Unhealthy Lifestyles Are Not A Matter Of Education

I recently read a click-baity article about the "top X number" healthiest vegetables. The main surprise about this list, other than the fact that I clicked on a such a time-waster in the first place, was that all of the vegetables listed were pretty much what everyone already buys at the grocery store. This wasn't a list comprised of kohlrabi and cactus pears. It was a list of carrots, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, and so on.

This raises the question of why we need an article that tells us to keep eating what we already eat. The cynical answer is, of course, "Har har, Ryan, the article wasn't meant to inform you about vegetables, but to keep you on the page long enough to increase the probability of generating ad revenue." Touche.

The less cynical answer is that most people - meaning, most Americans who eat food - already know how to eat a healthy diet, but fail to do it anyway. For a long time, we've been told by health educators that education is the key to getting Americans to improve their diets and their lifestyle. Articles like the one I read, paired with mere observation of Americans in their natural habitat, would seem to suggest otherwise. The so-called "fitness industry," too, is big on education. Read my free e-book, subscribe to my newsletter, watch my YouTube channel, see my tips for a healthier diet, etc., etc.

No, I don't think like of knowledge is the real problem here. Really, what we're talking about is a lack of self-control. Eventually, we all reach adulthood, obtain a disposable income, and come face-to-face with a doughnut shop. A few of us can ward-off temptation by eating a nutritious breakfast before we head out the door, but the majority of us - a statistical majority of Americans are obese - are simply left to wonder, "Why not?" Why shouldn't they spend their money on a doughnut? Why should they deprive themselves of something they genuinely enjoy, if they can afford to buy it, it tastes good, it makes them happy, and so on.

Only after confronting the reality of their own reflection  in the mirror, after years of not saying no, does anyone realize that there is a very good answer to the question of "why not." The answer is that years of acquiescence yields obesity, premature aging, and with them, a variety of other health problems.

I know many people, friends of mine, who are my age and who express envy of my position as a fit and healthy guy pushing forty. I'm a normal weight. My bio-markers are normal (well, except for the type 1 diabetes thing, but that's not a lifestyle choice). My energy levels are generally high. I look about ten years younger than I am, and I perform athletically much the same as my friends performed twenty years ago.

I'm not boasting, this is the physiological truth. And the best part is that it feels great being fit and healthy. All those who once boasted of the importance of living life to the fullest in their twenties, complete with all the boozing and drug use that entails, are now a little jealous that they feel so old. They take stock of their joint pains, their muscle aches, their sluggishness, the lack of "spring" in their steps, and they credit old age. But old age didn't get them here; poor diet and lifestyle choices did.

At forty, there is still plenty of time to reverse most of the negatives. With strict and deliberate diet and lifestyle changes, most people can recapture their energy levels and their good biomarkers, and many can also regain their youthful figures. A good diet can improve your complexion and the strength and sheen in your hair. Spending more time being active in the sunshine can give your hair great highlights, make your skin look better (but do use sunscreen), and give your body a much-needed boost of Vitamin D. Some people can even work themselves up to a level of athletic performance that far exceeds my own. All it takes is diet and exercise.

I'm not saying anything anyone doesn't already know, though. Everyone knows that skipping the burger, staying home and grilling some fish, eschewing the doughnuts, getting out for an hour or two of exercise ever single day, and so on, can drastically improve their lives for the better. But still, they don't do it. Just like they know eating broccoli will make them better off and they don't do it.

Ultimately, it all comes down to self-control, to the willingness to forego instant gratification for the sake of a better future. I have called this temperance across an extended cognitive time-horizon. You have to be the kind of person who is willing to get by with less. That's less doughnuts, less treats, less alcohol, less partying, less lying around, less TV. You have to be the kind of person who knows that less today means more tomorrow.

And it's interesting to me that this is a lesson that extends into so many different areas of life. As with health, so with financial gain. To be a millionaire in today's world really just means living well below your means and saving consistently. One doesn't really even have to save aggressively. Being a great musician means putting in 30 minutes of deliberate practice per day. Having a great yard really just means setting aside an hour a week to pull weeds and move a garden hose around. Having a great marriage means taking the time to make interactions with your partner positive rather than negative. Writing a book or two per year means writing a page or two per day. Think about it, that's nothing!

Ultimately, it's rather stunning what most people fail to accomplish in their lives when we consider that all any accomplishment really requires is small but consistent daily effort. So, no, it's not that we don't know how to accomplish any of this. It's that we know, and we still don't do it.

Happiness Is So Much Easier Than People Realize

This morning, as I boarded the elevator up to my office, a spotted another man headed over to the elevator car. I held the door for him and we both got in.

Spotting the large, black object I was carrying under my arm, the man asked me, "What is that thing?"

"It's a battery for an electric bike," I told him with a smile.

He interestedly perked up. "Oh yeah? That's cool."

"I carry it in with me, since these things are kind of expensive," I said. Then, realizing that we still had lots of time before our elevator stopped, and not wanting to be rude, I continued on, "It's a great way to zoom into work without getting sweaty."

