Opinion

When it comes to other people’s opinions: https://open.spotify.com/track/23JgWb9lG1l0k6MHbBkNLf?si=7df9711d5b6845c2 Opinions are the cheapest commodity on Earth. Just like a cheap, nasty hamburger. But it’s best you don’t digest.

My Opinions

These are weaknesses about myself that I need to work on.

Other takes:

• R-Scores and Education
• Lessons about Leadership from “Dicks”

Don’t think, just do

Or more like think less, do more.

society is run more by doers and not as much by thinkers like you. You just do things right, and doing is the thing that actually will produce an output. Just put things out there, right? Stop overthinking about what people will think. I think living that kind of life will make you have less regrets, right, like more action, more agency.

of course, being able to think and have opinions is extremely valuable, because you want to be like an intellectual person. I think, though, through your actions you learn a lot more than just purely thinking. I think, empirically, you learn a lot more.

You can tell who wants something unusual by how much social discomfort they can tolerate.

I.e. not being a people-pleaser

You need to be able to think for yourself and be more decisive as a person. If you struggle to make decisions, then you will get stuck in life.

• I notice that when I try to make a decision, especially when it comes to food (which is a very common occurrence, like when I went to Ken Sushi yesterday), I tend to be very indecisive. What I do is I try to picture myself if I had made those decisions and I look at how I feel about it. For example, I was debating between eating a bulgogi mental box or a chicken mental box, and I picture myself eating both of them. The conclusion was still kind of indecisive; it wasn’t the most satisfying. It’s like, “Okay, that was kind of good but not the best”. So that is the case where I make decisions based on my feelings. I try to feel out how I feel when I make a decision, and because I’m not swayed in a particular direction, I tend to be extremely indecisive. However, if you look at it logically, the bulgogi has better nutrition facts, so it’s much easier to make decisions logically, because you know reasoning out the pros and cons is extremely easy. We go: we have the highest protein content, or is chicken cheaper? Depending on your access optimisation, it is some way easier to make decisions logically than emotionally, and I think if you’re more logical as a person then you can become more assertive. And you need to be decisive, maybe assertive is not the right word.
• I think whenever I make decisions based on how I feel, I actually tend to struggle a lot, whereas when I make decisions based on logic, it’s extremely easy, which makes me, I guess, an I guess a T person.

For example, when I edit, I edit purely based off how I feel, or logically, sure, sometimes logically, but as I edit I look at how I feel as a viewer. If I am not set, then I actually just need a stronger feeling. Feelings are good, but it takes me an extremely long time when I make decisions based on feelings rather than logic.

So, moving forward, there are two ways you can improve your decision-making speed. If you struggle to make decisions every day and it feels like a hassle, you’re going to have a bad time, Steven. Either:

• Make your feelings-based decisions into emotion-baed
• Improve your feeling based decisions

Weak preference is ENOUGH

Accept weak preference as enough. You do not need 90% certainty. If one option is only 55% more appealing, that is often enough.

• A lot of indecision comes from acting like a decision is invalid unless it feels amazing.

Then thoughts on the saying "If it's not a fuck yes, it's fuck no"?

I think that saying is good as a filter for a few situations, but terrible as a general rule. It works well for:

• dating
• big commitments
• sketchy opportunities
• things that create long-term obligations
• cases where hesitation is itself meaningful

In those cases, “not a strong yes” often really does mean “no.”

But for everyday life, it can make people way too rigid. A lot of good choices are not “fuck yes” choices. They are more like:

• 55% yes
• slightly better than the alternative
• good enough
• not exciting, but still right>

It is almost never good to short-term over long-term gains (always choose type 2 and type 3 fun)

Default toward type 2 and type 3 fun, unless type 1 fun is serving a clear purpose.

Delayed Gratification

for instance, I chose to go play poker, which is the more fun thing short-term, rather than choosing to work on my videos, working on editing, because I have goals I want to achieve. While poker is really fun short-term, I built this memory of playing poker with friends; long-term is really not there. The problem is, if you measure the overall long-term happiness that I get from working on these projects versus the poker, it’s type two fun versus type one fun, and I think you should always choose type two fun.

The other subtle point is that type 2 fun often becomes type 1 fun later. Once you get better, build momentum, and start seeing results, the hard meaningful thing can also become genuinely enjoyable in the moment. So choosing type 2 fun is often an investment in future type 1 fun too.

The delayed life plan

The delayed life plan doesn’t really work, so they so. if you’re not happy now, then you won’t be happy later. for example, people are going through suffering right now, and they’re like, “I’m suffering now, but I’m working towards a better life later, and then I will be happy later.” There’s a lot of criticism around these kinds of people. They’re like, “If you’re not going to be happy now, you’re not going to be happy later.” For example, if you’re studying computer science and you’re like, “I’m not happy now, I don’t really enjoy doing computer science, but once I graduate I start making money, then I’ll enjoy it because I’m going to be making money.” I would hate on those people because I’m like, “Dude, if you don’t enjoy CS, then you’re going to really hate it for the rest of your life, so you might as well pick something that you enjoy.” At the time, I really enjoyed CS, so I could not really relate. Now it’s like, as I think about what makes me happy and enjoyable, it’s usually not work; it’s more fun hobbies like sports and opera, let’s say. The issue is that by not delaying my life plan, I only choose short-term fun, because I’m like, “Okay, I’m happy by doing these short-term fun things, but actually I’m not happy, I’m not content with my life.”

Do not live for later, but do live in a way that later can thank you for.

Choose Contentment over happiness