Painful Realities of Human Nature
Painful Realities of Human Nature
Three Point Thursday #6 | Changing Yourself, Being Judged, and Psychological Tendencies
Here’s your weekly three-pointer, to open your mind.
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The mission of “Three Point Thursday” & about the author here
No Change, No Growth
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”—Winston Churchill
The only constant in the universe is change.
Earth is always rotating. Empires rise and fall. Humans are born and die.
Even though everything in existence perpetually changes, some people feel embarrassed when they do so.
A predictable response from some people when you make a change in your life:
“Why are you trying be like that? *laughing* Remember you…(insert old story/tendency from the past)”
Sadly, people let comments like this derail them from continuing with a change they were excited about.
More predictable reactions from people after a big change:
“You’re so different now, It’s sad, I don’t know you anymore”
“Damn, you switched up, you’re being fake”
It may hurt to hear people mock you or try to make you feel guilty for becoming different than you used to be.
But it won’t sting for long, if you just realize statements like that come from idiots.
Only fools fail to alter all the habits, ways of thinking, and relationships they’ve had since high school or childhood.
They don’t even consider their long-held beliefs, actions, and associations not being beneficial for them.
They never change.
Not adapting as time goes on, these types of people have a lower probability of future success (in general).
Keep evolving anyway.
The Present Moment is All that Exists
“What often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past.”—Robert Greene
You can only change for the future.
You can never change what’s already happened. No matter how much you wish you could erase a past blunder, it’s not possible.
No one has ever gone back in time.
When you mess up you always have two options:
Dwell on it
Accept it, learn from it, & move on
No matter how upsetting a mistake was, these are the only two choices.
Choosing to accept and learn from it won’t make it any less painful. But at least it’s practical—you use the error as fuel to become better instead of just whining, which doesn’t solve anything.
Dwelling on mistakes and letting them define you is one of the easiest ways to be a loser. Just complain about your past and don’t make adjustments for the future. Easy. Loser.
Don’t be like that.
Instead, focus your energy on making modifications to your life that your future self will thank you for.
Humans Always Judge Other Humans
We are social creatures. Many conversations are gossip.
Understand: People will talk about you regardless of what you do.
Whether you’re trying to live up to their expectations, or just doing your own thing, there’ll be chatter.
Gossip either way.
Recognizing this, it becomes clear that you should just do what you want to do!
Sounds obvious, because it is.
In reality however, people struggle to pursue or share their real passions or ideas because they are scared of how others will react.
But this is literally pointless—you can never control other people's perceptions!
Yet you still spend egregious amounts of time worrying about how people perceive you, which accomplishes nothing.
Again—although it’s difficult to avoid, it’s important to know that it’s an incredible waste of time to worry about how people view you.
Everyone wants to be liked. You understandably want others to think you’re intelligent, hard working, and a good person.
Who doesn’t want that? I definitely do.
But putting on an act, doing things you hate just to try and win favor with someone, and being someone who you’re really not in an attempt to show your worth? That’s just ridiculous, and also sad.
“The people you most want to impress can read your intentions.”—Naval Ravikant
People respect authenticity. They’d like it more anyways if you were just being your genuine self, doing what you actually enjoy, saying what you really think.
Everyone is Screwed up Anyways
“Care about what other people think you will always be their prisoner.”—Lao Tzu
It’s ironic how you often want to win praise from people you don’t even like. Or people you don’t even talk to anymore. Or people you don’t even know!
How does this make sense?
It doesn’t.
Why does it happen then?
One explanation is that it comes from (wrongly) assuming that the people you associate with don’t have problems.
That they’ve got it all figured out.
Reality: Everyone’s fucked up in one way or another. So stop taking what other people say as the ultimate truth.
Even if they are older than you, or have a lot of money, or whatever.
It’s not to say you should ignore criticism or completely disregard what others say—considering different opinions and your own faults pointed out by others is often a smart thing to do (as long as you don’t get emotional and take it personally).
But what other people say to or about you is never the word of God. So don’t let your mind convince you that it is. Rather, realize that it’s just the opinion of another flawed human being.
Former Navy SEAL David Goggins explains this dynamic perfectly in 40 seconds:
The Spotlight Effect
Yes, people will talk about you regardless of what you do…but not as much as you think.
The spotlight effect is a psychological tendency humans have in which they believe their appearance and actions are noticed more than they actually are.
The reality is, most people are self-absorbed.
No one thinks or talks about you as much as you imagine—everyone is too busy worrying about themselves!
I experienced this effect when I was recording videos of me shooting a basketball at Umass.
Even though I have supreme confidence in my jump shot, I would still feel a bit of anxiety about other people watching and judging me for taking videos (heightened by the fact I’d ask random people to rebound and record for me).
In reality, no one cared.
And even if they did, so what?
People just kept going about their business working out. Probably worrying about who was looking at them too.
I bet that many, if not the majority of people experience this spotlight feeling daily. Especially if you’re walking around a city university.
Social media almost certainly exacerbates this phenomenon.
But realistically: Even if you have a lot of followers, most people see one of your posts and think about it for a second.
Then, they're onto the next post.
Then, they put their phone down and BAM! They return to thinking about themselves.
Meanwhile, you’re worrying that everyone is analyzing your post & criticizing your entire life story because they saw you on their timeline.
Unlikely.
Relax, no one is watching your every move.
They’re watching themselves.
“Most people are far too occupied with themselves to be malicious.”—Friedrich Nietzsche