Anticynical #7: Acting vs. Achieving

Acting and Achieving, Make Something Wonderful.

Hey there 👋,

Welcome to the seventh edition of Anticynical. Last week, I wrote about thought antipatterns, how our thinking can often get distorted and fall into irrational thought patterns—and how awareness of the most common distortions and thought patterns can help us recognize and correct them.

The idea in today’s edition is acting vs. achieving.

Idea: Acting vs. Achieving

In a nutshell: there is a difference between doing something and doing something that causes a particular outcome—and we often delude ourselves into thinking we’re doing the latter when we’re doing the former.

I visited Las Vegas a few months ago. As I was about my obligatory Vegas gambling, I realized something important. The difference between merely acting vs. actually achieving.

I walked up to a craps table at the Flamingo. I had watched a bunch of YT videos on craps strategies the previous night. I was ready.

I experimented with the Iron Cross, Don’t Pass/Don’t Come, and other strategies. As I was doing that, I sometimes won and sometimes lost money. I remember having thoughts like, “I won $25 because I picked this strategy,” and “I lost $50 because I placed this bet on the 6 and 8.” But this was faulty thinking.

The truth was that I was merely acting. I was placing bets and rolling dice, but I wasn't actually achieving anything. I wasn't causing a particular outcome. I was just playing a game of chance.

I had already read up on odds and probabilities in craps. I had already read up on odds and probabilities in craps. I stayed away from dumb strategies and always placed bets with the most favorable odds.¹ Given this, placing the blame of win or loss on—and attributing causality to—a particular move or strategy doesn’t make sense. My mind was projecting causality onto the variable rewards of the game.

Yes, the strategies govern the tempo or cadence of the game—but given that the associated odds are known beforehand and are always in the house’s favor,² it's not rational to attribute a win or loss to a given strategy.

After noticing myself having these faulty thoughts in the casino, I started to look for other parts of life where we mistake action for achievement:

• Wasting time and money by making a lot of trades (mere action) instead of sticking to sound investment principles. (I’ve been guilty of this)

• Thinking that you're achieving success because you're putting in long hours and working hard; if you're not actually progressing towards your goals, you're just acting. (also guilty)

• Doing a lot of research (mere action) instead of making decisions and taking action based on what you’ve learned. (very, very guilty)

In all these cases, you feel like you’re making progress because you’re doing something. Still, in reality, you’re not actually achieving anything. This can be a dangerous trap to fall into, as it can lead to wasted time, money, and effort.

Anywhere you spend substantial resources (time, money, effort), it can be a helpful practice to ask yourself: am I just acting, or am I actually achieving something? It’s important to be honest with yourself, and to focus on the outcomes that matter.

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Question: What is a “wonderful” good, product, or service that you wish you could put out there?

Inspired by Make Some Wonderful, Steve Jobs in his own words.

Some ideas from off the top of my head.

• A battery-powered backpack distributes load over your body (instead of dumping it all on your shoulders and traps).

• A mouth “conditioner” that makes all the gunk in your mouth smooth and easy to remove, potentially making brushing and flossing unnecessary.

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I’d love to hear from you…

Do you sometimes find yourself falling into the trap of mistaking action for achievement? What are some examples where you’ve noticed this happening?

What is your wonderful something?

1. Barring some missteps due to too little sleep.

2. Like most casino games, in craps, probability of you making money is less than 50%. But interestingly, if you had an infinite amount of money, then it’s possible for craps to have fair odds (50:50).