"Oh, yeah! I bet!" he said. Then he asked me, "Do you live downtown?" I told him that I didn't, and then I described the neighborhood in which I live. His eyes went wide. "You mean up there, up the freeway?!" I smiled and nodded, and he started chuckling to himself. He said was impressed, and he thought it was really neat that I biked to work from there. Then, our elevator stopped at my floor, I wished him a good day, and off I went.

This is not an uncommon conversation for me to have. Sometimes it's the bicycle battery that initiates the conversation, sometimes it's my bike helmet, sometimes it's the fact that somebody saw me ride in. Whatever instigates things, these conversations never cease to impress me because of how fond people feel toward my bike commute; and the fact that I commute on an electric bicycle only seems to sweeten the deal.

I don't think they're impressed at the physicality of it. After all, riding an electric bicycle is not particularly physically exerting. The sense I have of what they tell me is that they just think it's cool to ride a bike to work, and that it's cool to ride an electric bicycle. They think it seems like a fun thing to do, and they appear to wish they could do it themselves. Their reaction toward me is a lot like the reaction you'd get from someone if you told them you just rode a really cool rollercoaster or something. It's appreciative excitement.

Needless to say, I happen to agree: I think biking to work is fun, and cool, and exciting, and I feel fortunate that I can do it. It brings a smile to my face; it's so much more fun than driving. It's a big increase in my quality of life.

Imagine how much fun the man I met in the elevator this morning could be having if he, too, owned an electric bicycle and used it to commute to work. It would no longer be an impressive thing to talk to me about; it would be something that other people would talk to him about. He could be the one feeling the wind on his face as he zips through the side-streets, the back routes, and the bike paths. He could be the one telling his colleagues how much fun it is to ride a beautiful machine like that to work every day. He could be the one saving gas money and wear and tear. He could be the one showing up to work with a big smile on his face.

All he has to do is buy a bike.

*        *        *

Memorial Day weekend was surprisingly great for me, too.

Saturday morning, we had to renew my daughter's passport in person at the passport office. That would typically be a real drag, and it was still pretty frustrating by the end of it. But we managed to spend some good, quality family time together. My daughter and I walked to the coffee shop and ordered coffee together. The passport office is located inside of the old Post Office, a large and historic building, built in 1933, right next to the train station. It's the kind of old building that has large stone columns, gargoyles, marble floors, and so on. It's truly a site to behold, and even gets pretty good ratings on Trip Advisor. If you have to be stuck in some government office somewhere, doing something annoying, I suppose a beautiful specimen of historic 20th Century architecture is the best place to do it. In the afternoon, we did typical weekend things: running, playing together, having dinner outside, watching a movie, and so on.

Sunday, we went to the pool. I had suggested it on Saturday, and my daughter was so excited about it that it was the first thing she asked to do when she woke up. The water was a little cold, because the sun was behind the clouds for most of the morning, but we nonetheless had a great time. In the afternoon, we split up; I went for a long run, while everyone else went to a backyard pool party/barbecue.

Then, on Monday, we joined our extended family at the lake for another barbecue. I went for a little trail run. We chatted and ate and had a great hang with our family and friends, then we came home, did the grocery shopping, and had another great evening of playing together, having a nice Sunday dinner together, and watching another movie.

That old post office is visible from one of the major freeways in the city, which means that hundreds of thousands of people drive past it every single day without stopping and snapping a few photos. There are coffee shops all over the place, but I seldom see fathers and daughters walking there hand-in-hand to spend some time together. My neighborhood has two different community swimming pools, with accompanying grills and tables and chaise lounge chairs, and mostly it's just a handful of families who use them. The lake we went to was enormous, with hundreds of picnic tables and charcoal grills, and although it was crowded, there were still plenty of tables to spare.

But the thing is, getting out in the sunshine and the trees, enjoying the scenic places, laughing and running around outside as a family, and making use of public amenities is so incredibly rewarding. And it's so simple. And practically free. Consider all the people who stayed indoors this weekend, or who mostly watched TV and went shopping, or all the people who wished they could have done more with their time. The fun my family and I had was simple, low-cost, easily obtained fun. It's not hard to come by, it's put right there for the taking. The really remarkable thing is how few people avail themselves of the opportunities.

*        *        *

By chance, I happened to have a conversation with a young friend of mine recently. She's been given an important opportunity to receive a lucrative scholarship and to earn an advanced degree. It's the kind of opportunity you get if you're a good, hard-working student who has a good relationship with your professors and who happens to be in the right place at the right time. Good for her!

This opportunity, however, is in another city, a few hours away. When I was speaking to her about her opportunity, that was the first thing she mentioned, that unfortunately it was in that city. But it's a good opportunity, and I wanted her to know that I was happy for her and that I wanted to encourage her, so I said, "That's a really cool city!" Yes, she said, she agreed, but she didn't have many friends there. "Oh, that's okay," I said, "sometimes it's good to strike out on your own in a new place like that!"  She reassured me that she wanted to take advantage of the opportunity, but she was "just saying" that she didn't want to move away from her friends.

I understand, of course. However, when someone tells me their good news, I am not in the habit of focusing on the negative side of it. So most of what I was saying was positive because I wanted to be happy with her about her great opportunity. I was surprised by the fact that most of what she seemed to want to talk about was the unpleasant fact that she'd have to move to a new city where she didn't have many friends. I agree that this can be unpleasant, but so long as I'm sharing good news with people, I prefer to focus on the positive.

