0:00:00 - 0:00:21 I wanted to share some thoughts on a topic that I call hidden constraints. So, um, you'll, you'll find, if you've read this book through faith, which you can get at cost on Amazon, it's a very underutilized book. But if you have read it, you might find some of these concepts familiar, although it's not 0:00:21 - 0:00:41 a one for one, you're not gonna find this discussed just like this in the book. Um, for one, because I think I came up with the, the name Hidden Constraints after writing the book. So anyway, um, but this is an amalgamation of some of the ideas you'll find in there and some which I'll write more about 0:00:40 - 0:01:03 in other books. So, pretty much everything in life comes down to a choice. C uh Life is a stream, it's a constant stream of choices. Every moment is a choice, every single moment. And obviously pretty much everything you think, feel and do is going to come as a result of those choices. Maybe it's not 0:01:03 - 0:01:27 so obvious. Maybe that's actually a, an argument. That's a surprise for you to hear when we talk about things like how you feel. Anyway, that is the case. So when it comes to what you want, that is really two questions. And the fact that people don't dissolve that into two questions is a source of, of 0:01:26 - 0:01:48 many problems in and of itself. So the first question is, what do you want? That's the one that people think about and they think that's the whole story. But actually the, the, the second question there that, that you have to tease out is what are you willing to do to get it? Another way of asking this 0:01:48 - 0:02:15 is how do you want to get it? So we think of life as a menu of options. But what you don't realize is when you choose things off a menu at a restaurant, each thing has a price. Now at a restaurant, it's kind of simple because everything is just denominated in money. But imagine a restaurant where the 0:02:15 - 0:02:31 price of something wasn't limited to its dollar cost. Like maybe you had to stand on the table and dance like an idiot for five minutes to get a certain meal. So some people would be ok with doing that and some people wouldn't because some people would say well for this particular meal, I'm not sure 0:02:30 - 0:02:49 that's worth it. Like maybe if it's for the soup of the day, I'm not willing to make a fool out of myself. But for a rib eye, I would do it now do it for a rib eye and some people would never do it for anything. It doesn't matter what's on the menu, they would not be willing to do it. And that's more 0:02:48 - 0:03:16 like how life is. So when it, when it comes to suffering, it turns out there's a whole lot of suffering in the world that is avoidable. There is some suffering that's not. But if you made a pie chart out of each person's life and you sometime somehow had the, the wherewithal to see all things as they 0:03:16 - 0:03:41 are. Most of that pie chart would be things that can be, be avoided. And it's quite important to identify what these things are and to work on them because those things that can't be avoided are all that much more difficult when you have no spare resources emotionally temporarily. However, the case may 0:03:40 - 0:04:10 be whatever resources we're we're talking about. And so if you want to really attack that list of avoidable suffering one great way to do that, one incredibly effective way of doing that is to, to analyze your life and identify the things in it that cause suffering. That's, that stems specifically from 0:04:09 - 0:04:31 hidden constraints. So what are hidden constraints? Well, I mentioned the two questions are, what do you want and how do you want it? Right? Hidden constraints fall under, how do you want it? They are options that we're not willing to consider, right? Things on the menu that we're not willing to pay 0:04:31 - 0:04:53 the price for, but it has a special attribute where it's outside of the realm of simple cost and benefit. That's a key characteristic of what makes something a hidden constraint. So the other is obviously that it's hidden in. Otherwise, in other words, you dismiss this option out of hand because of a 0:04:53 - 0:05:17 certain characteristic, it has because of a certain characteristic it has. So um what's an example of this? Well, there, there are a million examples, right? So maybe I'm looking for a job and I'm only searching for jobs around where I presently live. It's not that I've explicitly had the thought, I 0:05:17 - 0:05:36 don't wanna move. It's just, I haven't bothered looking for jobs anywhere else that's a hidden constraint, not wanting to move. There are many hidden constraints with dating. For example, a lot of people have hidden constraints with the beliefs that they're willing to question and those could be religious 0:05:35 - 0:00:00 beliefs or any other belief about life. They just say, look, this is off limits. We're not gonna poke at this and that's a hidden constraint. And so what happens is different options have different costs and different benefits and some options have negative consequences that are significant. And if, 0:00:00 - 0:06:18 if we're living a life where we're suffering from these consistent negative consequences, we have to trace that back to the source being hounded by bugs here, we have to trace it back to the source. And what that's like is like if you're on a river, you and you find a stream, you can walk up that stream 0:06:17 - 0:06:49 to find where it comes from. And so much of suffering in life stems from hidden constraints. So as you go through