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Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

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Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#181

Post by ethanbond »

matteoraso wrote: post #178
jay-barronville wrote: post #70

I love it. Without even knowing about this particular quote, this has been my standard for myself for some years now. The “it’s always your fault” concept is scary to some folks—and I understand why—but it’s changed my life since I adopted it years ago. Generally speaking, my framework is: 1. I’m NOT a victim. 2. I accept that everything that happens in my life is my fault. 3. I control the controllables; I can’t fix…

>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…

I think they're saying that you can use belief as a tool in your thinking, even if you know intellectually it's not true now and certainly won't be true always.

The belief that you are not a victim is (often) a very useful belief because it prompts change in the only place you're reliably able to produce it: your own decisions. This is true irrespective of whether you're actually a victim today or tomorrow. Obviously if your "I am not a victim" mentality is prompting you not to leave a situation you really should be leaving, then that's a bad application. Note what happened here though: it's not the truthfulness of the belief that changed, it's the usefulness of the belief.

> This is the kind of mindset that leads to people committing suicide.

Citation please? That's an extremely bold claim to be throwing out as established fact.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#183

Post by epiccoleman »

jrflowers wrote: post #18

> If you just take the attitude that, however bad it is in any way, it’s always your fault I like the idea of having an inspirational quote that shares a premise with a suicide note pinned to the wall, it is very motivating

Eh, I don't read it like that, but that's the cool thing about words and individuals I guess. You can view it as a fatalistic acceptance of too much responsibility for one's own suffering or a motivating reminder of your agency. Or somewhere in between. I often find it inspirational when I'm stuck in a self pitying mode.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#184

Post by somesortofthing »

SoftTalker wrote: post #71
jjoonathan wrote: post #34

This is true. It is also true that dispensing this particular advice is self-serving for people in power. In a revolution, things get worse before they get better if they get better. Revolutions come at huge negative expected value. However, appeasing powerful forces can also have hugely negative expected value. Sometimes the calculus makes sense, and when it does, you should hope that people are appropriately discou…

I think it's more self-serving for those in power to encourage a culture of victimhood, where they set themselves up as the saviors. This is a standard political gambit: create or identify a group of victims, and declare that you will get "payback" for them and make their situation better. Of course you don't, but that's OK, you got their votes and you just recycle and amplify that play next time.

If this was the universal(or even most common) outcome of people organizing against sources of suffering in their lives, we'd still be living in stone age city states. The process you describe has time and again led to net-positive outcomes. "It has to work 100% of the time or it's not worth doing" isn't a standard we apply anywhere else.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#185

Post by infecto »

bmitc wrote: post #24
xboxnolifes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were your dorm rooms brand new and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and forced upon the university and city via throwing money around? Irrelevant to whether or not I would enjoy being in them.

It's not really irrelevant. If someone spent all that money and effort on a building and you had no windows or exposure to outside light until you left the building, you don't think that would affect your enjoyment of the building? Especially knowing that perfectly serviceable and better alternatives exist but that's what they went with?

So I take it you lived here?

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#186

Post by Swizec »

SoftTalker wrote: post #112

Personally, thinking "it's always your fault" is as not nearly as important as thinking "I am the only one who can do anything (or cares) to make this better." Misfortune isn't always our fault. How we respond to it is.

> Misfortune isn't always our fault. How we respond to it is.

In the motorcycling world we like to say "The cemetery is full of people who had right of way"

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#187

Post by vasco »

faeriechangling wrote: post #132

I’ve never been fond of this line of reasoning because some people actually are victims and deluding yourself rarely has great outcomes. I think a truthful and accurate self-perception is loads better than just insisting you are never a victim.

He lost a 9 year old son to cancer, an eye to illness and all his money after a divorce. Seems like a cool guy to still be able to say it.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#188

Post by a_techwriter_00 »

bmitc wrote: post #13
bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to make a pithy observation that he's a billionaire and then proceed to spew hate while thinking everything is a zero sum game. When Charlie was in his 30s, he was broke, his 9 year old son died, and he had a divorce. He was never a victim that blames others for their misfortunes though.

So it's his fault that all that happened to him? I am sorry that someone has died, and I regret making a comment on this particular post before realizing the actual post topic too late, but I am not too keen on living my life based upon how billionaires think. Munger, like many billionaires and as the above quote and his dorm designs showcase, liked to speak about things he didn't know anything about, and people like…

Talking about things you don't understand is a natural human activity. The poor as well as the rich are able to do it. It's very peculiar that you're so obsessed with this completely normal aspect of human life and view it as a character flaw. Please, seek professional help for whatever issues in your life are causing you to build up this much anger and resentment.

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#189

Post by paulpauper »

jay-barronville wrote: post #70

I love it. Without even knowing about this particular quote, this has been my standard for myself for some years now. The “it’s always your fault” concept is scary to some folks—and I understand why—but it’s changed my life since I adopted it years ago. Generally speaking, my framework is: 1. I’m NOT a victim. 2. I accept that everything that happens in my life is my fault. 3. I control the controllables; I can’t fix…

It does not have to be binary. sometimes you are the victim, others times you are not

Re: Charlie Munger – Feeling Like a Victim Is Perfectly Disastrous

#190

Post by hyperthesis »

jancsika wrote: post #166

I recently watched a coworker lose a job by embodying this very logic. I think the problem comes from the conflict between denying/rejecting victimhood, on the one hand, and realizing that one must get the fuck out of a very, very bad situation immediately, by any means on the other. From what I could tell it quickly becomes an inescapable cycle between "it's always my fault and I'll fix it"-- which implies leaving--…

Yes. All communication is miscommunication. "[Y]ou just fix it as best you can" includes you getting help to fix it. Getting help is one of your abilities.

So, for example, it's up to you to oppose discrimination via the legal system - it's your fault you're letting them get away with it. It's up to you to organize a union to counter exploitative practices - it's your fault you haven't done that yet.

It's up to somebody to do something - it's up to you. If you're neglected what you can do, it's your fault.

Munger isn't saying it's literally true, but that it is an effective way to face life (this "attitude... works" in the quote).

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