We Choose Every Day Who We Become

It was the middle of August earlier this year, I was sitting on the steps of the cathedral in Arequipa.

As I sat there enjoying the evening sun, people watching, I noticed a seller nearby trying to hawk off little trinkets.

A little girl, her daughter was sitting right next to her with her little pink backpack and a book.

Her mom left her alone as she went around the square selling, she sat there working on her homework.

A few of the other sellers would come by, say hi and play with her a bit. She’s a regular here.

As I watched this unfold in front of me, I was thinking about another little girl, about how education played a role in her life, and how she used education to change other people’s lives.

This is her story

The Indian Dream

This little girl grew up in a tiny village in India, her family didn’t have much.

She was 1 of 6 children

I don’t think her father graduated high school, I think he even used his thumbprint as he never learned to sign his name.

Scarcity was the default growing up, India was and is a tough country to grow up poor in.

Her dad worked every job he could to put food on the table.

Move papers in a bank, climb a tree, work in the forest, it didn’t matter he would do it all.

There’s one thing he wanted for his kids above everything else. Education.

He made sure that every single one of his kids got an education, even if it meant studying under a street lamp.

And he succeeded, every single one of his kids made it.

2 got PhDs, one went to IIT and went on to become a high-level employee at Qualcomm and this little girl grew up to be Physics professor.

She had to work while getting her degree commuting up and down for hours every single day, but she still did it.

Now, she wasn’t just a teacher. She was THAT teacher!

You know what I mean, the single teacher who influenced your life so much that you go back to them 10 years later to thank them. Yes, she was that teacher to 1000s of students.

Around a decade ago she got a promotion to become a headmistress. Half of her family joked that it was a demotion.

It was a run down Govenment school in the middle of the jungle, almost every student in the school was the first generation to go to high school.

It was normal for kids going to the school to drop out to help the family in the fields.

But, I did mention that she was a good teacher, didn’t I?

Well, she took everything she learnt from her years of teaching and directed it towards changing how things worked in this school.

Her first year as a headmistress was the first time in the history of this school that everyone graduated (100% ssc)

It was the first time any school in this region has a 100% graduation rate.

It didn’t stop there, every year since for the next 9 years, that little school in the middle of ‘nowhere’ had a 100% graduation rate.

But it wasn’t just education and grades, the name of this previously unknown school started popping up everywhere.

The kids from this school started winning sports and other talent competitions even beating the private school kids.

The greatest fact was that they started holding their heads up high, they were proud to say that they came from this government school.

In 2022, this little girl whose life was changed due to education and who changed so many people’s life due to education got a National Teachers award from the President of India.

and just a few weeks ago, the day I was sitting on the steps of the cathedral in Arequipa, when India celebrated its Independence Day she was one of the few Non-dignitaries invited for the inhome celebration at the president’s home.

From not knowing if she was going to have food on the table, to eating a table away from Modi on independence day.

This was the power of formal education.

This was the Indian dream made reality over the past 50 years.

It might be obvious to a few of you, but for those of you that don’t know.

This little girl… is my mom.

Where You Come From

Now this isn’t how I usually write so obviously this story doesn’t end here.

If you want a simple one worldview story with a cozy feelgood ending you should probably stop reading here cause the rest of this article might ruin your mood.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you’ve been on this blog before… strap in, that was the intro.

Now most of you know me IRL so I don’t need to tell you of the world I live in, but I’m assuming this article might make it out of my inner circle. So let’s me give a quick refresher:

1. When I was 17 I deadlifted 4x my bodyweight and broke the Indian National Record in training
2. I dropped out of college at 18 and left home with a backpack, $200 to travel the world, it’s been 9 years and I’m still traveling and have been to 50+ countries. I took $0 from my parents after leaving.
3. At 19 my blog was one of the top 100 travel blogs in the world (100k monthly readers)
4. At 20 I was the head of SEO at Foundr Magazine (Foundr.com), got interviewed by Fiverr, featured in Hubspot etc etc.
5. Over the years I’ve worked in random things, I’ve built websites for cafes, worked with the largest SaaS companies, advisor to everything from Ayahuasca facilitators to market making firms.

