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3MM: Lessons, Dogs & Guilt
3 MINUTE MONDAYHi friend, I’ve been thinking about a special category of lesson - one which you cannot discover without experiencing it firsthand. There is a certain subset of advice that for some reason, we all refuse to learn through instruction. Unteachable Lessons. No matter how arduous or costly or effortful it is going to be for us to find out for ourselves, we prefer to disregard the mountains of warnings from our elders, songs, literature, historical catastrophes, public scandals and instead think some version of “yeah that might be true for THEM, but not for ME”. We decide to learn hard lessons the hard way over and over again. Unfortunately they all seem to be *the big things* too. It’s never insights about how to put up level shelves or charmingly introduce yourself at a cocktail party. Instead, we spend most of our lives learning firsthand the most important lessons that the previous generation already warned us about. Things like:
Even reading this list back, I’m rolling my eyes at how fucking trite it is. These are all basic bitch obvious insights that everybody has heard before. But if they’re so basic, why does everyone so reliably fall prey to them throughout our lives? And if they’re so obvious, why do people who have recently become famous or wealthy or lost a parent or gone through a breakup start to proclaim these facts with the renewed grandiose ceremony of someone who’s just gone through religious revelation? It’s also a list of very contentious points to say on the internet. If you have interview a billionaire who says that all his money didn’t make him happy, or a movie star who said her fame felt like a prison, the internet will tear them apart for being ungrateful and out of touch. So not only do we refuse to learn these lessons, we even refuse to hear the message from those warning us about them. Even more than that - for every one of these, if I think a bit deeper, I can recall a time (including right now) where I convinced myself that I’m the exception to the rule. That my particular mental makeup, or life situation, or historical wounds, or dreams for the future render me immune to these lessons being applicable. No no, MY unique inner landscape WOULD be fixed by skirting around the most well-known wisdom of the ages. No no, I CAN thread this needle properly, watch me dance through this minefield and avoid all the trip wires that everyone else kicks. And then you kick one. “And you will then share a knowing look, the kind that can only occur between two people who have been hurt in exactly the same way.” — Adam Mastroianni And a voice in the back of your mind will say “I told you so”. MODERN WISDOMI do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This week’s upcoming episodes: Monday. Thursday. Saturday. THINGS I'VE LEARNED1. “People who prefer dogs over cats reported higher levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion, while people who prefer cats showed higher openness to experience and neuroticism. This pattern held even after controlling for participant gender, and the pattern was similar in men and women.” — Rob Henderson 2. “If we are unduly absorbed in improving our lives we may forget altogether to live them." — Alan Watts 3. Ever notice how guilt does bear a certain correlation with the likelihood of getting caught? Guilt, which may originally have had the simple role of prompting payment of overdue debts, could begin to serve a second function: prompting the preemptive confession of cheating that seems on the verge of discovery. — Steve Stewart-Williams LIFE HACKThe Surface by Beartooth. I’m in love with this band. If Modern Wisdom was an album, I think it would sound like this. Upward-aiming, sanguine, reflective, hopeful. Listen now. Big love, Try my productivity drink Neutonic. PS |
3 Minute Monday
Podcaster with 1bn+ plays. I write about the most important lessons from the best thinkers on the planet. 300,000+ people read my free newsletter. Press subscribe to join.
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, The brand new Modern Wisdom Reading List Vol. 2 is live, featuring 100 more books to read before you die. Download it now - https://chriswillx.com/morebooks/ I saw a comment on one of my videos this week that really struck me. I wish I could remember who posted it but I can’t. Thank you for inspiring this essay <3 “Why is it that when I mess up it’s my fault but when other people mess up it’s also my fault?” Let’s call this The Atlas Complex. If you care too much...
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, We live with a quiet superstition: that beneath the noise of our habits, mistakes and contradictions lies a truer version of ourselves - a self that is fundamentally good. An alcoholic who gets sober is “becoming who he really is”, a sober man who starts drinking again has “lost his way.” In Scrooge, Dickens didn’t just write about a man who swapped stinginess for generosity; he wrote about a man who discovered his real nature. When Richard Nixon fell in disgrace,...
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, Humans have an asymmetry of errors. We over-index exceptions - we use things that break the pattern we’ve come to expect as a serious learning opportunity. But we tend to only learn much faster from errors of commission (things we do), not errors of omission (things we don’t do). You only learn the sting of misplaced trust when someone betrays you, but when you refuse to trust and miss out on love, partnership, or help, the loss leaves no scar to remind you. It’s...