Curiosity Chronicle

Imagine two different people on the same mid-January day.
One lives in California. He walks outside in shorts and a t-shirt. The warm sun beams down on his face. He puts on his sunglasses, unlocks his car, and turns the AC on full blast.
One lives in New York. He walks outside in a heavy jacket. He grimaces as the cold wind hits his uncovered face. He opens the trunk of his car, takes out a brush, and starts cleaning the snow and ice off his windshield.
Which one do you assume is happier?
You just picked one in your mind. And I probably would have picked the same. Right up until I lived both.
Yes, the truth is, the two people are both me, just one year apart.
And our assumptions about their relative happiness reveal an important cognitive trap everyone needs to understand.
It's called the focusing illusion.
A cognitive bias where people overemphasize the importance of a specific, visible factor when estimating the overall happiness of an individual or group.
In this piece, I explored why what you can see is almost never what matters, and shared a simple question I like to call my Tuesday Test...
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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

A few weeks ago, I came across a podcast clip of Conan O'Brien talking about why he doesn't pay to fly private. He likes going through the airport, chatting with people at TSA, and "being in the world with other people that are traveling."

It got me thinking about the obsessive pursuit of convenience and the hidden debt it creates in your life.

Money has the ability to reduce the simple stresses, burdens, and inconveniences of adult life. But there's a certain level of inconvenience that's an important part of the human experience.

When you seek convenience, you get a benefit now in the form of ease, but it creates a corresponding liability in the form of reality separation.

In this piece, I talk about the hidden debt of convenience, how to pay it down by embracing friction, and why friction is what makes your life feel real...
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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

In 1628, Sweden's mightiest warship sank less than a mile into its maiden voyage -- not because of an enemy attack, but because a king couldn't stop adding to it. I call it the Vasa Effect: the addition of individual positives can eventually create a catastrophic negative.
In this week's piece, I break down why our bias for addition is holding us back and how creative subtraction might be the fastest way to improve.
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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The seat you randomly chose on day one is the seat you'll sit in for the rest of the term. My college professor said that, and he was right -- not just about lecture halls, but about life. Your life has gravity, and most people never even feel it building.
This week, I break down the two types of gravity keeping you stuck and the simple answer to making sure you can always escape.
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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

A fancy robe nearly destroyed a philosopher's life.

In 1765, Denis Diderot's financial means went from meager to extravagant. Soon thereafter, he came to own a fancy scarlet dressing robe.
Diderot liked the status that the fancy robe conferred on him but quickly felt the remainder of his possessions could not compare.
So, in quick succession, he purchased a new leather chair. New shoes. An elaborate wooden desk.

All of which seemed appropriately matched to his lovely scarlet robe.

Or, perhaps more important, appropriately matched to the type of person who wore such a robe.

I call this phenomenon the Scarlet Robe Effect: A single status purchase can create a new identity. Each new purchase chases the identity that the last one created.

In today's piece, I explored the perils of bought status games and shared a simple question you can use to cut through the noise:

Would I buy this thing if I couldn't show or tell anyone about it?

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This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.