HOW TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE

DALI, THE TRANSFORMATION OF NARCISSUS

I. OUR MODELS OF LIFE ARE NOW BROKEN

We’re not living in the world we once were anymore. All the old models and pathways have broken down around us. Ladders have become snakes and chutes. The old rules—work hard, get ahead, have a nice, stable life—will only get you burned.

The world we’re living in now is a destabilized one. What that means in practice is that it requires a very different approach to living in it. In a stable world, you can do what’s expected of you, and the results will be predictable. In this one, though, that equation’s fundamentally and irreparably broken.

Not just for people, by the way. For businesses, institutions, and even countries. We all have to renegotiate our relationship with the world. Only not many of us are doing it.

I’m going to teach you how.

II. LIVING IN AN UNSTABLE WORLD IS ABOUT TAKING RISKS

Living in an unstable world is about taking risks. It couldn’t be more different from living in a stable world. There, institutions took risks on people’s behalf. Now, as they crumble, they’re failing at that task. People end up weighed down by risks shifted onto them. And as that happens, people end up paralyzed.

When I look around, I see a kind of tsunami of paralysis. People are afraid, bewildered, and lost. They don’t know what to do anymore. That’s understandable. Here’s the secret.

Taking risks. Now. Let me shade it in so that you understand it. It isn’t any of the following: gambling, speculation, stepping off the nearest cliff, impulsivity, grandiosity, narcissism, etcetera.

Risk is taking a chance, an informed one, on possibility.

III. THE (DYING) ART OF HUMAN POSSIBILITY

You are human possibility. That is what you are, in essence.

And the reason that people feel so glum, upset, angry, depressed, and stressed these days is that their possibilities are constantly thwarted. Thwarted is a word with a distinct meaning: I was expecting a certain set of results, but I was frustrated. Blocked. Not just: they came undone, randomly. But I met an insurmountable obstacle, a form of active resistance.

When you’re climbing a mountain, you might not succeed for all kinds of reasons. You didn’t have the strength, you ran out of supplies, there was an emergency back home. But to be thwarted implies an active obstacle. Not just the mountain itself, but maybe the wind, snow, rain, rocks. Something stood in your way that turned all your plans to dust.

People’s human possibility is being thwarted. You can see that now in every aspect of life. Starting families. Career progression. Choosing where to live. Buying homes. Creating and building wealth. Thwarted, thwarted, thwarted. That doesn’t always mean: none of it happens, but it does mean: you only got so far up the mountain.

IV. WHAT’S THWARTING US

So: we are now living in a world which thwarts our possibilities. What is the active obstacle doing that, if it isn’t the mountain itself. In this analogy, the mountain is just life. But the forces thwarting us aren’t passive.

They are the institutions and systems failing around us. Think of all the young people who were told to study computer science, so they’d have stable, well-paid technology careers—LOL, poor things. Or think of all the ways that people’s financial advisors are letting them down. Or how it’s become unaffordable for younger people to buy homes—the list is a long, long one.

Our failing institutions are thwarting us. And so we cannot merely rely on them anymore. That might seem opaque, so let me clarify it.

How did we used to rely on our institutions? Institutions are: economies, companies, banks, governments, social systems, etcetera. And we used to rely on them in a very simple way. We were told there was a “map” to use to climb the mountain of life, and along the way, institutions would become our levers and ropes and paths.

But now, they lead us nowhere, really, except the abyss. Does that make a little more sense? Let me make it even clearer. To rely on failing institutions means that you’re using yesterday’s mental map. It looks like this. Education, job, career, family, wealth, retirement, etcetera.

All of that’s now broken down. Not just some of it. Think of how relationships between men and women themselves are now the subject of intense disappointment. Or think of how friendship itself is breaking down. So in all these ways, our old “maps” of life, which became our mental models of it, are now leading us in circles.

V. ORIENTING YOURSELF TOWARDS FULFILLMENT (AGAIN)

We aren’t climbing the mountain anymore. We’re tumbling off it. That means: increasingly, we’re not living fulfilling lives. So much so, that if you ask young people, they’ll look at you sardonically. Fulfillment? What are you thinking? I’m just trying to survive, and I can’t even figure out how to do that.

But fulfillment remains the question of a lifetime. It isn’t just this wretched thing called survival mode, unless you want to end up feeling you’ve barely lived at all.

People now have two choices before them, two roads, to very different destinations. Employ the old mental map, and live a stunted life, in which your possibilities are thwarted, and you’re never fulfilled. Or…aim for fulfillment still, which just means: I realized my possibilities. I made them real.

None of us do all of that. We all fail, and that’s necessary. I often tell you how I rose to the top, made a fortune, lost it all, and had to find my way back. This is part of realization, too. No journey is ever straight to the summit in life—not one. Here, the mountain analogy fails, because we’re never just climbing a mountain.

Now you must orient yourself again. Because the world has destabilized, shifted under our feet, and so the old maps, now broken, don’t lead anywhere much anymore.