Basically to those that understand this sentence, I live in the “Balaji was right/Cowen/Ferriss/Levelsio/bowtiedbull” world as default. It’s the only world I know. It’s “normal”.

Enough about me, my ego doesn’t need to be bigger.

Let’s come back to this article;

Over the past decade I’ve been perceived as being “anti-education” a 100 times because I’ve been telling Indians (In India) to drop out for a decade.

So of course, I also do it with people all over the world, doesn’t matter if you’re in Greenwich or Stockholm: if you’re a young smart person I’ve been the most vocal person you know telling everyone to dropout and just enter the ‘real world’

Keep it Simple, Stupid

I think let’s start off this conversation by ignoring people who can only think about ideas as “pro vs anti” without taking the person in context.

People want simplified ideas instead of putting in the effort to live with complex ideas that have nuance.

Every single person I know who called me anti-education could never take a step back and view their position in history.

I’m not my mom (first generation to university) and I’m not my mom’s students (first generation to high school), I’m a second generation to university kid and most second generation to Uni kids don’t need Uni.

If you think ideas need to apply to every single person in the world (pro/anti education) for everyone because #WeAreAllInThisTogether, you’re probably just using that as a coping mechanism from changing your own life for the better.

Contradictions Don’t Exist

What most people think are contradictions are often just the lack of boundary conditions.

If I claim to be pro education what are the boundary conditions?

Well, for starters I use heuristics and the most simple heuristic would be if you can finish this article you don’t benefit formal education (outside very few select fields)

Over the years one of my biggest hurdles was convincing already smart people that they’re smart.

If you have read more than 3 (serious) books this year you are literally in the top 1% of the world in ¨ideas¨ land

Cool, start acting like you’re in the 1%.

¨but Jeremy that sounds like bullshit¨ I think that’s a perspective you can only have if you haven’t interacted with a lot of people.

By the sheer fact you finish this article you’ve filtered out that you are probably high agency that you will thrive in a world of self learning.

You’re smart you just need start using reality to test your ideas.

(Ps. I actually believe that the other 99% can do it too, but that’s another article)

A difference between EU vs Indian tech bros

EU: haven’t used Cursor & doesn’t know about Claude cause GPT 3.5/”AI” is shit

Indian: has used every single tech the day it came out, is literally on the cutting edge. But whose friends say “if it was that simple someone else has done it” to every idea they have so they never start a business.

Each culture has their own baggage.

An opposite example, “if you’re asking me if you should drop out of college you have basically confirmed that you don’t have the will and won’t see it to the end.” The question is the filter.

You Don’t Need People To Support You

A month or so ago, I visited Machu Picchu.

I was in the town of Aguas Calientes when I had to go to buy my last minute ticket

As I stood in line, there was a guy in front of me who didn’t understand Spanish so I decided to help him out. We ended up chatting that morning and evening.

I ended up being his translator to Spanish and we just talked the shit that day. As I left he sent me his website and said “check it out if you’re bored and want something to make you fall asleep”

Anyways, we missed each other the next morning at Machu Picchu but when I got back I decided to check his site out.

He turned out to be in the AI law space and was traveling every continent to give talks on AI & used to be the editor for MIT tech Asia. I had a big laugh out loud at the randomness of life.

We met for coffee that afternoon and we chatted for a couple of hours, the previous day he got to meet ‘hippie Jeremy that never talks tech/biz’, today he got tech Jeremy.

So we chatted around tech, around the world of businesses and AI etc.

As he said “I never expected to be talking about AI the day I go to Machu Picchu, but here I am”, Me too

While we were talking about tech and the world I work/live in, he said the sentence

“it’s was soo smart of your parents to support what you did”

I nearly fell out of my seat in laughter, so let me tell you dear reader what I told him

When I competed in powerlifting (and won the state title), after the competition I had 5 missed calls from my mom because she didn’t know I was competing . They never supported it so I didn’t even bother telling them. They only heard about it when I came home with the medal. 6 months later when I did good but not great and didn’t get into the IITs my gym obsession was blamed.

when I decided to drop out of college I knew it wasn’t going to be a “conversation” so I said I’m doing it with or without their support. My mom burst out crying and called me a disgrace to the entire family. Over the last month before I left Goa my mom would just cry and yell at me.

