I like the framework. The idea that desire is a universal part of the human condition is a good one. In thinking about the three desires you've listed – possession, deliverance, and revenge – I can't help but wonder where internal desires fit. The listed desires seem external in nature; that is, something outside of the hero's inner world. Where does something like the pursuit of meaning, the hope that you will be remembered, or the desire to feel loved, fit? Those desires seem equally, if not more powerful as drivers of the human condition.
That was just an example. You're absolutely right, there are much more moving desires than listed.
I don't think, although, that there is such a thing as completely internal desire. Love and need to be loved can't happen without external intelligence.
I can think only one such motivator — fear of death. Which can lead to hope being remembered and other powerful motivs
It was a perfect storm for me. Other life events – moving, buying a car, burnout at work, etc. – helped create a psychological cascade that eventually won out on one rainy afternoon. Had a few other events not been there, might have been a different story, but that's the point of this guide. Regardless of the event or series of events, it will help keep the strategy clear and psychology more intact.
It seems that you're relating moral judgments ("right" or "wrong") with the level of success a company achieves. A company's success is not a moral question. A company that correctly identifies a trend and scales is no more "right" than a company that correctly identifies a trend and does not scale. So someone being "too early" does not have much of anything to do with how right or wrong they are. Rather, you're talking about how being "too early" relates to the probability that you build a successful business. But what's challenging with that line of thinking is that how you evaluate the "success" of your business is relative to your goals and reference points. If I'm "early" and build a $2M company that I'm happy with, it doesn't mean I'm a failure even if I could have built a $100M business down the road. I'm happy with the $2M, or maybe I'm happy with trying to start a business that failed. It depends on the person. Finally, the success of a business is a combination of many variables, not just the timing of when you started it. There are plenty of examples of people who started businesses at the perfect time, but that simply didn't have the combination of factors required to build a successful business.
Unless you're one of the few people who knows what they want from an early age, the only way you figure out what you want in life is to try a bunch of stuff and pay attention to how it goes. Eventually, you'll start piecing together the most enjoyable and important things for you. In all likelihood, many of those things will change over time, but some of them may stick.
For me, I found surfing at the age of 26. It's a crazy hard sport to pick up at a late age, but I sort of fell in love. Surfing replaced meditation, journaling, and other forms of exercise, and it gave me even more than any of those things could. It produced a level of zen and fulfillment that only two or three other activities do. I only figured that out by exploring like a mad man in my twenties, and I got lucky to stumble upon surfing.
It's the people who are too afraid to look and who get stuck in a comfortable path who don't ever figure out the real joys of their life.
This definitely gave me a firmer reason to continue exploring and learning more things.
What I am doing differently from what you've said is that I am not paying adequate attention to what I am doing.
It's interesting how the common narrative uses metrics like low unemployment rates during certain touted "economic highs" and claim correlates, yet the popular narrative casts aside the correlation during times like this and jump into ambiguities and positive outlook for justification during certain "economic downturns."
It really, IMHO, helps illustrate just how disconnected many of these metrics are from economic prosperity for the vast majority of Americans.
Paul Graham argues that the fragmentation in American society – polarized politics, diverging cultural values, and increasing economic inequality – is not the result of "some force that's pulling us apart, but rather the erosion of forces that had been pushing us together."
He says that two forces, World War II and the rise of corporations, kept the fabric of American society intact. As these forces have eroded, so has our cultural cohesion. It's an interesting thesis.
As COVID-19 ripples through our society and collective consciousness, I wonder if this will be a force that brings us together, or will it be one that pulls us apart?
Reading books is the best habit I've developed since graduating from college. I've used this system to retain more of what I read. It's definitely not perfect, but it's helped me get a lot more out of my time reading.
Curious if others have developed different techniques that have been helpful for retaining and applying knowledge from books. I feel like I can still get a lot better on this front.
For years, I traveled the world while working remotely. The freedom was great, but after a while, it all seemed to blur together. My life felt kind of pointless and transient.
Earlier this year, I decided to stop traveling to build more depth. Curious if others have had similar experiences?
I had a similar experience. Started nomading in 2016. The idea of being able to hop from one place to the next sounded amazing. In many ways it was, but it got old quickly. I think the hedonic treadmill accounts for a lot of this. I became completely numb to the experience.
I thought it would improve with "slowmad"-ing...instead of spending weeks places, I'd stay for months. But even then, everything still felt super transient. It's hard to develop relationships when you know that you or your friends will be leaving soon.
With COVID I was forced to settle down and even though the circumstances are horrible, there's solitude in not having to "know" where I'm going next.
