Friday, February 19, 2016

Build to be happy

This is the second part of Mike Cernovich's recent post that I found so significant. It merits closer contemplation:
People do not want to be happy, as becoming happy requires you to take action. Miserable people won’t watch a sunset or volunteer at a soup kitchen, even though those activities are proven to increase happiness. Stressed out people aren’t going to meditate.

People love being “who they are,” as that requires them to take no effort to change. Avoid those people like the plague, as they are diseased of the mind....

Finding happy friends as a man will be a constant challenge. Finding a happy woman is even harder.

The best strategy to find quality people is to become one yourself while ruthlessly cutting out toxic people, users, and manipulators.
As you work to improve yourself, one thing that you will find is that the world can be divided into three groups of people.
  1. Those who are indifferent to you. This is the vast majority of people out there.
  2. Those who will support you. This is, by far, the smallest group.
  3. Those who will attempt to tear you down. This group isn't huge, but it can be alarming to discover who is in it.
It's not just miserable people who will try to prevent you from improving yourself. Your wife or your girlfriend may feel threatened by feeling that you are moving out of her league and try to sabotage you. If you've got a Gamma father, he may belittle your efforts and attempt to make you feel as if your efforts are pointless. If you've got female friends, they may attempt to "put you in your place" or "let the air out of you". Your male acquaintances may even try to physically keep you in your place in the socio-sexual hierarchy to prevent themselves sliding below you.

That's why Cernovich is right to tell you to ruthlessly cut them out of your life. It doesn't matter if they are friends or family, if they can't even manage to be neutral towards your efforts at self-improvement, they have to go. There is a word for someone who actively attempts to hinder your efforts and make your life worse, and that word is enemy.

That's the bad news. The good news is that you will make new and better friends, people who are moving forward themselves. In the same way that gym rats tend to bond, people who are active and alive tend to like each other. I hit it off instantly with Mike; I recognized him as someone who was not content to coast, but was intent on achieving more tomorrow than he had today. It wasn't just interesting to talk about his plans with him, it was energizing.

And people like to be energized. So, if you want to improve your own life, learn how to be supportive of others and boost their energy levels, don't be a vampire and seek to boost your own by draining others.


16 comments:

Unknown said...

As repellent as I find your views on politics, race, culture, gender, etc, etc, when you're right, you're right. This is actually good advice that I was lucky to get as young person, and that I have given younger people.

Hammerli 280 said...

I've never understood the desire to tear other people down. Improving yourself I understand completely. Being lazy I also understand. But tearing other people down? Why bother?

Booch Paradise said...

I've never understood the desire to tear other people down

These people have settled with life and believe that it is fate that they don't have more money, power, women etc, and that it just is what it is. When other people in their social circle start to rise, it show's them that their mediocrity is the result of their own character and choices, not fate. But if the people around them fail in their attempts at self improvement, their character and life choices are validated. So they sabotage.

dc.sunsets said...

People spend their whole lives getting better at who they really are. They don't change, they just get "more." This is not to say people can't self-improve. Job One is discovering your weak spots and, rather than trying vainly to fix them, just reorient so those vulnerabilities aren't subjected to assault, a bit like if you're an alcoholic stay the hell out of bars.

Toxic people are just that. They just get worse. The problem is when they're "family." It makes it harder to jettison them. They are definitely enemies. Distance and walls are necessities.

One astonishing experience is watching men marry women whose toxicity is blatant. One coworker (beta) was so happy he married a girl far more attractive than he'd ever imagined landing he overlooked her sexual history (uber-skank), her unnatural attachment to her mother, her heroin-addict brother and the fact that her father looked like the leftover exoskeleton of a cicada.

dc.sunsets said...

Cernovich is right, but lots of people can't accept the relative isolation that results. There are simply very few decent people, and it takes self-discipline to accept the relative solitude an honest appraisal will yield.

VD said...

lots of people can't accept the relative isolation that results

When Hell is other people, solitude is Heaven.

SirHamster said...

I've never understood the desire to tear other people down. Improving yourself I understand completely. Being lazy I also understand. But tearing other people down? Why bother?

They're playing a zero sum game. Your honor is their shame. People will murder themselves over shame, so it's no surprise what else shame can drive them to do.

DeepThought said...

As one who has worked with addicts of all types(Drugs and process addictions), I can tell you Mike has it wrong. During the worse of times your friends will peel off as you slide to the bottom. Only spouses and family members stay by the fallen and stay by the addict has he rehabilitates himself.

