Hello there,
Hope you guys are doing safe!
When I started out this newsletter in April, it was with 14 subscribers – just family and close friends. In the 2 months that have passed, this number has increased to 49. I'm thankful for all the love and support that's coming in from various quarters and this keeps me on my toes.
Here's wishing all the dads out there - Happy Father's Day!
This is how my day started off:
My Daughter - "Happy Father's Day!"
My Wife - "Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad."
and so
My daughter - "Happy Dad's Day!"
I'm grateful for this. (-:
We're all too familiar with the story of two neighbours. One of them gets a pay raise and splurges on a flashy car. The other neighbour wants to gain one-upmanship and buys an even flashier sports car. This enrages the former. He spends a fortune upgrading his house, throws a lavish party inviting family, friends and neighbours. The latter doesn't want to be left behind. The rat race continues.
A rat race is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. The phrase equates humans to rats attempting to earn a reward such as cheese, in vain. It may also refer to a competitive struggle to get ahead financially or routinely.
The term is commonly associated with an exhausting, repetitive lifestyle that leaves no time for relaxation or enjoyment. - Wikipedia
There's a rat race with enormous shoving and pushing happening these days. Everyone’s racing to some place, trying to be better than the one ahead. Thanks to social media, the race only got tougher and uglier. The emergence of a consumerist society has further placed the odds in favour of the risks.
By running this race we risk losing this - "Living a life."
We presume that we're pushing and shoving our way past others. But in reality we are only jostling against ourselves. This isn’t a race which we win. It isn’t one in which anyone wins. It’s a race against time; and history has shown – that the odds are always in favour of time.
We have established a base line for the type of life we lead in society. We do not want to lose the "Social Status" we have awarded ourselves. There is a constant need to keep up with the Joneses. This fear drives us to work more, earn more and we start the endless cycle of hoarding.
Enter the Hedonic Treadmill. The Hedonic Treadmill ascribes that happiness will always return to a baseline level, regardless of what happens to people in their lives. At first it seems like the more the merrier. That shiny new car which was exciting to drive doesn't feel shiny after a few months. That VIP club membership doesn't make one feel like a VIP after a year. So we head on to the next thing which will satiate our competing desires.
This puts us in a constant state of flux and worry about missing out on the next BIG thing. Amidst this we lose track of the important things in our life. Enjoying a sunrise, sharing a quiet moment with a loved one, taking a dip into your inner self and experiencing clarity. These are moments that make the possessions you hoard seem completely insignificant.
There's insane focus on competing with others. In doing so, we cast away the wonderful world each one of us have created. We can savour every moment of this journey when we walk our own path. We have created our own world to have a fulfilling life. Let us not use it as a barometer to measure success. It isn’t worth expending all our energy chasing happiness only to find that there’s none left to be happy at all. This may very well be the first step in deviating from the life of pointless pursuits. The fear of losing our status in life will start waning and life will be an enjoyable journey.
Often we see the monk smiling in his nineties and the monarch greying in his thirties.
The choice is ours - to either be the Monk or the Monarch.
Here’s some interesting stuff I came across last week:
Real Growth & Fake Growth: Technology, Science, and Long-term Focus by Juan David Campolargo: “If we’re able to bring back and encourage the combination of science and entrepreneurship to bring back real growth, we also need to think about what composes a “good society.” Growth cannot be our only goal….A good society will be one where everyone can enjoy the material foundations of a good life. A good society will be one where one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. A good society will be one where we acknowledge that a realistic narrative of a good life will be crucial to creating a better life and more sustainable society”
Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Societies by Peter Turchin: “Intense intra-elite competition, however, leads to the rise of rival power networks, which increasingly subvert the rules of political engagement to get ahead of the opposition. Instead of competing on their own merits, or the merits of their political platforms, candidates increasingly rely on “dirty tricks” such as character assassination (and, in historical cases, literal assassination). As a result, excessive competition results in the unraveling of prosocial, cooperative norms (this is a general phenomenon that is not limited to political life).”
That’s a good idea by Seth Godin: “..after every good idea, there are at least 100 steps of iteration, learning, adjustment, innovation and effort.”
Why Do People Avoid Facts That Could Help Them? by Francesca Gino: “Information avoidance can be a problem, of course, if it keeps us from learning things that would help us make smarter choices (those regarding our health, for example, or our finances). But declining to learn available information does allow us to forego some of the suffering that knowing the future may cause—and to enjoy the sense of suspense that pleasurable events provide. There seems to be some magic in the maybe.”
33 Things I Stole From People Smarter Than Me by Ryan Holiday: “Peter Thiel: “Competition is for losers.” I loved this the second I heard it. When people compete, somebody loses. So go where you’re the only one. Do what only you can do. Run a race with yourself.”
Here’s a thought I’m ruminating on - “Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” - Viktor Frankl
Stay safe and take care.
Till next weekend,
Prashanth