3-2-1: On Cultivating Healthy Relationships, Strength, And Habitual Compound Interest
Wisdom Wednesday #6
Hey fam,
It's time for your weekly dose of wisdom!
Here's 3 Idea-bites from me, 2 quotes from others, and 1 big-idea to think about this week.
3 Idea-bites From Me:
How your partner talks about their ex is how they will talk about you. You aren’t perfect; you will have conflict; you are flawed and will make mistakes just like their ex did (albeit potentially different mistakes). And while you may be a different person, they aren’t. Anyone who blames others, plays victim, or disrespects, will do the same thing to you. Whether its an employer, boss, girlfriend, boyfriend, or friend, The biggest red flag for a potential or current relationship is how they talk about past and former relationships.
“Its whats on the inside that counts” is bullshit. How you manifest in the world is a reflection of how you think and who you are in your mind. Talk is cheap. And people who say and believe things like "its on the inside what counts" are just that: talk. Having the right thoughts mean nothing if they simply stay thoughts — unactualized potential and having no potential are functionally identical. Become what you idealize or get out of the way.
Social adversity will either kill you or make you the strongest. Sympathy, support, and understanding feel good, but they make us fragile — we become dependent on other's for our positive emotions and security. Growing up overly reliant on yourself may feel like torture at the time, but support networks we build during adult life are infinitely more resilient (as the skills needed to create one from scratch is much harder than those needed to maintain one we were born with). Being strong alone makes you 50% as effective as a group of weak people. But a group of strong people is 10,000% more effective.
2 Quotes From Others:
"I judge you unfortunate because you have never lied through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent. No one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you."
— Seneca
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness cannot cooperate. It can only beg."
— Dwight D Eisenhower
1 Big-Idea From Me:
The Self Defeating Aims Of Unrealistic Expectations
Imagine this:
Someone walks in to a gym for the first time in their life.
They go over to a squat rack, load up about 500 lbs, step under the bar, lift it off the rack.
And get crushed and break their leg.
Then they have the audacity to say "ehhh working out is too hard. I just don't think it's for me. I'll go back to sitting on the couch."
The silliness and complete irrationality is immediately obvious to all of us.
The "logical" thing to do would be something like:
Start with a little research, then some low intensity exercise, maybe get a coach, slowly work your way up over months or years, pushing yourself out of your"comfort zone" but not so much that you get hurt, slowly adding weight as you get stronger…
Right?
So why then do we do the exact opposite when it comes to pretty much any other behavior?
We are just like the guy who walks in to a GYM with zero experience and tries to lift 500 lbs when we do stuff like:
Decide we're going to completely revolutionize our diet from Standard American Diet to something healthier.
Decide we're starting today we’re going to become super assertive and stand up for our beliefs.
Decide we're going to quit smoking and drinking and every other negative vice we have all in one day.
Decide we're going to stop being shy and start chatting up every person we meet.
There's nothing wrong with deciding you want to go hard in the GYM and learn to squat 500 lbs or become assertive or extroverted or healthy. In fact, all are noble and awesome goals. But there is something wrong with the belief that defining an improvement and manifesting it are the same thing.
Our minds are just as prone, if not more prone, than our bodies to the trauma of severe failure. And setting crazy expectations we completely lack the knowledge, skills, experience, “muscle”, and confidence to meet is more of an excuse to justify our lack of results than an actual attempt to get them.
Show yourself some respect. Show your self some empathy. Show yourself some compassion. And operate in reality so you can actually get what you want.
By starting small. Starting incremental. Racking up wins. Building "habitual compound interest". And slowly adding "weight" only after the previous load becomes easy.
That's all for today!
If you found the content helpful, please give the post a like on the website.
If you know someone else who might find it helpful, please share it with them.
Want more content like this? I post daily to Instagram (best place) Facebook (IG + some mini blogs), and Twitter, as well as weekly to Youtube (low production long form rants). Check em out!
Catch you next time,
Matt