Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture

by Ryan A. Bush

The problem with the modern world is that it optimizes for our drives, not for our values.

Though the world is getting more addictive, our best tool to counter it is still found in the cultivation of self-mastery.26 We must design our lifestyles intentionally, applying the process of reflecting on our values and setting goals to the way we spend our time and energy. We have to learn to develop increasing control over ourselves, and the key is not so much moderation as it is intentionality.

You should also conduct a study of how you spend your weekly time. You may be surprised by how many hours per week you spend playing video games or watching Criss Angel videos.

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded.

Social compliance refers to the effect of the words and actions of others on our own decisions. Though it is not always conscious, our friends and family members often attempt to subtly influence us to make certain decisions.33

Ingratiation refers to the use of flattery to compel someone to accept or complete a certain behavior.38 A common form of ingratiation is to try to convince someone that an idea was originally theirs so as to make them more likely to favor it.

contrast effect, the presence of a ridiculously overpriced dish on the menu at a restaurant makes us more likely to buy the second most expensive dish.42

We are all tempted by comfort the moment we are able to achieve it, and while comfort is not problematic in itself, a comfortable life is by no means synonymous with a good life. Comfort can be a powerful sedative which breeds complacency and makes it difficult to do the things we know we should. From the literal moment we are born, we are jerked out of a warm asylum and into a confusing, chaotic struggle. This struggle pervades early life; childhood can be seen as a series of abrupt removals from one’s comfort zone. Going to school for the first time, spending a night away from parents, joining a sports team, first dates, first jobs…

Change is inherently painful. We do not tend to choose it if we are given a choice.45 We gravitate toward homeostasis, and when we break out of it, it often feels like some terrible mistake has been made. But so often in this phase of life, we are given no apparent choice but to dive straight in. The pressures to grow and adapt are too strong to resist, and the few who are unwilling or unable to adapt are regarded as immature or impaired.

And maybe sometimes it doesn’t. But it seems that overwhelmingly, the decision to let go of comfort and embrace the unknown is met with generous reward.

Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles… This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.

It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope. His soil is still rich enough for it. But this soil will one day be poor and weak; no longer will a high tree be able to grow from it… I tell you: one must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.

There is a popular belief that most of the personal evolution and growth you undergo in life will be wrapping up by the time you’re thirty. But this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. By the time most people reach thirty, they’ve carved themselves into a life that leaves them no room for growth and accepted that this is simply the norm. This kind of stagnation is not inevitable, but you must build the habit of continually breaking out and expanding your comfort zone to prevent it.51 A life limited to your comfort zone will almost certainly hold you back from your potential. You cannot build a robust mind by sheltering yourself from reality.

You must understand that your mind is not a delicate machine to be protected from variability and stress. The mind can be made better through stress and discomfort.55 When you force yourself out of your comfort zone, you gain reference experiences that teach you the things you feared aren’t so bad. You defend yourself against the threats to your comfort, expanding your comfort zone until everything is comfortable, and all barriers to value alignment have been demolished.

Live your life, not as if you were trying to hoard a precious treasure, but as if you were crafting your own autobiography with every decision - because you are.

between our identity and our behavior, claiming that “every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

The effect of one-off experiences tends to fade away while the effect of habits gets reinforced with time, which means your habits contribute most of the evidence that shapes your identity. In this way, the process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.

Whenever you do a thing, though it can be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly. Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual.

A behavioral algorithm is known as a habit, but this term includes single actions which appear to be isolated.

Our cravings can lead us away from our ideals, and the modern world amplifies these cravings, making it more difficult than ever to resist them.

The modern world has hacked our reward systems by maximizing the addictiveness of foods and chemicals and making them readily available. Social media platforms hijack our desire for social validation, resulting in “social obesity.” Video games, streaming platforms, digital pornography, and online shopping all provide us with new temptations that make it harder for us to make deliberate decisions about how we spend our time. The problem with the modern world is that it optimizes for our drives, not for our values. Though the world is getting more addictive, our best tool to counter it is still found in the cultivation of self-mastery.

