— Let’s imagine a situation. You’ve turned 50, and you suddenly think: “If I had known at 35 what I know now, my life could have turned out completely differently — brighter, deeper, more consciously.” What key points would you highlight to, so to speak, save 30 years?
— This is a question that concerns a great many people. Whatever age they find themselves at — forty, fifty, or sixty — many begin to say: “I regret not doing certain things,” “I wish I had acted differently,” “It’s a pity I spent my life on the wrong things.” This is an interesting phenomenon.
We often listen to famous people, observe how they live, develop, and share their experience. And then — time passes, and this same person suddenly says: “You know, I lived the wrong way. Everything should have been done differently.” There are plenty of such examples. Bill Gates, for instance, at some point said he should have spent more time with his children. Oleg Tinkov also said he understood many things too late — regarding the country, children, and life as a whole.
And a question arises: wait a second, but hadn’t we been listening to them as teachers before? They told us how to live, how to set goals, how to work and achieve, which values and principles to rely on. And now this same person says: “Everything I said — was off track. And now I know the truth.”
This is a deep human problem. If a person, having lived a long life, says: “Now I’ve understood everything; I was wrong,” why should we assume that now they are telling the truth? Maybe they are mistaken again. Because if a person does not accept their past life, they will not be able to accept the present either. It’s impossible. Either you accept life as a whole — with everything that was in it — or you constantly fight with parts of it. Yes, you can understand that some events could have been different. You can acknowledge that in some places you could have acted otherwise. But that does not mean that you want to change your life or look at it differently. This is very important. If you are in the perception of the whole of life, you cannot have claims against this life.
Therefore, when you ask which three things need to be understood in advance — at a minimum you should understand the framework I’ve just described. To do this, you should ask: “What needs to be done so that I perceive life as a whole — without evaluating it, without dividing it into ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ without regretting the past and without worrying about the future?” I’ll note that perceiving life as life, as a given, has nothing to do with a good or bad state, mood.
For example, I’m not going to change my life. At the same time, do I have things that were negative? Yes. Does that mean that in the future negative events may occur? And if they occur, will I be in a state in which I won’t regret them? These are different directions of movement. Even a person reading the article can, on the one hand, tell themselves: “I’ll fulfill three important points and feel great and happy,” or, “I’ll fulfill three points and feel my life so broadly that I will have no claims against it — neither to the past life nor to the current one; I will be in a state in which I have no claims to the future.”
💡A person must decide for themselves what they want. Because if you want to be happy — that’s one set of three tips. If you want to perceive the whole of life naturally, this is not a question of happiness or claims against this life — it’s a completely different set of three tips. This is a big difference. A person will most likely choose to be happy. “Why choose claims if I’m happy? I automatically have no claims.” But I’ll say it again, these are different things.
Do you want to arrive and be happy or do you want to be in harmony with life right now? “To be in harmony with life” does not mean to be happy. Because harmony is the acceptance of the different events that happen. Recently my editor said to me: “Can we not suffer?” That is, whatever I talked about — she perceived that one must necessarily suffer. When I say that harmony ≠ happiness, it seems to her that harmony = suffering. But it’s not necessarily suffering! There may be a whole wagon of happiness and a cart, or there may be a whole wagon of unhappiness.
The point is that happiness as such is not present in harmony. It does not exist; it’s simply not there. Harmony is when you perceive both the joyful and the difficult in the same way.
— Is that balance?
— Not quite. Balance is when it seems that everything is equivalent: equal parts happiness and unhappiness. But in a harmonious perception of life there may be no such equality at all. You may have 99% happiness and 1% pain, or the other way around. For those who believe that life is not limited to birth and death, there may be balance in aggregate. But within a single human life, it may be far from balance.
Just as in terms of a 10-year span of life. A person’s life is not only conscious years. I’m 42. Consciously I’ve lived, perhaps, about 22 years. The first twenty — no. And when I evaluate life, I evaluate the conscious segment, not everything in bulk. I, for example, almost don’t remember the first eighteen years. Maybe back then there was 99 of unhappiness, and now — 99 of happiness. It can’t be compared. Because back then I didn’t record inner states, didn’t realize what was happening to me. Now — yes, for the last 12 years I’ve tried to do this. But again, it’s a very complex mechanism, because there is a different quality of recording, a different state you can be in.
Let’s return to the topic. When a person says, “I want to be happy,” — in essence, they go into two states. In the first state, if you ask them: “Are you happy now?” — they’ll answer: “No, I’m not happy now; I want to arrive at happiness.” We’ve returned to the example where a person is 50 and worries: “If only I had known something earlier…” They say: “No, I want to be happy.” — “And are you happy now?” — “Well, it depends.” Then they are already not in harmony. At this moment in time they are not in harmony. They tell themselves that there is a certain state — let it be 0.4 or 0.45 now — but they will reach one, 100% happiness, and there will be nothing else. But in a state of 100% happiness there is no development. Firstly, it is impossible, and secondly, there is no movement there. I’m speaking now about 100% happiness — about an absolute presence in ideal states.
