Even though you may think you know yourself completely, the truth is that you’ve been sharing valuable existence-space with a total stranger for decades. A stranger who is more fascinating, more interesting, and more unpleasant than you could possibly imagine.
1. You’re Probably In the 1 %
The growth of income inequality has long been a hot topic around the globe, but it wasn’t until the “Occupy” movement that the amount of wealth concentrated in the top 1% of society has received so much attention.
We’ve all heard of the One Percent: the guys who take our bailouts, pay no taxes, and generally act like the sort of supervillains Walt Disney would reject as “too cartoonish.” And here’s the kicker—you’re probably one of them.
See, there’s a couple of ways of looking at the One Percent. The first, most common one, is as the top-earners of developed Western economies—the guys with mega yachts and offshore tax havens. The other is as the top earners of the entire globe. And this is where you come in. Even if, like me, you can only dream of the dizzying heights of 30Billion in a year, it still likely works out that you’re in the top 3-5%. In short, you’re not only richer than you think, you’re richer than nearly every other human being in existence.
2. You’re Uglier than you think
What score would you give yourself for attractiveness? If you said seven or higher, congratulations! You’re probably lying. But don’t worry, you’re not the only one. According to science, nearly all of us overrate our attractiveness to an almost hilarious degree. The depressing conclusion is that we all think we’re either a seven or an eight percent, when the reality is probably that everyone sees us as a distinctly average five. And while we’re on the subject of averages…
3.You’re significantly more average than you think
Time and again, studies have shown that we all tend to think of ourselves as above average at just about everything. Even in some high-paying, qualification-heavy jobs, people are basically much worse than they think. A recent study found that stock brokers are literally worse at their jobs than random monkeys yet brokers also tend to believe they’re worth the money.
Well, T.S. Eliot once wrote “humankind cannot stand very much reality.” And it turns out he was bang on the money. Scientists think that if we didn’t have delusions of superiority then our ego would go into meltdown—with devastating consequences for our mental health. See the only people who don’t constantly overrate themselves are people with depression. They tend to score way under; giving themselves, say, a three, where most of us would give them a six or seven. This suggests our self-delusion is vital to our well-being.
4. You’re less rational than you think
Do you care passionately about something? Do the words “gun control” make you want to punch the nearest liberal/conservative? Do you have any political or religious or otherwise deep beliefs? According to science, your beliefs have clouded your mind to the point where you literally won’t believe that two and two makes four. People have hard facts that contradict their deepest beliefs, In short, anyone with a strong opinion is almost certainly an illogical, borderline dangerous, charlatan who should never, ever be trusted.
5. You might be immortal
After all that mostly bad (and slightly weird) news, here’s one to cheer you up: There’s a possibility that you’re immortal. Seriously, you may very well be the one person who will never, ever die. And, even better, it won’t be long before you find out. Since you wouldn’t be able to observe a universe where you die (for obvious reasons), you pretty much by default have to observe one where you survive. This means your life will always branch out into a parallel universe where you’re still alive—at least as far as you’re concerned. In the parallel universes of your friends and family, they’ll see you die a trillion times over while they go on to live forever. It sounds insane, and it probably is, but there’s the slightest chance it’s also true.
6.You’ll Never Find Happiness
Are you unhappy or discontented, but fairly sure things will pick up in the future? Well, I’ve got some bad news: They probably won’t. Unless you’re suffering from depression (and if you are, then in all seriousness, please tell someone; don’t leave it too late), you’re almost certainly as happy now as you will ever be—even if you win the lottery.
Now, there are several schools of thought about this. One is that we have a base level of happiness we will always return to after a period of time, even if we’ve just married the girl or guy of our dreams and been made a fully licensed bikini inspector. The things we think will make us happy, and therefore the things we aim for, will usually do anything but. So we might think a Sportpesa bet win will solve all our problems, but even if we suddenly became rich we still wouldn’t escape our basic family or social problems. The upshot is that you’ll probably never be completely happy, no matter what you do.
7. You’re incapable of making intelligent choices
We’ve already covered how our brains all turn to mush if we have to make ideological choices, but what about neutral everyday decisions? Well, I’ve got some bad news for you. Even something as simple as your travel choice can involve the most illogical of mental gymnastics.
Our brains, unfortunately, are near-incapable of handling probability.
As Psychology Today has pointed out, we tend to drive faster once we’ve got our seat belts on, and drive closer to cyclists who are wearing helmets, despite demonstrably not living in a world where headgear and seat belts give us magical powers. In fact, nearly every time we make a decision factoring in risk or probability, we manage to do it in the dumbest way possible.
8. Your Memories Are Fake
You discover one day that all your memories are fake and the past you have is very different from the one you remember. Only it’s real and it affects every single one of us, including you.
Scientists have known for a long time that memory is essentially unreliable, but finding out exactly how unreliable is weird to say the least. Remember where you were when, say, 9/11 happened? But at least we haven’t got to the stage where people are implanting false memories in our heads. Avoid memories that still appears to be fragile, malleable and prone to errors.
By Justina Kathambi
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