Anyone who says friends are like family is patently wrong.

Jack Ripper said...

"Cernovich is right, but lots of people can't accept the relative isolation that results. There are simply very few decent people, and it takes self-discipline to accept the relative solitude an honest appraisal will yield."

This is true. Moving to a strange city, I've found very few people who I deem worthy to hang out. Consequently, I spend a lot of time by myself. It's a reality one has to be ready for.

dc.sunsets said...

Anyone who says friends are like family is patently wrong.

I told my sons to be especially respectful of each other. Friends come and go, family you're stuck with, so mutual respect is 100x more important inside the family (and ALL successful relationships are based on mutual respect.) Those who treat their family members with disdain or disrepect are a special kind of a-hole. But when you have a family member who is an utter sociopath, tolerance is a vice. Don't tolerate them. They can't change, they won't change, and like a drowning swimmer if you try to save them they'll murder your life.

dc.sunsets said...

It's a reality one has to be ready for.

Long ago I spent much time inside my own head. Today, after a very long time being married I'd find complete isolation quite lonely. Everyone needs a little solitude here and there, but I don't envy those whose circumstances yield excessive solitude. The Net has allowed more like-minded people to find each other and socialize, but the desire to find a few members of the Remnant with whom to actually interact physically would be irresistible at some point for me. I do my level best to take care of my wife, whose company satisfies.

I used to counsel youthful coworkers to deprioritize work and raise getting their personal lives on track to the highest priority before life passed them by. None listened, perhaps because giving advice is a complete waste of time, perhaps because our modern ethos is too pervasive to resist.

Unknown said...

I enjoyed Mike's original article and I really liked your spin on it here.

I recently just walked out on my job and to be honest, I didn't really have a plan. My first novel comes out in April and I blog so that's all I've really got. So I started writing about leaving my job on my blog (http://all99life.com) sort of to show what happens to me as a result of my decision. I want people to see that life does go on even if you don't have a cubicle anymore; or so I suspect it does.

What I found was there were some people super inspired who reached out to me, and I was happy about that, but then there were plenty of people who told me, "this will never work." Some of those people were first, friends of mine, and second, small business owners themselves which was disheartening.

I feel like they want what is best for me but instead of offering any advice on how they made it as an entrepreneur themselves they broke down why I would fail and I never saw that coming. It really made this line resonate with me: "Those who will attempt to tear you down. This group isn't huge, but it can be alarming to discover who is in it."

Natalie said...

I know this is a man blog, but I really wish I knew how to be an energizer. I have a toxic mom, two small kids, thyroid issues, and my own life baggage - mostly arising from living with a narcissistic mom and a passive dad. When I imagine the kind of person I want to be - warm, patient, industrious, joyful - I'm just not sure how to get there. Where do you learn this stuff? I've come a LONG way in the past 10 years, but I still feel like there's so much to being a quality woman that I never learned and aren't sure where to learn.

Kirk Parker said...

Natalie: ask your husband.

shackleford44 said...

Natalie, Bonhoeffer's quotes on "Reverence" and "Suffering " and anything from Marcus Aurelius "Meditations" help me stay on any even keel. http://www.quoteland.com/author/Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Quotes/1640/

Jed Mask said...

"That's why Cernovich is right to tell you to ruthlessly cut them out of your life. It doesn't matter if they are friends or family, if they can't even manage to be neutral towards your efforts at self-improvement, they have to go. There is a word for someone who actively attempts to hinder your efforts and make your life worse, and that word is enemy.

That's the bad news. The good news is that you will make new and better friends, people who are moving forward themselves. In the same way that gym rats tend to bond, people who are active and alive tend to like each other. I hit it off instantly with Mike; I recognized him as someone who was not content to coast, but was intent on achieving more tomorrow than he had today. It wasn't just interesting to talk about his plans with him, it was energizing.

And people like to be energized. So, if you want to improve your own life, learn how to be supportive of others and boost their energy levels, don't be a vampire and seek to boost your own by draining others."

TRUE. Positive lesson LEARNED. Thanks for elaborating on this from Mr. Cernovich.

A mindset I use to train and keep myself focused is to just "make it all about ME" what do I WANT TO CREATE AND PRODUCE that is cool and useful; would others like it as I do? Good stuff... to stay motivated... Most of all turn to CHRIST in PRAYER and HIS WORD, MAN does that do miracles in one's life. Amen.

~ Sincerely,

Bro. Jed

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