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You cannot plan for happiness (but you can discover it)

January 17, 2019January 21, 2019Paras ChopraPersonal, Psychology

Most of our waking moments are spent either doing things that we expect will make us happy or trying to be happy. It’s like happiness is a currency and we want to hoard it as much as we can, as fast as we can. But the more we chase happiness, the less we’re able to get it. Yet if we momentarily forget about our desire to be happy, we find ourselves to be happy.

Before dissecting this contradictory nature of happiness, it’ll help to first define happiness. Everyone has their pet definition of happiness and each dictionary will define it in its own way. There’s no United Nations mandate specifying ingredients for happiness. It seems that happiness is hard to pin down and, as you’ll see, that’s precisely why you cannot plan for happiness. ... Read the entire post →

Inverted Passion 2018 in Review

December 13, 2018April 6, 2021Paras ChopraPersonal

Last year in December, I decided to take two months off for a sabbatical. What I wanted to do in that period was to write a book on my experience and learnings bootstrapping Wingify to a multi-million dollar SaaS company. What I ended up doing is starting this blog and a community around it. A year later, it's a perfect time to reflect on this thing which was never planned to be.

Notes from ‘Nonzero: the logic of human destiny’

October 31, 2018Paras ChopraNotes and Summaries

I make notes of books that really impact my thinking. Earlier, I made notes from The Elephant in the Brain and Skin in the Game. This time I make notes from a book that traces the arc of human history. My notes are not verbatim (unless quoted). It’s mostly what I found illuminating.

1/ Here are my notes from @robertwrighter‘s book – Nonzero: the logic of human destiny. I enjoyed the book very much.

The basic premise of the book is that history has a direction which favors co-operation and non-zero sum games, and that causes an increase in complexity. ... Read the entire post →

The Reverse Turing Test and proof-of-human currency

October 24, 2018October 24, 2018Paras ChopraEconomics, Systems

Are you a bot? No, seriously how can you prove that you are not. How can you prove that you are not some sort of algorithm crawling YouTube videos trying to make sense of this world? And how can you prove that I am not a bot, that I am not one of those Google’s AI?

This question may seem funny, but I find it one of the most important one facing our generation. Actually, the question is less about whether you are a bot or not, it’s more about how can you prove that you are human.

If you prefer watching a video instead of reading, I’ve narrated the entire essay in the following 8 minute video. ... Read the entire post →

Building mental immunity against depression and anxiety

June 11, 2018Paras ChopraPsychology

Mental health issues were the primary cause of the recent deaths of famous celebrities such as Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Avicii and Chester Bennington. I wish peace to their families and friends.

I hope that these deaths don’t go in vain but serve as a wake-up call for the rest of us. Across one’s lifetime, there’s a very high likelihood of going through a mental health issue. Studies suggest that about 25% of all people suffer a mental disorder in any 12 month window. This means that it’s likely that one in four people you know have recently gone through a depression or an anxiety episode. ... Read the entire post →

The metathinking approach to making big decisions

May 14, 2018May 17, 2018Paras ChopraPersonal, Psychology

Big decisions in life are gut-wrenching. Who to marry, where to work, who to hire, how to fire, which subject to major in, how to make a career change, which car to buy, where to invest, et cetra. We stall and brood over those because all such decisions represent major forks in our life. Usually (but not always) these are one-way roads. After all, you don’t buy a house or choose a company to work for every other day.

Given the importance of big decisions in our lives, it’s a surprise that nobody teaches us how to handle them. We’re taught solving for lever and pulley problems (something we’d never encounter in real life) but we’re not taught how to choose a career. ... Read the entire post →

Notes from The Elephant in the Brain

April 30, 2018May 1, 2018Paras ChopraNotes and Summaries

1/ Reading @robinhanson and @kevinsimler new book ‘Elephant in the brain’. Here are my notes on big ideas from the book.

2/ Human intelligence evolved as a result of arms race of getting ahead in social situations where two contrasting incentives always existed: to co-operate or to compete.

3/ Unlike chimps where hierarchy is strictly from alpha male to least powerful individuals, language allowed humans to form coalitions and keep most aggressive individuals in check. These coalitions are where laws and norms come from ... Read the entire post →

Copying ideas is highly underrated

April 15, 2018April 17, 2018Paras ChopraBusiness, Economics

No man’s an island and, as a corollary, no startup is truly unique. Media oversells us the virtue of breakthrough ideas. Journalists are paid to highlighting what’s new and noteworthy. Imagine the number of clicks an article would get if it was titled: ‘Here’s the nth example of a Chinese firm copying what’s working in the west’.

To catch our attention, publications run stories that celebrate innovations.

Wright brothers got the fame, but someone else made all the money

The invention of the airplane was definitely a breakthrough moment for humanity and the Wright brothers deserve all the fame they got. But economically they didn’t do as well as Boeings and Airbuses of the world. Wright brothers knew it themselves that they’re never going to make money from what they were doing. In a conversation with their biographer, Orville Wright said: ... Read the entire post →

Your cold emails compete with cat pictures for my attention

March 30, 2018April 3, 2018Paras ChopraBusiness, Psychology

Unsolicited emails – the cold emails – have notoriously low reply rates. I’ve seen sales people celebrating 1% reply rates as a huge win. Honestly, isn’t that a bit embarrassing? Only 1 reply out of 100 emails and even that one reply is usually “no, thanks” or “don’t email me again“.

Common justifications for this abysmal reply rate is either people are too busy or simply throwing up hands and saying: “who the hell knows”. I think we can do better than this when it comes to understanding why cold emails don’t get replies. ... Read the entire post →

Review of Life

March 27, 2018March 27, 2018Paras ChopraPersonal

There’s a new multiplayer game out in the market. It’s called Life. I’m half way through it, so thought of reviewing my experience of it so far. I’ll try publishing the full review once I’m done playing.

It’s hard to pick a genre to categorize this game into. Its open ended nature means it can be action, adventure, fantasy, horror or all of these combined at once. I’m told that the gameplay differs from player to player, and in fact it could change while you’re playing it. (Honestly, I’ve never seen a game before where the genre changes all the time) This fluid nature of the game is definitely confusing and that makes it hard to box into a label. It really is a genre-busting game. ... Read the entire post →