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I'm going on tour to Australia, New Zealand & Bali in March. Come see me.​

The line comes from Hamlet, and it’s usually misheard as an insult. As if Shakespeare is sneering at morality - like ethics soften us, or thought drains courage from the body.

That’s not what’s happening, Shakespeare isn’t attacking goodness, he’s pointing at self-awareness and naming its cost.

In the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet isn’t really weighing life versus death.

He’s circling a more practical question: why do humans hesitate to act even when action would clearly relieve suffering?

Why do we endure situations we don’t want and why do we tolerate lives that we could in theory change?

Well… Pain isn’t the only obstacle, imagination is.

By “conscience,” Shakespeare means something closer to consciousness.

The ability to think ahead, judge ourselves and simulate futures before they arrive.

To see consequences coming and experience them emotionally in advance.

Unfortunately, that ability cuts both ways.

The very capacity that makes us reflective, ethical, and intelligent also makes us hesitant.

We imagine worst-case futures so vividly that we treat them as already real.

So courage isn’t defeated by fear.

It’s defeated by simulation.

We rehearse embarrassment, loss, rejection, and moral failure in advance, and the body responds as if those things have already happened.

Heart rate rises. Muscles tighten. Avoidance feels sensible. Inaction feels like safety.

Reflection drains us.

Not because thinking is bad, but because it multiplies potential outcomes faster than our actions can deal with them.

Animals don’t suffer this - they just act when a threshold is crossed.

Humans linger, and by the time the moment to move arrives, we feel as though we’ve already lived through its inevitable failure.

So we wait.

This is the deeper psychological point Shakespeare is making - our intelligence doesn’t just protect us, it inhibits us.

We learn quickly from mistakes we make.

We almost never feel the cost of mistakes we avoid.

The humiliation of speaking and failing leaves a scar.

The decades-long erosion of never speaking leaves nothing you can point to.

Which explains why people stay in the wrong job, the wrong relationship, the wrong version of themselves for years.

Not because they don’t know better, but because action demands stepping into an unrehearsed future.

Hamlet names the real enemy: uncertainty.

Not pain or effort but rather, the unknown.

The mind would rather endure a familiar misery than gamble on an unfamiliar freedom.

Even suffering becomes tolerable once it’s predictable.

People would rather spend years in misery than risk a few days of pain.

This is why modern life, despite being safer than any previous era, often feels more paralysing.

Our nervous system evolved to avoid death and lions, now we use it to avoid embarrassment, misjudgement, reputational damage and identity fracture.

And here’s the final uncomfortable implication Shakespeare leaves hanging - self-awareness is not a pure good.

Beyond a certain point, it actually inhibits agency.

Less reflection can mean more peace.

Less certainty can mean more movement.

Less conscience can sometimes mean more life.

Courage isn’t about thinking clearly.

Courage is moving while things are still unclear.

A life can be deeply examined and still never lived.

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MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent.
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This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Joe Hudson - the goat of self-work is back. I cry at a song, Joe tells me how to stop arguing with your partner all the time, it’s brilliant. Don’t miss. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
Russ - blown away by how deep this rapper & artist is. How can you balance a desire for achievement with a need to be present? Nearly 3 hours of deepness.

Saturday.
Jonathan Swanson - how to outsource your life, delegate and use assistants to free up your time. Some great tactics for people with $0 and $10M.

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THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​Why do women get PMS?

Evolutionary biologist Michael Gillings offers a provocative suggestion: The condition nudged ancestral women to ditch infertile partners.

For most of our evolutionary history, women were pregnant or breastfeeding most of the time, and thus regular menstrual cycles were rare… except among women paired with men who couldn’t get them pregnant.

If premenstrual irritability increased the chances of such pairings dissolving, women could move on to more fertile partners, boosting their odds of passing on their genes.

Supporting evidence for the theory includes the fact that anger during PMS is often directed at one’s partner.

If Gillings is right, then PMS isn’t a biological accident but an evolved mechanism now mismatched with the modern world - a world in which even fertile couples often choose to postpone having children or forgo it altogether. — h/t Steve Stewart-Williams

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2.
​You don’t get results from work you didn’t do.

Stop complaining about the life you’re not living from the lifestyle you’re not living.

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3.
​Basically the central conundrum of all hard chargers, and the question I’m mostly focussed on deconstructing on the show in 2026.

“I want to strive for a lot but not miss my life.”

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LIFE HACK

Goop Kitchen.

I spent the last month on the road, mostly in California.

I didn’t know that Gwyneth Paltrow had made her own version of Flower Child.

As much as I can’t read “Goop” without thinking of that vagina candle she released, honestly the food rips I was really impressed.

No idea how many of these there are, but if Goop Kitchen pops up on your Uber Eats, it’s highly recommended.
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Big love,
Chris x

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