Evolution is alive and well. Whether you acknowledge it or not, it’s working at a faster pace than ever because our environment is rapidly changing. You don’t need an evolutionary biologist to tell you that the genes of an obese basement-dwelling incel are set to be wiped out by evolution.
If you think that evolution did a good job of preparing you for the times we live in, you are wrong. If you behave according to what your nature dictates, you are shooting yourself in the foot.
The modern age came with its own set of problems. You can’t count on evolution to solve the current problems of humanity.
Evolution doesn’t care about foreseeing the future. It only cares about adaptation. The individual is expendable. The individuals who adapt to the requirements of the era they live in are selected. The ones who fail to adapt are unapologetically weeded out. That’s evolution’s way of solving problems.
While it’s not possible to predict exactly how nature will respond to the current state of humanity, it doesn’t take a Nostradamus to predict some of the goners.
It’s critical to use your faculty of logic to adapt yourself to the conditions of the times we live in. Otherwise, you will suffer. You can’t rely on your default, outdated biological conditioning.
Here are the 8 ways you can solve your modern life problems without waiting for the evolution to solve them for you:
1. Don’t be fat
Human history is filled with famines. Evolution selected the individuals who were able to survive the famines. The others were weeded out.
As a result of this natural selection, your body is an extremely efficient survival machine that is frugal at burning calories.
In the current year, the food supply is as abundant as it has never been in human history.
Food production has increased so rapidly that the daily calorie supply per individual is over 3000 now. It was around 2000 calories a day per individual merely 50 years ago.
When we look at the pictures of humans from the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, we are surprised how slim people used to be. These people weren’t slim because they had better willpower than us. They were slim simply because they didn’t have enough available calories to get fat. If they had the food we have now, they would be fat too.
We are evolutionarily programmed to eat all the available calories and store them as fat so that when a famine hits we don’t starve.
At our time and age, it’s unlikely that we will face famine in the near future. It’s safe to act against your biological programming and not eat everything you can. You will not starve.
It’s your duty to resist your biological conditioning, watch the calories you eat, and stay in shape.
Don’t wait for evolution to solve the modern problem of obesity. Solve it by restricting the calories you eat.
2. Don’t watch porn
Humans have been around for 200,000 years and porn has been around for less than 50 years. Moreover, porn was not readily available 50 years ago as it is today. Internet porn is so easy to access and evolution simply didn’t have enough time to build mechanisms to prevent us from watching porn. We are completely defenseless against porn in terms of our biological conditioning.
Our only defense against porn is our conscious willpower.
It’s not difficult to predict how porn watchers will be weeded out by evolution.
Watching porn is known to cause
- Erectile dysfunction
- Low levels of energy
- Decreased enjoyment from having sex with real women in real life
- Decreased motivation to pursue real-life sex
- Decrease in productivity
- Decrease in testosterone
- Increase in anxiety and depression
- A decrease in the desire to succeed
With these symptoms, it’s easy to see how men who refuse to watch porn will prevail, and the ones who can’t resist it will be weeded out.
Watching porn is harmful. You should make a conscious effort to stop watching porn if you haven’t already done so.
3. Have a routine and stick to it
Electricity, lights, TV, internet, offices, and other modern amenities weren’t available for the overwhelming majority of human history.
Our ancestors probably didn’t need to bother themselves with setting up an efficient sleeping routine because it was a no-brainer to sleep at night and wake up in the morning. Moreover, they didn’t spend the whole day sitting on a chair. They used to move, which not only helped them to sleep better but also keep their bodies in good physical condition. Sure, they had their own set of problems like the lack of modern medical practices but at least they didn’t have the need for daily routines like we do.
Modern times have created a sleep problem. When I google “sleep problems”, 260 million results show up. Most sleep problems are the result of circadian rhythms not compatible with modern times.
If you depend on how evolution regulated your sleep patterns, you are certain to be led astray. Evolution doesn’t predict. It just adapts. The sleep patterns of humanity will adapt to the modern ways of living but we all will probably be dead at the time it finally happens.
A lack of an orderly sleep routine is detrimental to your well-being. Not having a functional sleep routine robs you of your productivity and worse, it is one of the main causes of depression.
You should make a conscious effort to sleep and wake up at the same time, day in day out. I go to bed early at night and wake up early in the morning. I found that it’s the best way for me to be productive and have peace of mind. But, that’s just me. I know many people who have a routine of sleeping late at night and waking up at noon, and they are doing fine.
The important thing here is to have a sleeping routine and stick to it. Sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time every day.
Same goes for your other daily, weekly, or monthly routines. You aren’t evolved to sit on a chair all day. It’s crucial for your well-being to have an exercise routine, work/study routine, and so on.
Having routines is interdependent. For example, having a robust exercise routine will not only help you sleep better, but it will also make you more productive.
4. Be productive
Our ancestors were probably so busy surviving that they didn’t have ample leisure time in their hands, at least not as much as we do.
Nowadays, most of us don’t need to hunt or grow plants to feed ourselves. We have clean water to drink. Ancient humans lived shorter than we do. Our average life expectancy is nearing 90 years. Machines do the majority of our boring daily errands. As a result, we have lots of leisure time on our hands.
Imagine two men who are at the same level in life. One of them wastes his leisure time watching TV, playing video games, watching porn, drinking, partying, wasting time on social media, etc. The other man is constantly looking for ways to improve himself. He reads books, he exercises, he eats high-quality food, and he works on his side projects in his leisure time.
It’s easy to see which man will have a better future.
