The Stupidity of Looking for External Solutions

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-By Caleb Jones

Fair warning, I’m going to make a lot of you very upset today.

Let’s say you live in a country with really high tax rates (like, ahem, the US, Europe, etc). You bust your ass, working very hard, and get upset at how screwed you get every week, month, and/or year when your big, stupid, corrupt government pulls 30%, 40%, 50% or even 60% from your hard-earned money so it can give it to lazy people who don’t want to work, or to bail out corrupt wealthy bankers, or to bomb brown-skinned civilians in distant countries for no reason.

If you want to solve this problem, you have two options. You can look for an external solution or an internal one.

Let’s say you go for an external solution. This means you start a grassroots political movement to get the government to lower people’s taxes. You spend hours upon hours on social media, community organizing, giving speeches, managing rallies, trolling people on the internet, writing angry blog posts, ranting on YouTube videos, trying to get booked on radio shows and podcasts, and various other activities.

While this may be emotionally satisfying on some levels, and while you may meet a lot of friends who think like you do, this route to solve your problem will take a very long time, likely decades, and your odds of success are extremely low, because Western governments, and the elites who run them, love high tax rates on the working rabble. Let’s quantify this...

External Solution Analysis:
  • Amount of work required: Lots
  • Approximate time frame: 25+ years
  • Odds of success: 5%

Now let’s say you decide to pursue an internal solution instead of an external solution. An internal solution means you ignore everyone else outside of you and your life, and instead focus on your own situation. If you were upset your taxes were too high, an internal solution would mean you would do things like read several books on how to legally reduce your taxes, visit with several accountants and tax attorneys, and revamp your entire financial life, including your job / business, and perhaps even move to a different city, all so you can pay the minimum legal amount of taxes that you possibly you can (as I talk about in my book).
Just like with the external solution, the internal solution is going to take a decent amount of work. However, instead of taking decades, it will only take a year or two. Even better, since your odds of success are only predicated on your actions and no one else’s (rather than the actions of millions of other people), your odds of success are extremely high. Let’s quantify that...

Internal Solution Analysis:
  • Amount of work required: Lots
  • Approximate time frame: 2-4 years
  • Odds of success: 85% or higher

As we can clearly see, using internal solutions is far more efficient and effective by just about every objective measure. I am a testament to this. My life is like a dream come true, literally, because for the past 15 years or so, I have focused 100% on internal solutions and completely ignored external solutions. As a result, I have literally no problems left in my life (besides losing a little more weight) and I’m literally the happiest person I personally know (and I know a lot of people).

This is why, when you observe people who are focused on external solutions, such as political activists of the SJW, left-wing, right-wing, or alt-right persuasions, you don’t see a lot of really happy people. These people are sometimes happy, but usually they’re upset and complaining.

This is because external solutions are not actually solutions. They are mostly a way to vent emotions and be part of a group. Before you disagree with that statement, pause for minute and really think about it. I just showed you above how long external solutions take and how shitty their odds are. I think most people know this, at least deep down in their hearts. Then why do so many people pursue external solutions instead of focusing on internal ones? Occam’s Razor tells us that an actual solution is not the primary thing these people want. What they really want is an avenue to vent their anger and tell other people how upset they are. They also want to get validation from other people who feel the same way they do. You could also make the argument that they want to make like-minded friends, and that may be true as well. Yet, their primary priority is not to solve their problem. If it was, they would forget about external solutions, focus instead on internal solutions, and get their problems fixed relatively quickly.

This applies regardless of what your “problem” or “issue” is, or where you fall on the political spectrum.

The left-wing American who wants single payer health care, tax rates on rich people to be jacked up to 70%+, and an expanded welfare state could forget about going to rallies, worshipping Bernie Sanders, and voting for Democrats (external solutions) and just pack their shit and move to Sweden (internal solution). Bingo. Problem solved. Yes, I realize moving from the US to a “real” socialist country is not as easy as I’m making it sound, but remember, I was clear that internal solutions take time also, just not nearly as much time. It might take that guy five years to get that all done, with a near 100% odds of success.

Notice that you don’t see an exodus of American left-wingers moving to the socialist countries they lionize like Sweden. Hmmmm... Why not?

It’s the same with the angry alt-right manosphere guy who thinks we should go back to the 1950’s. Instead of trolling SJW’s on the internet, bitching about feminists, and kissing Trump’s ass (external solutions), he could just convert to Islam, relocate to any Muslim country (particularly a non-dangerous one like Turkey or Indonesia), marry an 18 year-old virgin, and live the rest of his life in Alpha Male 1.0 bliss (or should I say, drama). But notice that he doesn’t do that. Instead, he doesn’t change anything of significance in his life and keeps wasting his time on his external solutions which he probably knows deep down are very unlikely to work.

Hmmmm.....

I can always tell if a person really wants a solution to his or her big life problems. It’s whether or not they A) take action to fix the problem instead of just bitching about it, and B) choose internal solutions rather than external ones. The ones who choose internal solutions are the ones I know are serious about actually solving their problem regardless of what their emotions are telling them.

One might argue that you can do both. That one could focus on both internal and external solutions at the same time. If you define “external solutions” as voting in a useless presidential election once every four years and not doing much else, then I agree with you. But, if you’re talking about bitching on the internet, spending time reading / listening to angry political stuff, and/or activism, then you’re wrong, and here's why:

Your time is limited. Time is the most scarce resource you have. If you had unlimited hours in the day, or if you had an eternal lifespan, then yes, you could focus on both internal and external solutions without either of them suffering.
The problem is that you only have about 17 waking hours a day and you're going to get old and die in a few years. You have shockingly little time to solve your problems and build a better life for yourself and your loved ones. I know there are many of you reading these words who spend a decent amount of time trolling and bitching on the internet about political or cultural stuff (and not getting paid for it). While you’re doing this, you’re not using your limited time to get laid, improve your dating skills, get a better job, start or expand a business, learn about investing, lose body fat, gain muscle, or any of the other things necessary to ensure your long-term happiness as a man.
As a time management consultant, I can tell you for a fact that if you actually took a timer and tracked the amount of time you spend in a typical two-week period of your life dicking around with external solutions (politics, political discourse on the internet, activism, consuming and thinking about political / cultural content you’re upset about or want to change, etc) you would be very surprised at how much time it’s taking you... time you’re not spending on improving your life.

The only exception to this is if talking about this stuff actually does improve your life in a very direct way. At my other blog, I sometimes talk about political issues, but I get paid to do that. That blog (and this one) make me a nice hunk of money every month, as well as directly contributing to my Mission and long-term goals. Secondly, and more importantly, I’m not trying to change anything regarding society and I don't even care. I gave up on Collapsing USA, Cuckoo Canada, and Suicidal Europe a very long time ago. I’m too busy working on, and enjoying the fruits of my internal solutions to give a shit about left-wingers who get giddy thinking how to make the West more like the Soviet Union or about right-wingers who get boners thinking about building a wall. (Seriously, guys. How could a sane person really take these things seriously?)

If you spend any time on external solutions, it’s time to re-think exactly why you’re spending your time on something that will likely take decades to accomplish with tiny odds of success, rather than focusing on internal solutions that will take much less time, and with much higher odds of actually improving the lives of you and your loved ones.

Or, just keep on being angry with your angry friends. Hey, it’s your life.

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