My entire distant family called me crazy and said I should just go back to university.

One of my closest friend said “you’ll be back in a month, if you don’t end up dead in a ditch”

The few people that weren’t negative stopped at “that doesn’t sound like a good plan, it’s too vague”

I don’t often share these stories because the struggle feels so far away I can barely relate to it anymore, that’s probably why people just assume I had people supporting me from the start.

The point of this isn’t to call my parents or friends stupid but rather to help you see the boundary conditions.

The entire first half of this article is to highlight how my mom is the best version, the most steelman version of the pro education perspective.

She’s not stupid, she’s just highly highly competent in the +10% world while I live in the 10x world.

Another version of this is once you’re no longer sick a doctor can’t help you, most doctors won’t help you get your circadian rhythm in order, use a Vitamin D app, supplement Magnesium, lift weights, gain 10kg of muscle and have a six pack year round. No, you need me (or even better than me, health twitter) for that.

Basically, if you want to climb mountains in your 60s (yes that’s a choice) you are going to have to let go of the perspective that your doctor is the smartest person on health and embrace ✨people with anime pics✨ basically wtf is a grimhood (this is probably the hardest for people who grew up with doctor as a parent)

Everyone needs 8 hours sleep to feel good

“but Jeremy don’t you think people can survive on 6 hours.”

Notice the words you use, survive. I don’t have the survive conversation. We ran the survive experiments in WW2 and know people can survive everything.

I want to thrive

So, I can actually state that I haven’t taken a single piece of advice from my mom since I was 16 AND that’s the exact reason I can share her story with you today with 0 resentment.

Resentment Minimization

Resentment minimization is the idea based around optimizing to not be resentful.

What is resentment?

Google: bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.

Me: when you blame someone else for where you are in life, but often it’s a subtle way to cope from the fact that the person you have to blame is yourself.

Asian or Indian culture is the best example, every single person has a version of the Indian dream I shared before.

But every single person shares the story with some version of resentment because they know that the story comes with downsides.

Here’s where my mom comes from …. So here is why I HAVE to put my head down and get this useless degree/marry this person/deal with xyz- every asian family story.

This perspective leads you straight into a hell of resentment. Especially if you’re smart.

We don’t need to debate these things, in the real world you can just optimize reality. Go ahead.

I’ve never met a person who uses the term wage premium who had a premium wage

or as a toxic person would say, have fun staying poor.

Now, let’s talk about real resentment minimization.

It’s obvious why my mom has a pro education POV. Just re read the first part of this article, she met the president twice ffs.

But it would be very stupid of me to just listen to her, especially when she’s wrong about the world of today. Which is why I never did.

As I joke with a friend

Half of your work problems come from taking people who don’t know the difference between Shopify and Spotify seriously.

That would make me like every other whiny 30 year old Indian who thinks blaming their parents is an excuse an adult can use.

”every moment happens only once”

You can only 10x your parents income with a degree once, the next 10x probably isn’t thanks to a degree. In fact, it might be ignoring the degree completely.

My mother in law fought against her mother to study to become a nurse instead of going to work in a factory. Why do you assume you won’t have to fight the other way around?

You say you are respecting the sacrifice of the generation before you, by having a shitter life cause you’re too afraid to stand up for your convictions

Where’s the respect in that?

Everytime I talked about dropping out of college, starting a biz, entering the illegible world, speaking your mind without a filter, not getting the covid vaccine and being vocal about it in 2021 etc AKA enter the real world, I always get a version of:

“If I decided to dropout of college my entire distant family of 20 people are going to sit me down, call me stupid and hold an intervention”

Yes, do it either way.

Do what I did, look at a person who went hungry because of lack of education and notice the tears in their eyes and say you’re going to do this either way.

Why? Because if you don’t do the obvious, if you don’t optimize reality, you just build up resentment and continue to hate the other person when the reality is that you hate how weak you were.

It’s not the other person you hate, it’s the part of you that couldn’t stand alone.

A billion or 7 billion people believing something doesn’t make it true.