life, and you identify these hidden constraints which um abundantly exist, one way to deal with them is to convert them into cost benefit. So if you have a set of options and you want to 0:06:49 - 0:07:10 know what the best option is, you need to go down that list of options and assess what the cost and benefit of each option is. And when you cancel out the opposites, you'll end up with either a net benefit or a net cost. You don't do things that have a net cost and you go with the option that has the 0:07:10 - 0:07:31 greatest net benefit over the longest time frame. And that's a, a wonderful strategy to attain the maximal joy that you can have in life. So this presupposes that your estimate of the cost and benefit is correct. It also presupposes that you've got all the options on your list and you might want to enlist 0:07:31 - 0:07:48 the help of someone who's wiser than you in both of those tasks, maybe even getting multiple opinions from other people. And you don't have to go with what they say at the end of the day. It's your choice because you're the one that's gonna have to carry the consequences. But this will help you avoid 0:07:48 - 0:08:10 blind spots, hidden cons or hidden constraints are certainly a blind spot. By definition, you don't know about them. You're, you're acting according to these constraints without realizing you're doing so. So you identify these things and then you convert them over to, to a cost basically. So all constraints 0:08:10 - 0:08:30 are actually just costs. We think of them as hard boundaries where we absolutely can't consider things over the line. But this gets us into trouble because it can lead you and frequently does lead you to make irrational decisions. You say, well, I just can't even consider this option. Well, why, why 0:08:30 - 0:08:49 I just, I don't feel good about it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever or I would never XYZ. OK. But why not? And you have to dig deep enough that you can convert it into a cost. Let me give you uh a ridiculous example. So most people out there are not gonna marry their cousin, right? And you, you 0:08:49 - 0:09:09 say, of course, I would never do that. Well, why? And the why in this case might be social stigma? But it's almost certainly because you don't want to have kids that are all deformed and whatever have medical issues caused by your choice, right? The genetic limitations of the cross breed there. Well 0:09:08 - 0:09:29 , if you're, if a, if a significant portion of why you want to get married is in order to have kids, then it makes sense to exclude your cousins from the list of options, right? So you might be a little worried at this point that I'm about to make a case for marrying your cousin. And I'm not, I, I'm 0:09:29 - 0:09:55 using this. Exactly, because it is such a lock tight constraint. And yet even this is actually based on specific costs. Right. So, um, anyway, if you replace that absolutely will not. With, look, there's a massive dose of social stigma here and even bigger than that. I don't want to doom my kids to some 0:09:55 - 0:10:15 weird genetic problem because I chose to marry my cousin. Right. So that is an example of converting a constraint over to a cost. It's really important to do this. Now, you don't have to do this when you're choosing what breakfast cereal to eat every morning, you know, but the more important the decision 0:10:15 - 0:10:37 , the more due diligence you want to take to think about it. The other thing is a lot of you folks are already running at Max RP MS life and easy mode. Has you overwhelmed because you don't know or don't live these tactics that I'm trying to teach you about. But um rest assured that the more you practice 0:10:36 - 0:10:53 these sorts of things, the more second nature it becomes, you don't have to sit here and it's like that meme with the lady and all the math on the screen it, it's not like every decision requires that kind of brain power and the more you do this, the, the better you get at it and it just becomes natural 0:10:53 - 0:11:16 , becomes so natural that it's actually it takes a lot of work to break it down into specific steps that other people can follow. So uh before we go here, I want to break this down uh further. So suffering, a lot of that, that unfruitful, suffering, that unnecessary suffering, uh it can be broken down 0:11:16 - 0:11:41 into three categories. One is mistakes from your past two is ongoing decisions and three is future decisions that are required to get you out of it. And obviously there's gonna be some bleed in between those options depending on what the situation is. So if your suffering is coming from past mistakes 0:11:41 - 0:11:58 , on the one hand, that's, that's a good thing because it's in the past, right? But on the other, if it's ongoing, it might indicate that there's a limited set of what you can do to, to reduce it if, if you're just feeling bad because you wish you could go back in time and change something. Hey, I'm 0:11:58 - 0:12:18 sorry to tell you, you can't, right? You can't. But what you do from here on is your choice. And so we see that for that first option, it still breaks down to what choices are you gonna make from here on. And so it's really important to understand hidden constraints because you may have taken off the 0:12:18 - 0:12:41 table out of hand without thinking about it. The only thing or things that will actually minimize your suffering for past choices. What about ongoing decisions? So this is like if you're in a habit or, you know, I