Imagine how much happier she'd feel if she focused on the positive, rather than the prospect of being lonely.

*        *        *

Some people will react to all of this by thinking to themselves, "I'm glad you like your bike, Ryan, and your park, and your neighborhood pool, and your positive attitude. But that's not what everyone wants to do." I agree with this… to a point.

If you don't like riding a bike or going to a pool, that's not a big deal. But the more simple things you "just don't like to do," the more skeptical I am of your claim that you're doing the things that make you happy. If getting outside and doing stuff just doesn't do it for you, then you seriously ought to reconsider what it is that makes you happy, and if, indeed, you are happy at all.

The reason I say this is because I know so many people who waste their time doing things that honestly don't make them happy. I know lots of guys, for example, whose idea of a perfect weekend involves sitting in front of a television and drinking beer all day. One day like that every once in a while might be fun, but the truth is that drinking a lot of beer and sitting around all day - especially if you do it frequently - makes a person feel physically unpleasant, and there's only so much of that physical discomfort a person can feel before it affects their mental comfort as well. Similarly, a person might prefer to binge-watch the latest TV series or surf the internet all day, or play video games all day. A person might choose from any array of passive, mentally disengaging, indoor activities and/or high-calorie food and drink, and alcohol. On their own, there's nothing wrong with these activities. But when they become the majority of what you do with yourself in your free time, that's going to start wearing you down.

In the long term, though, these things don't nourish the soul. They're fine to do from time to time, but they shouldn't be most of what you do with your life. And I'm not saying that in a moral sense, I'm simply pointing out that getting outside and doing interesting things - whatever you like to do, as long as it is outside and interesting - will make you feel better than you do right now, no matter how good you already feel. Communion with nature is scientifically proven to improve mental health. We already know that outdoor activity is good for physical health. What a lot of people fail to realize is that it's also incredibly fun. And fun is a good thing for people to have. Fun makes us happy.

People are not particularly good at pursuing things that make them happy. People will play the what do you want to eat / I don't know what do you want to eat / I don't know what do you want to eat game until it crushes their very soul. And they'll do it night after night without realizing that the simple solution is to grab a rotisserie chicken and a veggie platter from the grocery store on the way to the park and have a picnic. It's simple. If nobody cares what they want to eat, then go do that! Come home an hour later with some fresh air in your lungs and a smile on your face.

Happiness is not a difficult thing to obtain. The little things you do in your free time show you how easy and low-cost it is to really enjoy yourself. They should also give you a little insight into what kinds of experiences you're leaving on the table. Get a bike, put on some running shoes, go for a picnic, go find a park or a community swimming pool. These are the things that will make you happy.

This Reminds Me Of The Time I Sold My TV

I've long believed that "government is a lagging indicator of social trends." By this I mean to say that, by the time an issue is being debated by the government, it's already stale. I cannot prove this, of course, but I often spy such issues in the news. Perhaps it's merely confirmation bias, but still…

One such issue is the matter of Facebook and social media. For several months now, we've been inundated with news stories about Congressional hearings and legislative debates involving what should be done about the power of Facebook, Google, social media, and the likes. Part of this is dressed up in the familiar conspiratorial language of "national security." After all, the argument goes, Russian meddlers used Facebook to tip the 2016 US presidential election toward chaos. Another part of it is dressed up in the familiar conspiratorial language of "media bias." After all, the argument goes, Google manipulates search engine results to promote certain advertisers above others; who's to say that they're not doing this when it comes to political issues?

There may or may not be a kernel of truth to these arguments; I can't say for sure. The amount of money that the Russian meddlers are said to have spent to "tip the election" is a drop in the bucket compared to legitimate domestic campaign spending. One would have to believe that Russian meddlers spend Facebook dollars more shrewdly than the shrewdest campaign managers in the largest political high-stakes game in the world. That strains credulity, but at the same time I don't really know the truth; I'm just musing about it. As for biases in Google searches, it is likely impossible to disambiguate between what adjustments Google makes internally to its own algorithms and what adjustments are made in response to legitimate SEO and search placement spending.

What I can say for certain is that, although these topics are relatively new to the cable news cycles, they are old, boring controversies among people connected to those issues. For example, everyone already knew way back in 2015 that the Facebook news feed was getting progressively more insular and incendiary. I myself have been using non-Google search engines for nearly ten years already. (I first migrated to Bing, and then when Bing started screwing with search results as much as Google does, I migrated to even more obscure choices.) All that is to say that these are stale matters for people like me. We've already moved on; no legislation required. There are plenty of alternatives to Google for search engine services and free cloud storage, so why bother with a Congressional investigation? The rational thing to do would be to make a simple, personal change in your own life and leave the rest of it behind you.

As for social media, it's death has been a long time coming. I think "the kids" moved on to more secure alternatives like SnapChat years ago. At this point, the only social media presence you'll observe from young people is professional profiles: LinkedIn profiles that look like resumes, Instagram feeds that showcase a youth's "side-hustle" business of some kind, few and sporadic photos, and only the best-of-the-best. To catch a glimpse of a young person's social media in the year 2018 is to see a handful of photos carefully curated to make him or her appear simultaneously glamorous and inoffensive.

