I’m at the Stage of Life Where If You Say 1+1=5 You’re Right

Here's how this mindset can turn your world upside down

Photo by Vale on Unsplash

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I’m in the business of badassery.

It’s my job to regularly turn your world upside down. It’s my job to take a dump on your version of the world in the hope you might stop wrestling with life and try to change once in a blue moon.

The title of this article comes from Keanu Reeves. Here’s what it means.

(There’s a big surprise at the end so read all the way through.)

The 1+1=5 Mindset

Keanu Reeves is a giant weirdo.

No one can figure him out. He says so much whacky stuff, he sounds like an alien.

When he said…

“I’m at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you’re right. Have fun.”

… what he means is you don’t have to give a crap about every little thing.

Wanting 1+1 to equal 2 is what’s wrong with the world.

Life isn’t logical. Stuff doesn’t make sense. Nothing is that predictable. Keanu sees the world as a place where random events happen.

One thing he said, which I love, is that "when you truly understand karma, then you realize you are responsible for everything in your life. It is incredibly empowering to know that your future is in your hands."

Keanu is a karma machine.

He does quirky random acts of kindness because he’s figured out it all comes back in some way or another. It’s as if that’s the only logical way he’s found to take randomness and guarantee it becomes good luck.

Opinions are like a$$holes – everyone's got one

A tradie with low IQ and smelly breath once said that to me.

It stuck like poop thrown at a brick wall. The 1+1 = 5 mindset is where you don’t care about what every other person thinks. This goes against human programming.

We’re wired to care what people think.

1. It’s why luxury brands get away with financial murder.

2. It’s why fame is a modern trap.

3. It’s why people muzzle their mouths on LinkedIn.

4. It’s why we have job titles in the corporate world.

Modern society has weaponized attention and envy.

The 1+1 = 5 mindset makes you go in the opposite direction. You learn to care less about what people think because you understand most of us are just making sh*t up as we go. There are no hard facts. Only finger-in-the-air interpretations.

And what anyone thinks about any situation is only based on their experience. Most of our experiences represent 0.00000000000000001% of reality.

That’s why I don’t think I’m smart or super right. You shouldn’t either.

An opinion isn’t what matters. What matters more is you don’t become obsessed with debating everyone and take the time to listen. That’s what Keanu does best.

I don't debate. You are right about everything. Happy?

There’s this smart ass blogger I encountered a few years back.

They love to rip apart my writing and throw accusations at me. They write these sophisticated essays about whatever problem they have with me that week.

They’re dying for a little debate. I don’t respond.

My job as a writer isn’t to tell you what you want to hear. It’s not to give you fact after fact either – that’s what wikipedia is for.

The job of a creative person is to make people think.

Some of the stuff I say you might think is good. Other stuff might sound like a flaming pile of sh*t. Great.

Use and abuse ideas. Take the ones you find useful and use them. Take the ones that have no use and throw them in the bin.

As long as you’re thinking, you’re living.

But most don’t think. They’re asleep. They’re following fake gurus and pretend leaders. They’re being led off a cliff and they don’t even know it, because they refuse to change their mind – and that’s the point of it.

The 1+1 =5 mindset creates mental liquidity.

Mental liquidity will change your life.

Don't care about arguments as the mental load costs too much

Time management is popular. Energy management is becoming popular.

The 1+1 = 5 mindset is creating a new category: mental load. Most of us are walking around with heads bursting with information. It’s why we have brain fog.

Over the last year I’ve learned to prioritize mental load above all else.

Like when someone in business tries to take me for a ride and get a refund for a purchase years after they’ve bought, and they argue like a 5th grader, most times I’ll just refund and delete them from my life.

All I have to do is hit block and they’re erased for eternity. I don’t even tell them. I just move on. Same goes with other life dramas.

My wife racked up a few car fines recently.

They were handed out by a BS cop looking to hit their KPIs for fines that day. We have cameras fitted to the car so proving the cop wrong was a piece of piss.

But it would require arguments, lawyers, and a day in court.

Without hesitation I just paid the fines and said “have a nice day.” The mental load costs far more than the saving from not paying the fines.

Too many people don’t think like this.

They’d rather have an argument than save their brain. And when you overwork your brain all the time and use it for dumb stuff, it starts to have a silent effect on your life.

• Creativity goes down.

• Imagination goes down.

• Meaning goes down.

All of this leads your value to go down. That causes money problems.

Before you know it, you’ve fallen down a black hole into the abyss and can’t mentally find your way out. I’m not here to judge. I fell into this abyss.

But the 1+1=5 mindset saved me.

I learned to focus on what matters and stop trying to win arguments with stupid stubborn people. Or cops on an ego trip who can put me in jail and add to my mental load with a mental prison sentence.

Let people win arguments.

Focus on this instead…

Today I opened up Youtube.

I like to watch dumb singing show contests because I’m a failed musician.

One video caught my attention. It’s titled Trey Louis Chases Positivity With His Music And Sings "Stone".

The video starts with a typical banter between judges and contestant. The young man sings a nice song and gets a round of applause. Then comes this question…

“Why did you show up here today?”

The young mattress salesman shares his answer. It’s not what I expected. He explains how he’s from a small town in Texas called Santa Fe.

In 2018 a gunman entered his art class and shot the place up. Ten people died and 14 others were injured. Many of the dead were his friends.

He should have been one of those kids but got lucky.

So he took up singing as a way to take this negative event and turn it into a positive one, rather than pick up a gun like Yosemite Sam and take his pain out on the world.

It hit me pretty deeply.

I found myself crying uncontrollably. My wife walked in to give me lunch and wondered what the heck was going on.

The 1+1 = 5 mindset instructs us to focus on what creates emotion inside of us, because that’s what brings true meaning.

Whenever I find myself being hit with that much emotion, it leads me to make different decisions in life. I often have an out-of-body experience, where someone else’s pain becomes greater than whatever pain I’m facing.

Redirect your focus towards what creates emotion.

Emotion = Motion

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