Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time with science and humanities focused friends (as opposed to my economics and tech friends). The weighty subjects of life, the mind, the purpose of them, and the wonderment of them have come up repeatedly for whatever reason.

The conversations reminded me of a fascinating psychology book, Soul Dust, and the Wall Street Journal article summarizing the book’s findings:

What is the point of being conscious? Mr. Humphrey made his name many years ago with a famous essay on the evolutionary function of intelligence, arguing that it emerged through natural selection not to solve physical puzzles, as many assume, but to solve social ones—to read minds. Here he attempts a similar explanation for why the impartial spectator of consciousness is watching a magical mystery show. His answer sounds startlingly unscientific, even spiritual: to impress the soul.

What he means is that being enchanted by the magic of experience provides a reason to live. Rather than being an aid to survival, consciousness provides an essential incentive to survive. Enchantment is itself “the biological advantage of being awestruck.” Or, as the poet and Pooh creator A.A. Milne put it, “It’s awful fun to be born at all.”

I am not fully persuaded by this last part of the argument—I prefer to think that the evolutionary advantage of consciousness has to do with the benefits of imagining and influencing future events—but it’s exhilarating to see this crucial question about our existence answered with such intellectual breadth. Scientists are often accused these days of overlooking the awe and wonder of the world, so it’s exciting when a philosopher puts that magic at the very heart of a scientific hypothesis.

It’s fascinating to wonder, “why do I think?” It’s even more amazing to finally have a decent answer.

Growing up, I always believed anything could be accomplished through “sheer will.” Most childhood challenges for me fortunately related mostly to school work so it was easy to see the linear relationship between time spent and output. As I grew older, I began to wonder if “sheer will” was enough, especially as I entered into more and more competitive academic environments where my peers were smarter at certain subjects than I was or at least knew better ways of doing things. 

I started to wonder if there were just simply shortcuts I didn’t know about or if I should do something with a more obvious proportional or exponential outcome from effort. Thankfully, that belief in “sheer will” persisted, and I’ve come to realize that anything worth doing in life is hard and many people just give up, which means it’s a whole lot easier to win for people who are just persistent. Often times, this has been why I succeeded when I probably shouldn’t have.

I’ve always struggled to find the right term for this characteristic since “sheer will” somewhat ignores the external pressures and challenges and focuses on your own drive. Recently, I’ve stumbled on a worthy contender — it’s “grit.” It captures well the hardships you need to go against to succeed. A recent Fast Company article does a good job defining someone with grit as possessing:

• A clear goal
• Determination despite others’ doubts
• Self-confidence about figuring it out
• Humility about knowing it doesn’t come easy
• Persistence despite fear
• Patience to handle the small obstacles that obscure the path
• A code of ethics to live by
• Flexibility in the face of roadblocks
• A capacity for human connection and collaboration
• A recognition that accepting help does not equate to weakness
• A focus and appreciation of each step in the journey
• An appreciation of other people’s grit
• A loyalty that never sacrifices connections along the way
• An inner strength to help propel you to your goal

Apparently, having grit is the top predictor of success according to a University of Pennsylvania study, which makes me feel a lot better for having relied on this characteristic so much to get through life. You can actually quantify this characteristic by taking a grit test devised by the study. Try it! If you don’t do well, I’m sure that can change over time through enough effort and persistence ;-)

From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: 

“Which road do I take?” (Alice)

“Where do you want to go?” (Cat)

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then, said the cat, it doesn’t matter.”

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” 

I’ve come to realize that the hardest and most important thing in life is to figure out what you want, the rest is a lot easier. Once I have something to orient my actions towards, I can make plans, go forth and do. Until then, I feel paralyzed by indecision since I don’t know how to decide what is the best action to take. 

What you want has to be very specific to be useful. It’s not enough to say “I want to be happier” since there are so many ways to be happier that you still don’t know what to do. You have to decide what specifically would make you happy. That way when a good opportunity comes by, you will recognize it immediately as what you need to succeed and can act on it. Otherwise, plenty of good opportunities will pass you by which you don’t know how to use since you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish. 

So if you ever find yourself unsure of how to decide where to go or what to do, it might help to ask yourself what you want first.

Victor Wong

AirBnB has received a lot of attention recently for an abuse of trust by a guest. The whole concept of hosting a stranger is a test of faith in your fellow person. So, recently I’ve decided to take the test on both sides to see what it’s like.

I used AirBnB to book an apartment in Barcelona for a few days. The host turned out not to be the next Norman Bates as I feared but in fact a sweet lady. She was flexible on the arrival time and greeted us with air kisses next to each cheek. Her hospitality was immediately felt and seen everywhere as she had put out a bottle of Spanish sparkling wine, fresh fruit, and clean beddings. She even made breakfast every morning. However, I quickly realized some of the shortcomings of my accommodations. No air conditioning was available. Some of the lighting fixtures didn’t work. The beds weren’t particularly comfortable. None of these problems were apparent from the AirBnB listing in spite of the favorable ratings of the host. I wouldn’t necessarily call it deceptive of her to hide these problems but it has made me wonder about trusting future AirBnB hosts with my precious vacation time.

I was convinced by my roommate and friends to try hosting travelers through Couchsurfing. Basically, it’s AirBnB but free (and the accommodation doesn’t have to even be a bed room).We were bombarded with requests from lots of people. I was fascinated to find so many people willing to stay at complete strangers’ places but perhaps I shouldn’t be given the price. I learned quickly that references still matter a lot since we would easily screen out any potential guest who didn’t have a lot of friends and references. Those social clues were what mattered more than other information like personality, goals, or country of origin. The first courchsurfer was a success and didn’t leave a wake of destruction, so we may host more. I guess what I learned from this is that you can’t necessarily trust a person you don’t know but you can trust a bunch of people you don’t know.

Living is going from cradle to grave with time passing in true linear fashion. I’ve noticed that people treat life and people linearly, but I wonder whether that makes sense. By linear, I mean you think subtracting or adding something only proportionally affects something. I believe often times actions have exponential impact.  

For example, trust is something I really don’t think moves linearly.  Hiring remote workers but requiring a software that takes screen shots on a frequent basis is one extreme. It may seem fair since if they are working, then they shouldn’t have any problem with the surveillance so there is only a minor imposition on the working relationship; however, the requirement tells the employees they need to be supervised constantly which means they aren’t actually trusted. Any loyalty is likely lost in this case since  that requires reciprocity and the employees have no reason to trust someone who doesn’t trust them. The effect on culture is exponential and not some incremental imposition.  

Now, you can “trust but verify” but simply assessing the end work and whether it’s been done. Micromanaging every process really imposes an exponential cost on the relationship. A great counter-example would be Netflix which has a “no vacation day policy,” meaning employees can work however much as they want as long as they are doing their work.  Sounds like a terrific place to work at doesn’t it?

As another example, opportunities can come by exponentially. People may well be right that if they get X degree, then Y job as a result, they’ll reach the next opportunity. I suspect though that it isn’t quite that linear and people often times find themselves at disjointed moments where the next step doesn’t seem that apparent. Life is a lot messier in my experience. As you embrace more serendipity and expose yourself to more opportunities, you won’t just get 1 opportunity for every time you go out looking, but you’ll get many more. The universe “conspires to help the dreamer” as The Alchemist tries to teach. There is a network effect whereby the more people you meet and help out, the more opportunities you’ll get to be helped out.  

Life should be lived exponentially.