And older people are finally starting to catch up. Already, most people have grown weary of posting long diatribes or sharing important news stories. Instead, they share interesting news stories, such as science and medical articles, and if they post about politics at all, they post memes. As to sharing photos, those photos that are shared tend to be those same glamorous and inoffensive photos the youth share, or else they are mainly boring: people blowing out birthday candles, couples posing in front of holiday decorations, smiling children playing with ordinary toys, occasionally a plateful of food. (Even the food photos have a bad reputation these days, though.)

Social media will continue for a long time, of course, but its presence as a cultural force has mostly been obliterated. No one is interested in that crap anymore. I can only hope that people find their way back to public spaces and telephone calls, parties and gatherings, sporting events and music concerts. The more we interact with each other live-and-in-the-flesh, the better off we are.

This was all a long-winded sort of way to tell you that I've read 1,200 pages - in real books - in just two weeks' time. How did I do it? I replaced all my social media time with books. I'm always reading, be it a social media feed or a book; it may as well be a book.

Sunk Costs; Don't Worry, Be Happy

David Henderson recounts an airline experience that could have made him upset. It could have, but it didn't, because Henderson elected to have a good attitude about it. Missing a flight is loss enough; missing it and then getting angry about it is a double loss.

As he puts it,

I could have got all pissy and woe-is-me about the cancelled flight, but what's the point? Then I would have paid for it twice: by missing a meal I had been looking forward to with some faculty and by having a fit. The loss due to the cancelled flight is a sunk cost.

When I have taught sunk cost in the past, I would sometimes remind my students of the expression "Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk." Then I would say that that wasn't quite the right expression. Maybe you need to cry, but recognize that it's spilt and that you can't get it back.

Now I think it's an apt expression. The crying over the missed flight would, as noted above, have added to the cost.

I learned a similar lesson about sunk costs while traveling on Greyhound buses in my college days. At least on the routes I used to travel, these buses are extremely slow, and connections are often late.

I remember traveling from Utah to California to see my sister. We made a stop/connection in Reno, Nevada and the connecting line hadn't arrived yet. It was hours late, and angry people were lining up at the customer service counter to... do something. Complain, mostly.

The sun had just risen. I was eating a breakfast bar and drinking a cup of coffee. I did not have to go to work that day. I had a good book. I was on vacation. I just sat down on a bench with my breakfast and my book and decided to enjoy myself.  It's not always pleasant riding a Greyhound bus, but it doesn't have to be miserable.

Start From The Bottom

I am compelled by blog history to write something about my current exercise regimen and the state of my fitness more generally.

But First, A Recap!

You may recall that last year was a bit of a strange one for me. I started out the year with hefty ambitions: I intended to complete a 100-day running streak while simultaneously working my way through the P90X program. What happened instead was that I ran for 65 consecutive days before pulling a calf muscle, bailed out of P90X due to excessive back pain, and had to spend the last half of the year only biking, not running at all, in order to allow myself to heal.

The smug take on all of this would be to say that I bit off more than I could chew. Some would say that it was a horrible idea to ever run and do P90X at the same time. Others would say that it was foolish and reckless to attempt 100 consecutive days of running. Most would certainly agree that doing both at the same time was a terrible idea. But I maintained at the time that, with enough self-awareness, this would all be perfectly fine. And today? Even after everything I went through last year, I still maintain that it was neither the running streak, the P90X, nor the combination of the two that ultimately did me in.

So what was it?

My thinking circa April 2017 was that I had some underlying weaknesses in my body that were aggravating me while exercising and causing injury. Over time, and with a lot of rest and careful rehabilitation, I came to realize that the major culprit was weak abdominal muscles, especially my lower abs. Improving my flexibility didn’t actually help. Relying on the bicycle and setting the running shoes aside only helped alleviate the most immediate pains. What really got the ball rolling was when I started doing dedicated abdominal muscle exercises – very slowly, very gently. I started far beneath my “ability level” (except that it wasn’t), and started building my abdominal muscles from the ground up.

Suddenly, I found that I could run again. But I didn’t just go back to running. I started very slowly and adjusted my stride, taking care to use more of my quadricep muscles and avoid straining my hip joints too much. I started with two or three miles, then gradually built back up. I continued my abdominal muscle exercises and expanded to full-body calisthenics. Things finally started getting better.

And Then, A Test

Finally, I started feeling stronger again. I was scrolling mindlessly through Facebook and noticed that Tony Horton, creator of P90X, was inviting people to join a Facebook group to start up a fresh cycle of the original P90X program starting January 1^st, 2018. It proved to be just the push I needed to get back on track. I joined the group. I started the program.

And, incredibly, I committed to maintaining a daily running regimen on top of P90X. I was doing it all over again. (But this time, no 100-day running streak.)

Today was the first day of my being six weeks into the program. Last week, I ran 6 miles almost every day, and even went for a 10-mile long run on Saturday. I feel stronger than ever. In fact, once again, I feel like a superhero.

But this year, I feel different. After putting in the work to strengthen my lower abdominal muscles and taking extra care to do my exercises with proper form – especially during the initial weeks of P90X – my body now feels better able to handle what I’m doing. I still believe I have the same lower-ab weakness, but it is less pronounced and getting better every day. The result is that when I do P90X workouts today, I believe I can actually get more out of them. My posture has improved, and I can hold my legs, hips, and back in the correct place in order to successfully complete the workouts. My running speed is nearly up to what it “should be,” too, and I don’t feel so uneasy on my feet anymore.

