So hung out with a great friend last night, met some of his buddies, and just thinking in general… What is it that seems to bother everybody, regardless of who they are or what their position is?
Stress.
What is stress?
So I think first the psychologist in me, or the physiologist in me,… It is, thinking about what “stress” is.
First, the funny thought is there is something called “eustress”, which is, good stress. This is the type of stress which is actually insanely healthy for us, whether it be doing hot yoga, heavy weightlifting, one rep max, quick sprints, or even the stress of gravity on our body organs and bones.
While we are trying to avoid is the bad stress, the chronic stress which does not benefit us, the stress which prevents us from getting a good night sleep?
So what
First the general thought is throw your iPhone into the trash. Honestly at this point, the iPhone is a slave device. The true and noble goal is to be free.
What is the sign of a free man?
No phone.
So the general thought is whenever you go to a social affair or something, just turn your iPhone all the way off, 100% off, keep it in the glove compartment of your car or in your backpack or whatever.
My funny intervention is, instead, what you use instead is your iPad, iPad Pro.
I called the iPad the god device, the god tablet. Why?
First, like assuming you have the newest iPad Pro, with the newest M series chip, even if you benchmark the newest iPhone against it, the iPad Pro will always win.
What’s also interesting is, in terms of longevity, most likely you will keep your iPad Pro for longer than you would keep any iPhone Pro.
In fact, I have an interesting reverse status marker; typically, what’s really really fascinating is if you meet somebody with a very very old looking iPhone, it is typically assigned that they are free. Or even better yet, somebody just hanging out at the steps somewhere, without any phone AirPods sunglasses on whatever.
The desire to socially conquer
So a new big thought is, I still really believe this… The future is going to belong to those with social skills. Or better yet, fearlessness in social interactions, chutzpah, audacity, extreme friendliness, and ability to have everyone love them.
The truth is, when it comes to politics, business, art, everything in between… It really comes down to social power. Social capital etc.
It’s also really fascinating in the brave new world of AI, the qualities which will really dictate the future is in regards to Social Capital. Why? It’s my general thought that, it’s better to have like one or two or three insanely rich powerful and influential friends, rather than having like 100,000 middleman.
And this is also the difficult thing… How do you find those 1 to 3 people? This sounds kind of cheesy but, I think the general thought is just radically be yourself. People are not stupid. It’s also insanely obvious when people are just being thirsty, and obviously, rubbing people up to just gain clout.
Why is it so hard to just be yourself?
Another thought, just an experiment this upcoming year so… Just radically be yourself honestly, my thought is, assuming that your family jewels are safe and whatever, and also assuming that economically you are secure, then, I say take any and all social risks possible. Because honestly, whether the upside or downside from social interactions doesn’t really matter because honestly it is not really truly intertwined with your economic situation. And also this is our Spartan creed, money doesn’t really matter much. Certainly just covering your basic living expenses is honorable, but, having more money than you need is not really necessary. our goals is extreme happiness happiness, a beautiful grim smile, just like in the movie 300 hundred when the Spartans are laughing under their shields, saying “we shall fight in the shade!”
The divine comedy
I really love this idea of in life, it is all comedy! Even the most tragic and grim.
Even brave Odysseus, after seeing his men gobbled up by the cyclops, said, be brave be steady my noble heart, for one day in the future you shall look back on this, smile and laugh.
And actually I think that this is the cheerful wise, gay science, the joyful wisdom; the magical magician stoic Spartan philosopher in us; being able to transmute tragedy into comedy. 
Techniques
So assuming you’re somebody who lives with chronic stress, first you gotta identify the root. It’s like weeds in your garden… You could just pick out the leaves but the weeds will always come out again, unless you dig really really deep, get your fingernails dirty, and forcibly dig out the roots.
Frankly speaking I would say probably like 99% of the annoyances probably come from your loser iPhone Pro.
The first thing is to just radically turn off all your notifications, silence your phone, in the iPhone phone settings tab, turn off all notifications and silence everything, even to your detriment.
Second, I avoid messaging and text messages like the plague. I’ll do it every once in a while if extremely needed but otherwise… I have a radical new idea,
FaceTime or nothing.
Once again I think it is better to just keep one or two Social connections strong, and whenever you need to interact with somebody, just FaceTime them. Why?
It’s kind of ridiculous, text messaging like 1000 times a day, is like the reverse of what futuristic technology and AI would look like. For example, if you were Tron ares, Jared Leto,,, can you imagine, him as a futuristic AI agent, just like sitting down crunched over, clumsily clumbering away at his tiny 5 inch device, hitting carpal tunnel in his thumbs,? No. First, the hilarious thing is he never looks at a screen,… he IS the screen.
Second, the truly intelligence strategy is, if you need to do stuff, voice dictation is like 1 trillion times better quicker and more efficient than even the fastest typist. But why don’t people do it? A sociological fear of looking stupid. 
The truth is, and this is why I love Asia being in Asia, watching the mainland Chinese, they have no shame; I think the reason why everyone hates them is that they secretly wished they were them.  they talk loudly, spit anywhere, they are always just leisurely roaming around in their Gucci flip-flops, Louis Vuitton shorts, crew cut hair haircut, at ease, clear conscience.
I think the problem with Americans is, we are so self-conscious, we are too private too considerate, too Victorian too British. Come on guys, America Americans, aren’t we supposed to be the country the land of the brave, not the land of the meek?