September 2021 Musing
Forming Opinions, Learning how to Think and Making Decisions
Hey there,
There are only 3 months to the end of 2021.
This is another year that we spent about 70% at home. And this month I’ve started to review my goals for this year. Like a typical person, my goals are the typical health or fitness, financial, career and relationship goals.
These are ideals I’d like to work towards, and sometimes my old self does disappoint my future self by not focusing on my goals. What matters is what my current self decides to do right now so that I would be kinder to my future self.
PS to myself: Time to hit the gym more consistently to start rebuilding that strength!
Thank you for reading,
Ying Ying
Quote of the month
“It is inevitable if you enter into relations with people on a regular basis…that you will grow to be like them. Place an extinguished piece of coal next to a live one, and either it will cause the other one to die out, or the live one will make the other reignite. … If you consort with someone covered in dirt you can hardly avoid getting a little grimy yourself.” — Epictetus
Challenges & Learnings of the month
On balancing the need to brag and showing your work
Being in an asian society, we are taught to keep our heads down and be humble. Except that sometimes it does not help in getting noticed and getting attention.I’m beginning to realise the importance of showing your work and marketing yourself in order to get opportunities or attracting people to you.
For example, there is a difference between an insurance agent who boost about how they are able to purchase a premium car versus an insurance agent who shares valuable information on their social channels. Which one would you prefer to purchase your insurance policies from?
So how can you brag in a way that is acceptable to others? I think by being helpful and valuable might be a great start. Show to people so that they can benefit and learn from what you share. This would help build social currency.
Home hunting
We have been trying to look for a place. In Singapore, most people own their homes, so we are trying to do so. Except, we’re unsure whether should we purchase a home when prices are climbing higher and higher.
Having Children
This month, I’ve been thinking more about having children. Whether is that something that I’ll regret not having in the future after watching Taylor’s journey on youtube. Sometimes I have a difficulty in determining what society and the people around me wants versus what I want. And sometimes, even I don’t know what I want. The ‘me’ right now might be different in the next week, next month and year.
What I have been reading and consuming
Making Decisions
“When failure is reversible, act quickly. When failure is irreversible, think carefully.”- James clear
We make many decisions on a daily basis, but we were never taught how to. Making better decisions isn’t one skill but rather a series of tools and frameworks. What distinguishes consistently good decision-makers from poor ones is a series of diverse mental frameworks and tools (as well as relevant specific information).
How to Think & Thinking for Yourself
I remembered how my first day of primary school, my mom said look at this girl and just follow my classmate on what she does in class. My mother taught me to just follow others when I have no idea what to do. Now that I look back, she was teaching me how to blindly follow others! It wasn’t her intention of course, all parents would like their child to succeed and the easy way is to follow others example.
In school, we were taught to solve problems and not to think. Somewhere along the line, we would need to learn how to think so that we would avoid making mistakes.
Easy thinking means taking a few minutes here and there, getting the gist of a problem, and making a decision. Hard thinking is understanding the problem, understanding the variables and the nuances, thinking through the second and third-order effects, and often understanding that a little pain now will make the future a lot easier.
One way to spot a poor thinker is to see how many of their decisions boomerang back to them. The reason this happens is that poor thinkers make poor decisions. And because poor decisions need to be watched and corrected, they consume a lot of time. The time used to correct poor thinking comes from the time that could be used for good thinking.
As Paul Graham says — More generally your goal should be not to let anything into your head unexamined, and things don’t always enter your head in the form of statements. Some of the most powerful influences are implicit. How do you even notice these? By standing back and watching how other people get their ideas.
Forming an Opinion & Having the Right Expertise
I’m not good at forming opinions as I do suffer alot with Dunning Kruger. But what I’ve learned is that perhaps I have not done the work in order to form an opinion. My beliefs and idea are updates constantly as I read more and learn more. Charlie Munger puts it aptly here:
“The ability to destroy your ideas rapidly instead of slowly when the occasion is right is one of the most valuable things. You have to work hard on it.
Ask yourself what are the arguments on the other side.
It’s bad to have an opinion you’re proud of if you can’t state the arguments for the other side better than your opponents. This is a great mental discipline.”
This first appeared on Ying’s notion page.
