Read Online How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Scott Adams
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told it’s better to give than to receive. We’re programmed for unselfish behavior by society, our parents, and even our genes to some extent. The problem is that our obsession with generosity causes people to think in the short term. We skip exercise to spend an extra hour helping at home. We buy fast food to save time to help a coworker with a problem. At every turn, we cheat our own future to appear generous today.
So how can you make the right long-term choices for yourself, thus being a benefit to others in the long run, without looking like a selfish turd in your daily choices? There’s no instant cure, but a step in the right direction involves the power of permission. I’m giving you permission to take care of yourself first, so you can do a better job of being generous in the long run.
What?
You might be wondering how a cartoonist’s permission to be selfish can help in any way. The surprising answer is that it can, in my opinion. If you’ve read this far, we have a relationship of sorts. It’s an author-reader relationship, but that’s good enough. We humans are wired to be easily influenced by the people who are in relationships with us, no matter what those relationships are. Sometimes we call that influence peer pressure.Sometimes it’s called modeling or imitating. Sometimes it’s learning by example. And most of the time it’s just something we do automatically, without thinking.
Luckily most of us have filters that prevent us from being influenced in the most obviously damaging ways. If I were to encourage you to buy a rifle with a high-powered scope and wait on a bridge for further instructions, you probably wouldn’t do that. Influence works best when the person being influenced has no objection to the suggested change. Often all one needs is some form of
permission
to initiate a change, and it doesn’t always matter what form the permission is in, or if it even makes sense. I’m sure you already want to be fit and successful and happy. You already want to skip some of your chores at home or at work to take care of your own needs. I’m simply your cartoonist friend telling you that generous people take care of their own needs first. In fact, doing so is a moral necessity. The world needs you at your best.
I should pause here for my more literal readers and explain that being selfish doesn’t mean you should let a runaway baby carriage roll into traffic if you think stopping it will make you ten seconds late for work. Humans are so emotionally and societally connected with one another that often the best thing we can do for ourselves is to help others. I’ll trust you to recognize those situations. Being selfish doesn’t mean being a sociopath. It just means you take the long view of things.
One of the more interesting surprises for me when I started making more money than I would ever spend is that it automatically changed my priorities. I could afford any car I wanted, but suddenly I didn’t care so much about my possessions beyond the utility they provided. Once all of my personal needs were met, my thoughts automatically turned to how I could make the world a better place. I didn’t plan the transformation. It wasn’t something I thought about and decided to do. It just happened on its own. Apparently humans are wired to take care of their own needs first, then family, tribe, country, and the world, roughly in that order.
I’m sure there are plenty of selfish turds who make billions and spend it all on helicopters and mansions with never a thought given to the well-being of others. I meet a lot of super successful people in my line of work, especially living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and my observation is that it’s rare to find a selfish successful person. I assume some or even most successful people started out selfishly, but successchanges you. It’s not a coincidence that Brad Pitt is helping to build homes after the Hurricane Katrina disaster or that Bill Gates is
So how can you make the right long-term choices for yourself, thus being a benefit to others in the long run, without looking like a selfish turd in your daily choices? There’s no instant cure, but a step in the right direction involves the power of permission. I’m giving you permission to take care of yourself first, so you can do a better job of being generous in the long run.
What?
You might be wondering how a cartoonist’s permission to be selfish can help in any way. The surprising answer is that it can, in my opinion. If you’ve read this far, we have a relationship of sorts. It’s an author-reader relationship, but that’s good enough. We humans are wired to be easily influenced by the people who are in relationships with us, no matter what those relationships are. Sometimes we call that influence peer pressure.Sometimes it’s called modeling or imitating. Sometimes it’s learning by example. And most of the time it’s just something we do automatically, without thinking.
Luckily most of us have filters that prevent us from being influenced in the most obviously damaging ways. If I were to encourage you to buy a rifle with a high-powered scope and wait on a bridge for further instructions, you probably wouldn’t do that. Influence works best when the person being influenced has no objection to the suggested change. Often all one needs is some form of
permission
to initiate a change, and it doesn’t always matter what form the permission is in, or if it even makes sense. I’m sure you already want to be fit and successful and happy. You already want to skip some of your chores at home or at work to take care of your own needs. I’m simply your cartoonist friend telling you that generous people take care of their own needs first. In fact, doing so is a moral necessity. The world needs you at your best.
I should pause here for my more literal readers and explain that being selfish doesn’t mean you should let a runaway baby carriage roll into traffic if you think stopping it will make you ten seconds late for work. Humans are so emotionally and societally connected with one another that often the best thing we can do for ourselves is to help others. I’ll trust you to recognize those situations. Being selfish doesn’t mean being a sociopath. It just means you take the long view of things.
One of the more interesting surprises for me when I started making more money than I would ever spend is that it automatically changed my priorities. I could afford any car I wanted, but suddenly I didn’t care so much about my possessions beyond the utility they provided. Once all of my personal needs were met, my thoughts automatically turned to how I could make the world a better place. I didn’t plan the transformation. It wasn’t something I thought about and decided to do. It just happened on its own. Apparently humans are wired to take care of their own needs first, then family, tribe, country, and the world, roughly in that order.
I’m sure there are plenty of selfish turds who make billions and spend it all on helicopters and mansions with never a thought given to the well-being of others. I meet a lot of super successful people in my line of work, especially living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and my observation is that it’s rare to find a selfish successful person. I assume some or even most successful people started out selfishly, but successchanges you. It’s not a coincidence that Brad Pitt is helping to build homes after the Hurricane Katrina disaster or that Bill Gates is
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