15 Unpopular Opinions to Live By
If you only aimed at what’s popular, you might get caught in group-think, ignore your instincts and interests, and it’d be harder to realize your blind spots. The artist and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal said, “Pay attention to what you pay attention to.” And what a wonderful reminder that is. The stimulation that grabs at us does so for a reason. As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would say, “Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!”
I, for one, like to flex my contrarian muscles often. Where am I looking at problems single-mindedly? Where have I accepted a conclusion too soon? Where am I influenced by social and cultural biases about how I’m supposed to act or what I’m supposed to do to find fulfillment? Where am I listening to others without regarding my inner compass? It’s been a conclusion of mine that if you have an alternate opinion, it might mean you’re right.
Life is as much about doing as it is about thinking. We have to break down our value systems to see which ones hold weight, which are true, and sometimes we have to flatter ideas that sound absurd just to see if their consideration has value. Why not give everything a chance? Why ever dismiss anything as a possible truth or opportunity until we’ve given it full consideration?
Here are 15 opinions that aren’t the most common, but are useful as frameworks or considerations toward how to live one’s life.
1. Most events are escapism.
Many events aren’t attended for the use they provide, but for the escape they facilitate. It could be argued that any form of entertainment is an escape, but some forms lack substance and are more mindless than others. These types leave the attendee without any tangible takeaway. Going to an amusement park usually won’t provide the same perspective and experience as an art gallery or watching a historic film, for example. Our minds don’t have to be idle as they pursue entertainment.
John D. Rockefeller, Sr., one of the greatest businessmen the world has ever seen, credited his lack of indulgence in popular past times as a source of health as he aged. Whether this is true or not we don’t know, but the additional leisure and peace certainly couldn’t have hurt. According to Ron Chernow in his biography Titan about the business mogul, Rockefeller would say, “I attribute my good condition to my almost reckless independence in determining for myself what to do and the rigid adhering to regulations which give me the maximum of rest and quiet and leisure, and I am being richly paid for it every day.”
According to Rockefeller, these virtuous habits were medicinal. His life might have gone to extremes that most of us wouldn’t adhere to, but the formula worked for him. He’d add, “I enjoy the best of health. What a compensation for the loss of the theatres, the clubs, the dinners, the dissipations which ruined the health of many of my acquaintances long, long years ago…I was satisfied with cold water and skimmed milk, and enjoyed my sleep. What a pity that more men did not enjoy these simpler things!”
2. Why do anything that lacks ROI?
The following is a passage from the Meditations of the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius.
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work–as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for–the things which I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’
–But it’s nicer here…
So you were born to feel “nice?” Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?
–But we have to sleep sometime…Agreed. But nature set a limit on that–as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash and eat.”
Our job on earth isn’t just to survive and enjoy ourselves. It’s also to leave an impact with the skills and the abilities that we’ve been granted. To do so, we have to sharpen our toolkits constantly. This sharpening even happens in our free time. In the hunt for sharpening tools, we’re chasing down a return on our investment (ROI). Similar to number one on this list, why do anything that lacks in ROI?
That doesn’t mean we have to fill our life with work. But some pastimes are better for the mind and the soul and they’ll leave us more refreshed than others. If our lives are the sum total of ROI — and I think this is literally true, because what we do determines our quality of life — then why do anything that doesn’t add to our overall life ROI? If there isn’t anything positive to be gained from something, why do it?
This approach is useful for anything deemed as escapism or counter-productive. Most of the entertainment we pursue will be but a blip in history. But the results of our lives? We have to live with those consequences forever. As the historian Thucydides would say, which we can apply to our life’s work, “I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.”
3. Either nothing matters, or the equivalent is true.
The nihilist and the relativist and existentialism and many in between may shout that nothing matters and everything is relative. There’s no point to anything, so why not do as we please? Better yet, why do anything at all? Aside from the very real and external consequences of never taking action, we know that this strategy leads to nowhere and isn’t conducive to any productive gains towards a balanced mind.
If we acknowledge the yin and yang in all aspects of life — that without sleep there is no awake, existence of evil implies good, an action can have inaction — can’t we conclude that there’s an alternative to today’s popular relativist philosophies? If everything is relative, there must be another side of the coin that says nothing is relative and everything is of utter importance. Like Pascal’s Wager about the existence of God, if we choose the latter philosophy, we have much more to gain if it ends up being true.
