Things I learned in 2021
The eight biggest lessons I learned this year
As we come to the end of the year, here are the eight biggest things I learned.
1. Utility > Ideology
Most people view everything around them through a set of filters.
Before we process information, it comes to us having passed through our personal filter.
As the past few years have taught us (and especially amplified via social media), the big filter so many people have passed everything through is politics. Meaning, every event, every piece of information, every relationship you have, the first question you ask is, “where does this fall on the political spectrum? Is it my side (good), or the other side (bad)?”
As we are learning, this filter leads people astray, especially when the information under evaluation is not truthful.
That’s what January 6th was. That’s what the anti-masker movement was. Belief becomes more important than facts, to the point where anyone who questions the veracity of those beliefs is not only an enemy, but part of a vast conspiracy.
Only, this didn’t work.
If a particular ideology or belief system is not getting you the results you want, perhaps it might be a good idea to look at things through a different filter.
Believing political parties and ideologies don’t have my (or anyone’s) best interest at heart, I’ve decided to look at life through the filter of “utility”.
How useful is this thing? Will it help me accomplish my goals? Will it make me healthy? Is it good for my relationships? Will it lead to job opportunities? Will this help me grow, or will it hamper me?
I believe Utility is a better filter than Ideology because it is more closely tied to truth. And as we have seen, the lies we tell ourselves can hurt us.
2. The Metaverse is here
Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook to “Meta”, for several reasons, most notably — to leverage the growing idea of “The Metaverse”.
The Covid 19 pandemic forced us to socially distance, and we found new ways to adapt…