In short, when you do things properly, you get much more out of them. This week marks the halfway point of the program, and the end is in my sights. If you had asked me last summer whether I’d be completing 10-mile runs by February, I would have told you, “No chance.” But here I am.

The Message For You

So much for my obligatory self-update. I’m not just writing stuff about myself to an audience of Russian bots. I mean, I’m doing that, but that’s not all I’m doing. I’m also trying to present lessons to those few people who ever-so-occasionally read my blog. There is a lesson here, and you, too, probably need to learn it.

The lesson is simply this: You have weaknesses, and if you don’t get the better of them, they will get the better of you. Furthermore, as frustrating as it might feel to you, correcting a weakness means going back to the drawing board. Nobody wants to be the skinny guy in the corner of the gym doing arm-circles when everyone else is benching their bodyweight. But you have to be the skinny guy doing those arm circles before you can ever be the P90X guy. Nobody wants to be the rickety cyclist panting to keep up with the big boys, but if you want your back to heal and your body to be ready for the next phase, you have to put in the time as a novice first.

This happens again and again in all aspects of life. Maybe you just started a new job; you have to spend some time being a know-nothing rookie before you can be a top performer. Maybe you play the guitar and you just discovered that your picking technique is preventing you from playing as fast as you want to. You have to go back to Square One, set the metronome to 60 bpm, and start from the bottom again, with the right technique this time. Maybe your relationship has gone far off course. You have to work with what you have, start every day, taking small steps to improve your daily interaction and rapport, in order to one day reap the benefits of a great relationship again.

But when you put in that kind of work, humble yourself, and do things right by starting from the beginning again, you will return stronger than ever before. Keep that humility, keep that work ethic, keep that conscientiousness. You can do it. We all can.

Living Outside The Frame: How Context Poisons Everything

Alexandra Schwartz wrote an interesting article for The New Yorker. It's called "Improving Ourselves to Death," and it's all about the problems in the modern self-help movement. It is thought-provoking, well worth reading, and it identifies many of the worst problems with the self-help movement as it exists today: its inherent narcissism, its cock-eyed optimism, its obsession with better and more. The article doesn't stop there, it also criticizes the reaction against the self-help movement for its own shortcomings: Just because you're good enough as-is doesn't mean you can stop giving a flying so-and-so about your relationship to other people.

As any such article should, Schwartz's article ends without resolving the conflicts. It's a think piece, as in, doesn't-it-make-you. We're invited to assess for ourselves to what extent self improvement is a rat race and to what extent self acceptance is lazy and narcissistic in its own way. Both criticisms hit home, but if we're going to peer into that particular void it would be nice if something peered back into us in return. Schwartz's article doesn't give us that. Instead, it gives us a frame, a new way of seeing the self-help movement.

It's an interesting frame, sturdy and ornate. But we should see what's on the other side.

*        *        *

The main problem with Schwartz's article is something she herself can't escape. Of course she can't escape it, it's the main offer she's making us, it's the whole value proposition of her article. The frame. And that's precisely why her article, as good as it is, can't offer solutions. Maybe we can find those solutions, then, if we shine a light on the primary issue.

Consider the following excerpt, which might be considered the article's shark-jumping point (emphases mine):

After a while, Storr says, this rational response to economic pressures became instinctive habit: “Neoliberalism beams at us from many corners of our culture and we absorb it back into ourselves like radiation.” Like reality television before it, social media frames human relationships as a constant competition for popularity and approval. Donald Trump, with his greed-is-good hucksterism and his obsessive talk of “winners” and “losers,” is in the White House. (“Selfie” was published in England last year; Storr is adding a chapter about the President for the American edition.) Meanwhile, parents continue to feed their children the loving, well-intentioned lie that there are “no limits” and they can “be anything,” which leaves the kids blaming themselves, rather than the market’s brutality, when they inevitably come up short.

The phrases I've highlighted in bold above are loaded. They say so much more than what they say because they're absolutely loaded with context. They're mini-models. They're memes, shared beliefs held widely by many people that are designed to cast life in a certain light. Is anyone out there truly neutral to the word "neoliberalism" in this day and age? No, it conjures up not just one thought, but a whole set of thoughts, a whole pattern of thinking. It's a frame, if you will.

Use of the word "neoliberalism" is not so much a stand-alone point as it is an attempt to inject a particular kind of political context into a topic that wouldn't otherwise be overtly political. Asking you to think about the shortcomings of the self-help movement is one thing. Asking you to think about how the self-help movement plays into the scourge of neoliberalism is something else entirely.

In fact, all of the phrases I highlighted in bold -- and many others used throughout the article -- inject context. When Schwartz writes these things or quotes others who say these things, she's not elaborating or elucidating, she's pointing us to a correct framing of the whole issue. Reasonable people can come to different conclusions, so long as they arrive at those conclusions through the context of a discussion about "neoliberalism," or "social media," or "reality television," or etc., etc.

Like The Last Psychiatrist used to say: The media doesn't tell you what to want, it tells you how to want.

