Notes – Going Against Your Wiring

"Different. Finally be different. To be better, you must be different."

That was the axiom from every single self-help essay I read. Nothing else was at fault, only I. At this time, I was at a crossroads in my life, eager to become a "better" person. So when the gods of Self-Help-Olympus came down to share their unholy message, I listened. How could I, a mere mortal, reject their godly wisdom?

So I set out to do what I was told: be different. Be like we tell you to be, and all your wishes will be granted!

But herein lies the fallacy: the core message is untenable in the moment, since you're not where you want to be. When somebody comes along with the solution to one of our core problems, we are inclined to listen. Something about us must be a disease, otherwise we would've reached our goals. The self-help guru has the cure (usually in the form of an overpriced newsletter and a subscription-based community) – we only need to administer it. How good they are to us!

But these people pull a sleight of hand on us: their solution creates a snake that eats its own tail. Their message creates the disease their cure promises to heal. Since we will always be a work in progress, they keep you in a perpetual loop of "not good enough".

Yet I must include a controversial yet necessary statement: some of their advice is actually phenomenal. A pile of shit with raisins in it might be sweeter, but it's still a pile of shit.

I've been reading a lot of biographies of some great people of history – people who really changed the world. For good or worse is open for discussion, but their impact is undeniable.

Some biographies spoke more to me than others because I could identify with these people much more.

For example: I've been reading or listening to the biographies of Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. Of these two, I identify much more with Franklin. I would love to be able to write like him. Even though Alexander Hamilton arguably had the longer-lasting impact on the founding and future of the United States of America, I sympathize more with Benjamin Franklin because his mental makeup seems similar to mine.

That's when the oracle of "finally think for yourself" spoke to me: It's not about being different, but about accepting your wiring and designing a system that benefits it. It's much easier for a bird to fly instead of learning to swim.

You were also born with wings of a particular kind. Don't let other people tell you being a bird is false because you must swim. They want you to drown in their swamp of regurgitated self-help blah blah because it, well, helps themselves – especially their wallets. Instead, do what you were born to do: soar above the clouds with a lightness only a particular kind of wings can provide: your own.