Awesome post! I’ve definitely spent a long time vaguely thinking that “keep your identity small” was a good idea, while cultivating various identities anyway.
“The aversion to wasting money and material things predictably led to wasting time and attention instead. I found it useful to try “thinking like a trader” to counteract this “stingy person” identity, and get comfortable with the idea of trading money for time. Now I no longer obsess about recycling or buy the cheapest version of everything.”
Thanks! I still agree with what I think is the main message of “keep your identity small”: not allowing things to automatically be part of your identity for historical or political reasons.
Which identities did you cultivate? I’m curious how you dealt with your stingy person identity.
I’m curious how you dealt with your stingy person identity.
Mainly by being able to point out that its purpose has expired. It was really useful being a stingy person in first-year university–I had a lot of time, and limited ability to turn it into money. Being stingy allowed me to not go into debt, at the cost of maybe a bit of happiness–I always felt a bit guilty about i.e. going out to dinner with friends. Once I graduated, the default was to stay stingy, but I can convince my brain to relax on specific items like “go out to dinner with friends” or “travel to lots of places” because, hey, the whole point of being stingy in the first place was to get me through school and to the point when I had a career and savings and could do fun things.
Awesome post! I’ve definitely spent a long time vaguely thinking that “keep your identity small” was a good idea, while cultivating various identities anyway.
“The aversion to wasting money and material things predictably led to wasting time and attention instead. I found it useful to try “thinking like a trader” to counteract this “stingy person” identity, and get comfortable with the idea of trading money for time. Now I no longer obsess about recycling or buy the cheapest version of everything.”
This resonates so hard for me.
Thanks! I still agree with what I think is the main message of “keep your identity small”: not allowing things to automatically be part of your identity for historical or political reasons.
Which identities did you cultivate? I’m curious how you dealt with your stingy person identity.
Mainly by being able to point out that its purpose has expired. It was really useful being a stingy person in first-year university–I had a lot of time, and limited ability to turn it into money. Being stingy allowed me to not go into debt, at the cost of maybe a bit of happiness–I always felt a bit guilty about i.e. going out to dinner with friends. Once I graduated, the default was to stay stingy, but I can convince my brain to relax on specific items like “go out to dinner with friends” or “travel to lots of places” because, hey, the whole point of being stingy in the first place was to get me through school and to the point when I had a career and savings and could do fun things.