How to Guarantee a Life of Misery 7 Feb 2024 8:37 PM (last year)
Charlie Munger delivered a graduation speech at the Harvard School in 1986. During his talk, Charlie shared how to guarantee a life of misery.
Expanding on a talk Johnny Carson had done before titled, ‘Prescriptions for Misery,’ Charlie added a few twists of his own. ”After all, I am much older than Carson was when he spoke and have failed and been miserable more often and, in more ways, than was possible for a charming humorist speaking at younger age,” Charlie said.
Charlie expanded on Johnny Carson’s 3 prescriptions for misery and added 4 more prescriptions of his own for a total of 7 prescriptions.
These are the 7 prescriptions to guarantee a life of misery:
- Ingesting chemicals in an effort to alter mood or perception
- Envy
- Resentment
- Be unreliable
- Learn everything you can from own experience, minimize what you learn vicariously from the good and bad experience of others – living and dead
- To go down and stay down when you get your first, second, or third severe reverse in the battle of life
- To ignore a story told by a rustic who said: ‘I wish I know where I was going to die, and then I’d never go there’
A deep dive into each prescription:
- Ingesting chemicals in an effort to alter mood or perception
This topic was discussed around the concept of addiction. ‘Addiction can happen to any of us through a subtle process where the bonds of degradation are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.’
Charlie shared his four closest friends of his youth were intelligent, ethical, humorous types. Favored in person and background. But two are dead with alcohol as a contributing factor. And a third is a living alcoholic (if one can call it living).
2. Envy
Envy is an emotion we can feel when others get something in their lives that we may not have. Success, better job, better spouse, more money, status, etc.
In the bible, the first murder has its roots deeply embedded within envy. Cain envied that Abel’s offerings were favored by God. Cain then went on to murder Abel.
A simple emotion enough to drive temporary insanity to take the life of his own brother.
Robert Greene advised, “Be warned against people who harbor envy against us. As these people are dangerous and we ought to be aware of these people.”
Charlie Munger on envy:
‘The world is not driven by greed; it’s driven by envy.’
“Here’s one truth that perhaps your typical investment counsellor would disagree with: if you’re comfortably rich and someone else is getting richer faster than you by, for example, investing in risky stocks, so what?! Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy.”
“I think envy is one of the major problems of the human condition, and that’s why it figured so prominently in the laws of Moses. Remember, he said you couldn’t even covet your neighbor’s donkey.”
3. Resentment
‘Life is hard enough to swallow without squeezing in the bitter rind of resentment’ – Samuel Johnson.
In a talk between Robert Greene and Jordan Peterson, Greene mentioned that we have to acknowledge our dark side, which includes anger and resentment. Denying our dark side can only lead to negative consequences. Greene refers to the dark side as a ‘kicking and screaming 2 year old’. Which is an appropriate labeling, considering the amount of energy our dark side generates.
The feeling of resentment generates enough energy to make a person capable of starting a war. This same energy is also enough to drive a person to do something regrettable during moments of temporary insanity.
Greene recommends that we acknowledge our dark side. To find and channel anger towards a moral problem can provide purpose and energy.
On the other hand, Charlie recommends practicing Disraeli Compromise. Benjamin Disraeli became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and when he rose to become one of the greatest Prime Minister, he had to learn to give up vengeance as his motivation for action.
He did retain outlet for resentment by putting the names of people who wronged him on pieces of paper in a drawer. Then, from time to time, he reviewed these names and took pleasure in noting the way the world had taken his enemies down without his assistance.
4. Be unreliable
“If you will only master this one habit you will more than counterbalance the combined effect of all your virtues, howsoever great.” There is a reason why this is the number one habit that Charlie recommends on his expansion series of prescription on how to guarantee misery.
The upside of being reliable: Charlie told a story of his college roommate who was severely dyslexic. Major life disadvantage. Charlie then said, what works for him is he is the most reliable person that Charlie has ever known. Fast forward years later, Charlie said, ‘He has had a wonderful life so far, outstanding wife and children, chief executive of a multibillion-dollar corporation.’
Another example that Charlie gave is a man who mastered the work of his best predecessors, despite a poor start and very tough time in analytic geometry. By being reliable in showing up for his work, eventually his work attracted wide attention. The man is Sir Isaac Newton.
On being unreliable: If you like being distrusted and excluded from the best human contribution and company, this prescription is for you. Master this one habit and you can always play the role of the hare in the fable, except that instead of being outrun by one fine turtle you will be outrun by hordes and hordes of mediocre turtles and even by some mediocre turtles on crutches.
