Collection: Charlie Munger - #3 'Be a Survivor, Not a Victim."
[Transcript]
AUDIENCE MEMBER 00:07
I had a question regarding the Stoics. Something I read after you started, you actually mentioned it. There is a great —
Anybody who’s read your life, your testament to the idea to not be a victim, but to be a survivor. And it’s an attitude that has helped me in my short life so far.
Could you perhaps expand on that idea, how it’s helped you, and how that is perhaps one of the greatest ways to live your life out regardless of what happens to you?
CHARLIE MUNGER 00:35
Well of course, feeling like a… It’s fairly interesting, to make change some people are victimized by other people. And if it weren’t for the indignation that causes, we wouldn’t have reforms that we need.
But that truth is mixed with another. It’s very counterproductive for an individual to feel like a victim, even if he is. Best attitude is just to be cheerful about everything and keep plugging along.
And therefore I don’t like politicians that get ahead by trying to make everybody else feel like a victim. And it makes my flesh crawl. And I just don’t believe in it. Of course, who wants to be a victim instead of a survivor?
Of course, we want… But feeling like a victim… You can recognize your position as bad and try and improve it. That’s OK. But to have, a deep feeling of victimhood and it’s all somebody else’s fault is a very counterproductive way to think. People don’t even like being around it. It’s really stupid.
And yet our politicians build on it and try and make their careers work by doing something that’s very bad for all the people they’re talking to. And they think they’re doing the world’s work.
You know, it’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy.
(Source: https://youtu.be/HS8neXkNnhw)
