We humans tend to live in the moment. It is the animal part of our nature. We respond first and foremost to what we see and hear, to what is most dramatic in an event. But we are not merely animals tied to the present. Human reality encompasses the past—every event is connected to something that happened before in an endless chain of historical causation. Any present problem has deep roots in the past. It also encompasses the future. Whatever we do has consequences that stretch far into the years to come. When we limit our thinking to what our senses provide, to what is immediate, we descend to the pure animal level in which our reasoning powers are neutralized. We are no longer aware of why or how things come about. We imagine that some successful scheme that has lasted a few months can only get better. We no longer give thought to the possible consequences of anything we set in motion. We react to what is given in the moment, based on only a small piece of the puzzle. Salesmen and demagogues play on this weakness in human nature to con us with the prospect of easy gains and instant gratification. Our only antidote is to train ourselves to continually detach from the immediate rush of events and elevate our perspective.
Daily Law: Instead of merely reacting, step back and look at the wider context. Consider the ramifications of any action you take. Realize that is often better to do nothing, to not react, to let time go by and see what it reveals.
The Laws of Human Nature, 6: Elevate Your Perspective—The Law of Shortsightedness
For thousands of years, it has been our fate to largely grope in the shadows when it comes to understanding ourselves and our own nature. We have labored under so many illusions about the human animal—imagining we descended magically from a divine source, from angels instead of primates.
We have found any signs of our primitive nature and our animal roots deeply distressing, something to deny and repress. We have covered up our darker impulses with all kinds of excuses and rationalizations, making it easier for some people to get away with the most unpleasant behavior. But finally we’re at a point where we can overcome our resistance to the truth about who we are through the sheer weight of knowledge we have now accumulated about human nature. The month of October will help you come to terms with human nature, accept that there are patterns beyond your control, and understand your primitive roots so that you are not destroyed by them.
Over the course of several years after the publication of The 48 Laws of Power, I received thousands of emails from readers who came to me with their problems. I was also approached by hundreds of people who wanted one-on-one consulting for their problems.
After much deep thinking about these experiences and my own experiences with people I knew, I came to the following conclusion: We humans have a dirty little secret. It’s a secret that has nothing to do with sex lives or fantasies or anything as exciting as that. Rather, the secret is that all of us, to some degree, are in pain. It’s a pain that we don’t discuss or even understand.
The source of this pain is other people.
What I mean is our often disappointing, superficial, unsatisfactory relationships with people. This comes in the form of relationships and connections that aren’t very deep between us and those whom we consider our friends, leading to a lot of loneliness. It comes in the form of bad choices for associates and partners—leading to all this struggle and messy breakups.
It comes from letting some toxic narcissist into our life—leading to all kinds of emotional trauma that can take years to get over, if we even ever do. And it also comes from our inability to persuade, to move people, to influence them, to get them interested in our ideas—generating feelings of frustration and anger.
We are deeply social animals and having dysfunctional social relationships leads to all kinds of problems. It leads to depression. It leads to recurring obsessive thoughts, to the inability to focus on our work, to eating disorders, to even physical diseases such as heart disease. We only see the surface phenomenon—the loneliness or the depression or physical ailment.
We don’t see the underlying source. And sometimes we’re not even aware that we suffer from loneliness.
And so, in 2012, while I was writing Mastery, I decided what I really wanted to do next was to write a book that would help people deal with and overcome this very deep pain that I felt a lot of my readers were expressing to me. But I didn’t want to just write the usual stupid self-help book that throws little formulas at you, pat phrases about how to get along with people. I wanted to write a book like I always try to do—one that gets inside of you, that changes how you think about the world, that gets under your skin and really alters your perspective about people and the world.
And so with that “modest” goal in mind, I asked myself a question like I always do when I write a book: What is the source of this pain, of this problem? The obvious answer is that we are generally very poor observers of people around us. We’re poor listeners. We’ve become so self-absorbed with our smartphones and our technology. We’re not paying attention. And when we do pay attention, we project onto people our own emotions, our own desires. Or we’re very quick to judge and categorize them—that person’s good, that person’s evil; that person’s likeable, that person’s not likeable.
Seeing just a small portion of who people are, we naturally misunderstand and misjudge them—leading to all kinds of problems, to bad decisions, to bad strategies.
And so, if that is the source of our problem, then the solution is that we all just become better observers and listeners, which is what a lot of self-help books that deal with the subject say. But I found that very unsatisfying for an answer. That’s not where I wanted to begin.
I thought very deeply and decided I wanted to ask another question: Are there moments in our lives in which we actually feel different? In which we are actually paying deep attention to people? In which we are actually observing them? And I said yes, there are.
First of all, as children. Children are master observers of people. They are very attuned to the emotions and moods of their parents—their survival depends on it. Con artists hate children because children can see through their phoniness, their fakeness. We were all great observers when we were children. Then, if we travel to a foreign country and everything’s exotic and weird, our senses are heightened. We’re paying attention to people. They seem so different—we want to understand them. Also, if we start a new job and we’re a bit nervous—we’re paying attention to all the little power dynamics going on. Obviously, when we fall in love—we’re extremely attentive to that person. We’re picking out every little sign and detail that they’re emitting about whether they like us, who they are, what their character is like. And finally, strangely enough, if we read a really good novel or see a great movie. We’re fascinated by the characters someone has created, and we want to get inside of their world.
What do all these experiences have in common? In these moments, our desire is engaged. We’re excited. We’re curious. We feel the need to pay attention to people. Our survival could even depend on it. And when we’re excited and curious and we feel the necessity, suddenly our eyes come to life.
We’re watching. We’re observing. We’re getting inside people. And in these moments, there’s less of our ego. We’re getting outside of ourselves and into the world of other people.
Normally, we don’t feel that way. We actually have low interest in the people around us. I hate to say that, but it’s true. The people we deal with every day—they’re too familiar to us. They don’t seem exciting. We feel that our own thoughts and our own world is more interesting than theirs. We have our own needs and our own problems to deal with.
So I decided—what if I could write a book that would bring you back to those positions you had in those moments? What if I could make you feel like a child again? What if I could make you feel like those moments when you were in love or when you were traveling to a foreign country or when you were excited and curious and really wanted to probe inside the minds of the people around you? That would change everything. You wouldn’t have to suddenly imagine you were a better listener or observer. You would become a better listener and observer.
So how could I create that kind of magic? By taking you as a reader and leading you deep inside the inner worlds of the people around you. By making you see what their fantasies are, what their lives are like from the inside.
It’s my contention that the people you deal with are a lot more interesting and complicated and weird than you imagine. You think that you have to travel to some foreign region like Bali or see some interesting movie to find people interesting. No, that salesperson at Rite Aid or whomever—they actually have a really deep, rich inner life. They are fascinating. You’re just not realizing it.
So how am I going to be able to do this? How am I going to make you understand people rather than let them cause you pain? By immersing you in the study of human nature. And as I said, I will alter how you perceive people from the inside out. And once I get you to go that far, you’re never going to want to go back to where you were before.