99% Of Everything Is Garbage

Trying to go back to the US from Spain and flying United. Was at the airport and in the check-in counter they were super slow. 50 passengers lined up and only 1 counter open.

And no, they weren’t understaffed. It was one person working on a counter and 5 people stsanding behind her playing with their phones. I recorded this because I wanted to make fun of them on social media.

Only at the check-in counter did this old & miserable worker said I can’t record at the check-in counter. I deleted the video in front of her and she kept going about how I can’t record. I told her: “I already deleted the video in front of you, can we move on?”

She promptly told me to calm down and threatened to work extra slow if I gave her attitude. With all the passengers still waiting behind me. If she worked for my company, she’d be fired on the spot.

Then, we got on the plane that was already delayed by 2 hours, and sat there for another 4 hours before they announced the flight is officially cancelled. After that, they had us wait another 2 hours before throwing us to an airport hotel.

As yesterday was supposed to be our last day, we threw away our temporary toothbrushes. The hotel had toothbrushes, but they didn’t want to get it for us because “housekeeping is on holiday” due to their labor day. So because the hotel staff was too lazy to get toothbrushes for us, we settled for flossing and rinsing.

Lesson 1: Don’t fly United if you can help it.

Most contractors you hire will be garbage. And most employees are lazy. Most hotels suck. And most airlines suck. More so in Spain as they’re notorious for being lazy.

But Be Open

So the thought is, “why bother?” You might think “I should be closed off to opportunities if almost everything sucks anyway."

But I’d argue the contrary. Because it isn’t that everything sucks–only almost everything sucks. I argue that you should:

  1. Be open to vetting all opportunities, opinions, and people. While simultaneously
  2. Reject almost all of them. Only commit to the best of them.

Why expend the effort? Because you HAVE NO CHOICE.

Think about it. You might almost everything like me, but you have to travel. You have to stay in some hotel. You have to find business opportunities, invest, and/or make money. What’s the alternative? If you give up and reject the world, you’ll just get nothing done and live a miserable life. Thus, remaining open to the world is tantamount to having a chance to be fulfilled and happy. Examples:

  • Most investment “opportunities” suck. You research all of them and reject almost all of them. There may remain one or two investments that’ll net you alpha. You go through this drugery because you have to make money and there’s no choice other than to wade through the garbage.
  • You fly United. You desperately want to fly anything else but that’s the only airline that goes back home. What choice do you have? It’s the only airline available. You have to just deal with the bullshit that is United until a new company emerges. Or you start one. The best you can do is pull out all the stops to get compensated.
  • You can’t find a good contractor to flip your investment. So? Do you just stop? No–you have no choice! You already bought the house to flip and you just have to find a contractor to work with, otherwise you lose a lot of money every month on hard money.

Because you have to get stuff done in this life, you shouldn’t let the vast majority of the world’s extreme incompetence weigh you down. Just keep going and get it done. Remain open to new ideas, people, opportunities but say “no” to 99% of them.

Other words: saying “yes” too much leaves you burned. Saying “no” to everything also leaves you burned. Solution: say “yes” just enough to get what you need done and and hopefully you won’t be burned too badly.

But don’t fly United, for fuck’s sake.