Moreover, when a person sets a goal to arrive at happiness — if they do not achieve it, what will happen? What’s the risk? What happens if you don’t get there? Why make such a big bet — to go toward happiness for decades and suddenly not arrive at it? Everyone should be honest with themselves. Take and analyze the last 20, 30, 40 years of your life (depending on your age) and look: what percentage of your life were you truly happy? How much time — days, seconds, minutes — were you really happy? If you weren’t happy at least 50% of the time, then the “arrival there” is a risk. And if you were unhappy 90% of the time, then the probability of happiness there is minimal.
💡That’s why it’s important to tune in and understand one very important thing: when we talk about such matters, it’s necessary to obtain not a state of happiness, but a state of perception of life. Because being in happiness by itself does not bring harmony. It doesn’t make the perception of life holistic. “I have arrived in a state — everything is fine with me, but I understand that 40 years of life have passed in a strange way.” It’s precisely because of this that people often get lost. They lose meanings. They set a goal for themselves: “I’ll earn a million dollars — and I’ll be happy.” They earn a million and realize: happiness is not connected with it. That is, a person feels unhappy even at that moment.
Is it possible to be happy at all, having a foothold in disharmony? How is this possible? Not at all. Because the foothold in harmony is not in happiness, but in accepting what happens in life. And here it is worth asking: “How can I learn to calmly accept events? Why does Vasya calmly relate to earning 100 dollars, while I am not calm earning 1000? Why does Masha calmly live with one child, while I, having two, feel anxiety that there is no third? Why does Yegor calmly work in a job for 3000 dollars, while I, having a business and 30,000, worry? Why is Masha satisfied with her 500 dollars, while I am dissatisfied, engaged in professional activity? Why do I worry when I see my mother? Why do I feel negativity when I see my father?” And others — for the same things — feel calm, even joy. That’s what matters. What matters is not what happens, but what states I feel in the process.
There is another big problem. When a person is young — roughly 20 years old — it seems to them that ahead lies a huge life, they will manage everything, live a lot, experience a lot. Then, at any age, a person often continues to think that everything is still ahead. But they already have experience that says: “You won’t experience anything new.” This inner voice constantly sounds, devalues, extinguishes faith in life. And a person gradually closes in, stops developing. Though, to be honest, most people on the planet stop developing at 26–28 years old. If you look closely at acquaintances, friends, at how they make decisions, reason, react — you can see that their inner development stopped long ago. Look truly: how a person becomes aware of space, how they live, what decisions they make, what they study, what they observe, what they feel. And it will become clear: development has ceased.
And what harmony of perception of life can there be if a person has stopped developing? None. When a person stops developing, they stop hearing life, feeling what is happening, they stop perceiving other people. They increasingly close in on themselves, fall inward like into an abyss: the farther you fall, the faster you accelerate. And to stop later is very difficult and very painful. And often it leads to death; the psyche and body simply can’t bear it. The system simply won’t work.
Therefore the question is: “How can I be in a state in which I perceive the current life neutrally?” Many perceive the word “neutral” as indifference, but neutrality is much stronger than plus and minus. It’s much easier to be in unhappiness or in happiness. But to remain in a neutral perception of different events — that is deep living. That is the true balance. This does not mean that you don’t experience emotions — you do: stress, suffering, joy, sadness, and euphoria. But at the same time you remain in a neutral perception of what is happening, accepting the past and the present as a given — simply as the life that is.
— And neutrality — is that also balance?
— The thing is, when you ask such a question, you want to link it to one of your terms — in terms of balance. I haven’t used the word “balance” today, so I’m very careful about saying “yes” or “no.” Because for you this word may carry its own special meaning. This is the problem with the word “balance”: it often leads a person to the concept of equivalence. And neutrality is not equivalence.
Recently I shared that I perceive a huge spectrum of events very neutrally. Whether I’m drinking coffee, filming YouTube, having lunch together, going to a restaurant in the evening, walking with my child or driving them to school, or having a business Zoom — I perceive all this neutrally. This means I relate to everything with the same weight. And this, in fact, is very important. What is “the same weight”? If every event in life has meaning, if everything is life, it turns out I lay on the couch for an hour looking at the ceiling, watched TV for an hour, planted a plant for an hour, solved complex work tasks for an hour — and all this has the same weight. It’s all life.
And if we say we need to relate well to the whole of life, then why should I attach less importance to drinking coffee than to stroking my child’s head? Why should a walk with the dog be less important than a conversation with an employee, than a kiss with my wife, than a meeting with my mother, than being fired, earning or spending money? It’s all life. It’s all living life.
