My biggest personality changes over the years | #36

voting, holidays, making my bed, astrology, marketing, fiction, bed frames

Hello friends!

Today, I’m telling a story about a lot of my personal growth over the last decade. The seed for a lot of what I believe today was planted almost 9 years ago.

I changed my mind about a lot of things. For example,

• voting

• making my bed

• astrology

• holidays

• marketing

• bed frames

To me, they’re all *very* related. This issue is about how.

Enjoy!

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In Spring 2015 I went an entrepreneurship thing at my university.

The goal was to workshop a business idea over the weekend and then pitch it to investors the school brought in.

It was fun. I saw many bad pitches and a few good ones. It taught me

1. how BAD at it most people are at pitching when they first start and

2. how much of a difference a good pitch can make

But what I remember the most from that event was this one guy's peculiar behavior. We'll call him Ed.

While most of us dedicated a lot of that weekend to pitch practice, Ed refused to rehearse.

Several staff and mentors were perplexed. One urged him explicitly to practice the day before the official pitches.

He didn't budge.

"Nah, I got this."

Later, when we all gave our pitches, his was mediocre. His lack of preparation was obvious.

I couldn't articulate why at the time, but I identified with him. Something about his behavior felt familiar.

Over the years, many of my own behaviors and sentiments reminded me of him. Here are a few that feel similar in spirit:

• not voting ("it's pointless, my vote doesn't count")

• refusing to make my bed ("it's going to get messy again tonight")

• absolutist "function over form" engineering mindset

• not being into holidays

• "Having that remote from Click (2006) would be amazing!"

• "I can't get hypnotized"

• "astrology, tarot cards, etc, are stupid"

• "marketing is stupid"

• "i don't ever read fiction"

• "why would i care about form at the gym, if i can lift it and it doesn't hurt i'm good"

• "i'm not going to play that game, i'm not good at it"

• "if a tree falls and no one hears it then it doesn't matter"

• "why do i need a bed frame?"

• "fashion is stupid"

My hope is that you read that list and you're thinking, OHH I see what he's gesturing at.

But I'm not sure it's obvious what all those things have in common, so I'll spell it out.

In short, it's being too invested in one's own rituals and lacking respect for those of others. Hence, being blind to their value.

It's arrogance. A resistance to surrender. A lack of epistemic humility, like the Pharisees from the Bible.

It's a tendency to bend over dollars to pick up pennies. Having fun is more about achieving goals and less about self-expression.

That's why not wanting to practice his pitch felt familiar to me. He was unwilling to surrender to our ritual, to consider that it might be better for him.

I used to not vote.

I told people that I didn't vote because my vote wouldn't make a difference, so why bother? In reality, I didn't care to find out if it would or not.

Now, I realize that there are some elections where my vote could make a difference. Sometimes that difference is meaningful to me, but more often it's meaningful to people I love.

I don't vote because I believe it will make a difference. It probably won't.

I vote for my own internal harmony. As a statement to the universe about who I want to be and what I stand for.

I used to not make my bed.

And honestly I still don't lol. But now, I don't resist the idea. I view it as an earnest signal to the universe that I want today to go well and I'm willing to put in the work to make that happen. It's on my list of habits to adopt.

I used to low-key dread holidays.

Halloween? Ugh, why am I forced to dress up?

Christmas? Ugh, why am I forced to give people presents?

Valentine's Day? Ugh, I guess I have to do something for my S/O otherwise it looks bad.

I viewed them as temporary inconvenient social pressure. What thing do I have to do this time to avoid looking like a stick-in-the-mud?

In the past I didn't surrender to their spirit because I resented them. I felt like I didn't have a choice: do the thing or be ostracized.

At some point I realized: I do have a choice. And I should strive to always act by my beliefs and values. If people want me to do things that go against my beliefs and values, I can decline. And I'll be better off for doing so.

But these holidays don't fit that description. They're opportunities to honor ideas that I do believe in. Fun, gratitude, love.

So, now I view them as celebrations. They're traditions that are contagious if I surrender to their energy. And why wouldn't I?

I used to think marketing, fashion, and bed frames were stupid.

What's the point of marketing? If it's a good product, I'll hear about it. Or I'll recognize it as good myself and I'll buy it. Anything else to push sales is sleezy.

What's the point of fashion? Why don't we all just wear what we're comfortable in? Why does it matter what it looks like? Why do we listen to these corporations who prey on our insecurities to move their merch?

Why is it such a big deal if I don't have a bed frame? What's the point? I can just as easily sleep on a mattress on the floor.

I clung to these 3 beliefs for a long time. They're all rooted in the same error: being unwilling to see the value in the experience.

People buy when they feel understood. People want to express themselves. Getting on a mattress at waist level feels better than getting on one at foot level.

Similar deal with thinking astrology is stupid, not being interested in fiction, and not wanting to play games I'm not good at.

They're all about not wanting to surrender. Is astrology "accurate"? Doesn't matter. It's fun to think about. It's a conduit for thinking, laughing, and bonding. It's harmless stereotyping.

The experience of reading fiction is fulfilling, if I let it fulfill me. Not everything I do has to be productive or move the needle somehow.

I don't have to win the games I play. That's the entire point of a game: it doesn't matter, it's for fun. If I'm not having fun, I've lost. And I can let myself have fun anytime I want to. I just have to be earnest.

So, that's how I operate my life now. Be as humble as possible. Remember that I barely know anything and I control barely anything. But I should be earnest anyway and do my best. Not for the outcome, but my own internal harmony.