Ultimate Skill?

[jacob]

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/can-y ... -fast.html

[SimonJ]

Some good stuff here.

I definitely agree with the practice of self observation and the changing of destructive unconscious habit patterns of behaviour. I suppose the ability to do this require a certain set of skills/mindset.

[SimonJ]

So I was thinking some more and maybe it all starts with the practice of self observation.

An increase in ones ability to observe ones habit patterns leads to the ability to practice self discipline.

Increase in self discipline leads to increased ability to learn other skills such as applied critical thinking.

I think observation and discipline are practicable learned skills which can be increased with continued application, just like other skills.

Maybe ones self awareness is directly proportional to ones ability to learn and gain proficiency in other skills. The less aware of your self and what it is you habitually do every day, the less you are able to change those habits to benefit you. So the less time you can devote to practice other things. Your time and energy are used up by your regular routine activities. Unconsciously watching tv all the time say.

Interesting to ponder.

[riparian]

My grampa says the main thing is to never give up.

[mfi]

Ultimate skill.. to go meta.

+1 Be able to change (or metaform) our experience of something by forming a new opinion about it.

[Ego]

I'm not sure if I'd say self-control/willpower/discipline. Those terms imply limits and lead to people decrying the 'sacrifices' necessary with ERE. I know I'm a language harpy, but I'd define it in a more positive light. I'd say the ability to be content with almost nothing. If you can wake up every day and just be happy that you did indeed wake up, and have food and shelter and reasonably good health, then ERE is a way of adding to that contentment instead of being a limitation.

I guess there are a few ways to look at it. One would be, without X people who want ER fail to achieve it. X is a requirement. Without it, failure is assured. Another way to look at it might be, Y is the most important skill to have if want to be ER. Y is good to have but not required.

Lottery winners and trustafarians show that bucketsfull of money will not be enough to mitigate a lack of self-control. And all the critical thinking in the world is useless if a person cannot refrain from indulging their every desire.

I believe that exercising self-control is not the same as sacrificing. In my mind the two are very different.

[jennypenny]

I believe that exercising self-control is not the same as sacrificing. In my mind the two are very different.

That's probably why you're successful.

I see your point. I wonder how many people see it the same way, though. KevinW said once that EREs start from a position of having nothing and then add to it as they see fit (I'm paraphrasing, and poorly at that). Many people seem to start from a position of wanting everything and see eliminating things as a sacrifice. I guess that's what I was thinking of.

[7Wannabe5]

I think that self-discipline and/or self-control is very important (and this might just be semantics) but I think it might be lacking when it comes to addressing the problems of either the insufficient solution or compulsive rather than impulsive dysfunction. Very simple example being over-eating vs. anorexia. I mean it is easy to see how a lack of self-discipline would be involved in a poor choice to eat 12 cookies for dinner but maybe more difficult to see how it might be involved in a poor choice to only eat 2 carrots for dinner.

Also, there is needing and then there is wanting and freely choosing and then there is not-wanting-to-want. Not wanting-to-want is usually a dysfunctional control mechanism to deal with fear that results in throwing out the baby (healthy desire) with the bathwater (unhealthy behavior in seeking fulfillment of desire.) For instance, one thing I currently think that I want is a little blue silk dress and I will delay fulfillment of this desire and I will deconstruct this desire (why little? why blue?) and I will ponder the circumstances under which I might best be served and deserved of fulfilling this desire but I won't squash it under heel or lock it up in dim cupboard.

[WYOGO]

Adaptation.

Others that may be needed for a specific circusmtance will be obtained by the one with this life dependent skill...

[KevinW]

KevinW said once that EREs start from a position of having nothing and then add to it as they see fit (I'm paraphrasing, and poorly at that). Many people seem to start from a position of wanting everything and see eliminating things as a sacrifice. I guess that's what I was thinking of.

Yeah I think that's one of the big ideas in the book. It's remarkable how well the zero-cost, or practically-zero-cost, options work once you start looking for them in earnest.

[JamesR]

Ah, I love that paraphrasing, I do vaguely recall it from the ERE book as well.

Felt like trying to rewrite it in my own words.. "Most people start from a position of wanting everything and see eliminating things as a sacrifice. Instead, anyone can take the opposite position of having nothing, and then add to it until a happy balance is met. Thus they will feel like they have gained everything and sacrificed nothing and will be happier with much less."

I wonder if there's a more concise form of this concept.

[JasonR]

o

[7Wannabe5]

Wouldn't it have to be more like "Start naked, relaxed and alone?" And what about the "things" we may still wish to "lose" rather than "add" once in that state? Like 10 extras pounds or feelings of resentment or nosy next-door neighbor. It may actually be the case that it is more expensive to render yourself "naked, relaxed and alone" than "clothed, busy and social" and that is why most people are in the second state more of the time.

Anyways, my new vote for 2015 is that the Ultimate Skill would be the one obtained by the person who was able to understand the work of Dale Carnegie as an example of the work of Claude Shannon. If one of you could do that and then write a book to explain, I would pay $9.99 for it.

[jennypenny]

A blog post from the Art of Manliness about Via Negativa. It implies that the ultimate skill is avoiding stupid mistakes and self-destructive behavior.

"Or as Berkshire Hathaway Vice-Chairman Charlie Munger put it, “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

I know a few very smart and talented individuals whose lives are in utter shambles despite their gifts. And it’s because they keep making stupid and avoidable mistakes. They consistently add wholly unnecessary downside to their lives.

If they had done nothing really positive, but had simply avoided the DUIs, the drug arrests, the out-of-wedlock births, the affairs, and the consumer debt, their lives would have been vastly superior to the ones they have now.

Let that sink in: doing nothing would have given these people a better life than they have now."

[tylerrr]

The ability to pray effectively.