Those Who Have Everything

Finding out what you're doing wrong is not a pleasant experience
And it means that you have to sacrifice part of yourself
Usually a burned out, stupid, bitter, corrupt
Arrogant, nasty, vengeful part of yourself
But nonetheless part that you like
I think that room for those incremental improvements
Exists within everyone's grasp
And I think that it's a humble thing to do to ask
How you could improve incrementally
Without interfering with anyone else
Like it's your problem not theirs's
But I think that the consequences of maintained
Incremental improvement are anything but incremental
You get compound interest on incremental improvement
You know, there's another rule in the New Testament
Called the Matthew Principle, economists use it

To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken
To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken
It's actually a description of the way the world works
You know that if you've ever played Monopoly
To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken

And there's a reason for that that's a deep reason
And it's a very harsh rule because it means as
You start to wander off the path
The probability that you will wander further off
The path increases non-linearly
And that's a terrible thing to know
As you wander towards the edge the probability
That you'll fall off the cliff increases
And that's statistical justification for the concept of Hell
But as you improve the probability
That each improvement will produce a further improvement increases
And so perhaps the downside is the cataclysmic catastrophe
That you can engage upon if you reproduce your moral failings
But the upside is that each improvement produces and increment
In the probability of the next improvement

To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken
To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken
It's actually a description of the way the world works
You know that if you've ever played Monopoly
To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken

If you're a behavioural psychologist
And I am a behavioural psychologist
What you do is you help a person establish their aim
Then you break down what they're trying to do into attainable units
The general consequence of that is that every time
They manage an accomplishment they get a little stronger in character
They get a little bit more confident in their ability
They get a little bit less racked with self disgust
They get a little bit more hopeful about the future
And they get more confident that they can make another change
And if you're patient, and you have
To be patient with yourself that way
It's like you reward those incremental improvements
And you don't get all cynical about them and you think
"Okay, just imagine what would happen if
You keep doing that every week for 10 years"
And the answer to that is things would be so much better for you
That you can't even imagine it with that much improvement
Or maybe even with half that much improvement

To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken
To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken
It's actually a description of the way the world works
You know that if you've ever played Monopoly
To those who have everything more will be given
And from those who have nothing everything will be taken

And so that's a, that's a very good way of progressing