The Most Important Thing

redblueninja · 2021-01-24T03:31:26+00:00

This concept was touched upon by Pook earlier.

You are caught in the vicious cycle. You are hesitant because you are not used for things going your way. And things will never go your way because you remain hesitant. You see what you want, become hesitant, and the door of opportunity closes. It happens again. And again. And again. With each choice towards Inaction, you reject yourself a little bit more.

It's like that elephant which had a chain to its leg when it was young, so it doesn't even try again, believing the problem to be "intractable" as you say.

Although, the more fundamental skill required here is knowing the appropriate difficulty level of a task, so that's it's something outside of your comfort zone, but still possible. And that requires self knowledge.

Pretty good read, man!

EDIT : This comment by Thotwrecker might help some people here :

If I had to reduce everything I've learned in a decade into 1 principle, it would be this:

Ultimately, experiences transform people, nothing else. Experiences that actually put you into stress, conflict, competition, pain, etc, will force you to grow your internal faculties and external competencies. Seek the right experiences, you will transform.

What are the right experiences, though?

experiences that reveal your flaws and force intense, brutal, painful self-reflection.

experiences that strip you of comfort and happiness

experiences that put you under extreme duress and challenge

experiences that force you to contend with politics, people dynamics, group mentality, etc

experiences that allow you to experience "alpha mentality" from the alpha perspective. Fucking a married bitch. Paying trivial taxi money to fuck hot filipina bitches. It doesn't have to be "alpha" -- it has to put you into the abundance, alpha mentality. Throwing away pussy. Cutting off hot girls teaches you more than learning to "win them".

experiences that expose you to superior men, wherein simple proximity reveals to you paths to mastery. You can read 48 laws as an autistic high schooler, or you can get an internship with a hotshot state senator -- what will teach you more?

experiences that penalize you for victim mentality. Victim mentality is the biggest blocker to your success and biggest cancer on TRP. Everyone here is wahh wahh wahh, I'm a fucking victim. They don't say it, but you can feel the hurt victim mentality. They are essentially no better than homeless people bitching about how the world did them wrong and that's why they're homeless. An example of an experience that penalizes you for victim mentality is being responsible for a team -- and realizing your idiot teammates mistakes will get you lynched by your superiors judging you, so it's on you to force them to succeed, and not be victimized by their mediocrity.

lastly, experiences where you are forced to fail in a miserable fashion, and the only pathway to success is to kill parts of yourself. Kill the boy, kill the fear, kill the bitch, kill the victim. Basically, if your experiences do not force you to change, they are all garbage. Chase experiences where THE ONLY WAY you will avoid massive pain and suffering is by literally throwing away your person, and being a different person.

ForeverKarlMalone · 2021-01-24T07:27:20+00:00

Amazing read! Brilliant discovery that courage is merely about appropriately identifying a task as hard instead of impossible.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that the deeper you go into a subject, the less “mystical” and “superhuman” other people’s amazing feats seem.

For example, I used to think all programmers were genius hacker types who I could never compete with. Then after learning more and more, I discovered that it’s really more about building an elegant structure, like putting together a house more than it is about sheer creativity.

So don’t sell yourself short. Outside of physical limitations for athletic goals, chances are there’s a winning strategy to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve - money, freedom, success with women. It’s all up to you to find it.

We’re all much more similar than our egos would like to admit. Chances are whatever “Talent” you have in a skill that you think you’re awesome at - is merely something you’ve worked at since a young age or were lucky enough to have a really good mentor in. There’s no reason you can’t succeed in anything else you put your mind to.

armenian_UwUcide · 2021-01-24T02:50:03+00:00

Quality content as usual, Whisper. This is the kind of content TRP needs

repfive305 · 2021-01-24T17:27:30+00:00

100% this. Knowledge/experience is EVERYTHING. People who met me in the past 2 years know me as an alpha dude who’s smooth af with ladies. You have no idea how many times I fucked up talking to girls, got insanely nervous, sent beta texts, had massive oneitis etc, to get to my current spot.

