Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

Of course it does. Let's just calculate the revenue of two scenairos:

Person A consumes 2L of Coke every day. Dies an early death at 45 year old. 2L coke is ~$2. From the age of 18 to 45 that person spent $19710.

Person B is good at consuming things with moderation. Drinks one 7.5 oz Coke per week, and lives to the ripe old age of 90. A ten pack of 7.5oz coke is ~$6. That person spent from the age of 18 to 90 about $2252.

You can of course tweak the assumptions, but the thing is sugar doesn't kill anyone that fast. People by and large don't drop dead in years from overconsumption of it.

>Munger’s $200 million donation to the university is contingent on the structure being built to his windowless specifications.

Reason being:

>“Our design is clever,” Munger assured skeptics. “Our buildings are going to be efficient.” In addition to cutting costs and foiling potential defenestrations, his design would force students out of their sleeping cubbies and into communal spaces—with real sunlight—where, he said, they would engage with one another.

It seems to me encouraging university students to spend more time alone would be more conducive to getting work done. Overall Munger seemed to have had this notion a lot of old people have that the youth need to suffer because of-course they suffered more.

Most philosophies come to this realization. Buddhism and Stoicism kind of center this whole ethos: If you can't do anything about it, you don't have to worry about it.

Same thing is going on here. Munger is saying essentially that the past doesn't matter. The situation is what it is and the only thing that matters is what you can do to change it.

>1. I’m NOT a victim.

>Now, I want to be clear that you can, in fact, be a victim and things can happen in your life that isn’t your fault

Going to be honest here, I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you saying that people should go through life never feeling like a victim, even if they are one? I don't see how that would be helpful.

>5. Whatever happens in life, I give myself a cap of 48 hours to get over it—this includes being sad, grieving, being unproductive, etc.

You must seriously loathe yourself or live an incredibly sheltered life if you actually follow this (e.g. not just bottling up your emotions and pretending that you're okay). If your dad died, are you seriously just going to take a weekend to try and power through the grieving process? Actually, if you think spending more than 48 hours being unproductive is something that you have to "get over", do you even let yourself have weekends off from work? This is the kind of mindset that leads to people committing suicide.

The "your fault" part of the quote isn't something I take literally, just a pithy way of saying what you said in your post - that I'm the only one who's going to take responsibility for making it better. I also often remember a quote from Unsong - "somebody has to, and no one else will".

I will say, though, that often things I don't like in my life _are_ my fault, and being willing to honestly assess those things is an important razor to cut through the bullshit of self pity.

It's a quote best taken with a slight grain of salt, a lens for looking at a problem which you might not always want to wear. But I like it.