Welcome back and hopefully you're all staying warm.
My house right now has many of yours covered in ice to my kids or home from school.
You might hear them in the background.
I've often thought that Twitter, which is my social media platform of choice, makes you
twice as informed but half as productive and on net that's probably a wash.
And look, I think a lot of media works just like that.
Everyone now has access to an astronomical amount of data relative to what we had even
10 years ago.
But how much of that makes us more informed versus more distracted or more intelligent
versus more biased and able to cherry pick or confirm what you already believe.
It's a lot of it.
And so obviously there is a hierarchy of information that you consume.
It ranges from life changing good information to life changing disastrous and dangerous
information.
Now this has always got me thinking.
Hypothetically, theoretically, what would be the most interesting and useful information
that you could get your hands on?
Many years ago I asked that question to Yale economist Robert Schiller.
And he said he had this fascinating answer.
He said, the exact role of luck in successful outcomes.
That's the information that he would want to get his hands on.
Now, I love that answer because it's impossible to get that information.
Nobody will ever have that information.
But if you did know the exact role of luck in successful outcomes, your entire world
view would change.
Who you admire in life would change.
The traits that you think are needed for success would change.
You would find and discover millions of lucky egomaniacs and also millions of unlucky geniuses.
And so look, the fact that Schiller's information that he wants, the fact that it's impossible
to possess that information does not make it useless.
Just thinking about how powerful it would be to have that information forces you to ponder
a topic that is very important in life but very easy to ignore.
So keeping with that idea that the most interesting information that you could have doesn't have
to be realistic.
Let me share with you three other things, three other pieces of information that I think
would really get everyone's attention.
Alright, number one.
The history that was never written down, the thoughts that were never spoken and the beliefs
that are too controversial to share.
John Mulaney, he's a great comedian, he has this bit on stage where he ends a joke by
saying, quote, as you process how obnoxious and wasteful and unlikable that story is,
just remember that's the one that I'm willing to tell you.
And I think that I think that idea applies to a lot of things.
Everybody filters what they say.
The reasons that range from social norms to embarrassment to the inability to articulate
exactly how you feel.
And so everything that you know about people and everything that everybody knows about
people comes from what someone was willing to say out loud or write down or that you
could observe in action.
And just think about what percentage of what goes through people's minds falls into
one of those categories, that they're actually speaking it or writing it or that you can
see it happen.
It has to be way less than 1%.
So if you could actually see what people were thinking, not just saying, but what they
were thinking, you would find that the world is probably a hundred times wilder and more
diverse than you assumed.
You would see that people are a hundred times more creative than they're able to articulate.
You would see that people are a hundred times more anxious and worried and self-conscious
than they let on to be.
You would see that jealousy and envy are way more common than you imagined.
You would also see that some of the kindest and well-meaning people are just not very
good at expressing their intentions.
You would see that many articulate experts are filled with doubt and that many homeless
people on the streets are filled with wisdom.
You would see that the world is scarier and funnier and hotter and stranger than you thought.
In every dimension, good and bad, you would see that the boundaries of what people are
capable of are wider than what you imagined.
I once heard that in our quest for life on other planets in the universe, we have observed
the equivalent of one cup of water out of all the oceans on earth.
That's what we made able to explore.
And now look, it would be absurd to take a cup of water from the ocean and say, there's
no fish in this cup.
Therefore there are no fish in the ocean.
And it's to say that's a great example for when we're looking for extraterrestrial life.
And I think it's the same when we are pondering what we know about other people.
Actually me, you, everybody is sharing such a small portion of what they're actually thinking.
Even if what they share and what you can observe is all that you know about them.
I think the same is true for history in general.
When Franklin Roosevelt opened his presidential library, he entered a room of waiting journalists
and he started to laugh.
And somebody asked him what was funny.
And he said, it's funny to think of all the historians who are going to come to the
library thinking that they will find the answers to their questions.