mentioned maybe you're looking for a job. So let's say you're living check to check. Right 0:12:41 - 0:13:02 . And the financial examples are always really good because they're limited in scope, but they're very tangible. People can understand them. So let's say you're living check to check. Well, you're absolutely gonna suffer if you're living check to check. Do you have to live check to check? I really don't 0:13:01 - 0:13:23 know of anyone who does not in this country and a lot of people are gonna get upset about that. Look at your hidden constraints. So you can make a lot of money and live check to check. I know someone who makes something like 400,000 a year and live check to check. I know someone. Ok. That's insane. Ok 0:13:22 - 0:13:39 . But what if you're making far less than that? Let's, let's just go to minimum wage. Let's say you're making minimum wage first off, minimum wage is not the same in every state. So, if you're working a minimum wage in one job in one state and you move to another with a comparable cost of living and 0:13:39 - 0:14:01 a higher minimum wage, guess what happens? You get a pay raise and now you're not living check to check anymore. What if, what if you're making the same amount? But you can find a place that has a lower cost of living. You're not living check to check anymore. What if you can pick up a second job? You're 0:14:01 - 0:14:17 not living check to check anymore and on and on and on. What if you can do something to reduce the amount? What if you get Uber eats once a week, don't do that. And magically you're not living check to check anymore. Right. What if you can plant a little garden? If you have a little plot of land? it's 0:14:17 - 0:14:36 just a little plot of land. You save 10 bucks a month in groceries. That's something. And you're not a check to check anymore, right? So these are all choices, but you probably have some hidden constraints. Like a whole lot of people will not work a second job. They refuse and say, well, I value my sleep 0:14:36 - 0:15:04 more and I didn't get to it. Ok. But this is an untapped source of happiness in your life. If your current situation has cost, which everything does, everything has cost. If you think that that cost is something foisted upon you, you're not going to be happy about it. But what happens if you've actually 0:15:04 - 0:15:22 analyzed all of your options? And you're saying, oh, I know this has a cost but it's actually the cost I prefer over alternatives if you're living check to check for instance, to just dig in further on this example and you refuse to take a second job because you appreciate your sleep more or your free 0:15:22 - 0:15:46 time. Guess what? Maybe you shouldn't care so much about that. Maybe you should actually be happy that you have the option of only having one job. And here's the, we come full circle now, what do you want? And how do you want it? Almost everyone is locked into choosing how they want it, thinking they're 0:15:46 - 0:16:10 choosing what they want. Do you see that? And how do you know there's a difference how the, the split become apparent in your life when you don't have what you want? But you don't make changes if, if you're in a, a state of active change, like you say, hey, I'm in this job right now. We're just gonna 0:16:10 - 0:16:29 keep going. Financial examples. I'm in this job right now. I hate it, but I'm working towards this other job and here's a plausible path because I'm doing X today, I'll do, I'll do Y tomorrow and Z after that. And that's gonna get me to this job. That's great. You're in a plausible path. You're, you're 0:16:28 - 0:16:47 choosing what you want because you're getting closer to it. If you're static and there's no growth and you say, yeah, someday I want to be a millionaire. I'm not saying you should. Right. I'm just doubling down on these financial examples. Someday I wanna be a millionaire. What are you doing about it 0:16:47 - 0:17:06 ? Well, I'm working a minimum wage job. Why? Well, because someday I'll have an opportunity to do something else. No, buddy, you're choosing to, to be poor for the rest of your, your life. That's what you're choosing. Don't even lie about. You wanna be a million. No, you don't. If you wanted to be a 0:17:06 - 0:17:28 millionaire you'd find out how to get there and find out what the next step is in a plausible path to get there. Most suffering comes from people thinking they're choosing what they want when actually they're choosing how they want to get it most suffering. Now, there's harder things out there and terrible 0:17:27 - 0:17:42 things that are gonna slap you across the face and there's nothing you can do to avoid it. But this is not one of them. If you're in a situation where your suffering is coming from your lack of choice or your delusion and thinking you're doing one thing when you're doing the other, that's all on you 0:17:42 - 0:18:02 . That is all on you. The good news is you can take it completely away and you can do it right now and you do that by finding a plausible path that takes you to what you want or by recognizing that actually is not what you want, you want, what you're choosing and you, you find out what you're choosing 0:18:01 - 0:18:23 by looking at what you're doing, Ryan. So we didn't go through the ongoing decisions or the needed new decisions. Hopefully, you can fill in the blank. I don't want to make this too long, right? Just to touch on it briefly if you don't like your situation. Look at what you're doing to cause it and fix 0:18:23 - 0:18:41 it. That's