My favorite one was I talked to this girl at the gym about 5 years ago. I got super nervous planning out what I was going to say. I walked up to her and was literally shaking. You could hear it in my voice. I blanked, and stumbled through some sentences, and accidentally made a racist joke. Can’t even remember it but it was probably the dumbest thing I ever said. I got her # (pity #) but never texted out of embarrassment.

This experience and reflection upon it led to the realization that I can’t sit there and plan it out. That’s when I get too nervous.

Lastly, I still get nervous sometimes. It doesn’t matter. Go up to them anyway and it leaves real quick. Buds of mine have legit been in awe when I go up to the hottest girl wherever I am with no hesitation. Recently got a girls number who has 70k followers on IG at the gym. Hot af, and 5 guys were watching me. Guarantee they thought things like “damn this guy is confident, and can only do this cause he’s jacked”. 5 years ago they probably thought “wow that loser just got the shit rejected out of him”. Go for it in life or else you’ll never get there.

HumanSockPuppet · 2021-01-25T19:00:07+00:00

This is exactly the kind of shit we used to discuss during our couch talks in the good old days. Good stuff, bro.

MakoShark93 · 2021-01-24T19:17:04+00:00

This is an awesome post full of quality. My whole life I've heard, "You need confidence. You don't have that." My mom told me you have to fake it til you make it, but I never knew HOW exactly. What is confidence? I then learned that confidence comes from competency -- but I still didn't know how to get there -- I've been afraid my whole life, but this post has confirmed a number of my thoughts but not just that -- showed me a systematic mentality to adopt by comparing it to my number one hobby; lifting. Thanks bro.

INNASKILLZ2K18 · 2021-01-25T07:44:16+00:00

There is some excellent shit in this post.

Though, I'm not sure I completely agree with the idea that ' "Courage" is the cognitive ability to accurately sort problems into one of these three categories. '

I'm sure there is more to your message which you may or may not reply with, but if I look at this hypothesis exactly as it reads it tells me that simply cognitively sorting problems into your three categories is in itself courage. Not 'a form' of courage, or a version of courage, but courage totally in and of itself.

Sorting problems into those categories is huge. Takes a lot of guts to look at a difficult problem and say 'I can learn how to do that'. Especially if the guy has resolve to actually learn how.

But that cognitive sorting, imo, is not courage in and of itself. Knowing 'how to do' is not courage in and of itself.

Knowing 'how to do', and thinking something is possible to learn can help someone employ courage. Courage can help someone through the learning process.

Take Rogers, who you mentioned. He had a wealth of knowledge in psychology and a background working in child development. He believed he knew how to help people solve various problems, and attempted to employ what he knew.

However, it was only when he surrendered what he knew and started listening to his clients, that he eventually discovered a whole new form of personality theory and therapy.

Was the act of courage there Rogers believing 'helping people overcome problems is a tractable obstacle', or him daring to surrender what he thought he knew and go against the grain? To trust, as he describes, that place beyond intellect?

I don't know, but I think 'courage' is something outside of just sorting problems into the categories you've mentioned.

arakouzo · 2021-01-25T15:30:56+00:00

This post really made me think, but it overlooks the power of laziness and weakness. Which are definitely character flaws and not just a lack of knowledge.

A lot of guys out there know how to eat right, go to the gym, work hard, and get in shape. They have the knowledge and resources to do this. They know that this task is just hard, not impossible. They know what to do. They simply choose not to do it because it is hard. There is nothing else they need to learn or acquire to become able to do it, other than not being a weak and lazy shit. They convince themselves that it wouldn't be worth doing this thing anyway. But really, it's just hard and they don't want to.

