MandelbrotI’m a fan of harsh truths. Someone recently linked me to this post on harsh truths from 2012 that went mega-viral back in the day.
It’s quite good, though I’d argue that several on the list are all really one single harsh truth (that you have to create something of value to be valued).
The few that struck a chord (with a few thoughts from me in italics):
- The world only cares about what it can get from you. Everyone you encounter needs something. You are either valuable (by providing those things that are needed) or not (because you cannot provide any of them) and the world will treat you accordingly. This is true professionally in the context of what valuable skills you can build to fill what others need and personally in the context of what valuable emotional support you can provide to your family and friends. We should all strive to be valuable to those around us.
- What you are inside only matters because of what it makes you do. As discussed in the framework, my view is that actions create identity. We have to DO in order to BE. It’s not enough to say that we are a good person on the inside if we don’t do good things for other people.
- Everything inside you will fight improvement. I agree with this. For most people, the internal wiring makes it much easier to just stay the same. It’s painful to change and grow, so we avoid it. We make up excuses and do all kinds of mental gymnastics to tell ourselves that’s ok. But we’re better than that, and we are made to do more than that. You get one shot at life, might as well try to make the most of it!