You get the life you tolerate

Until the age of 18 I had Indian parents just like everyone else I knew growing up, I don’t today.

What do I mean?

Well, when I started traveling my Dad would ask me to send him the number plate of every bus I took. My mom was emotionally clingy and wanted to always call.

But that wasn’t how I worked, I don’t work that way even with my close friends. (there’s a reason I love Sweden, my temperament fits right in)

So I didn’t tolerate it

I had to block my parents multiple times, basically Indians may not believe in boundaries but I had to make them learn them if they wanted to be in my life.

So now I basically have the equivalent of European parents cause my parents learnt to be that way and we have a good relationship and I can honestly say I only had 1 bad interaction with my parents in the whole past 5 years.

Acting like you have to spend your entire life with the baggage you were born with is the perspective I disagree with the most.

Here’s an example. Often from especially female readers I get the following idea:

‘If you do xyz your grandmother would have an heart attack’

The only response every single person should have to that is ‘If you ever say that again, you are never ever going to hear from me again and you’ll never see your grandkids if you have any. Stop being an abusive dumbass, you’re going to be blocked for the next month and I’ll unblock you in a month’

I know I’m repetitive but here’s a last version of this to drive this home

In this recent special Hasan Minhaj made the joke

I lied, I’m never going to donate to the American diabetes association… *hahaha* and my dad has diabetes *hahahah* and I’m going to get diabetes too I can feel it I’m almost 40 *hahaha*”

Really? Go to the gym 100 times and get your lifestyle in order and you won’t actually get diabetes Hasan. It’s really that simple.

A conversation on diabetes that doesn’t start with the sentence “I went to the gym 100 times this year” is basically whiny bitchland which I would never tolerate from anyone I know *& neither should you!*

“it’s just a joke”

I have friends who use comedy as a coping mechanism and I’ve often said that the jokes aren’t funny after a while, but rather the person becomes the joke.

It’s not a joke if Hasan actually gets diabetes, it’s just fucking sad.

Honey isn’t better than vinegar if it leads to all your friends eating too much honey and getting diabetes (literally!)

¨that’s not in our culture¨

If you have no problems with your culture then I don’t see a reason to change things. But if you want things to be different, just know it is always a choice.

Don’t let people who never make any choices convince you that you have a certain life if you are born a certain place. (Eg. 6 years ago I wrote the best post on how to become a digital nomad with a weak passport aka you will always find solutions if you choose to)

You can solve problems in months and get the specific world you want, and in that world you get to keep the good parts of your culture too!

Instead of dragging it on for decades and having to always compromise.

You just have to grow a spine and stop looking at tolerance as a virtue, it’s often just fear.

Tolerance is the virtue of a man with no convictions.

You get to define what you are intolerant to. Whatever you tolerate will continue to exist.

Intentions aren’t an excuse

The most popular response I’ve gotten to this over the years is that the people ¨mean¨ well

The person has good intentions, they love you.

Most people think intent matters, that it matters if the person giving you advice cares about, loves you.

Or if they say it in a 🥰cozy and kind way🥰 like the first section of this article.

I personally don’t, as you can see I can write like the first part if I wanted to and I did when I wrote for 100k people.

But I don’t have time for people who judge information on emotions anymore. I intentionally write the way I do to filter them out.

In the real world you observe intentions, but you never ever use them as an excuse.

Reality exists and it’s much more important if something is true or not rather than the intentions of the person that shares the thing.

It’s easy to call bullshit on bad people, it’s much harder with good, loving, people who are just misguided or wrong.

People will think you do things to intentionally be mean or hurt them. But over the long term they always understand that it wasn’t ever about them you just had to do the right thing for you. Damn how good their intentions are.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

You can try your best to not hurt the emotions of people who believe false things,

but you never let other people being hurt be an excuse from not doing something that’s true.

This is what it means to not let empathy be an excuse.

I want you to be able to do what I did, share and think back to my mom’s story with just pride and no anger. Just happiness for her success.

The lack of anger only comes from being able to say I have no downsides today from having a highly academic family and I only got here cause I did the hard things necessary very early.

Cultural baggage is a choice.

Where we come from is who we are, but we choose every day who we become.

What are you going to choose today?