5. Learn everything you can from own experience, minimize what you learn vicariously from the good and bad experience of others – living and dead
This prescription is a sure-shot producer of misery and second-rate achievement.
When one ignores and does not learn from the good and the bad experience of others (both living and dead), it is the ego taunting on life and mortality.
The person assumes that life is long enough that he/she can afford to experience everything firsthand and learn from it. This person also assumes that all bad experiences would not damage them permanently and they can bounce back off of them. When in reality, a single bad experience can permanently put a person down.
On the benefits of learning vicariously from others: referring to the story of Sir Isaac Newton above, he credited his work to those who have laid the groundwork before him. “If I have seen a little farther than other men it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.” If one hopes to avoid misery and to see a little farther than others, it is prudent to learn vicariously from the good and bad experience of others.
6. To go down and stay down when you get your first, second, or third severe reverse in the battle of life
Charlie mentioned that even for the lucky and the wise, in the battle of life, there is much adversity.
To go down and stay down is a prescription to be permanently mired in misery.
This prescription touches on the resilience, perseverance, and grit.
To go through life without any resilience, perseverance, and grit is to go through life being easily pushed over and being quick to give up when faced with adversity.
It highlights the lack of resourcefulness to figure out a problem.
Jeff Bezos and his wife (at the time) let their four kids play with knives at age 4 and power tools at age 7. They said that they, ‘would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid.’
7. To ignore a story told by a rustic who said: ‘I wish I know where I was going to die, and then I’d never go there’
Charlie mentioned that in order to help fail and live in misery, people should discount the wisdom as mere quirk, with no useful message.
When in reality, the message here is to ‘Invert, Always Invert’ – Jacobi.
Many hard problems are best solved only when they are addressed backwards. By inverting, it also helps those who are looking to solve the problem to increase objectivity.
When one minimizes objectivity, he/she would ignore lessons from Einstein and Darwin of testing and destructing own ideas. In essence, he/she would create an echo chamber of potentially false ideas.
The topic of inverting is widely covered here: Invert, Always Invert – Ongky.com
“A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.” – Charlie Munger
Invert, Always Invert 28 Jan 2024 9:22 AM (last year)
Growing up in an educationally strict household, getting an A+ in school exams felt like the only source of joy.
Surely, it felt like it’s the only source of joy for our parents and something they can be proud of.
Our young subconscious minds were trained early-on to recognize that aiming for A+ is THE goal. We got positively reinforced and trained for it.
For 18 more years, the training and positive reinforcement increased. Add the social proof principle of your peers around you who are striving for the same thing. Hustling for an A+ becomes a self-reinforcing system concretely ingrained within us. Forever.
Then, as adults we enter the real world. Where everything is more chaotic than anything that the academia world can prepare us for.
A whole new world where everything is rapidly changing.
New things get introduced on a daily basis – new and always evolving technology, new concepts on how to navigate the world (like: how to make more money, how to save for retirement, how to online date, how to live healthy, how to raise good children, how to care for our older parents, how to be a good employee, how to start and grow a business, and on, and on.)
The list of new things keeps growing. And with how we have been trained for the last couple decades of striving for A+, we have to excel at these subjects. Or else.
The only thing is, everything is growing and evolving at a rate exponentially quicker than our brain can adapt to.
It doesn’t take long before the source of joy quickly becomes the source of misery.
After years where it felt like the misery kept mounting, the concept that Charlie Munger discussed frequently hit me. Though admittedly, it did not happen right away.
It was not until recently that, once it was thoroughly processed in my mind, it became very liberating. To the point where I use this concept so frequently that it feels like I am abusing it.
Only because life has gotten significantly better, internally and externally, since I began to consistently use it.
Instead of asking ‘How do I make sure I excel at this subject?’
The question now becomes, ‘How can I fail at this? And how can I fail at this as quickly and as largely as possible?’
Then avoid those things.
Why it works: because our mind uses its natural tendency to look for the negative in things. This time, we use it to our benefits.
How this principle was recently used:
After feeling ambitious, I took on additional responsibilities with work. It didn’t take long for the natural anxiety to kick in. Mainly, an anxiety around dealing with the unknowns, as well as questioning whether I have what it takes. Psychologists call it impostor syndrome.
Many can probably relate to this scenario – when these thoughts start to surface, it’s extremely easy to go into a spiral and doomsday scenario.