If we start assigning weight, we’ll fall into a very simple trap: these five days were “less important tasks,” and that — “high priority.” Then I’ll have to choose, to divide people by importance: this one is more important, this one is less important, this one again is more important. I’ll have to divide even days: this day is good, that one is bad, here it’s raining, here it’s sunny, here is the ocean — so it’s “better.” And I end up in comparison. And comparison is a killer. It is always false. Because there will always be something better and something worse. A neutral state is when there are no weights at all for events. None. It doesn’t matter.
💡Note: this by no means removes the living of a huge number of feelings — stress, negativity, euphoria, thirst, power, suffering, pain, destruction, love, bright colors, joy, enlightenment, silence. All of this remains. It's just that you take everything calmly.
Otherwise a problem arises. Very simple. You live and can always see a “better child” than your children. You’ll always find a “better partner.” You’ll always see someone’s “better business,” “better home,” “better lifestyle.” Most importantly — you can once experience a state that will never happen again. And then you’ll remember and regret it for the rest of your life.
And I want to say that from the point of view of the spiritual world, such flashes, states that happen only a couple of times in a lifetime are indeed possible. And what then — assign them a weight of “500 billion,” and to everything else — zero? And then sit and think that “now is a boring, wrong present”? That’s why people live in constant judgments: “You work too much,” “You work too little,” “You mustn’t rest so long,” “You mustn’t work so much,” “You earn too little,” “You earn too much.” Endless madness. If I want — I praise a thousand times; if I want — I punish a thousand times.
But it’s not about the fact that life in neutrality means “today kill a person, tomorrow give money to children.” No, not about that. Not about violating the laws of the universe. It’s about the fact that the most diverse events can happen in life — suffering and incredible happiness. Sometimes it hits so hard that you don’t understand what is happening. You begin to look for a catch — and this is also a problem. When happiness hits, a person begins to fear losing it. They assign a huge weight to this state, cling to it, and again fall out of equilibrium.
And happiness, like unhappiness, has no limit. There is no limit to the good, just as there is no limit to the bad. One who thinks they have it bad — is mistaken: it could be much worse. And conversely, what for one person is “hell,” for another is “paradise.” And this is visible everywhere.
— Another aspect: many people live waiting for the perfect moment. They postpone decisions, actions, steps, because it seems to them that someday that very perfect moment will come. It seems to me this is directly related to what you’ve already said — it won’t come, because there is only here and now.
— The perfect moment is a very interesting construct. It appeared several thousand years ago, but has been especially exalted over the last century and a half. Just insanely. The twentieth century is the culmination of the cult of the perfect moment. And this, by the way, is a super-convenient state to enslave a person.
“Wait, now is not the time. Soon — the right moment will come. It’ll work out there. Now you just need to wait.” And the person waits. A year. Two. Five. Then they look back — and where is this moment? It’s not there. It never was. This is a colossal form of manipulation: both external and internal. We ourselves endlessly deceive ourselves with this idea. “Later,” “soon,” “when…”
Everything around is permeated with this. And it leads to one thing — to the total devaluation of a person. When you are constantly told that you are not ready yet, that the time has not come yet, that there is some perfect moment when you can finally act. And a person lives in a state of expectation — which means in a state of helplessness.
It’s like in business — imagine Apple coming out to shareholders and saying: “We’re growing too fast, let’s wait for the perfect moment.” Tomorrow they would simply cease to exist. There’s no “too much energy.” There’s no “too early.” In my opinion, Apple is actually a very good example. 30 billion, 50 billion, 100 billion, 200 billion, 300 billion, 400 billion, a trillion, a trillion and 300, a trillion and 500, 2 trillion, 2,500, 3 trillion… What perfect moment?
— With the perfect moment, I think we can also link goal setting, because people are taught everywhere: set goals, plan, break them down into stages, follow them. By the way, I really like all your videos where you talk about your list of goals you once wrote — it even sounds a bit funny sometimes — how much you’ve grown as a person and how your attitude toward this has changed. But in general, for example, it always seems to me that you need to set a goal and go toward it, although I understand that all of this is shaky constructs. What do you think about the chase for this “carrot”?
— There are normal, absolutely adequate goals in life. For example, “I want the kids to go to a surf camp in the summer.” In February you check, enroll, do it — a normal task. Or “I want the child to study well,” “I want to earn 5,000 dollars.” Everything is clear, everything is concrete. This is not a trap, it’s just an action. But someone will call the camp a “goal,” and someone — a “task.” Why? Because of the perception of possibilities. For one it’s just an action, for another — a dream of a lifetime.
💡We call a “goal” what seems hard to achieve. Sometimes we substitute this and realize they aren’t that hard to achieve. And we are often told to set something unrealistic or something more or less balanced, achievable — and a person sets a goal. Again, there are adequate things. But when they say that if you don’t set a goal, your life is not filled with meaning, when they say that if you don’t set a goal, you will feel lost, won’t achieve success — that’s a lie. Whether you set certain goals or not — the question is who will fulfill them, and whether you will fulfill those goals.