VI. THE TWO ROADS BEFORE YOU NOW

I want you to see the two roads clearly.

Settling. We used to call this road “mediocrity.” Today, it’s something more agonized, a life of bewilderment, loss, and confusion. In a world spinning out of control, you never figure out who you are, your place in it, much less how to master it.

Fulfillment. You realize your higher possibilities, and you accept, too, that failing miserably is part of the struggle, the fun, the absurdity, the beauty. In, through, all that, not despite it, you genuinely become a person, in the most mature form, capable of love, strength, courage, wisdom.

Every day, every action, every word, thought, image—you are making a choice. Orient yourself. And the feeling of being lost and confused and bewildered will begin to recede. I promise. Close your eyes. Let it happen.

Now that I’ve laid out the roads for you, we’re going to redesign the map.

VII. HOW TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE

To lead a fulfilled life now, you can’t just live in the old world anymore. We all know this, on some level, but very, very few of us act like it. And this is where we must take risks.

How do you take risks? What the hell is Umair talking about? Why won’t he just give me the secret already? Alright, here it is.

Let’s break life down into just three elements. There are more, and you can cut it finer, but for now, we’ll keep it simple. Financial, relational, and professional.

In all these domains, people are not taking enough risks to lead fulfilling lives.

Let’s begin with finance. Most people leave it up to their financial advisors, who do a pretty mediocre job for them. They take few risks, and the ones they do are taken badly, too. Just leave your money in the stock market! Don’t worry, everything will be fine! Come now, I’ve already taught you how to do better than all this (just read the archives.)

Now let’s talk about professional life. Over the next decade, the labor market will disintegrate. Jobs will no longer exist, much less careers. What will be left is an “unbundled” set of markets, and people will compete for tasks and project and so forth—largely because of the impact of AI, and then humanoid robots.

Here, too, people aren’t taking enough risk. I have many, many friends who’ve done well, and have nice lives being managers in corporations. They also know they’re one tiny step away from not just being fired, but from their entire professional lives going up in smoke, because AI will do it better, faster, and cheaper. They should be taking risks now. Not waiting until then. Whether it’s starting their own businesses, consultancies, projects, developing not just new skills, but new roles and ideas for positions (because that’s what corporations will be looking for, they’re as confused as the rest of us.)

Now let’s talk about relationships. People aren’t taking enough risk here, either. It’s comfortable and convenient to say, if you’re young, I don’t want to be in a relationship. It’s fashionable and trendy. It’s also a cop out. Believe me when I tell you that when you’re middle aged, you’re going to wonder where all the time went, and the loneliness will hit you like an icepick to the soul. Contemplating the last twenty or thirty years of your life alone isn’t a pleasant prospect. Nobody should be giving up on their lives like this, because of course, being loved and loving is the most fundamental human need of all, and we’re lying about that to ourselves, in this age where lying become’s a way of life.

Let’s talk a little bit more about relationships. I know plenty of men who are baffled, dispirited, and bewildered about how to even approach relationships, women, love. But they’re not taking enough risk, and I don’t mean: approaching women in bars. I mean being brave enough to learn about it all, try things out, develop themselves. I’m the guy that turns my friends lives’ around, and I have to do it dragging them kicking and screaming. Just getting my newly divorced friend to stop wearing goddamned nylon puffer vests was like asking him to step foot on the beaches of Normandy. See what I mean by taking risk?

I could go on, but perhaps you get my drift a little bit. And I know my examples are a little bit…trivial, maybe. Smarmy, in some ways. But I want you to take the bull by the horns. Not sit around debating it and wallowing in it, which is where culture is these days, an endless cycle of bitching about how terrible everything is, opting out of it, being fatalistic, and then wondering: why don’t things ever get better?

VIII. MY MAP IS NOT A MAP

The new map I’ve given you says something like this. Break life down into its fundamental components. Examine yours closely. And my bet is that you’ll see that you’re not taking risks. This is what the feeling of being paralyzed and confused means.

The new map says: in every element of life, take more risks. Again, risk doesn’t mean “do something stupid, and hope for the best.” It means something much deeper, and more beautiful.

Here are my possibilities. I am going to try and realize them. I am going to try to build wealth, I am going to design my career and profession and livelihood, I am going to have these kinds of relationships, or my existing relationships will develop more like this.

Now you’re beginning to take control.

In this broken, unravelling world, one thing is still yours. Your life.

I know that many people feel trapped. There are days when even I do, and as my mother says to me, sometimes, “you’ve lived life your way!” We’re thwarted. That much is undeniable. But that does not mean we are trapped.

Now we aren’t just climbing the same old mountain the same way anymore. We are making different choices. Maybe we’re saying: I’m going to go explore the canyons instead. I’m going to see where the river ends at the sea. I’m going to climb that mountain, all the way over there.

My map is not a map at all. It’s a way for you to create your own.

Love,

Umair (and Snowy)