The way out of this trap is to eradicate the context. Let's give it a try:

• It's possible to reject the major tenets of the self-help movement without thinking anything at all about "neoliberalism" or the current state of the political economy.
• It's possible to embrace principles of self-improvement without embracing anything provided to you by the self-help movement.
• It's possible to pursue career success for your own reasons, without viewing it as an act of "constant competition."
• It's possible to believe that the sky is the limit without setting yourself -- or your children -- up for failure.
• It's possible to avoid rampant consumerism while still favoring a free market economy.

Really, I mean it. All of these things are possible. If you can't imagine how you might accomplish one of these things, it's only because you're hung up on the context I am asking you to purge.

*        *        *

I know someone who doesn't like to watch exercise videos because she thinks the motivational bromides shouted at the viewer by the trainer are accusations of inadequacy. When they say, "Push harder," she hears, "You're not pushing hard enough!" When they say, "Doing it this way will burn more calories," she hears, "You're fat and need to burn more calories!"

Someone else I know told me that when people say, "You should find a romantic partner to share your life with," she thought it was an accusation that her life without a romantic partner wasn't good enough.

From the standpoint of internal motivation, I don't know why people do this sort of thing. They can take any positive, encouraging, or well-meaning suggestion and turn it upside-down, twisting it into a horrible black hole of criticism. I do, however, think I know why people do this from more of a mechanical point of view. They do this by injecting context into statements that are being made without context. They have a frame, and they intend to use it.

I use exercise videos, and I've never had a weight problem. I use them because they're fun. For me, there is no context of inadequacy through which to filter the encouraging bromides of the trainer. When he says, "Push through this set," or "I want you to give me a few more reps," I don't think he's telling me that I'm not good enough as-is. I don't inject that context into my exercise videos. When people suggest that I live my life differently, I don't always take their advice to heart, but I never think they're maligning my choices. I think they're promoting their own choices, and I am okay with that.

Motivationally, the added context serves no purpose for me. It doesn't help me achieve my goals and it doesn't give me greater insight into the statements I hear from other people. Thus, the added context is useless. I like to enter into situations neutrally and then consider the many possibilities that might come out of what's happening. I'll get a lot more out of an exercise video if I think it might genuinely help me than I will if I think it's just a bunch of spandex-clad salesmen who are calling me fat so that they can make money off me.

Maybe I'm wrong about the exercise video people, but even if so, how would the alternative viewpoint help me in my life? I reject the process of adding extraneous context to the exercise because I don't want to taint a potentially valuable tool with a mental model that presupposes criticism.

Note to all the charlatans out there: Even if you're only making fun of me, if I can benefit by being made fun of, I will endeavor to do so. That's how pragmatic people live their lives. I highly recommend it.

*        *        *

The basic self-help grift works like this: First they frame your life in a novel way, and then they use that frame to solve problems you didn't even know you had.

I could write a self-help book based on the premise that human behavior is not all together different from chimpanzee behavior. I could offer many research studies of chimpanzee behavior and use loose comparisons to human studies, drawing parallels, coming up with a just-so story about how the missing piece in your life is this thing that chimpanzees are really good at, but which civilization has managed to discourage in homo sapiens. I could then sell you on a path forward: be more chimp-like. It sounds ridiculous, but it would sell. Going Bonzo: How to Unleash Your Inner Chimp and Start Taking Life by the Banana.


Or I could write what would essentially be the same book, but instead of comparing us to chimps, I could compare us to a lost tribe in the Pacific islands. Or I could compare us to a successful corporation somewhere. Or I could compare us to Holocaust survivors. Or Nobel laureates. Or some five percent of the population who hold some trait that I could seek to promote. All of these comparisons have been made in self-help books before, and will be made again, not because the ideas have merit but because that's how the grift works. First I frame your life in a novel way, and then I use that frame to solve problems you didn't even know you had.

(See? There's another trick: I used repetition to reinforce my point.)

The trick isn't selling you on my solution, the trick is selling you on my frame. The trick is providing you with the desired context through which to see your life. After that, your ultimate conclusion will be consistent with me (and my book sales), regardless of what that conclusion is. You don't actually have to adopt a "growth mindset" in order to believe you need one.

*        *        *

Now back to Schwartz. I think part of her understands what I'm saying, but unfortunately the only part of her that understands it is the part that is skeptical of self-help books. The part of her that is skeptical of various political and economic beliefs, or beliefs about the modern human condition as told through the language of "neoliberalism" or "hucksterism" or "consumerism," or "the market's brutality," or etc., etc., has not yet learned to live outside the frame.

This isn't necessarily her fault, and it's not my intention here to criticize her or change her mind. My goal here is to use her article to highlight how inevitable this trap is. We really have to fight to escape the sucking sound of an all-consuming context.

Don't believe me? Them just try to celebrate Christmas without a Christmas tree. "But putting up a Christmas tree is just what you do during Christmas!" Doesn't have to be. Try ordering a burger with no fries, just the burger. "But it's just not as satisfying without the fries!" It could be, if you wanted it to be. Try voting for a third party candidate. "But that just helps the party I hate win!" Uh, no, sorry.

Or, here's one: Try playing with your child without inserting the context of the parent-child dynamic. Just give it a try. Go to the playground and take your child's lead. See what happens. I dare you.

