Jawad Mian Profile picture
25 Nov, 19 tweets, 3 min read
If we overcome our culture of complaint and get in touch with gratitude, it will change the way we see everything.

Happy Thanksgiving! Read on🧵 ImageImage
1) One finds cultures founded on guilt (typically in the Judeo-Christian world), cultures founded on submission (Islam), and cultures founded on shame (typicallyin Asia).
2) There exists another culture, one without borders that encompasses all.

Taking people’s stoicism captive, it seeps through everyday life and breeds disdain.

Such is our culture of complaint.
3) There is much to complain about: life, politics, treasonous friends, and, of course, work!

On any given day, all these topics come up.
4) This perversion of the mind lays hold upon us all.

Individually and collectively, we engage in grumbling; daily, hourly.
5) The many things in life we should be grateful for are lost in our worries and whines.
6) Am I alone in detecting in people—myself included—an unappealing sense of ingratitude, the conceit of those blessed but whose heads swing in frustration because they fail to see their good fortune?
7) Consider the life of the overworked underclass. They brave harsh realities and sustain their society, living austere lives of unrelieved scarcity.
8) We protest: their fate is not ordained by God but by repeated bad policies and the self-interest of governing elites.
9) Yet I encounter countless invisible souls who describe their own situation stolidly.

They look up and give thanks for what they have and blame no one for what they lack.
10) Perhaps complaining takes a listener and leisure, and they have neither.

While we choose to drown in our sorrows, they simply get on with life.
11) Our misery and unhappiness, according to Rumi, is directly connected to our insolence and refusal to praise.

Sadly, instead of thankfulness, we developed an ungrateful nature.
12) Sa’adi strikes at our self-centered ego. Image
13) When our tongue desires to complain, we should go contrary to it and find a reason to be thankful instead.

For anything that could be better, there is always something else that could be worse.
14) If we overcome our culture of complaint and get in touch with gratitude, it will change the way we see everything.
15) The thought of the self will vanish, and the thought of others will take root.

Rather than always wanting, we will care more about giving.

Instead of relying on our imperfect understanding, we will look up to find greater meaning.
16) Even virtues, such as tolerance and forgiveness, will arise in our hardened hearts as they soften.

Life will thus unfold itself more beautifully. Our half-empty cup will fill to the brim.
17) So when I say, “I can’t complain,” you should understand what I truly mean: I choose not to.

Al Tabarani said it best: “Learn to lock up your tongue in the prison of your mouths.”
18) So when will you begin that long journey into yourself?

Here’s your antidote to the great angst of modern life. 🙏🏼

strayreflectionsbook.com

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More from @jsmian

24 Nov
1) Among the quick, incisive thrusts of practical wisdom from Peter Drucker is this: “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

But before we can create, we must get to know ourselves. 🧵
2) Drucker points out that success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.

Only then, armed with such self-knowledge, can we decide where we belong and what our contribution should be.
3) “It's amazing how few people know what they are good at,” Drucker says.

We’re much better at knowing what we’re not good at.

So, he suggests constantly giving yourself feedback on how you’re doing.
Read 21 tweets
17 Nov
1) Of all the early warning signs that can help prevent investment disasters, one stands out.

COMFORT.
2) It’s our natural tendency to seek comfort; but in investing, when we tend to get comfortable in our views, feel our portfolio is safe, experience tells us something bad is about to happen.
3) Our comfort zone is a state of mental security where our uncertainty and sense of vulnerability are minimized.

Where we feel we have some control.
Read 13 tweets
9 Sep
1) Man, I didn't know this story about Muhammad Ali, what a lesson:

Taken entirely from @DailyDadEmail.
2) You might not think of Muhammad Ali as someone who needed anyone to believe in him, but that’s because you only saw him later in life.
3) You saw the cocky boxer, the brilliant self-promoter, the master of his craft, the fearless warrior.
Read 17 tweets
28 Aug
1) Every decade, there is a theme that captures the zeitgeist and turns into an investment mania.
2) It was gold in the 1970s, Japan in the 1980s, Nasdaq in the 1990s, China and commodities in the 2000s, and software in the 2010s.
3) Now that climate change has become a political and economic priority, I believe the global race to zero emissions is the investment zeitgeist for this decade.
Read 4 tweets
7 Aug
Fifteen years ago, I blew my first shot at joining the buy side.

It was the first time I learned about humility. 🧵
1) I was in the final round for an analyst position with CIBC Asset Management in Toronto.

After a candid back and forth, the interviewer posed his final question:

“What’s the most important trait for a successful investing career?”
2) An image of my father flashed into my mind.

“Hard work and discipline,” I replied.
Read 24 tweets
5 Aug
What makes Warren Buffett the greatest investor of all-time?

He is the only infinite-minded investor in the stock market, which is an infinite game. 🧵
1) An infinite game is not bounded by time and the objective is not winning but ensuring the continuation of play.

An infinite game continues with you or without you.
2) Investing is an infinite game. But most people play with a finite mindset. That’s a problem.

Finite play in an infinite game is contradictory.
Read 22 tweets

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