Thread by @nickcammarata

Every time I tell someone this it helps them a lot, and I do honestly believe it so I’ll just blanket say it for each of you

I think you’re likely radically underestimating the ceiling of what you’re capable of in basically every way, and I’d bet on it at a large multiple

It doesn’t mean you’re totally wrong about the exact path you’re on now. But if you made the right interventions and think long term and just keep doing the right things for a decade you’ll prob find the ceiling is orders of magnitude higher than you think it is in most areas

I think this is certainly true for your baseline moment-to-moment happiness, self-worth, finances, career aspirations, romantic relationship potential, humanitarian impact, and it’s probably true in a lot of other areas I haven’t spent any time trying to quantify or understand

I think the problem is we think of things linearly but almost nothing is. If you make the right career moves anyone reading this could make 10mm in a decade

You can get to a point of well-being where you can’t remember the last time you woke up feeling anything but fantastic

Another force causing this is we imagine limits are what we’ve seen, but it’s wrong because the outliers stay together. If you’re in a random suburb you prob don’t know any billionaires, because that’s not where they hang out, but it doesn’t mean you can’t become one

Similarly, if you want to enjoy life you should aim to be happier than anyone you’ve ever met. Few spend thousands of well-spent effort on it, and if you do it’s likely to work. You don’t know any happiness-billionaires, but you’ll meet them on your path, and you can become one

Or altruistically aim to dramatically improve the lives of a billion people. There’s precedent already and there’s nothing stopping you from being next. It’s easier than it looks bc almost no one tries

Passion and long-terminal is stronger than you think

openphilanthropy.org/blog/hits-base…

And these paths aren't actually separate. Becoming moment-to-moment happier than anyone you've ever met is good for being altruistic bc it's easier to be productive when you feel super well every day

The ceiling of all of these paths combined is unbelievably higher than any one

passion and long-termism* whoops 🚀