The evolution doesn’t tell you how to spend your leisure time but it’s clear to see the benefits of using your leisure time for your advancement.
Eventually, the lazy and indulgent ones will be weeded out by evolution and the disciplined ones will carry their legacy to the next generation.
5. Educate yourself
Sophisticated language abilities are said to be the factor that helped modern humans to wipe out Neanderthals.
Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more power you have compared to the ones who fail to educate themselves.
The education you receive at the school is mostly garbage. Thankfully, we have the internet. You can educate yourself on the internet on anything you want to learn and it’s mostly free.
The right kind of education has incredible power. The more you educate yourself, the more you improve your chances of getting ahead.
Those who manage to use the power of the internet to educate themselves will prevail and the ones who use it to distract themselves will wither.
6. Build muscle
If you have engaged in any kind of strength training, you already know that your body is reluctant to build muscle. Your mind will try to trick you out of strength training. Even when you convince yourself and start training, your body will tell you to stop your workout long before you are too exhausted to train.
To understand why this happens you must understand evolution.
In ancient times, having a muscular body had its disadvantages. Since muscles burn a lot of calories, it was costly for ancient humans to have a muscular body. Calories were scarce, so your body grew an aversion to building muscle. When you are training to build muscle, your body and mind will try to talk you out of it because your evolutionary conditioning tells you it’s costly -in terms of calories- to be muscular.
Today, spending calories is the least of our worries. Actually, we want to burn as many calories as we can because otherwise we easily get fat. Food is abundant and cheap.
Modern people wish they have faster metabolisms so that they can burn more calories. The best way to speed up your metabolism and burn more calories is to build muscle mass.
You want to burn more calories every day so that you can get the most enjoyment from the food you eat.
Don’t wait for the evolution to catch up and adapt to our times where calories aren’t scarce anymore. Adapt by using your logic and build muscle.
7. Beware of scammers, charlatans, and con men
It’s an inevitable part of human existence that where there are new forms of communication, there will emerge scammers, charlatans, and con men.
Our ancestors had to deal with their own breed of con men. Believe it or not, when the capacity for innovation and complex speech increased in the Paleolithic Period, the capacity for deception increased as well. Humans had to develop cognitive skills to resist Paleolithic con men.
While it’s clear that we have some built-in cognitive skills to identify deception, the age of the TV and the internet created its new breed of scammers, charlatans, and con men.
It’s not hard to see the catastrophes waiting for the people who fall for the deceptions of the modern con men.
Every day, millions of people keep losing their money by falling for get-rich-quick schemes, keep losing their health by falling for bullshit weight loss and fitness advice, keep wasting their time by falling for all kinds of hacks and shortcuts which essentially promise benefits without putting in the required effort, and so on.
Evolution will eventually result in better cognitive skills for humans to distinguish the modern-day con men but a lot of humans will be weeded out in the process.
Be careful who you get your advice from. Don’t wait for the evolution to build the necessary cognitive skills in you to weed out the scammers. Build these skills with a conscious effort on your part.
8. Stop being a man-child
Dogs are much more playful than wolves. This happens because of an evolutionary phenomenon called neoteny.
Neoteny means retention of juvenile behavior. Since domesticated dogs no longer need to hunt for food or deal with the problems of wild nature, they develop no need to grow up and mature. Retaining their childish behavior is easier for them than building mature, grown-up behaviors from scratch. That’s why dogs are playful even when they reach a mature age.
Humans are not exempt from neoteny. In fact, the world is chock full of men-children.
This happens because of the same reasons why it happens to domesticated dogs. Modern times created too much comfort. It’s now possible for a man to delay adulthood.
It’s easy to blame the modern man to be devoid of responsibility, for not growing up and staying a man-child. Evolutionary conditioning allows men to be that way. It’s only natural to retain childish behavior for a grown-up man when there’s no apparent motive to mature.
Unfortunately, while delaying adulthood is possible, staying a man-child is costly. Life will eventually catch up and delaying adulthood will do more harm than good.
The fact that human evolution made it possible to delay adulthood doesn’t mean that you should stay a man-child. Because you shouldn’t.
Being a man-child is costly, both to you and to humanity. A man-child is a liability, whereas a grown-up man is an asset.
Conclusion
Evolution will eventually solve a lot of the problems modern humans face. We are evolving at a faster pace than ever in human history because our lives have radically changed and continue to do so compared to a mere 100 years ago. While it won’t take humanity millions of years to adapt to the rapidly changing world, 100 years is a very short time in terms of evolution.
Don’t count on evolution to fix your shortcomings. Don’t blame your nature for your station in life. Your nature is the result of an outdated evolutionary process that didn’t have enough time to develop solutions to modern life problems.
Your nature being inadequate to handle the traps of modern life isn’t an excuse to give in to your natural weaknesses.
The ones who adapt will thrive and the ones who fail to adapt will be unapologetically weeded out. That’s the way of evolution to solve problems. Evolution doesn’t care about you. Nature is merciless to the weak and the unfit.
Use your faculty of logic and don’t let modern life take the toll on your natural shortcomings.
Having shortcomings is normal. We all have them. The important thing to do is to understand and overcome them. It’s perfectly doable with your conscious effort.
Be sure to read:
- How to Be a Superior Man, Chapter 5: Recruit The Power Of Self-Control
- How to Be a Superior Man, Chapter 6: Get Leaner
- 5 Books Every Man Should Read
- 10 Types of People Who are Unqualified to Give Advice
- Are You a Man-Child?