You have figured it all out. Laid out all the arguments. You called out the frauds and freaks, the CIA or Mossad agents, the shitcoiners, the criminals. You put all your emotions in. There should be a moment before you press that Send button to broadcast it to the world, but you probably won’t, this is too important, everyone needs to know. And of course, they should know from you, because if you figure it out, others can, and there goes your social status.
Just moments after you press that button, the drama unveils. There’s someone else who does not buy your carefully crafted drama, and points to other arguments, other frauds and freaks. Someone else entirely is the CIA and Mossad agent. They have clearly put their emotions in, and they even add that this is the most important intellectual battle of the century, that will change everything.
But it won’t. You both just laid out all the bullshit, because the truth is, you have nothing better to do. If this is the best use of your time, I don’t want to know what you will do next.
When dating as a young bachelor, I had a problem. I was not very picky. Then at some point, I started asking a simple question – can I imagine myself being with her twenty years later, and still be happy? If the answer was no, it’s a no right now. Later, but still way sooner than I was thinking about having kids, I would ask myself if I think she would be a good mother. If the kids would be happy to have her. This was the brutal filter.
And this is what we need to do. Before hitting that Send button. Will it matter in twenty years that I was right? Because I know I am usually right already, and other people are usually stupid and they won’t understand anyway. But then, time will tell anyway, and it probably won’t matter twenty years later. Although it sure feels good to paste a link to a post with “I told you so”. But then – is it the best use of my time? If it is, please don’t do what the second best thing was…
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
paraphrase of Viktor Frankl’s idea, which did not appear literally like this in The Man’s Search for Meaning, but I have not verified, I am still too scared to read it