Personal Operating Systems
How do you exist in the world?
I don’t know how everyone else exists in the world, but I have a system.
Over the past ten years or so I have been refining what I call my Nicisms.
My Nicisms have become my personal operating system. I don’t often talk about these things because they are very specific to how I choose to live. Sometimes I update them when my opinion on something changes. Sometimes I delete one of them because I don’t believe it to be true any longer.
I have created this personal operating system so that I don’t have to reevaluate my entire life with every decision I make.
In the same way that you know to drive on the correct side of the road or that murder is bad, my Nicisms create a framework, an operating system, to help me make decisions with less anxiety and stress.
When I want to fundamentally change something in my life I alter my Nicisms and the rest follows from there.
Here the current Nicisms:
There is nothing after this
Learn the rules but ignore them
Be honest if possible
Do more
Be patient
Trust people until you have a reason not to
Listen more, talk less
Everything is easier without ego
Burn it all down if you have to
Strong opinions loosely held
Be Consistent
That’s it.
Each Nicism guides me in a certain way. Each one helps me make decisions and live the kind of life that I believe makes me content.
I want to be clear on an unspoken guiding principle that I believe should be painfully obvious: Do less harm.
We should all be trying to live lives that do less harm. Less harm to each other, less harm to animals, less harm to the environment, less harm to ourselves. I don’t need this to be one of my Nicisms because I believe this to be a standard principle that we all should understand.
Asking people to do no harm is also impossible because humanity has created an existence that intrinsically involves destruction right now. So:
Do. Less. Harm.
What is your personal operating system? Comment on this article or reply to my email and tell me. What is your North Star?
Have you ever given thought to the beliefs that guide your decisions on a daily basis? Do you ever reconsider these beliefs and test them against new ones?
I’m constantly trying to upgrade my personal operating system so that I have the best software to help me build the best life.
This isn’t a new concept but I’m surprised by how few people actually have a set of guiding principles that help them make decisions.
It’s surprising to me that so many people come up with an implied operating system when they are teenagers and rarely if ever, reconsider this system. When I was 18 I barely understood myself, never mind the world in which I existed. How could I possibly have created an operating system that could successfully take me into middle-age?
If you have never considered your personal operating system, perhaps now is the time to build one.
Strong opinions, loosely held; challenge everything and if the facts have changed you owe it to yourself to change your opinions and belief system.
—
Nic Haralambous
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