Tim Ferriss

And if we come back to the sort of, let's say, long-term durable happiness is,

uh reality minus expectations if my expectation is i'm never going to have hard days i'm never going to have moments of self-loathing then in the long term i think i'm handicapping my peace of mind does that make any sense it for instance right i can give a lot of examples of this if you're trying to learn a language which i think i think people can become let's just say native english speakers conversationally fluent in a bunch of languages in like 8 to 12 weeks if they're really dedicated themselves

no magic trick involved like there's a very methodical way to do it i mean look at the defense language institute monorail like the stuff they can do is incredible with language instruction they're very interested in bioelectric medicine too by the way uh potentially as an augment but

If you're gonna learn a language, if you expect your progress to look like this, weight training, same thing, skill acquisition, it's going to be lumpy.

You're going to have predictable setbacks.

It's like, okay, you memorized 100 phrases, fantastic, or 100 words.

Man, you're gonna be making

rocket-like progress, but as soon as you start introducing a little more complicated grammar, which you need to do to make it for the long game, you're going to feel like you're getting worse.

Your ability to juggle those balls is gonna take time for adaptation, and you're gonna get worse.

Boom, boom, boom.

And then up, and then down, and then maybe there's more of a plateau.

And if you know these in advance, you can kind of plan for them.

in the service of the long-term goal of being fluent in the language.

But if you have a teacher who's tried to do the right thing, and they tell you everything's gonna be great, you know, just one step in front of the other, you know, slow and steady wins the race, and you expect it to be this linear progression, you're gonna get crushed as soon as you suffer a setback.

And I feel like psychologically,

This is where Stoicism is such an incredible arrow in the quiver.

It's just expecting people to be, you know, like Marcus Aurelius meditations.

Like, effectively, when you go out, like, expect people to be insolent and rude.

Expect people to disappoint you.

Expect A, B, and C. And there's a thin line between that and just being pessimistic or nihilistic, right?