10 Fundamental Truths That Everyone Would Be Happier if They Accepted

From my high-view-count Quora post on the subject.  In no particular order:

• It could always be worse – Always appreciate what you have, because someone, somewhere, sometime has had it worse than you.

• It could always be better – Records are meant to be broken, you’ll never be “done” as long as you keep growing, and you can keep chasing perfection without ever having to feel bad about never reaching it.

• People are different – Not everyone will agree with you, not everyone will like the same things as you, and not everyone will see things your way given the same information.  Accept it because diversity is what makes life interesting and makes us more capable as a society.  With different strengths and skills, someone who can sing plays the catchy new song for the person who can sew the singer’s outfit.  With different perspectives and opinions come new ideas and approaches that make society better.  The only thing you should be able to agree on is to “live and let live”—that is, try to live together in society without non-consensual harm.

• You will generally stick to what you like – While everyone is different and new experiences are wonderful, you will begin to find and stick with what you like and avoid what you don’t like.  That’s natural—why in the world would you hang around with people you don’t like, wear clothes you don’t like, do a job you don’t like, or eat food you don’t like?  Life’s too short to waste it being miserable.  Go after what want in life and don’t accept what you don’t want.

• Perception is reality – While the universe has some absolute, unchangeable attributes such as gravity, most of what we believe and hold true is based on perception, opinion, shared beliefs, or man-made mental/societal models.  Don’t be at the mercy of other people’s perception and let it become your reality if you don’t like it, and don’t force your perception onto other people if it’s not in line with their reality.  In that sense, you can create your own reality by owning your own property and making it exactly how you want it, and what happens elsewhere is other people’s concern and doesn’t have to be part of your day-to-day life experience.  However, if you do anything involving popularity, it’s all about popular opinion vs. reality, so do your best to influence it by being great at marketing.

• Your emotions are the signal, not the point – The meaning of life being happiness is one of the biggest misconceptions.  Happiness is a signal that you’re growing, not the point.  If it were the point, you could just hook your brain up to some electrodes or take drugs and live life in a state of bliss until you die (the technology already exists to do this).  Use your emotions to tell yourself about what you want, what you believe, and the meaning/significance of an experience to you, and you will learn what you want to do with your life.  And don’t “hack” your emotional feedback system with addictions—it messes up that feedback mechanism and stops you from focusing on healthy, growth-enabling experiences that lead to fulfillment.

• Doing things in the wrong way vs. the right way is the difference between pleasure and fulfillment – Lying, cheating, stealing, and putting in a half-hearted effort are all examples of activities that feel pleasurable (or at least less difficult) in the moment.  However, none of them feel fulfilling.  Try cheating to win a trophy and see how it feels when you know you didn’t deserve it vs. winning it legitimately.  There’s no contest.

• No one cares more about you than you – You may have loved ones that will take a bullet for you or fans that know the name of your first-grade teacher, but only you care about how you feel about everything, what you think about everything, how you are at every moment of the day, and what you want to accomplish.  The same applies to everyone else.  So “put on your oxygen mask before assisting others”—selfishness is only bad when it’s at others’ expense.  There is nothing wrong with taking care of yourself and doing well for yourself.  Anyone telling you in the moment to focus less on yourself is actually saying, “focus more on me”—who’s the selfish one in that exchange again?

• Help is good – Trying to break a twig with two hands is easy; trying to break a group of 20 twigs with those same two hands is extremely difficult if not impossible.  Support makes you exponentially better; ask for it and give it whenever you can.  If you’re afraid to ask for help, you’ll greatly limit your potential…if you don’t give help, you’ll limit others’ potential and not have help available when you need it.

• You always have a choice – It’s best if you minimize the use of, “I didn’t have a choice” in your speaking and writing.  You always have a choice in every situation, even if that choice is to react in a certain way or think in a certain way.  You have a choice of whether to comply with orders or not, to stay where you are or change position/location, or to continue doing what you’re doing or stop.  Everything is a choice.  Yes, you might have terrible options with horrible consequences, but it is so much better for your long-term mental health if instead of saying, “I didn’t have a choice,” you said, “My options were _________ and __________, so I chose __________.”  It keeps your sense of agency and self-determination so you never succumb to learned helplessness and stop trying to direct your life toward what you want and care about.