2918: 3 Principles for a Better Life by Mark Manson on How to Get Comfortable With Uncertainty

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[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 2918, 3 Principles for a Better Life by Mark Manson of markmanson.net

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm Justin Malik, your very own personal narrator.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I read the best blogs that I can get permission from to you,

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_01]: covering productivity, minimalism, personal development, mental health, all that fun stuff.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Now with that let's get right to another post and start optimizing your life.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_01]: 3 Principles for a Better Life by Mark Manson of markmanson.net

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I used to have a newsletter with the pitch,

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Three Ideas that can change your life.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_01]: For years I sent out emails in that format.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Three ideas, one, two, three, thank you drive-thru.

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So consider this a throwback article.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Except instead of three ideas that could change your life,

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: these are three principles for a better life.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I like principles because unlike rules or specific ideas,

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_01]: principles are designed to be applied loosely and broadly.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Principles are things that are usually true but sometimes don't apply.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Usually helpful but sometimes dumb as f***.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And unlike a rule or a piece of actionable advice,

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_01]: principles sit in the background quietly informing your decisions and perspectives.

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: In that way when good, principles can be far more effective than any sort of

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: do this, do that imperative.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: These are three of the most helpful principles I've come across to steer my life.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you find them helpful as well.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So without further ado, principle number one,

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_01]: you are perfect just as you are but you can always be better.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I first heard this statement muttered by a Zen master at a meditation retreat in my early 20s.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And it stubbornly stuck with me ever since.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, the older I get, the more wisdom I see in it.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: You're already good enough as you are but you can also always be better.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_01]: There's an inherent tension between self-acceptance and self-improvement.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_01]: This tension is within each of us.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: On the one hand we want to feel at peace with ourselves

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: to understand that we are good, valuable, worthy human beings

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: and we deserve love and respect and occasional back rubs.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_01]: On the other hand, unless you're a comatose,

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: it's abundantly clear that we have no f**king clue what we're doing most of the time.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: We mess up all the d**k time.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: There are so many ways we could be better that we could learn more, achieve more, grow more, etc.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I love this principle because it bluntly acknowledges

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: that this internal tension will never go away.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter how productive, competent and awesome you become,

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: there will always be something that you kind of suck at.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: That gnawing sense of inadequacy will never be conquered.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_01]: There is no perfection, only progress.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, you are still a worthy and valuable human being

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: regardless of how screwed up you are,

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_01]: regardless of how many mistakes you've made,

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_01]: regardless of how much room for growth you may have.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: The beauty of this principle is that it shows that self-acceptance and self-improvement

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: need each other, that having one without the other

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_01]: inevitably leads to dysfunction.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're all self-acceptance without self-improvement,

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_01]: then you become a lazy, indulgent, selfish d**k.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: If you are all self-improvement with no self-acceptance,

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_01]: then you become a neurotic, hyper-critical, over-anxious mess.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Self-acceptance doesn't work without self-improvement.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Self-improvement doesn't work without self-acceptance.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You're perfect just as you are, but you can always be better.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Principle number two, most people aren't evil.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_01]: They're just stupid. This includes ourselves.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot has been made about social media and how it affects our mental health and politics,

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_01]: but I believe that the most under-discussed effect of a social media-driven world

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: is that it subtly promotes moralizing.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_01]: This mass moralization has grown to such an extent that I now believe

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_01]: something I never would have imagined possible ten years ago,

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that we probably need a little less moralizing in the world, not more.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This moralizing is a problem because of how absolutely clueless and ignorant

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_01]: pretty much all of us are about almost every topic.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_01]: When there's a post online that is optimized to do off as much as possible,

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: combined with the ease with which we demonize and judge anonymous people

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: on the other side of the screen,

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: combined with how easy it is to post harsh judgments and harassments,

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_01]: the result is a population of self-righteous, overly moralizing f*** with Twitter accounts.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_01]: If the pandemic taught us anything, it's that everything and everyone will, at some point,