4. “Life isn’t about purpose, it’s about execution.” — Nassim Taleb
I’ll say it in a later number, but we hardly understand ourselves. We hardly know what we truly want or would make us happy. Otherwise, wouldn’t we all be living in a constant state of happiness? If we can’t seem to do that, then we must not be doing a good job of discovering and applying the supposed things that make us happy.
As everything on the planet has a purpose, it would only be reasonable that we do to. But whether or not we truly understand our purpose is up for debate. How often do we arbitrarily assign ourselves a purpose that we’ve only given ourselves because we like the results that that hypothetical purpose would give us? We often like ideas of prestige, power, or status that is gained from arbitrary purposes we’ve assigned ourselves.
Our lives are like the statue whose sculptor chips away until the work is finished. As he creates, he might not realize where the product is heading. Before we can chisel out a masterpiece or see the direction, we must start by executing somewhere and simply moving forward. Then, and only then, will we begin to get a clearer idea of the roads that we should follow.
And if we don’t have any better ideas about what to chase? We can use the tried and true methods — religion, philosophy, and copying what others who we admire have done. And if everyone else is doing something and it seems reasonable and healthy for a human, what are we waiting for? We shouldn’t naively follow the crowd, but sometimes the crowd knows best. There’s a reason we all drink water.
5. We have so many blind spots that we don’t even know what we’re doing wrong.
You don’t really see yourself. You live your life as you, but that’s not the same as observing you. Everything is an appearance, and everyone we interact with has a different interpretation of that appearance. Who’s to say which interpretation of you is the accurate one? Better yet, if you aren’t watching you, how do you know where you’re wrong?
We don’t know what we don’t know. We likely don’t realize what we’re bad at or where we could improve the way that those who interact with us are able to see. We have so many blind spots that we don’t know what we’re doing wrong, and we don’t even know where to look. So why are we so sensitive in reaching out for feedback, if that feedback will improve us and give us a better idea of how the world sees us? The results of our lives doesn’t happen in our heads, it happens in the real world — the one in which we work and play and exist.
6. We don’t understand ourselves.
Echoing number five, though others may see us on the outside, that doesn’t necessarily mean we can see ourselves on the inside. The unconscious lurks in the shadows and drives more decisions, opinions, and beliefs than we could ever realize. Much of what’s down there is based on past experience that we never fully hashed out, or that we haven’t even realized need hashing out.
If we don’t have the clarity of mind or a toolkit to reason with ourselves and try to get an understanding of the thoughts and perceptions that pass through, how will we ever get rid of what negatively lurks and affects our behavior? For this reason, we shouldn’t fret when others don’t understand us, and we should learn to be alone.
Don’t take yourself at face value. And don’t take yourself too seriously. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, “If you want to improve be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” So, find your monsters. Look stupid. Get better!
7. We weren’t made for one job.
Find any professional who does one job their whole life and they probably aren’t a happy professional. Even the statesman might have worked as a lawyer, a clerk, a banker, or an actor. The writer doesn’t only work as a writer, he also works as a researcher, transcriber, and likely a journalist. On his farm he might even work as a herdsman and rancher.
We aren’t meant for one thing. We can fulfill more than one duty. Is a mother only a mother? No way. She’s a sister, a friend, an employee, a boss, and a customer. So allow yourself to wear many hats. Learn new skills. Try new things. Realize that every job you take reveals lessons for the next job — but only if you have the clarity of mind to find them (both lessons and jobs).
8. We shouldn’t try not to wander.
Psychologists have shown that we aren’t fulfilled by goal completing, only goal pursuing. This is why any time we achieve anything of note we feel as though we’re on top of the mountain for a moment, only to feel lost and have to find a new mountain immediately after our success.
If a human has a soul, it only makes sense that the soul will keep wandering towards whatever it is a soul wanders toward. Don’t try to stop that process. What a blessing that we have the opportunity to wander and aren’t trapped in unconsciousness. No drug or seminar or trip abroad will cure us of our need to wander (and it may only hinder it if we’re wandering away from ourselves rather than towards).
But don’t forget that wandering means confronting things that we may not necessarily want to confront. There’s an axiom credited to the psychoanalyst Carl Jung that says, “That which you most need will be found where you least want to look.”
9. Life is suffering.
Many religions and schools of thought agree — life is suffering.
Everything is much easier if we embrace this fact. Life doesn’t get easier, we only get better at coping, and we learn to get stronger. Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson gives the much needed advice that we should “Accept your suffering voluntarily and try to transform as a consequence.” This is similar to the idea in Christianity that one should carry their cross — their burdens — and transform through the process.
