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Roughly What You Deserve

On Tynan

Back when I was gambling professionally, it seemed like everyone had an opinion on which casino was rigged. I never really thought that, but I also didn't really think that I was winning as much as I was supposed to. To test this, I recorded every single session I played for over a year. Guess what? I was within a fraction of one percent from where I was supposed to be statistically. I learned that not only were the casinos not rigged, I wasn't very good at mentally aggregating lots of independent events.

I think that in real life, we all have a natural inability or unwillingness to accept that we generally receive what we deserve. Before I get into this, though, I'll say that it definitely isn't true all of the time. I offer the idea here just a useful tool and framework, not to pass judgement. For example, I know people who have lost close family members, people who have been raped, and people who have been affected by other horrible things. I don't think that they deserve those things or earned them in some way. I think they're an unfortunate side effect of the chaos and variance of life, which is otherwise a good thing.

When I was around twenty, I knew for a fact that I would become rich by the age of twenty-five. Twenty five was really old and I knew that I was special, so it made perfect sense to me that I'd be rich by then. I put in a moderate amount of effort, and made moderate progress towards my goal, but didn't really even close. When I turned twenty five, I was at least a little bit surprised that I wasn't a millionaire yet.

I'm still not a millionaire, but I'm not surprised about it anymore. I've seen people work harder than me and work smarter than me and become rich. I've seen the dedication it takes, and I've seen how that compares to what I have typically put in.

What Money Can Do to Your Life

On No Status Quo

It's great to have money. Money can buy you many of the finest things and experiences in life. Sure, there are some things you can't get for money, but there really aren't that many.

When I was a kid, I used to dream about having a yacht. I could spend hours researching different luxury yacht models, looking at pretty photos of what I thought represented a happy life.

I guess I was spoiled by our materialistic world from an early age. Or maybe I was born that way. But now I've learned that materialistic goods don't add much happiness to our lives.

I used to think that owning a Retina Macbook Pro would make me so much happier than having my two-year-old laptop. So I worked really hard and saved up some money until I could finally afford to buy it. It's by far the most expensive thing I ever bought.

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