Frustration Nation

How to avoid becoming cynical and why things become increasingly frustrating the more we learn

Pick your jaws off the floor, this is happening, a new Lateral Thinking exercise and rant is here!

It’s been a while since the last one. I’ve realized my motivation to write these is directly correlated to my enthusiasm about what’s happening in the world (my world, at least), so it’ll come as no surprise that the past few months have been tough.

But rough seas make skilled sailors, so here we are. Before I jump into too many details, let’s start off with a classic lateral thinking exercise.

This one is “homemade” with a little help from everyone’s favorite pet, ChatGPT. You’d be surprised how many horrible exercises it spews out before coming up with a good one - so there’s still a glimmer of human value left in the world, at least when it comes to creative writing.

Let’s get to it:

“A woman throws a ball as hard as she can. The ball comes back to her without bouncing off anything, and no one else touched the ball. How is this possible?”

An answer, as usual, at the end.

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Every generation’s worst nightmare…

… is the generation before them.

We tend to mostly remember the good parts of our past. This is a common bias called Rosy Retrospection.

In perhaps direct correlation, the older we get, we tend to be pretty negative about the future. This is a bias called Declinism.

I’m sure we all have met people, usually older than us, who weep for the “good old days” when the world had better values, children were respectful and things were overall brighter. These same people will, sooner or later, end a train of thought with some version of “the world is going to shit”.

If you want to read more about the two cognitive biases I mentioned above, I recommend this article.

The reason I mention this, though, is that the more we are aware of these biases, the higher our chance of not letting our life be dictated by them.

I’m practically obsessed about these kinds of things and they still affect me. They sometimes make me feel inadequate, as if I don’t fit in and have even gotten me to the point where I went through Impostor Syndrome all over again.

(Not so) fun fact: the biases are a rollercoaster, you’ll most likely go through them multiple times in your life, the more your situation changes, the more likely you experience them all over again.

Since my life changed drastically over the past 5 years (for those of you new here - I started my own tech business after years of working in advertising & marketing, then moved to South Korea, then New York, then Miami), I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing all these feeling over and over again over recently since my situation was constantly changing.

What I’ve realized, though, is that there is a life hack to keeping your rhythm and not becoming overburdened by all these negative thoughts.

Enthusiasm. Wait, don’t roll your eyes just yet.

Sometimes the answer is so simple, it’s frustrating. The more you look around and see people you don’t deem fit being successful, the less enthusiasm you will have to do something yourself.

The less enthusiasm you have, the more you need a reason for not doing more.

When you need a reason for your own shortcomings, it’s usually easier to find an external reason - and what better reason than “the world is falling apart”?

That being said, please try to always be self-aware of how your biases come into play when you’re judging a situation.

Listen to your first instinct, but also challenge it after the first emotional impact has settled down.

You’re bound to make better decision in both life and business.

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Answer: the woman threw the ball up in the air. Gravity brought it back.

If you didn’t get a chance to read the previous email, which was a while back, here’s me making your life easier: