Mark Manson

But as an introvert, the social aspect of going out all the time felt quite exhausting.

And so I developed an adaptation to help me with that, to fulfill my need for openness to new experiences, my need for novelty, while also quelling my introversion.

And that was...

alcohol i started drinking a lot right at first it was really helpful because not only did it make me less introverted when i was around other people but alcohol itself is a novel unique experience right it's spontaneous it's exciting all sorts of fun adventures happen when you're drunk it helped me fulfill my need for a lot of novelty seeking and adventure but at the same time it kind of

made it easier to do it as an introvert.

Here's another example.

So I am relatively low in conscientiousness, not super low, but like pretty like average, but I'm extremely low in neuroticism.

Very, very low.

It takes a lot for me to like get worked up or upset or like super stressed out.

And so the result of that was that throughout school, I was highly unorganized.

I rarely did homework.

And because I had so much need for novelty seeking, I found homework boring and I just wouldn't do it.

But because I had low neuroticism, I didn't stress out about tests.

So I was actually a really good test taker.

So I was always that kid that would get like an A minus or a B plus on the test without having to study very much, but like didn't turn in half of his homework assignments.

Interestingly,

i kind of developed an identity as an underachiever even since i was probably like eight or nine years old like my whole life i remember teachers telling me like you could do so much better you have so much potential if you just cared if you just tried and eventually that just became how i saw myself the underachiever

And interestingly, the beliefs that we develop about ourselves in particular are some of our most potent adaptations because our beliefs about ourselves impact so many of our other motivations, goals, and behaviors.

It really wasn't until I got out of school and I was able to like self-direct the things that I worked on that I realized that it was like, oh, I'm not actually lazy.

When I was in school, I just never was in a situation