Welcome to First Principles Weekly.
A newsletter about the First Principles of happiness: Health, Wealth and Time.
Read Time: 3 mins
1) Managing The Self
2) Something Interesting: How to Activate Your Brain’s Happy Chemicals
3) Something to think about: When things don’t go your way.
Hello everyone and welcome back!
I am taking some time off work to prepare for our second baby.
Having a child, more than any other life event, makes you realise there is a life force at work which is bigger than us.
It requires a deconstruction of how we see our “selves”.
The self is a fascinating concept. It is a concept that sits at the core of who we believe we are.
We believe it to be unique. We feel like we are living a fulfilled existence if we are acting “true to ourselves”.
It acts as a benchmark for how we act towards others. “I am sorry to do x but I believe I am being true to myself by doing so”.
However in many ways having a sense of self can become something that holds us back. How people see “themselves” can be a burden on their behaviour (towards themselves and others).
At the extreme end of the spectrum having our actions dictated by this perception of our self is known as “ego”.
Ryan Holliday in his book “The Ego is the Enemy” says
‘Ego is when the notion of ourselves and the world grows so inflated that it begins to distort the reality that surrounds us.’
Ego is when the patterns of behaviour become so imbedded in us that we feel like circumstances that don’t conform to our view are wrong and will push back to achieve what we believe is the correct outcome.
What if we question this concept?
Our thinking mind (pre frontal cortex) likes repetition and certainty.
The reality is we don’t have any control over the thoughts and things that happen to us as we go about our daily lives.
Therefore our concept of self is just a set of patterns we are used to. It is a subjective interpretation of the world as we try and make sense of it.
It is useful for your mind to process information in this way to survive but in modern society it can lead to dissatisfaction.
Can we really be free if we are wedded to our own perception of self? It’s rare to find people that are.
The only way to try and push back on these restrictive interpretations is to constantly try and shift these patterns.
That is where most people find meditation very useful.
There are other ways to achieve the same end.
Vigorous exercise and cold exposure also allow our minds to take a break and connect with our true nature.
That’s what is left when we strip out the repetitive (and often monotonous) thoughts that govern our daily lives.
Of the 6-12 thousand thoughts we have in a day roughly 95% are exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before.
The last way to take more control is to define a set of Values that we live by. This can help us be less reactive and remove the subjectivity out of our actions.
I wrote more about that in a separate newsletter here.
Thanks for reading!
Will be back next week (maybe with another member of my family!)
Something interesting: How to Activate Your Brain’s Happy Chemicals
Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D. (@lbreuning) founded the Inner Mammal Institute to help people build new neural pathways to turn on their happy chemicals.
Animals make complex decisions without having a cerebral cortex, that means humans do the same.
When you tell yourself your reason for doing things, that’s just a tiny percentage of what’s going on. Chemicals drive much of your decision-making process.
Dopamine/Oxytocin and Serotonin are the big three. We can get control of all of them.
Listen how here.
Something to think about: When things don’t go your way.
Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone with a great lesson in emotional intelligence. He delivered the below poem after his team’s NBA final victory earlier this year.
Self-Pity, by D.H. Lawrence
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
When things don't go your way, it's easy to get caught in a spiral of sorrow: negative thoughts feed negative emotions, which cause more negative thoughts.
This can be paralyzing.
Whatever you do, don't feel sorry for yourself.
Content Creator Update
Here’s some details on what’s currently on my reading list and progress as I build this newsletter to (hopefully) help more people.
Book currently reading: Outlive by Peter Attia.
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