It goes something like this:
‘What if I don’t know what I’m doing? Sh*t, I will underperform and fail to meet expectations. That could easily lead to me getting fired. Then what? I will have to start living on savings. How long will that even last? What will everyone think of me? How can I even deal with the shame? With my status of being known as a failure? Can I even bounce back from that?’
Objectively speaking, these dominoes effect I put together in my head are not likely happen. But it all felt very real when anxiety kicks in and my brain draws out worst case scenarios as it is doing its job – to help survive.
Remembering Charlie’s advice of ‘Invert, Always Invert.’ I took out a notebook.
I questioned, ‘What can I do to make sure that I fail at this as largely and as quickly as possible?’
My mind went to work because it was incredibly easy to find A LOT of negative things. Again, taking advantage of the brain doing what it does to survive.
I will share what I wrote at a high-level to avoid some of the boring details. The following is what I wrote:
Here is how I can fail as largely and as quickly as possible:
- I could neglect all requests that come my way
- I could stop updating stakeholders on the status of my work and projects
- I could behave and act like an a**hole to my colleagues, as well as be quick to throw them under the bus
- I could stop exercising and neglect my health, altogether
- I could start binge drinking and binge eating to deal with stress
- I could start spending money frivolously and carelessly
Wow, that was easy.
Now, I just need to not do any of these things.
What a liberating experience. It feels like a lot of the burden has been taken off my shoulder.
The only way I can describe this liberating feeling is:
It feels like playing basketball with no pressure or without getting in my own head about whether I was doing the right things or I was in the right spot. I am free to play. Whether I pull up for a shot, cross-over, or pass the ball, it feels like I am able to play free and play to my strength.
As for the added responsibilities, I received a recognition at the end of the year and a bonus. I cannot guarantee that the outcome will always be positive, but what I can guarantee is, training ourselves to inversion thinking will help us to stay grounded and to stay objective.
Charlie once said, “It’s kind of fun to sit there and outthink people who are way smarter than you are because you’ve trained yourself to be more objective and more multidisciplinary.”
I am slowly starting to understand what he means.
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To conclude this writing, I will add a couple more quotes on inversion thinking:
It is in the nature of things that many hard problems are best solved only when they are addressed backwards. ‘Invert, Always Invert’ – Jacobi (Poor Charlie’s Almanack)
“A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.” – Charlie Munger
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” – Charlie Munger (Poor Charlie’s Almanack)
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If you are new to this, hello and welcome! I write and dive deep into the concepts, principles, and wisdom on everything that Charlie Munger has lived by and shared.
I have nothing to sell you and I write for an audience of one.
For more information:
First Rule of a Happy Life 19 Jan 2024 11:15 AM (last year)
See, here is the thing – the best, first thing to do when doing anything is to set an expectation.
‘The First Rule of a Happy Life is Low Expectations’ – Charlie Munger.
What usually gets forgotten is the quote extends to ‘With Unrealistic Expectations, You’re Going to be Miserable.’
What a gem and a beauty. I am applying this exact principle to this writing journey.
This journey is going to be a compilation of thoughts and borrowed ideas from those a lot smarter than I. More importantly, everything is written for an audience of one.
As this year is well on its way (19 days into 2024), I keep coming back to one word. The word is: Depth.
Gone are the days of going a mile wide (getting inputs, insights, ‘wisdom’, ‘teachings’ from different influencers, podcasters, authors, noise). This is the year to go a mile deep.
We are going deep with the one person I have looked up to and admired for a long time. Unfortunately, he left us late last year at the age of 99 but to say that he lived a life well-lived is an understatement. This person is Charlie Munger.
Throughout this journey, I am still going to write borrowed ideas from other wise folks. But the distillation process starts with Charlie.
Circling back to why this blog exists: there are far too many concepts, principles, and wisdom that are just too precious to be read or heard once and never thought of again.
Within each concept, principle, and wisdom, they are all worth doing a deep dive into.
The way I envision this blog to unfold is: a deep dive into the concepts, principles, and wisdom written nearly on everything that Charlie has lived by and shared. Dissect his thoughts and how he came to these concepts, principles, wisdom. Write what it means to me. Find an example of my own, write thoroughly on it. And finally, embody it.
That is the system and mental model I am using for this blog.
Needless to say, there is plenty to write about.
But once again, the most important thing to remember is: Who Am I Writing This For? And the answer to that question: was, is, and will always be me.
Feel free to join me in this journey.
Or don’t.
I have nothing to sell you. The choice is yours.