Why The Best Life Hacks Are Subtractions

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Self-help gurus pedal thousands of life hacks. Try this side hustle! Have you heard about HIIT training? 

But you’re more likely to succeed by avoiding stupid things than by adopting new innovations. 

Don’t smoke. Don’t be cruel. Don’t spend more than you earn. Don’t be sedentary. Don’t try to time the market. Stay away from heavily-processed foods. 

The knowledge we gain from studying failures is usually the most fruitful because it keeps us away from catastrophe. Great victories are often won with a good amount of unacknowledged luck, and cannot be repeated, but avoiding failure is often more straightforward. Just study people who crash and burn and avoid their mistakes. 

Intelligence is the absence of idiocy. Light is — in one sense — the absence of darkness. You can’t have good without the absence of bad. 

So if you want to have a good life, first think about what you have to avoid.