3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

Type A Problems, Type B Problems.

I think Type A people have a Type B problem, and Type B people have a Type A problem.

Insecure overachievers need to learn how to chill out and relax, and lazy people need to learn how to work harder and be disciplined.

Given that you subscribe to me, I’m going to guess you’re probably Type A.

Some version of a “walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity” as Andrew Wilkinson says.

Here’s the thing you may have already realised; Type A people with a Type B problem get very little sympathy.

Because a miserable-but-outwardly-successful person always appears to be in a much more preferential position than a content-being-lazy-but-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy one.

Problems of opportunity will always get less sympathy than ones of scarcity.

One feels like a choice, the other like a limitation.

One is a bourgeois luxury, the other a systemic imposition.

“I need someone to teach me how to be disciplined and work harder” feels noble, upward aiming and charitable.

“I need someone to teach me how to switch off and relax” feels dopaminergic, addicted, transactional and opulent.

Every underdog movie ever has a training montage of someone sorting their life out by working harder.

None included a guy learning how to log out of Slack at 6pm or finally enjoy a beach holiday.

So yes, Type A people may objectively have “better” lives, but subjectively they’re ravaged by the sense that they’ve never done enough.

They wake up every morning feeling as if they’re already fallen behind, and only if they dominate their entire day flawlessly will they have dragged themselves back up to some minimum level of acceptable output which means they can go to sleep that night without feeling like a wasteman.

Congratulations - you might be very successful, but you also might be very miserable.

“Just work harder bro”-advice reliably makes everyone more successful in the only way that they can be judged - outwardly.

There are very few issues in life which can’t be solved by just working harder, so everyone treats it as a panacea, not a purpose-built tool.

And on average, maybe more people DO need to hear David Goggins shouting in their face to go harder than Eckhart Tolle whispering in their ear that they are already enough.

But for a certain, perhaps minority cohort of people, they actually need to hear the opposite message.

We need a parasympathetic Goggins.

Who’s going to carry the TV remote? And the Cheetos?

#RestHarderThanMe

Type B problems are just as tough as Type A ones, but they require a much less sexy solution - peace. One you actually can’t achieve by working harder.

MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Graham Hancock - host of Netflix’s hit show Ancient Apocalypse joins me to talk about human civilisation’s history, how The Americas actually got settled, whether we’ll record in Egypt and much more. So fun.

Thursday.
Richard Reeves - president of the American Institute for Boys & Men on modern male mental health, why advocating for the problems of boys and men is so unpopular and whether I need to temper my language to avoid being labelled as part of the manosphere.

Saturday.
Krystal Ball - co-host of Breaking Points on the election cycle from The Left’s perspective. Why is modern politics so divisive? Why can no one trust the media any more? And does this pantomime campaign actually matter?

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
This entire election campaign is aimed at less than 4 million Crucial Voters.

If you take the US population, then limit that to only registered voters, then limit that to only those who live in swing states that matter, then limit that to only those who are undecided and then finally account for the % voter turnout…

1. Total Registered Voters: There are approximately 186.5 million registered voters in the U.S. for the 2024 election.

2. Voters in Swing States: The total number of registered voters in key swing states (like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc.) is around 39 million, or about 21% of all registered voters .

3. Undecided Voters in Swing States: Roughly 14% of voters are undecided or swing voters. Applying this percentage to the 39 million registered voters in swing states gives us 5.46 million undecided voters.

4. Voter Turnout Estimate: Historically, around 66% of registered voters turn out to vote in U.S. presidential elections. Using this rate, that means 3.6 million of the undecided voters in swing states are likely to vote in 2024.

Only 3.6 million undecided swing state voters will likely vote in the 2024 election based on historical turnout rates.

The 2024 election campaign projected total spending by both parties is expected to exceed $15.9 billion, which would set a new record for campaign expenditure.

That means you could directly give every Crucial Voter about $4,416 each.

2.
The Tall Girl Problem rears its head again.

“In many countries, there is evidence that when the woman is the primary or sole breadwinner, the couple is more likely to break up but some evidence suggests that this effect is reducing.

The argument has been made that this represents a weakening of the “male breadwinner norm”.

A study examined French couples from 2011 until 2017, a sample total of 992,217 couples.

The researchers examined the woman’s share of the couple’s total income and how this affected the couple’s chance of dissolution in the following year.

In about half of the couples, the man was the primary earner, the man and woman were equal earners in about 20%, and the woman was the primary breadwinner (contributed between 55% and 95% of the couple’s total income) in 14% of the couples.

The results?

When the woman earned 55% or more of the couple’s total income, the partnership was more likely to dissolve the following year. This was true irrespective of the man’s employment situation.

The greater likelihood of union dissolution was found across three different types of unions—marriages, civil partnerships, and cohabitation. However, overall cohabitating partnerships were the most likely to dissolve.

Regardless of increases in women’s employment and gender egalitarianism in recent years in France, when the woman earns more than the man, the couple is more likely to split up, and the risk of breakup increases the more money she earns.” — Institute For Family Studies

3.
They don’t make ‘em like they used to.

“The ease with which dramatic behavior gets attention online has convinced many political activists that a better world doesn’t require years of patient work, only a sufficient quantity of drama.” — @G_S_Bhogal