Several specific drugs that make life miserable —— Thinking notes of Charles Munger's speech

In his speech at the graduation ceremony of Harvard University, Charlie Munger talked about several special drugs that make life miserable: 1. Use chemicals to change emotions or feelings; 2. jealousy; 3. resentment; 4. willfulness; 5. Don't learn from others; 6. I can't stand the blow and I am devastated.

Combined with my life experience, the following are my thoughts on these specific drugs.

1. Use chemicals to change emotions or feelings.

I have never used this specific medicine, but I have used a similar method-eating hard when I am in a bad mood. Eating to improve my mood, even eating because of boredom, has brought me great distress. On the one hand, the time for emotional relief is limited, and you will still feel empty after the end. I'm not hungry, and I don't enjoy delicious food. It's just that the stimulation brought by taste buds and the secretion of sugar make my brain relax temporarily, but after a short relaxation, I still have to face things that make me uncomfortable or bored. The problem itself is not solved, and food can only be temporarily paralyzed. On the other hand, heavy mental burden is harmful to health. Another problem brought by overeating is getting fat. Anyway, I can't stand being out of shape, so every time I finish eating, I will exercise crazily and condemn myself. For a time, I spent almost all my spare time on sports, but it was still difficult to control my weight gain. I stopped to think. The original intention of exercise is to have a better body and let me have more energy to struggle. As a result, fitness has become a constant eating-constant practice. In order to get that bite, I have to sacrifice a lot of time. Long exercise every day is not good for my health. Finally, the biggest problem with eating addiction is that it will form a habit that allows you to eat when you are in a bad mood in the face of problems to escape. If you are in a bad mood, don't delve into the reasons. Eat a meal to solve it. If you are bored and don't do anything valuable, eat a meal to solve it. In the long run, it will form a habit cycle and avoid problems, which is undoubtedly the biggest harm to life.

Actually, it's not just eating. Anything addictive will bring more or less harm to life, such as smoking and drinking, playing games and gambling, such as surfing the Internet aimlessly. These things are addictive, but they may not be as difficult to quit as chemicals.

I think Charles Munger put chemical addiction in the first place, probably because it is really difficult to quit. Once it is polluted, even the strongest-willed people will spend their lives fighting it, and most of the time, they will fail.

Life is so short, why spend time and energy on things that can't make you happy for a long time? Why let yourself fall into greater pain just because you are afraid of a little pain?

Second, jealousy.

For a long time, it was difficult for me to distinguish envy from jealousy. Now it seems that they are similar in that they all see what others have, but they don't really want what they want. The difference between them is that jealousy can make people resist the envied object, while jealousy can make people close to the envied object. So this points out the biggest problem of jealousy-resisting and contradicting the advantages or resources owned by others.

Give two familiar examples: 1. Beautiful women are unlucky. It seems that since ancient times, people who are ugly or ordinary have never had a rough fate. In fact, whether beautiful or not, what is the relationship between good looks and bad luck? Ordinary people also have to face the ups and downs of life, just because beauty is a natural scarce resource, which is easy to be seen or remembered. 2. Being rich is heartless. In the same way, it seems that the poor people around you have high morality. It seems that the aunt who buys and sells vegetables in the vegetable market will not give you a short weight because she is poor. It seems that the poor people around you will give themselves to others. Isn't there a good guy and a bad guy, rich or poor? What does it matter whether people are rich or not?

Jealousy is undoubtedly unpleasant. In order to adjust emotions, people do not hesitate to distort the facts in their hearts to make themselves feel better, and resist or contradict the advantages or resources owned by others. However, no matter how sour it is, it will not prevent people with advantages or resources from living well. You refuse to face the truth of the world, but the world will not change its operating rules because of you. In this kind of conflict, pain arises spontaneously.

