- Scrolling down. If you spend way too much time in your phone you’ve fallen in the trap. You are lost, and the way to escape from boredom is to scroll down and see other people’s lives, which seem way more interesting that yours. High Agency road: stop scrolling down, build the life you want and go confidently in the direction to your dreams. Real life is the greatest videogame.
- Admiring someone for external things: There is no surer mark of a sucker than to admire a man for what he has rather than for what he is. The sucker sees an heir and marvels at his fortune, as if building wealth were, every time, some proof of character. Sucker’s ask for a picture when they see high agency people because they know they will never be one of them, that being the closest they will be to greatness. Sucker’s are intimidated by the wealth and beauty of others. Oh, and sucker’s care (a huge lot) about someone’s position rather than someone’s actions. I’ll never forget that Bernie Madoff was at one time chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange.
- Reading the News: Newspapers are frequented by Sucker’s. Suckers don’t read to understand, they read to be informed, by which they mean to be filled, daily, with opinions not their own. Wrong ideas told everyday alter the perception of reality, not reality itself, but Sucker’s don’t care about reality anyway.
- Suckers price premium: Although we all by nature crave the need to belonging and status, suckers fall into the ‘price-premium’ trap more often than high agency people. Luxury products only confirm this. You can buy a bottle of water at $0.30 in your neighborhood’s grocery store, however, suckers prefer to buy their bottle of water at fancy stores at 5x that price. This is all because of status; suckers think people are always thinking on them therefore they want to be seen with the most expensive products, not knowing that the only way people think on them is by laughing at them for being a sucker. Sometimes, a wealthy sucker. The problem is not that you want better things, actually is normal and highh agency’ish to want the best things, the problem with this situation is that the water (raw material) is the exact same in the 30 cent product as in the $5USD one; the product was manufactured in the same place, but it was labeled with a different logo and slogan, but again, the factory was actually perhaps in the same place. If you are a smart capitalist you can take advantage of this. If you are, anyhow, smart, dont fall in the suckers price premium trap. Anyway nobody cares that you buy lux products because nobody is thinking on you, and if they were, believe me they would think you are an idiot and they would not admire you, at least not the people you want to be admired from. Of course, you will get attention and admiration, but it will come from another sucker. Funny, but being a sucker, is expensive.
- Complexity: it’s very funny how you can spot a sucker by watching how much complexity they employ in everything they do. They use complex terms to appear more intelligent, not knowing that actually the wise ones are the simplest ones. They love taking the longer journey to the same destination. They are easily fooled by others talking their same language, the “sucker’s” one. Life is hard, don’t be a sucker and make it harder.
Low Agency Traps
Everything Inside You Will Fight Improvement
The human mind is a miracle, and you will never see it spring more beautifully into action than when it is fighting against evidence that it needs to change. Your psyche is equipped with layer after layer of defense mechanisms designed to shoot down anything that might keep things from staying exactly where they are -- ask any addict.So even now, some of you reading this are feeling your brain bombard you with knee-jerk reasons to reject it. From experience, I can say that these seem to come in the form of ...
- Intentionally Interpreting Any Criticism as an Insult
"Who is he to call me lazy and worthless! A good person would never talk to me like this! He wrote this whole thing just to feel superior to me and to make me feel bad about my life! I'm going to think up my own insult to even the score!"
- Focusing on the Messenger to Avoid Hearing the Message
"Who is THIS guy to tell ME how to live? Oh, like he's so high and mighty! It's just some dumb writer on the Internet! I'm going to go dig up something on him that reassures me that he's stupid, and that everything he's saying is stupid! This guy is so pretentious, it makes me puke!"
- Focusing on the Tone to Avoid Hearing the Content
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"I'm going to dig through here until I find a joke that is offensive when taken out of context, and then talk and think only about that! I've heard that a single offensive word can render an entire book invisible!"
- Revising Your Own History
"Things aren't so bad! I know that I was threatening suicide last month, but I'm feeling better now! It's entirely possible that if I just keep doing exactly what I'm doing, eventually things will work out! I'll get my big break, and if I keep doing favors for that pretty girl, eventually she'll come around!"
- Pretending That Any Self-Improvement Would Somehow Be Selling Out Your True Self
"Oh, so I guess I'm supposed to get rid of all of my manga and instead go to the gym for six hours a day and get a spray tan? Because THAT IS THE ONLY OTHER OPTION."
- Delaying any self-improvement until the entire world changes to accommodate you
"If I work hard, I'll just be perpetuating a corrupt system! Granted, the system has no reason to listen to me as long as I'm not contributing anything, thus ensuring that I'll never be in a position to help change it, but still!"
And so on. Remember, misery is comfortable. It's why so many people prefer it. Happiness takes effort. Also, courage -- it's incredibly comforting to know that as long as you don't create anything in your life, then nobody can attack the thing you created. It's so much easier to just sit back and criticize other people's creations. This movie is stupid. That couple's kids are brats. That other couple's relationship is a mess. That rich guy is shallow. This restaurant sucks. This Internet writer is an asshole. I'd better leave a mean comment demanding that the website fire him. See, I created something.
Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, whatever you try to build or create -- be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship -- you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it. Maybe not to your face, but they'll do it. Your drunk friends do not want you to get sober. Your fat friends do not want you to start a fitness regimen. Your jobless friends do not want to see you embark on a career.
Just remember, they're only expressing their own fear, since trashing other people's work is another excuse to do nothing. "Why should I create anything when the things other people create suck? I would totally have written a novel by now, but I'm going to wait for something good, I don't want to write the next Twilight!" As long as they never produce anything, their work will forever be perfect and beyond reproach. Or if they do produce something, they'll make sure they do it with detached irony. They'll make it intentionally bad to make it clear to everyone else that this isn't their real effort. Their real effort would have been amazing. Not like the shit you made