an ongoing decision situation. Because guess what? Every day is a new day, your choices, every day established a pattern, but you can break it just as easily as you formed it. You make a different choice today. And then what about the new decisions needed? Again? If you go back to the financial 0:18:40 - 0:18:58 situation, if you want to be in a better financial situation, you have to make a change, right? That 80 eighties kids, we've got an advantage on younger generations because we know that Michael Jackson song man in the mirror, you gotta make a change. You look at yourself and you make a change. If you 0:18:58 - 0:19:22 want things to be different, you have to choose differently than you're choosing. Now a big chunk of this that's worth specifically mentioning with the new decisions. A lot of people don't have the needed opportunity to make the kind of change they need to, to get to what they want. But the problem in 0:19:22 - 0:19:40 that case tends to be that they're not doing anything to become more prepared. Should the opportunity arise? Right? And we talked about some financial opportunities. What if someone offered you a job in another state and it was out of nowhere, would you take it? Well, the more strings you have attached 0:19:40 - 0:19:59 to you, the less likely you would be to do that because the cost would be higher, right? Let's say you, you have a really high mortgage and there's a bunch of people who depend on you and I don't know, you've got farm animals or something. Well, you can't just uproot and move cross country and sleep 0:19:59 - 0:20:18 on someone's couch for two weeks. Right. Till you find a place or leaving your car or something. You can't do that. So all these things that we choose to do, they can lock us in. So, so what would be the opposite of that is, is cutting the strings where you can, I'm not saying abandon your family, right 0:20:17 - 0:20:42 ? But like if you're starting out in life, maybe you shouldn't have four dogs because that seriously hinders your living options and it's also ridiculous monthly expenses you absolutely can't afford. So these are things to think about. Um, typically opportunity comes, but it only comes once. I'm not 0:20:42 - 0:21:02 saying one opportunity is all you'll get. I'm saying opportunities usually don't recycle and so it'll be a different opportunity. The next one you get, but you can't force these things to happen. You can just be prepared to make use of them when they do. And usually they're, they're very impatient. Opportunities 0:21:01 - 0:21:31 are very impatient and they don't give you a second chance typically. All right, I'm just looking down my notes. Um The very last thing on my page is two things. Sometimes the struggle with all of this is that we fail to realize that properties coexist. What do. I mean, by that, well, look at character 0:21:30 - 0:21:51 qualities is a good example. If you meet someone who's driven, they're probably going to stress you out. Right. So, if you, if you're, if you're, if you're looking to be friends or more with someone who's driven and that cours with things like, like worldly success, right? If you want someone who's driven 0:21:51 - 0:22:10 , odds are they're not gonna stop being driven in parts of their life where you wish they weren't so driven. So, like, they're gonna get on your case. If you're a lazy bum, they're gonna get on your case. If they see you doing things that, that you really shouldn't be doing because that's how they are 0:22:09 - 0:22:26 . It's how they are all the time. It's how they are with themselves and they're like that with other people too. This is just an example or if you want someone who's super compassionate, right? They're probably just not gonna have much going on in their life because they're, they're fluffy puppy dogs 0:22:26 - 0:22:45 and rainbows about everything and maybe they'd be really good with small Children and not so good in a role as the CEO, right? So, um, and, and if you get into a relationship with someone like that and they don't really have much to say for themselves, well, you probably shouldn't be surprised because 0:22:45 - 0:23:05 you, you're with a stuffed animal, right? So, um, or, or comfort blanket, a living comfort blanket. So, um, maybe looking down the costs and benefits. That's exactly what you want. But don't be surprised when you get what coexists with what you're looking for. And hopefully this makes sense how this 0:23:05 - 0:23:29 loops back to what you want and how you want it. But one thing we need to expose here, it's the last thing on my list is so much of life is a question of what you value the most. It's a question of priority. We do not get to make the rules. We just get to learn what they are and choose whether or not 0:23:28 - 0:23:48 to live by them. Most people never bother learning what they are. But even to the extent that you've been exposed to them, most people don't live by them and they get all frustrated when they say they don't have what they want because what they're looking for doesn't exist. They try to surgically remove 0:23:48 - 0:24:07 things that have to coexist and, and they want their cake and to eat it too and it just doesn't exist and that's why there's so many miserable people out there. This is the primary reason more than anything else I think is that people don't understand the difference between what they want and how they 0:24:06 - 0:24:13 want it. So, for more about this, if you want to think about it some more, you should read through faith, take care.