And what will happen if you don’t achieve your goals? Now imagine: you set a goal. And what if it’s false? And what if your particular goal and the road to it led to the death of your child? Can it be that the achievement of a certain goal led to your child’s death? It can. If a person believes that someone else can fulfill their goal for them, then the person must also tell themselves that in exactly the same way they can set an inauthentic goal — a goal they don’t need, one that will ruin their life.
I know many people who set the goal of “making money” and got only suffering. Or the goal “quit smoking”: the person torments themselves, breaks themselves, lives for years in guilt — and in the end starts smoking again. So was that suffering worth it? Here I’m talking about a concrete situation in which it didn’t work out. In this case they could have avoided torment.
The same in business: sometimes failure is simply a sign that you shouldn’t have gone there. You don’t have to live through everything for the sake of experience. There are things you don’t need to do at all. You could have not done that business. You could have not taken that job. You could have not gotten married. You could have not gone on the tourist trip in which you get into an accident and spend 3 years undergoing some treatment. A person sets a goal to learn to skydive — jumps and dies. I know many such stories. Or people set a goal to go on a round-the-world trip: they go and get sick. So what is the point of this goal?
Again, there are absolutely adequate things. In certain areas I do set goals — for example, in business. There it’s normal: there are parameters, strategy, structure. There are businesses where I have no goal, but there the construct is a bit different. In fact I do have a goal there, it’s just not formalized in terms of expressed revenue or profit. But in other areas I don’t set goals. If I were told right now “write a hundred goals,” all one hundred would be about one thing: how to remain in the knowledge of myself, how not to lose the feeling of truth. But even that is not a goal. It’s a path. Because a goal is finite, while a path is infinite. The only thing I can set in terms of a goal concerns my overall existence. And that’s why I will never set myself the goal “vacation,” “see my mother,” “meet friends,” “start my own business,” “earn 10 trillion dollars.” When I wrote my old goals 12 years ago, they were ambitious: a company worth half a trillion dollars, 200,000 employees, Forbes No. 1, 100 Brioni suits… And you know, I’m not against those goals. Rolls-Royce Phantom, suits, money — all that is fine.
I had an interesting situation back in Moscow. I had a Rolls-Royce Phantom, I sold it, bought a Mercedes. The neighbor comes out and asks mockingly: “So, is a Mercedes better than a Phantom?” I say: “No, of course the Phantom is better.” Or people say I’ve “had my fill,” probably won’t buy more — I’ll gladly buy myself four more Rolls-Royce Phantoms. It’s the best car. Someone loves sports cars. But I’m probably not in that class of cars. I can’t say those cars make any impression on me. I’m not against 100 Brioni suits — even now. The goal, by the way, hasn’t changed: 12 years have passed; I’d happily have them.
And here’s an interesting moment. When I wrote goals, I had such a goal No. 32 — “to have only one wife,” and there was also “to have three children.” Now I have four children. And someone said: “So, Alexander, what are you saying? I don’t get it. Some goals you achieved, some you didn’t. What’s the essence?” The essence is not to achieve or not to achieve a goal. For me at that moment the task of having only one wife was equivalent to the task of building a company worth half a trillion dollars. I set it as a goal. Now I wouldn’t set that as a goal. Because where are we heading now? Exactly to what we discussed about the camp — it’s exactly the same story. Someone will say: “Oh, what are you saying? Go earn half a trillion dollars for a company.” But the thing is, the surf camp is also not such an easy task. It may happen or it may not. And you need to treat it just as calmly and neutrally. If I set goals that are some kind of my finale, then either I’ll achieve them and I’ll be at the peak of the finale, and after that I’ll feel only one possible state — disappointment. What’s next? At that moment I have to snap my fingers, dissolve, and jump into the next life — and realize goals again. Or I won’t fulfill this goal, this list, and I’ll feel disappointment about what happened. And life has gone by. And again I have to snap my fingers — and run into a new life to make it work. Like with computer games: you finish and sit — on the one hand, great, and on the other — disappointment. Or you finish reading an interesting book. It’s straight disappointment.
And this is the huge problem with goals. How do you learn to be in balance with this? How do you use the mode and methodology of goal setting adequately, lightly — as a tool for help in life and development, and not as a destructive aspect? What has the world learned? To use goals for the degradation of a person, for manipulation. Imagine: I come to my children and say: “Okay, listen up. Everyone around insists that you need to figure out what you like in life to choose your calling. Come on, remember — what did you like in childhood? What do you like now? We’ll fix it, define it — and we’ll ‘plow’ into it. That’s it, the path is found.”
— How would you formulate for yourself once again: what is a goal, and what is a task?
— First of all, there will be no goal. In life there will be no concept of a goal. Nor global goals either. Because global goals are exactly what lead to the constructs I spoke about above. You can set directions, movements, mark points. If you want to call them goals — please do. But if you look at life as a whole, across the entire contour, there cannot exist a single final point.
