Book 205 - A Year of Magical Learning (5 of 5)

Reflection Title: Mediocristan vs. Extremistan

Book – The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Part 5/5)

Book Description: What have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall Street Crash, Harry Potter and the internet got in common? Why are all forecasters con-artists? What can Catherine the Great's lovers tell us about probability? And, why should you never run for a train or read a newspaper? This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. A rallying cry to ignore the 'experts', "The Black Swan" shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertainty.

Reflection:

Life doesn’t make sense!

We want it to. We crave the control and order. We desperately try every single day to try and exert our will onto this life to make it predictable and consistent.

We plan, set goals, talk about KPI’s and metrics needed to achieve our dreams, and listen to productivity experts on what to do to put us on a path to accomplish our dreams.

The sad truth is that no matter how hard we try, it will never true because that isn’t how life works. Life isn’t predictable or consistent and never will be.

As Taleb puts it, we live in actually live in a country called Extremistan and not the country we think live called Mediocristan. In Mediocristan, the impact of an outlier event is not that significant relative to the total. Life in Mediocristan is predictable, mathematical, and you can use tools to plan accordingly to chart your course. In Extremistan, the impact of an outlier event is enormous. Life in Extremistan is unpredictable, not logical, and massively shaped by individual events we don’t see coming.

I learned that we really do live in Extremistan and not Mediocristan the hard way with what my family went through when we lost our fist born child after 39 days. You’re walking along and thinking life is going exactly as you had planned and predicted. You listened to the experts, studied hard, got a good degree, have a good job, built a successful and growing career, loving marriage, own a home, have a happy extended family, and now you are growing your own family, etc. You feel like you have control and that you know that if you stay the course, your life will be what you dreamed it will be one day. Then, a metaphorical atomic bomb drops from the sky and blows your whole life and life plan to smithereens in an instant.

That is real life! Like it or not, these extreme events will happen to everyone. It is in these extreme events that the true course of our life will be set and you have no idea what that could even possibly look like today. If you had asked me 5 years ago if this would be my life today, I literally would have said that is not possible.

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it is coming because we don’t live in Mediocristan…we live in Extremistan

I can guarantee that there will be a few events in your life that will have more impact and shape who you are more than any other by an enormous amount. If this has already happened to you, I’m sure you are nodding your head. If it hasn’t, it is just a matter of time as it will happen to everyone. It could be anything…addiction, poverty, homelessness, mid-life crises, sexual assault, getting fired from a job, divorce, death of a loved one, cancer, disease, natural disaster, car accident, plane crash, terrorist attack, lightning strike, etc. For me, my first atomic bomb in my life was the loss of a child, and who knows what will be next.

I’m not sharing this to scare you…I’m sharing this because it is true. You can’t run from the truth. You can’t bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist. Don’t get me wrong, I want to…I want to badly. I would give anything to have Emilia still here with me today, but that wasn’t to be.

So what can you do?

Step one is to acknowledge that you don’t have control over this world, your life, or what will happen to you. This is critical because every day that we believe in the illusion that we actually live in Mediocristan will only make the crash hurt all the more when it eventually comes. Step 2 is to prepare. Prepare by doing the only thing you can do which is to live the live here and now that you want to live until the next atomic bomb hits your life.

Enjoy your life in the here and now, soak up the life all around you, do the things you love to do, and don’t worry about the future because the future is unpredictable. It is totally fine, healthy, and fun to dream and imagine a future life, but make no assumptions that will really happen. You have no idea what is coming next so make sure you are living make sure you are living the life you want to live each day in the here and now. At the end of the day, this is truly all we have control over in our world.

Question: What steps are you taking to live the life you want to live each day you have the privilege to do so?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb