There’s a great myth that naturally talented people have it easy and make it to the top. In my experience that’s mostly nonsense and having no natural talent at things actually allowed me to do better than a lot of people who had it.

Money has some very weird effects on how we think and behave. Sometimes, it’s important to reflect on what money represents on a fundamental level, so that we can focus on the real things that affect our attitude to money and our ability to handle money issues well.

Money has a strange effect upon our perceptions. It can radically change our thinking and behaviors and this especially happens when social norms give way to market norms.

The previous post was all about how, in unplanned situations, humans tend not to have absolute standards of reference and instead judge things relative to the other immediate options available to them. Following on from that we can take a look at how our initial standards of reference are formed and the effect that that has upon our judgement and decisions.

Modern living has become uncertain and chaotic compared to the past one hundred years, outside of war. Old ‘tried and true’ systems that we used to depend upon no longer work. There are good reasons for this and there are ways to plot a more certain course through this sea of uncertainty