When in fact, the real reason that he made many decisions were never recorded in anything
other than his own mind and perhaps maybe a few of his advisors who also stayed silent.
Just the most important things were not written down.
They're not cataloged in history.
So all history knows three things.
Number one, what has been photographed?
Number two, what somebody wrote down or recorded.
And number three, the words were spoken by people who historians and journalists wanted
to interview and who agreed to be interviewed themselves.
And so what percentage of everything important that's ever happened in the world falls into
one of those three groups?
Nobody knows, but it has to be tiny.
And all three of those things suffer from misinterpretation and incompleteness and embellishment
and lying and selective memories.
So of course we have so much information today and there are so much that we do know about
the world.
But no matter how much we ever know about the world, it will always be dwarfed by what
we are blind to.
All right, number two, meeting all the versions of yourself that you could have become.
I recently read something that said the definition of misery is that on your deathbed, you meet
the version of yourself who you could have become.
That was great.
I kind of stopped being my tracks, but I think there's a broader way to think about that
idea.
It's this idea that on your deathbed, you meet every possible version of yourself that
you could have been.
And if your actual life ended up in the top half of those possibilities, then you've
had a pretty good life.
That's how you sum up how you've done in life.
There are infinite ways that everyone's life could have turned out.
Who would you have become if you made a different decision at this point in your life?
Or if you had met somebody at another point in your life?
What if looking back at your life, you took a chance here or opted for a safer route
there?
What if there was a terrible accident at some point or if you had won the lottery at
some point?
What if you took a new job at some point?
What if you had chosen a different spouse at one point in your life?
What if you had worked harder?
What if you apologized more?
What if you followed your dreams or what if you worried less?
What would you have become if you had kids?
Or if you didn't have kids?
Or if you chose a different profession?
Or if you had been caught stealing by an unsympathetic cop?
Or all their infinite versions of what your life could have been, no matter who you are
or how old you are?
And if you had that information, you would realize that no matter who you are, your life
could have been way better or way worse if just a few tiny things had gone differently.
And then you would realize how fragile the direction of your life was, which would make
you less judgmental of other people's lives.
And you would realize that instead of comparing your life to other people's, comparing your
life to who you could have been for better or worse, would have been a better and more
meaningful benchmark.
Alright, last one, number three.
Knowing how much time you have left.
This is probably the most important one.
No information in the world would be more powerful than knowing exactly how much time
you have left to live.
And it's such a powerful idea that a lot of people say they would not want to know even
if they could.
It would be too scary to see that information, but almost nothing in your life would be
the same if you did know.
I met somebody a few years ago, and when we parted ways, he said, life is long.
I hope we stay in touch.
And I love that life is long.
Nobody ever says that.
They always say life is short.
But obviously it could be either.
It could be long or short.
We have no idea.
The life is short philosophy says, don't wait.
Go have fun.
Live a great life.
Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
And if your life were shorter than you expected, nearly everybody would follow that advice.
You would be also more likely to forgive and forget and not be bothered by petty annoyances,
utilizing that with your limited time to enjoy good stuff.
There's no use being held back by the dumb stuff.
You would appreciate every sunset you would smell the flowers.
You would call an old friend.
You would not miss a single one of your kids' little e-games.
Part of the reason Lyndon Johnson had so much energy and ambition is because, and he
always talked about this, he was always certain that he was going to die young.
Now what about the life as long philosophy?
If you knew that you were going to live to, say, 101 years old, you probably wouldn't
feel as rushed.
You would be less anxious about your career, knowing that you have time to start over.
You wouldn't feel guilty sleeping in, or taking a sabbatical, or using up all of your
vacation pay.
You would plant trees and you would take more pictures to remember.
You would be more willing to learn a new skill.
You would take better care of your joints, and things like long-term investing would be
way more exciting if you had that information.
Virtually nothing in life would be the same if you knew how much time you have left.
And unlike Twitter, that kind of information would make you twice as informed and twice
as productive.
And now that would get your attention.
That's it for this week.
Thank you.
