Examples of traps

[Staples]

I really enjoyed Leo's latest video. Fantastic breakdown and examples. 

I want to open a thread listing as many traps as we can, I challenge you to think of 20 unique traps and post them on this thread. The more raw examples the better, you might stumble on something important that someone else might not have ever considered.

I'll start:

1. Being an employee. While sometimes necessary, you lose a degree of personal agency and self-reliance. You become dependent on the employer for basic survival.

2. Getting a bad cosmetic surgery, example a bad hair transplant.

3. Exploiting your clients. Taking advantage of their ignorance for short term benefit. It will ruin the relationship over time.

4. Buying too many physical products. Not being a minimalist.

5. Not looking after your health especially at a young age

6. Time wasting

7. Not maintaining your family and social circle

8. Moving to a new city or country too hastily without a plan

9. Failing to do pre-mortems

10. Getting involved in business or drama with shady characters and gangs

11. Doing anything you can't take back, but you want to

12. Having people dependent on you, when you are not yet ready for the responsibility. Kids, employees, family members, romantic partners

13. Getting addicted to substances or habits

14. Failing to deconstruct an ideology or belief system before you subscribe to it

15. Working for and becoming financially dependant on a company that does not share your personal values or morality

16. Taking on more projects and clients than you can handle

17. Taking what people say literally as fact, and not investigating their emotional state or social games

18. Buying or renting a bad property

19. Not taking the time to listen to your body or emotions

20. Giving up forever on sex, money, spirituality or health.

 

[Lyubov]

worrying about traps and overthinking

seeing life in a way where traps are all bad, we learn through mistakes

this is really worn out to say but it's a balance 

being fully responsible and accountable but also accepting we make mistakes and learn through them

[Davino]

5 hours ago, Staples said:

17. Taking what people say literally as fact, and not investigating their emotional state or social games

This is a good one. I've realized that people usually just project what is inside them, many times they don't listen and are behaving out of habit. Seeing this in real-time is a remarkable skill. Now, when someone makes a comment about me, I question whether it reflects their feelings about the situation or if it's an attempt to provide insight into my own thoughts and emotions. You will discover it's usually the former and avoiding this trap gives you a lot of communicative skills.

[Princess Arabia]

6 hours ago, Lyubov said:

worrying about traps and overthinking

seeing life in a way where traps are all bad, we learn through mistakes

this is really worn out to say but it's a balance 

being fully responsible and accountable but also accepting we make mistakes and learn through them

Unrelated; but I had to say that dog/puppy (Avatar) is adorable. That's my trap - cute animals. Come here cutie......grrrrr....ouch.

[Ulax]

Only focusing on the surface issue, rather than addressing the root of the problem

[CARDOZZO]

Doing daygame without a condom.

[Butters]

15 minutes ago, CARDOZZO said:

Doing daygame without a condom.

You only need to wear the condom while having sex. 

[TheAlchemist]

Good exercise, really stimulated some thinking/wondering. I'm sure Leo did cover some of these already in his video, I didn't fully watch the episode yet.

I also noticed that with some of these, the "opposite" can be just as much of a trap.

 

1. Upgrading your lifestyle right after making more money, getting a nicer car, a bigger house, fancy food etc - it is much more difficult to give up gained luxuries. You become dependent on that new standard of living and will suffer if you lose any of it. 

2. Supplements/nootropics - even if you find the perfect supplement that solves all your problems, you now are dependent and can't live without it. (Exceptions exist)

3. Categorically avoiding people who you don't "resonate" with. (Not actually abusive people or trauma inducing situations)

4. Diving into social media bubbles that confirm the existing worldview, and avoiding exposure to alternative or "opposing" perspectives. 

5. Any kind of scapegoating of the "other". "Othering" in general. 

6. Putting any teacher or speaker on a pedastal, thinking they have all the answers and are somehow fundamentally above you. 

7. Confusing strategies to meet needs with actual underlying needs.

8. Confusing assumptions/judgements with underlying feelings. 

9. Trying to change people or pressure them to think like you. This only backfires since it's like interacting with a salesman, people sense there's always an underlying agenda, and it doesn't respect an individuals agency. 

10. Game theory type thinking - assuming people are always rationally and selfishly calculating maximum benefit for themselves at the expense of others and operating based on that. HUGE trap. 

11. Utopistic thinking - believing that if we just remove the "bad stuff" only the "good stuff" will remain and our utopia will be realized. 

12. Cynical dystopic thinking - thinking that all collectivism and envisioning of a better future is bad and dangerous.

13. Revenge and punishment towards others or oneself

14.  Shaming people and shame in general (vs. guilt)

15. Attempting to get and also actually getting the world to conform to your desires

16. Wanting power over others and/or having significant power over others

17. Conforming to peer pressure

18. Attempting to get everyones approval

19. Inflexibly chasing "goals"

20. Taking ones individual life too seriously

Edited May 14 by TheAlchemist

[Buck Edwards]

The trap of preaching against selfishness while actually being selfish and people falling for this trap. 

[Buck Edwards]

18 hours ago, Lyubov said:

being fully responsible and accountable but also accepting we make mistakes and learn through them

How is this a trap? 

[Buck Edwards]

Feeling shame is a trap. It's one of the biggest traps. You cannot get out of it easily, it locks you in. It can make you miserable and turn into a vicious trap. Those have lived in shame will know it. 

Too much debating or arguing. 

The internet is a blessing as well as a trap. 

Validation is a huge trap. It's a poison to the soul. It's worse than addiction. 

 

 

 

Edited May 15 by Buck Edwards

[Princess Arabia]

3 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

Feeling shame is a trap. It's one of the biggest traps. You cannot get out of it easily, it locks you in. It can make you miserable and turn into a vicious trap. Those have lived in shame will know it. 

Too much debating or arguing. 

The internet is a blessing as well as a trap. 

 

 

 

True

[Lyubov]

2 hours ago, Buck Edwards said:

How is this a trap? 

It’s not. I was just building on the trap I listed first with how to live life. 

[Buck Edwards]

Just now, Lyubov said:

It’s not. I was just building on the trap I listed first with how to live life. 

Oh ok. Thanks for the reply. 

[Lyubov]

1 minute ago, Buck Edwards said:

Oh ok. Thanks for the reply. 

Sure. To be clear 

these are the traps 

1. worrying about traps and overthinking

2. seeing life in a way where traps are bad, we learn through mistakes

I would say worrying or needlessly thinking about traps is a trap itself. Since life is always being re-contextualized through beliefs in the present moment. No one has any way of knowing they would have been better off if they didn’t make a certain mistake, so whatever is just is. And further more to build on this one doesn’t really have an appreciation for their development without having made mistakes. Because we learn through mistakes and get a sense of our growth and change through learning these lessons. life has a weird magical way of just working out sometimes, where what was once saw as a mistake is now seen as a crucial lesson which I think leads me to maybe the only other mistake I try to no longer make and it’s 

3. not being true and authentic to myself 

If there is one mistake I think is one of the main ones it’s not being grateful and wasting this life being inauthentic. Be as authentic and honest as possible and make the most of everything no matter what.