There cannot be a goal of life, because any point is finite. If you are moving toward a “goal of life,” then what could it be? Only one — to die. That is the only possible “ultimate goal.” Of course, you can refine it: “To die without being afraid of death.” But afterward you won’t be able to evaluate, recount, or realize the result. So yes, the only real goal of life in the literal sense is to die. And if you equate a goal with the meaning of life, it gets strange: say I’ve achieved something at 70 — and what then? And if I’m to live to a hundred? Do I “rest” for twenty years?
Here’s my grandmother, for example. She died at 93. The kindest, brightest person. At 70 she bought herself a suit and said, “Bury me in this suit.” And from then on every year she “died.” Every year. She’d say: “Well, probably for the last time.” And everyone around lived in this expectation with her. She influenced everyone — my mother, the whole family, the overall state. At the same time she was an absolutely adequate, intelligent woman. She remembered everything, even knew car makes, wrote them down. But inside that adequacy a mixing had already begun: “Do you have your own TV or not?” she would ask when I came to see her in a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car. “And did you buy your own rug?” And you realize how much the world in a person’s head changes when they’ve lived from World War II, freezing in a trench — to FaceTime and smartphones. Her son died at 12, her husband died, my father died. She outlived all her brothers and sisters — five or six. She saw death, pain, wars, the birth of grandchildren and great-grandchildren — a whole kaleidoscope of events. And yet at 70 she put a “period” for herself: “I’m ready; here’s my suit.” That’s also a kind of self-manipulation. Preparing for the “finale” you were taught to prepare for. Setting one “great goal of life” is meaningless. It closes movement and deprives you of living presence.
Then we arrive at the following: it’s important to rely not on goals but on values. On internal beacons. To live truly, to love life, to accept it as it is. The only “goal” I could draw from myself is to try to accept life as it is until the very end. But even that is more a point of support than a goal. The thing I look to. The place I try to return to. Someone might ask: “What if you get sick and stop perceiving the world normally?” Then that’s what will happen. And at that moment the “goal” itself will collapse. It may happen that I begin to lose my mind, or signs of dementia appear. Does that mean the goal isn’t fulfilled? No. That can’t be. I can only set myself a task — to strive to perceive truth. And if I fall ill, I will still strive to perceive truth. More, less — it doesn’t matter. That’s already a question of events, states, perception. How much I’m able to feel it — 10% or 80% — doesn’t matter. Everyone will die anyway. And perception in the body, in the incarnated form, will end. It may end 10 years earlier — a stroke, a coma. It may end 20 years earlier — Alzheimer’s. It may end even earlier — that’s not the point.
People often want to lengthen life. They work on “life extension,” study methods, practices, biohacking, talk about it endlessly. But there is a spiritual description that simply says: “If you lengthen life in one direction, you shorten it in another. The more you try to live ‘longer than allotted,’ the more you want to ‘trick the system,’ the less your perception becomes. You stop feeling the space around you. You acquire brain diseases, lose sensitivity to life.”
Paradoxically, but this is the law: the more you try to prolong life, the less you actually live. And the decrease in perception is a very interesting process. There are diseases a person describes as brain diseases, and then there is simply perception. When you stop, for example, feeling joy looking at trees. When you look at the ocean — and it feels like looking at a bathroom wall or a TV screen. When you look at your child and don’t understand what happened — just a person. You stop perceiving them. And at the same time you apparently think straight; your mental activity is “active.”
💡Look around: there are many adult, wealthy, famous people, politicians, who “hack” their health. There are people who live long, and it’s given to them by nature itself, by life, by consciousness — they live in the full beauty of life. And there are those who try to “hack” life, to prolong it artificially. It’s important to understand: the spectrum of perception of energy narrows for such people. And that is far scarier than everything else. In essence, a person becomes a vegetable. Yes, they can walk, unlock a phone, speak publicly, perform actions, and people even come to them, gather to listen. But the question is: what do they feel at that moment? What’s inside? Are they even capable of experiencing anything at all?
A huge number of people at a certain age feel nothing anymore. Not even joy — there’s just endless anxiety, and the person doesn’t even understand where it comes from. Can anxiety be muffled with pills? Absolutely it can. You can balance different bodily systems. But all of that is once again a question of perception.
This morning I led a meeting. Birds were singing outside, I felt them — such a wonderful state. Now imagine: you’re sitting, birds are singing, and you don’t understand what that is. Just sound. The world says: “Why do you need real birds? Turn it on — I’ve got them singing too.” Turned on the iPhone — little birds chirp. Put on glasses — and everything is drawn in: the same view, the same sky, the same room. That’s where everything is heading, right? Everything drawn, everything simulated. But look at any sci-fi film where people wear glasses and live in a virtual environment — there’s always someone who steps out onto a real balcony, where two real trees grow, a couple of bushes, a stream flows, or just — a piece of sky they’ve “pushed apart” to see something living. That’s always there.
