How To Get What You Want

The only true test of intelligence is if you can get what you want from the world.

If you're so smart then why aren't you happy/rich/___?

There are two facets to this idea at play: being smart enough to know how to get what you want, and being smart enough to know what to want.

The latter is important because if your desire is outrageous, you'll never fulfill it. Also, desiring the wrong things earns you stupid prizes: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Understand that the desires you hold are the axis of your suffering. Thus, you shouldn't have many desires at once.

If you wake up and wish you were less groggy, suffering. You commute to work and wish there was less traffic, suffering. You get to work and wish it was over, suffering.

Every desire you extend to the world is an avenue for unhappiness.

Reality is neutral. Nothing that happens is good or bad, it just is. Those labels only exist from something or someone's perspective.

The famous story explaining this is the bride and groom resenting the rain on their wedding day, while the farmer is elated because there's been a drought. The rain is neutral but the interpretation is up to the individual.

It's not the world's job to meet your expectations, it's your job to expect the proper things from the world.

Another concept related to why you shouldn't have too many desires is: Not wanting something is as good as having it.

Understanding that desire is a contract to be unhappy until it's fulfilled imagine the following scenario. You have a friend who wants to be tall, so much so he beats himself up about it. You’re the same height but couldn't care less, and have another tall friend. Both you and your tall friend are equally happy, but your friend who desperately wants this thing he can never achieve is perpetually unhappy.

Genuinely not desiring an expensive watch is as good as having it. Perhaps better because your mental state is not contingent on a material item.

Think of all the things most people take for granted: arms, legs, eyesight, shelter, etc... This is the same way people feel once they've got the material items.

You've already achieved the goals you said would make you happy.

This leads us to the concept of hedonic adaptation, aka, the hedonic treadmill.

Hedonism is the philosophy that puts pleasure as a person's main motivator. Drug addicts are a good example of hedonic adaptation.

When you first do a drug it's great, but as you continue to use you'll develop a tolerance and the positive effects are dulled. After a while, the feeling of the drug is just as good as how you felt before while sober. Thus, you graduate to a more potent drug, and the cycle continues.

The diminishing returns from the things you use for pleasure leads you to find (adapt) a new hedonic pursuit.

If you have pleasure as your north star for navigating life, hedonism, that’s the cyclical process you'll live until you change your philosophy or die.

What people truly wish for is a change in their baseline human experience, and mistakenly believe pleasure is the solution. The attraction to drugs is spiritual.

The way to avoid this is to seek peace of mind, better stated: peace from mind.

These arguments are not meant to say: don't have desires and don't do anything pleasurable. It's a warning to not overflow with desires and to be wary of pleasure-seeking behaviors. Have desires: you are a biological being but keep them in check.

To get what you want, the question is actually more important than the answer.

The individual needs to find their personal answer. Not one socialized into them from their environment, dogmatically told by me or anyone else, or by misguidedly indulging impulses.

A heuristic to answer this question is to compile a list of ten goals/desires you have for your life.

Given this list if one item could be fulfilled tomorrow, which would have the largest positive impact on your life. The answer is the desire you should pursue.

When you've chosen that desire acknowledge it as the one you'll commit to, and put everything else on the back burner. Know this desire is the axis of your suffering, and accept the state of every other desire how it is presently.

Now that the question of what to want is answered, how do you get there?

Humans can be described by their habits. Somebody's personality is their social habits. All the returns one gets from life is a function of their habits.

“Humans are creatures of habit”

With this in mind, you should always be in the process of adding or subtracting a habit. It's best to focus on one, purely because it's unlikely any more than that will lead to lasting change in behavior.

It’s impossible to focus on two things at once: do one thing and do it well.

Often beginners will be better served by subtracting instead of adding.

To illustrate this think of a runner. Given a beginner already runs regularly he would benefit more from removing things from his life. Simplifying your life is better thought of as prioritizing the activities which remain.

The main difference between the advanced and beginner runner is the beginner has much more in his life; more priorities which sap time and resources from running.

Give yourself 3–6 months minimum to build/destroy your habits.

At all times know: your singular desire, and what habit you are adding/subtracting. Nothing else matters that much.