10. It takes one hell of an ego to not even consider the possibility of a God.
Who is the scientist but a scientist? The philosopher but a philosopher? The tech-mogul but a tech-mogul? Aren’t they each the same flesh and matter that fades with time like the rest of us? Maybe they were endowed with a greater intellect or scientific abilities, but anyone who firmly concludes that there isn’t a God must be filled with a rather large ego. At least the agnostic says he doesn’t know.
A properly adjusted religious man will hopefully admit that he’s had doubts and lives by faith. But the scientist? Only by fact. And facts change. Living only by fact takes gall.
11. Don’t chase and never be desperate.
If you’re chasing or desperate you can’t act with ration or reason. You lack self-control. Your better senses aren’t aiding you. In the land of enchantment, blind spots are ever more present.
Apply the systems that help you maintain rationality and avoid need. As fighter pilot John Boyd said, “The most important thing in life is to be free to do things. There are only two ways to insure that freedom — you can be rich or you can you reduce your needs to zero.”
12. The existential doesn’t go away, it only gets temporarily maintained.
This idea is effectively communicated in a blog post by Venkatesh Rao. It’s a long post, but it’s his explanation for how we can all create our own rules to live by, which is useful since life advice is so popular as of late. He uses an analogy of a triangle to explain his idea that we are always in an existential crisis. You should dive into the post to get a better understanding of his ideas and the triangle analogy, but here’s part of what Venkatesh says.
“The triangle isn’t real. It’s a map with fake lines made up to orient you. Those lines aren’t impenetrable walls designed to keep your inner Mexicans from coming at you. You can never really fence in the void, but you can be conscious of when your mind wanders close to it, and what it does when it does.
I like thinking of the void dot as a literal attention blackhole. When your attention wanders closer than you can handle, you can enter non-terminating thoughts. That’s why it’s the zone of infinite games and human-complete problem solving. If you descend towards the void and return, you may find a lot more time has passed than you experienced.
Each time you visit, thoughts that don’t kill you will make you stronger. But there’s always the chance that you’ll think that one thought that can break your mind.
Life rules won’t prevent that happening, but they’ll make sure you’re dressed in a dignified way for it. As Woody Allen said, eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.”
We can cage the beast until new questions or problems arise. But eventually, something worth summoning the existential happens, even if it isn’t our own doing. So, embrace the void.
13. Trying to improve is exhausting. Move forward at your own peril.
If you’re a person that has a tick toward life-hacking, productivity or improvement, realize how necessary balance is to avoid exhaustion.
Most channels on the internet are crowded, tiring, and echo chambers for frustrating and useless thought. Much of the wisdom you’ll need to improve and tidy up your life is found in ancient books and ideas.
Choose your online follows wisely. Find those that share good ideas and care about their message. And then, follow who these people follow. The internet is a tool, but it has to be used properly. (I realize the irony in talking about online noise while writing and contributing to such.)
Like Occam’s Razor, the simple answer is likely the correct one. Determine the good habits you’re willing to implement and apply to your life, find a framework for living, challenge yourself and embrace suffering, and just stick to the path.
As much as life-hacks seem to offer simple solutions and easy steps to get what you want, there’s no magic formula. It’s as simple as a consistent flow of effort = results, though you will need to brush up on some new techniques every now and then. Venkatesh Rao has a great framework for building your own life rules, but once you’ve got the basics, just get after it!
Wasting time reading about every magic formula or trying to find it is just that — wasted time.
14. The most valuable things are also the hardest.
Much of life’s success is directly correlated with the amount of effort and suffering that’s willing to be put in. Anything worth having or accomplishing will take a tremendous amount of effort.
Self-discipline and self-control are the most useful tools to aid you, but these themselves are difficult to accomplish, if ever possible. Always aiming to do what’s hardest is the best strategy.
15. Abstinence is easier than self-control
I buy chocolate and put it in the freezer. As long as I’m at my apartment, I’m tempted. I give in often. Sometimes I even eat it for breakfast. Self-control is much harder than abstinence, because if I abstained, I just wouldn’t buy the chocolate at all. If there’s no chocolate, there’s no temptation.
Discipline, abstinence and self-control seem like boring and pleasure-less ways to live — believe me, I used to think that, too — but there’s no boredom or lack of pleasure when you realize the many missteps that you’re preventing. A ‘boring’ life might just be another way of saying ‘a life that doesn’t have unnecessary problems.’ I’ll take boring any day. (And it’s quite the contrary. If you’re trying to push yourself mentally, physically, and in your daily disciplines, life is anything but boring. Challenges are never boring.)