Try making love to your spouse like it's the first time. Forget the context provided by years of being together and live one night together without it. Wouldn't it be great to feel those butterflies again? You could, if you wanted to.

You could live outside the frame. I urge you to try.

No, You Can't Have A Hug

I.

We were out with a big group of extended family, and eventually people started asking my daughter for hugs. Not "good-bye hugs," just hugs for no reason at all.

In its own right, this request upsets me. When small children feel relaxed and reasonably safe, they will do anything you tell them to do. This is the power of the trust they give you. Asking them to perform acts of cuteness on command, purely for your own personal entertainment, is an abuse of that power. Asking them to perform acts of emotional intimacy purely for your own personal entertainment is an abuse of the trust. I was among family, so I allowed it, but when the request came for a kiss, I put an end to it.

Someone asked why, and my wife explained that children shouldn't have to feel obligated to give hugs and kisses - and I agree. However, I added: If we were to make a routine of having her give out hugs and kisses, and then (god forbid) an adult ever tried to sexually abuse her, she'd have no idea where to draw the line. By abusing her trust, I would have left her physically and emotionally defenseless.

II.

Like so many other human relationships, the parent-child bond is made almost entirely of trust. It has to be, since small children are entirely reliant on their caretakers. As the first weeks and months of life unfold, they learn to trust us by virtue of the fact that we can be counted on to provide for them physically and emotionally. We parents help, and we do it consistently and reliably. This forms the foundation for our children's trusting us: If parents give them food, then it must be okay to eat it, if parents introduce them to people, then those people must be friendly, if parents take them somewhere, then it must be an okay place to go, if parents teach them something, then there must be value in that knowledge. If children didn't trust us to provide them with positive, safe, and relevant experiences, they would become basket-cases.

That's why it bothers me when I see videos of parents feeding their infants and toddlers lemons. We all know what will happen when the child tastes the lemon for the first time: s/he will make a surprised face, the parents will think the face is cute, onlookers will get a good laugh at it. There's just one question left to ask: What about the kid?

It might seem harmless, but on the other hand, such parents have now given their children a reason to second-guess their parents. The lesson is, "I can't always trust that what my parents will give me won't turn out to be an intolerably sour and acidic thing." The bond of trust is reduced just a little bit. When all we're getting out of this is some cute video footage, it just strikes me as being selfish. Wouldn't it be better for your child to know that not only are you looking after his/her best interests, but you're also keeping a high price on that trust; you won't sell it out for something as trivial as a good photo op?

If I feel this way about making a toddler taste a lemon, you can imagine how I feel about the many more elaborate versions of this, such as the Santa Claus lie. Teaching our children to genuinely believe in elaborate hoaxes, just so their parents can proclaim that the children's naivete is "cute," teaches them only to disbelieve their parents.

There is seemingly no end to the list of things some parents are willing to lie about: monsters, ghosts, elves, magic, anthropomorphism, and so on. Some mistakenly believe that this is how they instill in their children a rich and active imagination. But no, this merely forces the child to do extra work figuring out the difference between belief and the suspension of disbelief. Instead of telling a story about an imaginary character named Santa Claus, in which a child could safely fantasize and let her imagination run wild, the parents stamp out the imagination component of the process by simply duping her.

III.

This is lunacy. If we want our children to value our thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and advice, then we ought to commit to building a strong foundation of trust within the relationship. You might not get everything right, but it's not impossible to simply agree not to knowingly get things wrong.

As children age, they're bound to challenge every thought that occurs to us. Not only is that a wonderful and important developmental process for them, it is also a spectacular learning opportunity for us, since they might ask questions or wonder about things we haven't considered before. If so, we'll want to be forthcoming about that, too, so that our children learn a few additional life lessons, such as:

1. Not every thought or belief withstands close scrutiny.
2. It's okay to be wrong, as long as I'm open-minded about the truth and willing to accept it when I see it.
3. Sometimes kids can be right, too, and if so, my parents will love and respect me for the knowledge I bring with me.
4. Even when my parents are wrong, they are acting in good faith, subject to the knowledge that they have.

All this, without fostering a general sense of distrust. I won't always be correct about every single thing I tell my daughter, but it's important to me that she at least trust that I'm not trying to pull the wool over her eyes.

Nor should she ever feel that I'd tell her something just so that I had an excuse to observe her "being cute." I already think she's cute. She doesn't have to give strangers hugs or be duped into believing in a magical flying santa-god in order to look cute to me. She's cute when she learns to jump and then practices to get it right. She's cute when she discovers a new word and tries to use it often. She's cute when she expresses affection to me and others voluntarily. She's cute when she asks me to take her to the park, because she knows that as long as there isn't another, prior commitment, I am happy to oblige. And I don't need to feed her a lemon in order to watch her occasionally recoil from a food she doesn't like.

This is all in service of a trusting bond between us. I can't teach her things if she's skeptical of each lesson, and I can't keep her safe if she doesn't trust me to take care of her. Nor can I teach her the right way to be skeptical if I give her reason to believe her own parents are disingenuous. Healthy skepticism comes from evaluating good-faith information on its own merits, but a latent distrust of all claims made even by one's closest relations isn't skepticism. It's cynicism. That's the last thing I'd want to encourage in her.

