Preface
Currently I am reading “Principles: Life and Work” by Ray Dalio. The book is a collection of Dalio’s principles for life and work that made him as successful as he is. One important thing to note is that the book includes Dalio’s autobiography, but he has explicitly stated that he wants the reader to analyze the merits of his principles in isolation of his own success and for that reason does not mind if the reader skips his autobiography all together. I took this advice and skipped his autobiography in the interest of time, but I plan on going back to read it in order to learn more about the person behind such great principles. For me the greatest moment of self reflection was when Dalio wrote about Vince Lombardi (the head coach of the Green Bay Packers) and how Dalio wished that Lombardi wrote his principles in a book, so he could read them. I think this shows just how open minded Dalio is and why he is so successful. After this I had some self reflection and wondered “What are my life principles?” I knew that I must have some, since I adamantly stick to a code of conduct, but it was embarrassing (in a good way) that I did not formalize any of them by writing them down. So for the remainder of this blog post I want to write about one of my earliest life principles. Another takeaway from the book is that everyone has principles and one of my goals is to be radically open minded like Dalio and ask my peers, teachers, and students what their life principles are. I hope to incorporate new principles in my life throughout the process.
The Problem Isn’t External to You
I think early on in my life I noticed that there are two ways that people deal with problems in their lives. The first way is adopting a fixed mindset by rationalizing that the problem exists due to external factors. This mindset leads to lines like “I can not afford this, since my job does not pay me enough.”, “I can not do this, since someone else is blocking me”, and “The system is rigged against me.”. The second way is adopting a growth mindset and realizing that the problems in our lives stem from the fact that we ourselves are at fault. This way of thinking leads to lines like “I can not afford this, since I do not have the skill sets to command a higher wage”, “I can not do this, since I have not positioned myself for success”, and “The system is rigged against me, so what do I have to do to beat the system?”. Having been a student, peer, and teacher for different aspects of my life and at different times has allowed to me notice these things. When I was a teacher and already knew the path to success (merely from having stumbled upon it) it was all too easy to see why some students fail. I was always able to diagnose what the student could have done in order to accomplish what they wanted in life and got frustrated when they tried to make up excuses for themselves.
An Example
A concrete example was when a student came to my office hours and complained that they lost points on an assignment due to turning it in late. I was not actually mad that they came in trying to get points back on the assignment. I knew that students try this all the time, since in the past their instructors would enable them and give back the points just so they would not have to deal with a student complaining. The part that got me mad was that I knew that this particular student already asked one of my “reports” to give back the points. The student’s reasoning was that they were only late by a few minutes, so they should not be penalized. I put “reports” in quotes, because on paper I was “Head Teaching Assistant” and this student wanted me to overrule a fair decision from one of my peers who I had tremendous respect for. I explained that the decision was final, but I want to take a moment to clarify a few things. The first is that the decision was final, because the decision was fair and not because I had tremendous respect for the person who made the decision. The second is that if I thought the decision was not fair I would later try and reason with the person for why I think the decision should be changed. If I used my position of power to overrule their decision without understanding their reasoning, then it would only serve to show that I was not respectful. The student later argued that the person making the decision lacked “empathy”, since they have never turned in an assignment late due to them being so “talented”. Immediately I realized what the student was trying to do. They were trying to justify that their failure is because “some people are talented and some aren’t and that’s the end of the story”. I responded by pulling up the logs for the assignment that was given two weeks to complete and doing some analysis. I then explained to the student that they only started making progress on the assignment two days before it was due. I tried to make them realize that them being 5 minutes late on the assignment was because they did not start the assignment 5 minutes earlier. Their failure was a direct causation of their procrastination. Unfortunately that student did not want to understand my view of the situation and walked out of the office. I want to clarify that two people failed that day. The first was the student who did not want to admit that their problem was due to their own procrastination. Instead they insisted that the problem was the teaching assistant who docked points from them for being late. The second and more important failure was the fact that I failed that student. In the heat of the moment I came off as lacking empathy and for that reason the student did not want to understand advice that would help them in the future. This incident happened years ago and I regret it to this day (enough that I am writing about it now). However it is exactly this pain that drives me to learn and grow and come up with a solution to these problems.
The Solution
For the most part I made the same exact mistake of trying to blame external factors for my failures. I am a student for the majority of my life (and that is an amazing thing) and have made this mistake countless of times (and that is a horrible thing). It is only in the minority of my life that I was a teacher and it was then that I was able to see the solution. The solution is to admit that all problems in your life are due to decisions that you yourself made. This is critical, since if you try to phrase the cause of your problems as external you will never have anything actionable to work on. For example, if you think that you do not make enough, due to your boss not paying you more, then that is where the story ends. Your boss will never pay you more for no reason and you should not wait around for the impossible to happen. There is nothing you can do if your belief is that the problem is external. You should make it so that the solution is actionable. The root cause is that your current skill sets do not demand more compensation (and if you think they do, then just reapply for another job and let the market prove you right or wrong). Your train of thought should be “I want to get paid more, so I should make my skills more valuable”. Granted that is something that is easier said than done and it’s ultimately going to be up to you for the implementation details. You might even think that you are being paid “fairly”, but the system is rigged in the sense that you only see a fraction of the revenue generated by your labor. In that case the problem is still you. The problem is that you are playing in a rigged system where labor is ruled by capital. The solution is yet again actionable. You need to take the same risks that your employer took in order to build capital and hire labor to grow your assets. So the takeaway is “The problem is always you. Keep it that way so that the solution is actionable.”.
Some Self Reflection (on Self Reflection)
I want to clarify I have made the mistake of blaming external factors countless of times. And after self reflection I know why. It’s just easier that way. It’s easier to try and blame something else and pretend a solution doesn’t exist. That mindset will always ensure you a situation where you think that no action is required from you. This is ironically one of the few things that is not your fault. Humans are wired to try and achieve homeostasis. We gravitate toward inaction until the choice of inaction causes us more pain than the action itself. The saving grace here is that humans are also wired with the ability to self reflect and conceptualize themselves from a 3rd person point of view in order to diagnose how they can fix their problem. This self reflection is what enabled the human race to come so far in a short amount of time (relative to the existence of the universe). One way I think about it is that homeostasis is a legacy wiring in human evolution. There was a point in history were it was advantageous for us to be lazy in order to preserve precious calories. But those times have ended directly due to our ability to self reflect. We now are producing more calories than everyone on the planet needs (though people still die of starvation due to poor distribution of said calories). And the reason we are at this point is due to our ability to self reflect and come up with actionable solutions. We didn’t just say “Oh food is hard to get because animals are too fast to hunt”. We said “Food is hard to get, so we should try and come up with agricultural techniques to produce more food”. This ability to self reflect is a very modern wiring of humans and we should continue to use it for as long as it stays relevant (and I find it hard to believe that it will ever become irrelevant).
Discussion
Contact Me
Email: bschong2@illinois.edu