Inaccurate Maps
The map is not the territory. That’s both a curse and a blessing. It’s more a blessing, because most people have really terrible GPS systems built into their heads.
Let’s talk about the Law of Attraction, because that seems the most egregious of bad maps.
The Law of Attraction states that whatever you wish for and believe in is what the world is filled with. At a base level, The Law of Attraction is straightforward stuff: Positivity breeds positivity. If you live a life of abundance, then abundance will come to you.
Except it’s a load of nonsense, and people take what starts of as a “Yeah, I guess but…” pseudo-philosophy and make it all kinds of stupid.
The Law of Attraction never made anybody except the people who sell it rich. People who go and blow their money like a celebrity don’t come into celebrity; they just get credit card debt.
Then you have the people who use the psycho-mumbo-jumbo to convince themselves they’re going to win the lottery. Before going on a killing spree, Elliot Roger (remember him?) spent all his savings money on lottery tickets, because he thought it was manifest destiny that he would become a super-rich ladies’ man or whatever.
Instead, he ended up killing a bunch of folks, killing himself and – somewhat less surprisingly – not winning the lottery.
So The Law Of Attraction is bunk. If it’s the dominant model by which you filter information, then you’re probably in for a bad time.
“But Jamie… What about the success stories?”
Exceptions Don’t Prove A Rule
Let’s think of your brain software as a treasure map. We’re all seeking out treasure, and ultimately you should judge the beliefs you hold by their usefulness to you. Ergo, if a belief is wrong but it makes you more successful, then that’s ok too, right?
You’d think.
Here’s the thing. A terrible, inaccurate map that leads you to the treasure once can be wrong about 99% of the time. If you live life and happen to be in that 1% of people who makes it to the treasure, that’s great.
Is the map still useful if 99% of the information is wrong?
Not really.
Also, nothing exists in a vacuum. No information is crystallised without reference to all of the information around it.
Ergo, you might have a treasure map that gets you from your boat to the hidden treasure, but if the map neglects to point out the mudslides or cannibalistic pygmies on route, then it’s an incomplete and dangerous map.
Is It Your Fault?
There’s a meme going around that states that you should treat everything as if it’s your fault. This is particularly levelled at young guys in the realms of dating, making money and social skills.
It’s a perfect example of what I’ve talked about above.
- Can’t afford a house? Your fault.
- Girlfriend cheats on you with some other guy? That’s your fault.
- Your cat gets hit by a car? Your fault.
- Some dude screws you over in a business deal? That’s your fault too, loser!
You’ll often hear the refrain, “Yeah, but if it motivates you to get up and do something, then it’’s a good belief to have!”
Except, well, no it isn’t a good belief to have.
There are people in the world who accept absolutely no blame for anything. They’ll drive drunk and smash up someone else’s car and it’ll be the fault of someone else. They can start fights in a bar or cause untold misery to their friends. Or they can beat their spouses because of stupid stuff and it’ll be the spouse’s fault because they put the clothes away in the wrong order or something.
These people are widely considered to be terrible people and wrong in any case.
Someone who does the opposite – who blames themselves for everything – is equally as misguided.
Things exist outside your control and your worldview needs to incorporate this. If you have a motivational belief system that ignores this, then eventually it will lead to bad things happening. It’s a bad map.
Final Thoughts
Everything in modern life seeks to take away nuance from your life. You have the news stations feeding you polarising nonsense on a 24/7 loop. A lot of it is later retracted, found inaccurate or otherwise proves to have no consequence. You aren’t exposed to that though.
Social media is deliberately engineered so you’ll see only the things you are supposed to see according to complicated algorithms.
Education is, well, education.
But beyond that, people themselves feed each other bad information and constantly do the in crowd/out crowd thing. It’s a biological thing, but it’s something you should avoid.
In any case, you need to seek more nuance in your thinking at all times. If you want to succeed, then you need more nuance, because nuance is the stuff that accurate maps are made of.
The map isn’t the territory, but you want yours to be more accurate than the next guy’s, and as accurate as possible.