Once you become “one who exercises,” you will discover you learn a lot about alternative methods from others. Your fitness education will happen organically. People like to yap about their exercise systems. You can’t avoid it. You will get dragged into learning more than you ever wanted to know about exercise.
Usual Frame: It’s important to learn the best ways to exercise.
Reframe: The best exercises are the ones you are willing to do.
I’m a lifelong gym rat, and 90 percent of what I know about fitness came from clicking on articles on the Internet and being near people who know how to do things right. You can do the same. Once you turn your fitness into a routine, you begin the infinite journey of refining it for your needs. You’ll get there. What matters most is that you’re physically active every day. The rest will follow in time.
Sleep
It isn’t my imagination that people are complaining more than ever about a lack of sleep. Modern life and sleep are not compatible. I’m going to assume you already know all the tips and tricks for good sleep, so I won’t cover them here. If you need those tips, you can google “how to sleep better”—or any variation—and get the same set of useful tips on a variety of sites. All I will add to the skill of sleep is this one reframe.
Usual Frame: I can’t get to sleep.
Reframe: I didn’t work hard enough.
For the first several years of my cartooning career, I kept my day job at the local phone company. I woke up at 4:00 AM every day and collapsed into bed around 10:00 PM every night, having completed two full-time jobs and usually some exercise. In those years, I never had a problem with sleep. I would be unconscious in minutes and sleep through the night.
Other times, I experienced days in which I had more leisure than work. On those lazy days, I sometimes didn’t make it to the gym. Getting to sleep under those conditions was a struggle.
Once the pattern became clear to me, I started using sleep as a gauge for how much energy I “wasted” by not working hard enough to make sleep automatic and easy. Now I know to burn off my extra energy in the early evening if I haven’t done enough work or exercise by then. So instead of focusing on the going-to-sleep part of the going-to-sleep process, I focus on living the kind of day that makes sleep easy and automatic.
This reframe won’t work for all readers. I dislike sleep in general, and I’m ambitious by nature, so the emotional impact of reminding myself I “didn’t work hard enough” hits me like fighting words. If you love sleep, and you’re not trying to conquer the universe, this reframe might not be for you.
If you are not convinced you can “work” yourself into better sleep, test it for yourself by taking a long walk—or whatever you prefer for exercise—and mentally track how you sleep after exercising that day versus on your non-exercise days. You should notice a big difference. And that will be your motivation.
Chapter 6
Reality Reframes
The frustrating thing about so-called reality is that we don’t agree what is real and what is an illusion. You might see the hand of God in all things important, your friend might see reincarnation as the dominant model of reality, and I might believe we are simulated creatures—basically software—created by some other entity. Most of the time it doesn’t matter which model you choose. You can still eat, sleep, work, and procreate.
But sometimes it does matter what is real, and the quality of your decisions depend on it. I’m not the final authority on what is real, so I suggest you favor whatever filter on reality helps you predict the best. If the reframes in this chapter do a better job of predicting the future than your current filter on reality, consider making these your default beliefs. If your existing worldview predicts better, keep that. Our tiny human brains probably can’t know the full nature of reality, but sometimes we can tell what works and what does not. Let’s dig in.
Nuclear Power
In February 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that the European Union was attempting to reframe nuclear energy as “green” to make it easier to gain public and government support. A similar evolution was happening in the United States at the same time. The most dangerous form of energy in the world—said the critics—was being transformed into one of the safest via the miracle of . . . words.
This book will not argue the merits of nuclear energy. The short version is that every assumption about the risks of nuclear energy turned out to be wrong. The modern nuclear power plant designs—usually referred to as Gen 3—have been widely used for years, have never had a meltdown, and have never been associated with a single death. (Earlier designs did have issues.) The nuclear waste problem shrunk when it became obvious it made sense to simply store the waste at the nuclear sites where it was produced, in special containers. Best of all, the newest versions of nuclear power plants—Gen 4—can use that nuclear waste for fuel.
Everything I described has been true for years, but the old assumptions about nuclear energy risks still dominated the public’s thinking, including government officials. What changed it all was a combination of three things:
Energy shortages and accelerating fears about climate change triggered a more flexible attitude about nuclear energy. The alternatives were plainly insufficient.
Skilled American nuclear power advocate Michael Shellenberger almost single-handedly educated governments and the public on nuclear energy benefits and risks.
Years passed without major issues in any Gen 3 nuclear power plant. Time fixes a lot of things.
I give you this example to demonstrate how a reframe can change the world. In the case of nuclear energy, the reframe might literally save civilization, assuming it helps nuclear energy get public support. All of that is possible on the back of one word: green.
Usual Frame: Nuclear Power is risky.
Reframe: Nuclear power is green.
It’s true that one person can sometimes change the world. So can one word if that word is a well-chosen reframe.
You might be tempted to ask me why, if I know how to change civilization with one word, haven’t I already done it? That’s a good question. Now I have a question for you.
What makes you so sure I haven’t?
Human Rationality
The most meaningful reframe of my life happened in my twenties when I studied to become a hypnotist. My hypnosis teacher taught the class that humans are not rational creatures; they are creatures who rationalize decisions after they make them.
The first time you hear that reframe—either from a hypnotist or anyone else—it’s reasonable to be skeptical. After all, you don’t FEEL irrational. You are sure you make most of your decisions based on logic and facts. But then you start noticing that some OTHER people are indeed irrational (according to you), and they do seem to rationalize after the fact.
Then you notice it’s most other people.
Then you notice it’s almost everyone except you.
Then, grudgingly, you start to understand it’s you, too. Because you are human, and that’s the way we’re wired.
But we did not evolve to understand reality. We only evolved to survive. It was once assumed that understanding your reality gave you a survival advantage in evolutionary terms. But that has since been debunked. It turns out that understanding reality is closer to a disadvantage than an advantage in evolutionary terms.