We Can Make The World A Better Place By Being Better People

The clouds are either coming in or dispersing. Which way do you see it?

Not long ago I added a motto to a few of my social network profiles: We can make the world a better place by being better people. It's not a very eloquent way to put it, but it's the best way I could think to articulate what I see as the core purpose of human life. It's my creed.

I've now put it in the banner of the blog.

In the end, it's all up to us, win, lose, or draw. In any situation, you have a choice: do something that improves the circumstances, or do something that does not improve the circumstances. My challenge to myself - and, if I'm lucky, my readers - is to start living life that way. We really can make the world a better place by being better people.

What do I mean when I say "better?" The first question any pessimist chimes in with is "Oh yeah? Better by whose standards? Who gets to say what's better and worse?" From there, the typical outcome is a slow descent into the maelstrom of moral nihilism. It's not that those asking the question are themselves moral nihilists, it's just that their whole point in asking the question is to defeat any attempt at becoming a better person.

It's a psychological defense mechanism, and it's totally transparent. Rather than taking the time to personally assess their own potential for growth and improvement - real growth and real improvement - they quickly defeat the whole notion of improvement using that tired old canard: "It's all subjective!" Okay, then improve yourself subjectively - but improve yourself.

Please, I beg you, rather than wringing your hands over the impossibility of arriving at a unanimous standard for being a better person, use your common sense. 

If you see someone who needs help, be it someone stranded on the roadside with a flat tire or someone with their arms full trying to open the front door, you already know that you can either be helpful or not. By any reasonable standard of "being a better person," which course of action do you think makes you a better person - the helpful option, or the unhelpful option? When someone asks a favor of you, you already know that you can either grant them that favor or turn them down. Which do you think makes you a better person? When someone says or does something to you that you find offensive, you already know that you can move on with things, hold your head high, and be the kind of person who doesn't get invited into anger, or you can be the kind of person who - always and everywhere - gives as good as she gets. Which do you think makes you a better person?

You can take it easy at work and slide by, or you can accomplish something. You can get some exercise in today, or you can slack off. You can eat a healthy meal, or you can subsist on french fries. You can find something to donate to charity, or you can just forget about it. You can pay someone a kind word, or you can keep it to yourself. You can call your mother or you can play Candy Crush Saga. You can stash the empty shopping cart next to the adjacent car, or you can take the thirty seconds required to push it into the holding area. You can play an extra game of peek-a-boo with your daughter, or you can brush her aside and tell her to play by herself. 

What will you do?

You know? This doesn't take a stroke of genius. Everyone knows what it means to be a better person. Everyone knows it's easier to just not bother.

But maybe you've noticed that the world isn't getting any more pleasant these days. You don't have any control over what other people do, and you have hardly any control at all over the world's political climate and systems. What you can control is your own actions, your own ability and propensity to be a better person. 

I'd like you to join me in taking up the challenge. Will you do it? 

We can make the world a better place by being better people.

Phronesis For Nukes

I've recently started following a blog that is very much unlike the rest of what I read/post about. It's called The Lovely Twenty-Somethings. People who find their way to Stationary Waves from places like EconLog or other such websites might find it a little puffy compared to my usual material (and outside my demographic), but the fact of the matter is that there is a lot of really great practical wisdom at this website, especially with regard to happiness and positivity.

Case in point, this recent post reads in part as follows:

Once on a day like any other day I made a comment on a video on Youtube. It was nothing extreme or incredibly offensive, in fact I wrote it in a comedic fashion. It was also a comment that was pretty similar to a few others on the comment section yet within days I found myself getting messages of replies to my comment. Rude, cruel and pretty ridiculous comments. Since I am someone who is as disconnected from negativity as possible I promptly deleted my comment and the messages to avoid getting any others, not because I was embarrassed or "running away" it was simply because the weird stress is gave me by being bombarded by people I did not know (and did not know me) and the words they so easily used towards me that I have never heard directed at me in the "real world".

This dovetails nicely with my concept of intellectual nuke buttons.

When you're confronted with these nukes, there is no possible way to "win" in a satisfying way. The guy with the nuke always wins, even if he has to blow himself up in order to get there. Your choice becomes: (a) stick around and get nuked, or (b) walk away. Blogger "Nicola K" provides us with an innovative solution in that she not only chooses (b) - which is the only appropriate choice, anyway - but she also takes the time to blot out all evidence of the negativity so that it doesn't poison anyone else. Good idea.

There is one minor point she makes with which I must disagree:

Freedom of speech is a powerful thing but insulting someone, putting them down, hurting them and suggesting that they are stupid and only the person commenting is right is not a freedom of speech. It is bullying like any other teenager or child would do except there is a chance it is from a grown adult sitting at their computer with so much negativity in them they use a comment page to release this negativity possibly because they do not have " that power" in their " real" lives.

I agree that we must not consider verbal bullying a "right," at least not in a certain emotional sense of the term "right." However, saying insulting things, however hurtful, is very much within the realm of freedom of speech. Even verbal bullying - indeed, even verbal abuse - is protected free speech in the legal sense, so long as it's not slanderous. This is right and appropriate.

But it is also not really what Nicola K was writing about.