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_01]: be wrong about something very significant.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter where your politics are, what your country is,

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: what your personal beliefs or risk tolerances are.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_01]: At some point in the last three years, you and I were wrong about something.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And in many cases, horribly wrong.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, it's safe to assume that you and I will be horribly wrong about something again.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You would think this would humble people a little bit

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and encourage them to withhold judgment about things,

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: but it appears to have done the opposite instead.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Principle number two is similar to a philosophical concept known as Halen's razor.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'd like to add to Halen's razor something I'll call Manson's Addendum.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Quote,

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_01]: and pretty much everything you see or read is some degree of stupidity.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: In the past 10 years, I've written a lot about the need to manage our attention.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: To me, this was perhaps the most important skill that people needed to adopt

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: in response to an always online world.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But as the world becomes highly polarized and angrier

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and disinformation spreads in every direction,

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the ability to reserve moral judgment and be slow to draw conclusions

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_01]: may become the next critical new skill necessary to survive in the Twitter-driven world.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And principle number three,

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit of truth exists in everything,

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: but the whole truth in nothing.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I discovered this principle from reading Ken Wilbur when I was younger

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: and it served me well intellectually throughout my life.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Wilbur used to quit, quote,

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: no one is smart enough to be wrong about everything, end quote.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, even if we disagree with someone horribly,

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: there's always an opportunity to at least understand what may be true or useful about their views.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: For example, I believe astrology is almost certainly wrong,

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's based upon some assumptions that are probably true.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_01]: People's innate personalities do differ.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: These innate differences are largely predictable and measurable.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_01]: There's even research that has shown that personalities can differ a tiny amount

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: based on which season of the year someone is born in.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's quite different than believing the hour, day, and month you are born

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: can affect your whole life, but it's something.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01]: This ability to seek the pieces of truth in a larger, erroneous whole

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01]: is an important skill to develop.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_01]: For one, it makes you learn much faster,

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: but also makes you more sympathetic to people who believe differently than you.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Most importantly, it helps you develop the ability to change your mind

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_01]: when warranted, a skill that is horribly underrated these days.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Because the flip side of this principle is that while nothing is completely wrong,

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_01]: nothing is completely correct either.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: No religion, ideology, or belief system has a monopoly on the truth.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And understanding that is necessary to, again,

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_01]: keep us learning, sympathizing, and being willing to change our minds and grow.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Because we humans derive a lot of psychological comfort in feeling

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: as though we have found that capital T truth, our own little personal final answer.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But the reminder that there is no such thing as the final answer of life,

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that life is merely an endless process of slightly less wrong answers

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: to each of our questions, is not only necessary for a strong mind,

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: it is itself, and incomplete truth.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: You just listened to the post titled,

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Three Principles for a Better Life by Mark Manson of Mark Manson Donat.

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[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you to Mark.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Good point there in principle one that we don't talk about too often

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: but really is important with a podcast, especially like this one.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That self-improvement is great.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe one of the reasons you found this podcast

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and are listening right now to better your mental health maybe.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But without that self-acceptance balance, it can turn messy quickly.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I personally tend to lean that way,

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: wanting to improve, to practice, track everything.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And that can have the reverse effect of what I'm trying to achieve

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_01]: which is better health and a happier life.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Instead staying on that middle path of not being too critical or always on,

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_01]: that can help.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't argue with number two either.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_01]: All of us have been and will be wrong about something sometime.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Being quick to judge or hate on others behind keyboard,

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: that's not helping anyone, it's just creating more divides.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a feeling this applies less to you though as a listener of this podcast.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: In my experience listeners of this show tend to be a bit more on the compassionate side.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_01]: But still we will be wrong and a little forgiveness and empathy or sympathy goes a long way.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So a couple of things to remember today.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And with that have a great rest of your day

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'll see you tomorrow for The Friday Show where your optimal life awaits.