Comfort can be a powerful sedative which breeds complacency and makes it difficult to do the things we know we should, and the decision to let go of comfort and embrace the unknown is often met with generous reward.

Our sense of identity shapes the actions we take and the habits we build, but the relationship between identity and behavior is a two way street, as your behavior shapes your identity as well.

The reason to act in accordance with your values even when no one is watching is that you are always being watched by the most important person: yourself.

Willpower, we are often told, is like a muscle. It depletes in the moment as we use it. The more we demand of it, the stronger it gets in the long run. But this notion of willpower has fallen in light of modern thought and research.3

Soon enough, virtual reality environments may overtake our physical world as the primary locus of our experience, which means every aspect of our environment will have been designed by someone.12 Even today, it is hard to go anywhere that has not been deliberately shaped by human design.

You shape the garden of your mind by planting specific things from your environment, such as the books you read, experiences you have, and people you surround yourself with.

The websites you visit regularly, the podcasts you subscribe to, and the apps you keep on your phone will shape you.

you can realize you are being tempted by something, remind yourself of your defined goals, look away if the temptation is physical, and engage your mind in another activity. It is important to note that distraction can also be a great hindrance to self-control if it is done while engaging in a tempting activity. People who are distracted while they eat don’t remember how much they’ve eaten and consume far more than those who eat consciously.

Similarly, we can reframe tempting foods as artery clogging fat, addictive media platforms as psychologically toxic noise, and drugs or alcohol as poison.

There are many ways to leverage your social drives to make your defined goals more rewarding or failing them more punishing. By publicly announcing the behavioral changes you intend to make, you can raise the stakes of failure.

A method known as temptation bundling allows us to stack enjoyable activities onto our defined goals. Whether you love fantasy football, bubble baths, or dressing up like a pirate, you can structure your plans such that you only allow yourself to do these things after completing a particular disciplined activity. This will slowly cause you to associate the positive behavior with the indulgence until you begin to crave the positive activity itself.35

major source of motivation comes from choosing goals we truly find rewarding and authentic.

Numerous studies have shown that intrinsic motivation, which consists of doing things we find enjoyable and engaging, can be more powerful than extrinsic rewards.40 It can be far more effective to choose goals we already have strong desires pushing us toward than to reward ourselves for going against our desires.

The minute you plateau in your exercise goals and are no longer progressing, exercise will become a chore.

If your goal is to start a business, connect it to a cause you genuinely care about instead of using it to chase extrinsic rewards.

What you aim for is not an absence of desire, but a frictionless experience with desire.

Taking the right actions and avoiding the wrong ones is not a white-knuckled battle of will, but a creative design process. The secrets to self-control and good habits lie in the management and training of our desires.

By using smarter strategies and modulating the strength of existing desires and emotions, we can ensure that our goals are completed not only effectively, but effortlessly.

People adopt certain behaviors as coping mechanisms to deal with difficult emotions.

immense adversity who are genuinely fulfilled. You can only be as happy as your mind is programmed to be.

This means that although you may feel content at any given time, that satisfaction is illusory insofar as it can be taken away. If losing all of your possessions, circumstances, social standing, and relationships would deprive you of all your happiness, what you have cannot be called happiness in the first place.

Never envy the people with the most impressive credentials or social media accounts unless you have reason to believe their internal accomplishments match their external ones. Only those who have achieved greatness of the mind are worthy of our deep admiration. If

enigmatic

dogmatic

But also understand that it is possible to form networks made up of adaptive traits, character strengths, and wisdom. Understand that there are indisputable leverage points for reprogramming these negative patterns and turning them into positive ones.

But I would estimate that ninety-nine percent of technologies created today only create new addictions. They “improve” our lives only in the sense that they become our new baseline of expectation, ultimately creating new barriers to contentment.