 25% of women of the same age.” — h/t The Atlantic & Unherd
3.
Stop worrying about it.
“Nobody remembers your mistakes as much as you do.” — Mark Manson
LIFE HACK
A legendary question to ask at dinner this week.
“What is currently overlooked or ignored by the media — but will be studied in future by historians?” — George Mack
Big love,
Chris x
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PS
I caught up with big JBP for lunch yesterday in Austin. He’s on fine form. Hold tight for something big this year.