A lot of guys out there know that if they really go out and talk to 5000 women, it's unavoidable that eventually they're going to have sex with someone. But that is hard. Embarrassing. They will be shamed. They will be rejected. They could do this, but choose not to, because it is hard. Some men even tell themselves that it is not worth doing this thing and that they don't want to do it anyway, even though they secretly want it and are not doing it simply because it is hard.

Many men when confronted with something that is just hard and not impossible choose not to do the hard thing, even though they have all of the knowledge and resources they need to do it. They tell themselves that it is not worth doing the hard thing. That their time is better spent doing other easier things. That the hard thing is not worth it. That is a character flaw, not a lack of knowledge.

vancityboyo · 2021-01-24T01:00:26+00:00

Nice stuff

Proto_Sigma · 2021-01-24T01:58:03+00:00

Based and Protagoras pilled.

jjbwrams1234 · 2021-01-26T08:42:02+00:00

u/RealJoeDee we need whisper now on the show!! ASAP.

lvxvl · 2021-01-28T03:24:45+00:00

One of the great posts, which will soon be buried in a trash dump of platitude posts.

This one I will read every couple days--or twice a day--for a week, then try to remember to reread in a month.

disciplinedFreedom · 2021-01-30T02:43:38+00:00

As much as this sub hates Jordan Peterson, this is JPs approach to living a better life almost to a tee

RStonePT · 2021-01-24T20:29:33+00:00

I like your take on it, a refreshing change from 'courage means bravado + peer acceptance' most guys use it for now.

The only thing that concerns me is the amount of praise in the comments. Maybe it's because I have 400 videos on YouTube and notice it as well; the kind of people who need to hear this are the kind most likely to use it as a coping mechanism against actually trying it out and reporting if it worked or not.

I hope I'm wrong, because you've equated courage to mentorship, which isn't a bad thing IMO

whooptapus · 2021-02-02T21:24:12+00:00

So it’s telling me I develop courage by doing what I’m afraid to do? And telling me I’m only afraid because I haven’t experienced what I’m afraid of enough? Just making sure I comprehended this right.

FieldLine · 2021-01-24T22:31:38+00:00

Your inner-engineer is showing. This is a great post.

When you find yourself unmotivated, undisciplined, afraid, unwilling to proceed, trapped by despair... recognize that this is just belief that something is intractable.

This is the key point I got out of your article, and I am somewhat torn about it.

On the one hand, I think there is a big problem with the "blackpill" crowd where this becomes very relevant. It is clear that they suffer from the delusion that their very tractable problems are insurmountable, and this is a helpful way to frame self improvement towards the end of doing something, rather than flailing in a tar pit of self-pity.

However, this perspective starts to break down when it comes to excelling in particular pursuits. I am smart enough to do anything I want decently well, and I am mostly limited by time rather than skill when it comes to collecting hobbies and becoming somewhat proficient in them. However, because I have seen real brilliance and real talent, I know that there is no amount of "courage" that will allow me to compete in the arena of excellence in many areas (including some intellectual ones!). I have accepted that I will never write as well as you, while you, perhaps, will never play the piano like I do. As a white, Jewish kid I will never compete in the octagon with you, while you might never match me in out-smarting the tax code.

And I did read the article to the end ("What's important is not to achieve great victories, but to move the needle"), so I know you kind of address this... but you don't really offer an answer. You offer advice on how to be "good enough", but remain silent on how to be great.

The answer, of course, is that there is a genetic component to it. The reason I grok things quickly is because I am lucky, not (just) because I work harder or smarter than anyone else.

I can't really complain, because ultimately I do consider myself to be a member of the lucky sperm club, but I ultimately despair in the face of brilliance because as good as I am.... it is not good enough. And there is nothing I can do about that. Some problems really are intractable, and not because they are beyond the limits of human potential.

Title	The Most Important Thing
Author	Whisper
Upvotes	233
Comments	27
Date	January 24, 2021 12:39 AM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/TheRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/l3om7e/the_most_important_thing/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/TheRedPill/the-most-important-thing.738929 https://theredarchive.com/post/738929

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