Category: Everything else

Social media has created a new country – Pretentious-stan. Here’s a prospectus –

Rent: Our rents are high – we require large amounts of your time and an unwavering attitude that is focused on serving our cause. Most of your thinking time should be devoted to making the stay of our other residents comfortable. This is not all about you, after all.

Note: Unholy ideas like opportunity cost are not to be considered

The ideal resident. Our ideal residents have 3 endearing qualities to our residents –
1. A constant need for approval
2. A willingness to share normally uninteresting details and/or gossip
3. A willingness to, well, be pretentious. This requires a bit of elaboration – we require our residents to invest in things that fall into our “Like-able list” – all moments they feel awesome and amazing, photographs of a coffee mugs and tea-cups at all stages from all angles (actually, most kinds of photographs), “check in” from every place that might draw likes – new countries, business class lounges at airports, and, in general, we love those who share pictures of themselves sharing into great landscapes.

(Fun fact: Unlike the Foursquare check in which was invented to create a directory that would create an online version of the yellow pages, we are proud to share that the Facebook check in was created purely for Pretentious-stan residents. That it has expanded to mainstream use is a sign of our the validity of our mission.)

Are you worried that you may not fit in? Don’t worry – even if you have none of these qualities but have a desire to fit in, we’ll make it work. We use state-of-the-art tools (Facebook and Instagram being on top of the list) to make sure you feel at home right from day one.

Word of caution:
1. We consider sharing things in our “un-like list” equivalent to treason – interesting ideas, stories about your failures (boo), things that moved you, long and well thought out prose. We share similar ethos with successful public speakers and just focus on making it entertaining. Real content is frowned upon and you can rest assured that NO pretentious-stan member will like or encourage such content by sharing it.

2. We also dislike the use of social media to, well, be social – e.g. stay in touch, create meet ups in real life, etc. We allow for occasional indiscretion but, on the whole, we prefer you spend time on your phones even when interacting with your family and friends. Thank you for your understanding.

We are sure you will like it here.

are often the ones who are hardest to love.

The same is true for most things we tend to long for (for good or for bad) – happiness, money, jobs, recognition, power, success. It always feels like the ones who have a lot of something are the ones who get more of it and vice versa.

I’ve learnt that it’s best to observe those to whom something comes easy and understand what they do or don’t do. For instance, since my interests lie in happiness and success in the form of making a positive difference on this world, two of my observations from people who seem to have it figured out are –

– Happy people have this unending ability to keep perspective, laugh at a situation and say – “C’mon, it could be much worse.”
– People who make a difference don’t do it with one large decisive action overnight. The big actions we see are the sum of a lifetime of consistent small actions.

There’s a lot to learn.

PS: I’ve also learnt that, sadly, there’s not much we can do for someone who refuses to learn these things. We’re better off surrounding ourselves with folks who are happy rather than attempt to turn around an unhappy person. We only go where want to go – others can help but only so much.

The tools of the resistance are obvious and repeated – guilt, fear, inadequacy, embarrassment, and insecurity.

As Steven Pressfield shared in the war of art, Adolf Hitler found it easier to wage a world war and kill innocents rather than face the trials that would accompany his childhood dream of being an artist. Some part of it might have been in jest but the point remains. These may be simple tools but there is no doubt they are powerful. Days can be spent wallowing in these emotions and a lifetime can be spent in chasing meaningless goals to keep these emotions at bay.

So, what’s the solution then? There is none. There is a process, however. The process involves reflecting, recognizing these tools at work, reminding ourselves that we have no time to engage with these emotions, thinking about what really matters, and battling on. An intentional approach against these emotions is the stuff of a real hero’s journey. Make no mistake – it is a difficult war and the choice to fight it is ours and ours alone.

The results are not guaranteed (are they ever?). But, the process is sure to be worthwhile.

I just finished reading Boomerang by Michael Lewis. As I was putting down my reflections, I was reminded of this idea from books on personal finance – every decade or so, there comes a craze where there seems to be easy money to be made. It happened with the dot com bubble, with cheap credit in Iceland, with the real estate bubble in Ireland, and numerous other examples from history. This lure of easy money results in the complete disregard of weakly held principles. Financial institutions throw away norms that have served them well for a hundred years to chase the new craze. Everyone gets caught in the insanity and the few who don’t look like fools.

The only thing that is a constant is that lows that inevitably follow are just as high as the highs that preceded it.

So, beware things that come easy. They are sure to go as easy as well.

Now let’s see how we all fare in the next bubble. :-)