(Note: This article was originally published to JamieMcSloy.co.uk on May 2nd, 2019. I’m going through an old backup of the site, which has hundreds of posts that aren’t currently uploaded. As I’m working hard on updating the site – and releasing The Vault, letting these old posts be the daily posts for a while. We’re getting very close now, so bear with me. Soon I’ll resume regular posting and then just upload these archives in one go.)
Gateway Scenarios
I’ve always been quite good at seeking out people weirder than I am, more accomplished than I am and frankly, more interesting than I am.
I recommend this wholeheartedly. Life is mostly boring and I’m under the completely unscientific impression that boring = no new neural pathways = getting old. Interesting people and experiences make you younger, smarter and more interesting.
I didn’t always think like that though. I’m a natural introvert and it took me until adulthood to work out how to hack my natural tendencies towards not being sociable and turn it into a productive enterprise.
I still cringe at the mistakes I made when younger.
Absolute Fail
Let me tell you once about an absolute failure on my part that likely cost me a lot.
Back when I was at University the first time, (so, a million years ago now,) I was sat on a bench minding my own business. A lady comes and sits next to me, and she starts chatting to me.
If you’re thinking, “Jamie… that’s obviously because you’re a paragon of masculinity and I’m sure that happens to you every single day,” then your powers of observation need work are obviously spot on.
Anyway, said lady chats to me. She’s a writing student and loves the scenery and being back in England. She’d previously studied in America.
As she was speaking to me, I was frankly waiting for the conversation to end.
Big mistake.
It turned out, and I didn’t know until years later, that said lady was an international best-selling author who had multiple publishing companies competing in bidding wars for her books, who outside of that had travelled the world doing all sorts of cool shit that brings a person insights that you can’t buy anywhere.
And there’s twenty-year old me worrying about how hungry I am or whatever unimportant thing I was thinking of that day.
Gateway Scenarios
I’ve been receiving numerous messages of late about people being stuck in a rut, suffering from depression or otherwise falling to ennui.
And there’s a lot to be said there; our general environment is one that probably causes those things.
I’m working on a more specific way out of this for the fellow folks who read the blog, but here’s something I can say without a doubt in simple terms:
If you’re feeling in a rut, that’s an actual tangible thing. It’s tangible in the sense that there’s not enough chaos in your life.
Now, by that, I don’t mean go and bang hookers, snort cocaine and shoot at police officers.
But in expected value terms, if you do the same thing every single day without fail, then you have a 100% chance that your life is going to continue being the same. The longer this goes on, the greater the chance that every single day forever is going to be 100% the same.
If you want out of the rut, then you have to do something to tilt the odds in your favour.
And as with all distributions, you want to put yourself in places where a disproportionately small effort will have big consequences.
These are gateway scenarios; one small thing that’ll lead to big changes – hopefully for the better.
To link this back to my failed social attempt; if I’d paid more attention, gotten to know said bestselling author lady, then I’d likely have opened up a world of contacts, stories and experiences, and gotten to know an interesting person.
I shut the gateway on myself without realising just because I didn’t pay attention.
Don’t make that mistake.