— You spoke about the perfect moment. But I noticed, using my mother as an example: she believed that as long as she suffered — it was for the best. She was already an alcoholic, but still thought that if she endured now, some man, “the one,” would come and everything would change. Someone even foretold to her that this should happen. But now I see — he never came. And I understand that this problem isn’t only hers. It’s my problem too, and many people’s I know. This is not just waiting for a moment — it’s waiting for a miracle, a savior. Where does this even come from? Because many people have it.
— This is a perfect situation for studying yourself, for studying the ego. On the one hand, a person says: “I can do everything. I know everything. I’ll do everything. I’m in control.” And on the other — they wait for a miracle to happen that will change everything. And yet it won’t be they themselves who change it. Here it is, the exaltation of the “perfect moment” — it’s the same “Sleeping Beauty.” Belief in a prince, a chance, an acquaintance, an event — in something external that will flip everything. An enormous amount of things is built on this — dating clubs, meetups, networking. This whole system is based on expectation: now an event will happen — and everything will change. And again we arrive at the same thing: if you have a state of expecting “that very moment,” then you are living outside of life. Not in living, not in harmony, not in perception.
This isn’t a question of joy or happiness — there’s nothing to talk about there anymore. The main thing is you’re not perceiving what is actually happening. And on top of that, you want to shift responsibility. As if, “something else is to blame for my problems,” and precisely “that something else” will solve everything. That something will happen — and I’ll become happy.
But the only solution is to work on the state of your own perception. To understand that you can endlessly expand your perception of life: of causes and effects, events, people, their feelings, everything that happens — and still remain in neutrality. You know what’s interesting? The more you perceive life in neutrality — the more you start to notice in general.
If you’re drinking coffee — you’re simply drinking coffee, and you treat it as calmly as a walk with your child — you suddenly begin to see an infinite amount in it. During a cup of coffee you can notice ideas, thoughts, events, feel where you are, which people are around, what space, what state. The energy charges. The same with a child — just being, not comparing: “Am I better with him today than yesterday?”, “Is this meeting better or worse than the last one?”
— People often narrow their perception. It probably gives them a sense of safety: you see a person — and immediately a label. For example, “blonde,” “IT guy,” “guru,” “woman,” “man.” And that’s it, you’re already in a box. In any culture there’s this labeling anyway. And then expectations are hung on you, you feel them and start acting accordingly, as if you were put in a cage and it’s impossible to step beyond it.
— This is a huge problem. The problem is that a person lives in a world where everything — people, community, the state, work — strives to put them in a box. Look how far classification has gone. People are convinced of the material existence of the world, and at the same time they say: “You’re probably a Gemini,” “And you’re probably a Virgo.” I had a partner who said, “You can’t be a Pisces.” I say, “What are you even talking about: the material or the spiritual?”
It’s astonishing. We grew up in a Christian country where horoscopes were printed in the newspapers every day. Did they print horoscopes in the Soviet Union? Hardly. But here — by all means. Every day. I remember my whole childhood — a horoscope in any paper. Why? To put a person in a box, to lock them in. “Today everyone born in this month will feel like this.” They took the whole world, divided it into 12 groups, and issued an instruction. But we are different. Age, family, illnesses, circumstances — everything is different. Someone will die today, someone will be born. Someone lives in a basement, someone on the 16th floor. How can you fit everyone into one scheme? But people believe. They live by this system. Because it’s easier — to be in a box.
And it’s everywhere. Everyone is constantly being put in a box. They read you — and immediately place you in a category: “guru,” “infogypsy,” “fraud,” “sage,” “cultist.” Some classify by clothing, some by money, some by children. Boxes everywhere. This is a huge problem of the external world. It destroys a person incredibly.
But the main problem is that every person does the same to others.
And the first strongest thing you can do when you meet a person is to tell yourself: “I have no idea who they are.” And second — for social development, for business, for growth — it’s very useful to learn to see which box they’ve put you in. When you realize where you’ve been placed, you stop reacting to the false layer of communication. You start talking to a person differently — from your faith, from your happiness, from your essence. Because people hand out advice and recommendations all the time, randomly, right and left. And you can calmly say: “Wait, are you sure I need this? Maybe this isn’t my life at all?” You don’t need to step into it. You don’t need to live it. And they answer you: “You’re in denial, so you definitely need it.”
I have a personal development group, V100, and I talked about exactly this there. It’s a very strong cheat code — just stand up and start looking: what does my wife actually think about me? And how do my children perceive me? Not how I perceive them, but how they perceive me. Do people even ask themselves this question — how am I seen? And do you know how parents often perceive their children? There’s a child, he does something, says something — and that’s it, it’s as if he exists only in those moments. But he has an endless life of his own, separate. You sat with him for three hours, and he has a whole day, 24 hours — his own processes, his own thoughts, currents, observations. And you only see a tiny fragment. What does he even think about you? What does he transmit to you?
