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So it stands to reason that when you do anything related to the mating instinct, you feel a sense of meaning and happiness. Any time you‘re dating, having sex, flirting, or raising kids, you are involved with the mating instinct. Those examples are obvious. But I extend that instinct to include the modern version of hunting and gathering, i.e., going to work and later buying groceries. I also include exercise because it makes us healthier, which is critical to mating success. That’s why my happiness seems to be directly related to whether I productively worked, exercised, or had sex that day. Those keep me most closely tethered to my mating instinct even though I have no biological children. I also suspect that learning anything useful is related to the mating instinct because it signals you as a more capable provider.

I extend the concept of being close to your mating instincts to all forms of showing off because that also seems related to mating. If you win a big competition, you generally feel great all day. That’s the mating instinct. You just signaled to the world the quality of your genes by winning something in a competitive situation.

You won’t need endless examples to see the pattern. Lots of things we do every day are directly or indirectly related to our mating instincts. So ask yourself how closely related to your mating instinct is your daily experience. If you spent the day fixing a problem with your insurance coverage—and not much else—that won’t make you happy. Find a way to get closer to the mating instinct, without necessarily having children if that isn’t your calling. You’ll be surprised how well it works to boost your mood. And if having kids is your thing, the country will thank you because we have a baby shortage at the time of this writing.

You might recognize my reframe about using your environment to program your mind as similar to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s recommendation to “clean your room” if you don’t know where else to start improving your situation. On first exposure to the idea, it sounds trivial to the process of success. Surely there are plenty of successful packrats with hoarder-like workspaces. But if you are not already on your way to success, cleaning your room is a great exercise in gaining control over your environment on a small scale. Any micro-progress in the right direction is likely to give you energy for more. That’s the direct way that cleaning your room helps—success breeds success—and no matter how small you start, success can build on itself.

There is another way to frame cleaning your room that you might prefer. This reframe recognizes the physical environment as part of your mind, even if not physically connected to your brain. When you put your body in an organized and pleasant environment, your mind picks up that vibe. If your room or workspace looks like a garbage truck exploded, your mind will be distracted by the chaos. I use this reframe.

Usual Frame: My mind is in my brain.

Reframe: My mind includes my brain, body, and physical environment. Any change to one changes the others.

If your mind isn’t giving you what you want, reprogram it by making changes to your body (diet, exercise, location, light, etc.) or changes to your physical environment (clean your room, get some outdoor time, etc.). You’ll need more than that, but these are always a good place to start.

In my house, I have different rooms to stimulate different parts of my brain. My Man Cave in the garage is designed for creativity. Every object in the room is chosen by me to have that impact. For example, being near my newly cleaned whiteboard automatically stimulates the idea-generating part of my brain. That’s called a key in hypnosis jargon. When you pair a mental state with something physical and repeat often, the physical thing (the key) will trigger your mind into the state it associates with the object. That’s why your dog goes nuts when you reach for the leash. The leash is a key. Train yourself the same way but without the leash part.

You can’t think your way to happiness. If you want to fix your mind, you will have to move something, do something, learn something, or change something. If you don’t know where to start, start anywhere you can. The important thing is to act. You’ll figure out the rest as you go. That’s how most of life works—you figure out what works by doing it wrong until you know how to do it right.

Chapter 4

Social Life Reframes

I grew up in a small town in upstate New York and somehow avoided learning any social skills until I was an adult. I scrambled for decades to figure out the rules of healthy social interactions. I won’t claim I mastered the art, but I can save you about forty years of embarrassment by summarizing much of what I learned in a series of reframes. This chapter includes all the reframes I wish I’d heard when I was a young man.

Be Yourself

A popular notion is that we all have some core nature that is good and valuable, and everyone else will see it, too, if we just act natural. “Be yourself,” the wise ones tell us. And if someone doesn’t like it, too bad!

It’s hard to pick the single worst advice ever given, but “be yourself” is in the top five. Would it kill you to work toward being a better version of yourself?

When I got rich making the Dilbert comic in the 1990s, people asked me if I thought wealth would change me. I usually laughed and said, “I hope so. That was the point.” I wanted wealth to make me feel successful, fulfilled, happy, less stressed, and even healthier. And I hoped it would make me feel less selfish and more inclined to help those less fortunate. I think all of that happened and on schedule.

I once believed that “aging” would be all bad starting at around age thirty. I’m writing this at age sixty-five and can report that I have been wrong for thirty-five years straight. I suppose my basic personality has been consistent over time, but I’ve clearly evolved into a different sort of creature, and I like the change. I wouldn’t go back to any of my younger days. Imagine if I thought “being myself” back then was a good life strategy. I can’t imagine the outcome. Instead, I took the attitude that self-improvement is available in abundance, so I grabbed all I could grab, as often as I could grab it.

Usual Frame: Be yourself.

Reframe: Become a better version of yourself.

When people tell me they “dress for themselves” as opposed to impressing others, I assume they’re either lying or unaware of how humans are wired. Dressing for yourself feels like the worst fashion strategy of all time. Instead, dress for the impact you want to have on others. Whatever that is.

Which of these two things will feel better:

Attracting a potential mate whom you marry, have three kids, and live a wonderful life.

or . . .

Walking past a mirror and thinking, “Damn, I look good to only me.”

Okay, I might have inserted some bias into those choices. But I think you get the idea. How you present yourself will have an enormous impact on how others treat you. People are shallow and visual. That means you will have better social interactions if you dress for other people, not yourself. And ultimately, your relationships are the building blocks of your long-term happiness. Manage them with care. Self-esteem is important, too. But it’s only one building block to better personal relationships. If you were all alone in the world, no amount of self-esteem is likely to make you happy. You need other people for that.

Would you like a surefire way to boost your self-esteem? I have a suggestion: Make others respect you. You already know how to get that done: Take care of your health, finances, family, and be kind to others. That’s about it. If you do the basics, respect comes easily. And that’s 80 percent of what you need for a healthy sense of self.