Besides, jealousy can do great harm. Will keep you away from the object of your jealousy. Usually, these people are excellent. If you can't be spontaneous once you fall into jealousy, you will only have some abilities or resources that are inferior to your friends and hinder your progress. Failure to make progress is also a source of pain.

Third, resentment

From the source, resentment comes from others doing things you don't want to do, and the world doesn't work according to your wishes, which makes you feel bad.

In this way, it seems easy to eliminate resentment. As long as the object of resentment changes his behavior, won't it be solved if he does as you say? Seeing this, most people over the age of 28 will sneer: it is almost as difficult to change a person as to send things on earth into space. It's not impossible, it's just difficult to get to the sky.

So, in my opinion, resentment itself comes from a person's unwillingness to accept the true colors of the world and a person's true colors. A child will think that he is the center of the world and the world revolves around him. Only when a person grows up and matures can he accept others' differences with him peacefully. The more mature you are, the more you can accept others' differences. The less mature your mind is, the less you can accept others' differences, and the more likely you are to have resentment.

It is precisely because it is too difficult to change others and the world, and it is too difficult to eliminate the resentment of the enemy, and the pain will follow.

Fourth, willfulness.

Deliberate practice is an absolutely effective way to acquire skills, which is almost everyone's knowledge. One of the prerequisites of deliberate practice is that you do some technical movements repeatedly. Once willful, it is impossible to master a skill skillfully.

From the moment of birth, in order to live in this world better and more freely, we constantly practice our skills, such as brushing our teeth, cooking and cleaning our bodies. Even these most basic and simple things have been practiced thousands of times until they become habits and even skills. Only when we have all kinds of skills around us can we live a more decent, free and long life, which will also be the source of happiness.

A person living in modern society, food and clothing is no longer the biggest problem. If you want to realize yourself, you must be extraordinary. Once a person is willful, it is difficult to acquire some excellent skills and have something extraordinary. Being unable to fulfill oneself, surpass oneself and live the life you want is undoubtedly the greatest punishment for a person, so willfulness is the source of pain.

5. Don't learn from others.

There are two kinds here, one is not to learn from the wrong experience of others. We will make many mistakes in our life, some of which can be remedied, but some of which cannot be remedied once committed. For example, drunk driving, all drunk drivers should know some drunk driving tragedies, but they don't think the same behavior will happen to themselves until one day, they become a warning example for others. It is arrogant and self-righteous not to learn from other people's wrong experiences. Maybe these people think I am a special person, all good things will happen to me, and all bad things will not happen to me.

The other is not to learn from other people's successful experiences. Colleagues and friends often ask me how to exercise. I will patiently tell them that fitness is a state of life that needs to be maintained. It shouldn't be too difficult at first, but mainly to cultivate interest. It should not be utilitarian at first. The result of quick success and instant benefit is either physical injury or giving up because of too much pressure. Everyone thinks what I said is very reasonable, but without exception, I practiced hard at the beginning and gave up after a few days without any effect. Yes, no matter how many times I say it, my colleagues and friends around me just like to do what they understand. People who don't like to learn from other people's successful experiences probably have to take many detours.

No matter the wrong experience or successful experience of others, it will undoubtedly help us jump out of many dark pits of life. If you choose to ignore it, you choose to jump into the dark pit of life and try. The pain can be imagined.

6. I couldn't stand the blow and never recovered.

There is a classic dialogue in Black Boy Not Too Cold. The little girl Mathilde asked the killer Leon, is life always so hard, or only when you were a child? Leon replied that it is always so bitter.

Yes, life is always so bitter, and no one will be smooth sailing. Life is more like a game. After playing one level, there is the next level, and you have successfully experienced one blow, the next blow, until the end of your life.

People living in the same environment have the same social operation rules, and life will not give special preferential treatment to one person. This is the truth that every family has its own problems. But some people can be positive and optimistic, while others complain pessimistically. In this long life, there are countless blows waiting for us. If you can't stand the blow, you can only stay at the bottom of life and taste the pain brought by life.