And a child can just walk into the kitchen, say a couple of words, and you’ll be walking under the impression for half a year. Imagine, a fifteen-year-old daughter comes in and says: “Dad, you’re a really strange person. I look at other parents, and you’re strange.” And she leaves. That’s it. Now live with that.
What a person actually thinks — that’s the huge essence here. First, it’s worth reflecting on yourself. Second, don’t fall into the trap of these boxes. I didn’t say this for nothing: it’s useful not only for development, but also in terms of social success — to earn money, to build a career. It’s a powerful tool. But overall it’s a way to figure out what’s going on. At work, for example, just listen to people: what do they really think about you. Only asking directly is pointless. Those who think you should ask — are mistaken. They’ll still tell you either the whole truth or a complete lie, and you won’t figure out which is which. So the question is: is it worth digging in there? To study — yes, it’s worth it. Sometimes to ask carefully — that’s also worth it. But it’s a big process.
The second aspect that definitely leads to development is to stop putting other people into boxes. You see a person — and immediately: “Ah, got it.” And in your head — click, you’ve sorted everyone on the shelves. It’s incredibly hard to stop. I, for example, live in a large social system: businesses, communication, lots of people. Whether you like it or not, you start sorting everyone: employee, let them work, let’s draw the boundaries. But it’s important to stop and tell yourself: “All right, this person is a sales manager in my company. I perceive him as a manager, but I don’t hang any other labels. I don’t know who this person is, what his inner state is, where he lives, what he does, why he chose this profession.” And there are a million options. He could be a billionaire, he could be broke, he could be a powerful spiritual person — or, on the contrary, a terrible type who kills people. He could be anyone. But we need a box.
Recently a person comes to me and asks: “What do you do?” I say: “This business is mine, here I have equity, there it’s strategy, there I’m an adviser, I practice piano every day, I plant a garden, a dog, kids, moves, startups, I shoot videos.” He listens and says: “And what’s the main thing?” And I explain to him: for me, watering the garden and meeting some guru in Silicon Valley are the same. No difference. But he wants to put me in a box and can’t. And he’s uncomfortable. He says: “So, if I understand correctly, you made money, invested, now you live on income and relax?” What’s more, he immediately concluded that I’m relaxing. Even though people who know me usually don’t understand how it all fits into time at all. But he got the impression that I “chill.” My answer didn’t fit his worldview. He had expectations, a construct, and I didn’t fit. Then the person realizes he needs a box to understand how to act. And if you can’t be put into a box — they don’t know how to interact with you. You are unmanageable; you can’t be manipulated. It’s useless to impose on you “perfect moments,” “goals,” “strategies,” stories about billionaires. You just sit there, drinking tea, and for you it’s the same state as a Zoom meeting, or a walk with the dog, or the piano, or transferring money to an account, or seeing a lynx in the yard.
You’re attentive, open, present, and the person is trying to figure out how to shove you into a construct, into a box. And it becomes difficult with you. Such people are hard to communicate with — or, on the contrary, easy, if you know how to manipulate. Then yes, you can quickly find the right buttons. I myself know how it works — how to negotiate, how to choose a strategy. But all of this is a social game. And when people try to talk to you like that, they get stuck. They don’t understand what to do next. They ask something, and you answer off-script. You can say: “Actually, I feel weird.” Or suddenly — it’s good, then bad, then good again. Their brain just boils — they don’t understand what’s happening.
You sit, they throw something at you: “Well, you moved…” And you look and say: “What are you even talking about?” And that’s it, the dialogue collapses. So boxes are always about comparison.
— The problem is that when you put a person in a box, you also put yourself — not just in a box too, but as if above it. You become a puppeteer, and in front of you are boxes with dolls: this one is like this, that one is like that. There’s still a “from above” position in it.
— Well yes, sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes you put another in a box and say: “He’s a guru, and I just came as a student.” That is, you put yourself in a box as well. That exists too. You see, there’s a structure in all this: a person starts to tell, to orient by profession, by status. They ask: “What’s your profession?” — “Designer.” — “Ah, then everything’s clear with you.” And you say: “Wait, I’m a designer, but also a businessman, and a chemist, and a programmer, and an investor.” And that’s it — a freeze. Because everything is linear with us, the system demands definiteness: “Decide who you are.”
They often ask about my wife: “And what does she do?” I say: “She lives. Does many things. With the kids.” — “Ah, so she sits with the kids?” And immediately she’s put in a box. What difference does it make what she does? The question is different — how does she feel, what state is she in. For example, my wife doesn’t care at all what you do. You can say you earn a hundred billion dollars or a thousand dollars — she’ll look at you the same. For her, you’re simply a person. There are some nuances — likes or dislikes — but the number itself has no meaning for her. You can tell her about achievements, numbers, projects — she’ll sit and listen, and then say: “He was saying something, but I don’t remember what. I felt kind of strange. I nodded out of politeness, but didn’t understand anything.” She’s simply not interested. Her focus is on other things, on what brings her pleasure.
I’ve said many times: many people are truly blessed to be mothers. It’s hard — to give birth to a child and be happy with him every day, truly. My wife has been reading books to the children every evening for fourteen years. Fourteen years! I’ll say right away: I couldn’t do it. Under any circumstances. We even had a conflict over this. She says: “You go.” And the kids: “Oh, Mom — no-no-no, we were waiting for Mom.” It’s already a habit, a dependency. But she’s read to them for fourteen years. What do you have to have inside to do the same thing for fourteen years straight and be happy? I don’t do anything for fourteen years, except brushing my teeth. And you? Is there anything you’ve done for that many years in a row?
— Maybe it’s just her nature?
— Yes, exactly. It’s a very interesting aspect. It’s an action that happens naturally. And because of that it’s strong, real, deep. She doesn’t force herself — she simply enjoys the process. If she didn’t like it, she definitely wouldn’t do it. Never. Where she doesn’t want to — you won’t see her. Of course, sometimes you can push a little, but it’s difficult and will lead to nothing good. There’s your example of a box.
And a person also looks at boxes relative to themselves. A child is born — they tell you: “It’ll probably be hard.” The second is born — “Probably hard.” The third — “Are you crazy?” People measure by themselves, by their box.
So I’m driving with my mother. I say: “Mom, we decided to get a dog.” She says: “What, you don’t have enough problems?” And inside me immediately: “Shhh… would you get out of the car.” But I’m not going to drop her off — it’s far to Minsk, fourteen thousand kilometers, she won’t make it. So I drive and listen. She’s just transmitting her own. And if you think about it, she knows me, knows what I’ve done, what I’ve been through. She can estimate the scale. Obviously, buying a dog is not the biggest event in my life. For me it’s about like taking a half-hour hike in the evening. And someone else will think: “Ah, he bought a dog; he’s tormenting it.” No. I have a Russian borzoi, I work with her myself, trainers are involved, Polina helps, the kids are engaged. It’s my area of responsibility. This dog requires care, study, analysis. It’s work. I led myself into this. Plus planning, moves, organization. It’s easier for me to manage people than dogs.
Recently I say to my wife: “Maybe we should get a second dog?” She replies: “Well, if I move out — then okay.” I laugh: “But you still want another child.” And she: “A child is easier.” For her it really is easier. For her a child is simpler than a dog. Well, that’s absurd! What dog — you buy a mutt and that’s it. And we have a borzoi — classy, beautiful, but complicated. You worry about her like a child. So the kids don’t destroy her, so everything is careful. And mine — better not let anyone near. That’s, of course, another story.
— So it turns out we all have programming. When I was little, they asked me: “What’s your zodiac sign?” I: “Aries.” — “Ah, then you’re stubborn.” They said it four times — by the fifth I answered myself: “I’m stubborn.” And that’s it, the program fixed. People program themselves with this, then believe in it.
— Of course. For example, Tanya gets the “designer” label hung on her endlessly. Even though in her life it’s one percent, no more. But everyone is interested in exactly that detail. Or they remember something singular and hang you there. They just hang it. Here’s Vitalik sitting — we were standing, talking, then he says: “I’m a professor.” And that’s it — stop, the system loaded, the label attached. Even though you might not need to know it at all. But there you go — programming. The more often the same thing is repeated to you, the more you’ll lend it significance or insignificance.
It’s especially visible with children. If you keep telling a child: “Your diction is poor,” or “you can’t draw,” or “your essays don’t turn out” — he’ll believe it. And then you look — and the person speaks, writes, draws, creates. They told me at school too that my diction was poor, I draw terribly, I can’t write essays. And now I’ve been talking for eight hours straight. If you transcribe it — it will be about a hundred and fifty pages. Is that an essay? Obviously, yes.
💡Or take Chinese — I started learning it. I wrote four hundred characters. The teacher says: “What beautiful characters.” And I reply: “Me and drawing — worlds apart.” He smiles: “They probably told you in school that you can’t draw?” And it’s true. The same with pronunciation: “You have excellent pronunciation.” And I say to him: “No, my pronunciation is bad.” — “They told you that in school.” That’s all. People get labels hung on them all the time.
And then they say: “What kind of businessman are you.” And being a businessman is often just an accident. You meet a neighbor; he says: “I’ll give you ten percent in my company for a video.” You shoot a video, the company takes off, is worth a billion, you have a hundred million. That’s it — you’re a businessman. Or you bought crypto on someone’s advice — boom, three hundred million. That’s it, you’re an investor. And you go out, make a video: “How to move from a village near Irkutsk to Silicon Valley and chill.” It’s all circumstances.
And then they tell you: “Sash, you’re such an easygoing person.” Of course, when money appeared, ease appeared too. Although not for everyone, of course.