Charlie Munger presented this in a 1986 talk at Harvard, describing what NOT to do if you want a good life.
1. Be unreliable. Break your promises.
If people can’t depend on you—your word, your work, your behavior—you will damage your relationships, career, and reputation.
Munger said unreliability alone is enough to “ruin any life.”
2. Always focus on what you don’t have. Compare yourself to others constantly.
Live in envy.
Compare your car, house, job, spouse, salary—everything.
According to Munger, envy is “the only one of the Seven Deadly Sins that isn’t any fun.”
3. Learn from disaster, but NEVER learn from success.
Ignore the lessons of what is working.
Keep repeating mistakes.
Assume luck explains all successes and that no skill or behavior contributed.
4. Give up when things get tough. Have no resilience.
Munger said people with misery “have a habit of quitting too easily.”
They avoid persistence, discipline, and long-term thinking.
5. Badly handle difficult relationships or difficult people.
React emotionally.
Hold grudges.
Burn bridges.
Let resentment run your life.
Misery thrives in long-term interpersonal conflict.
6. Always take the easy path. Avoid problems until they become disasters.
Procrastinate.
Ignore responsibility.
Hope problems disappear instead of confronting them early.
7. Refuse to lower your expectations.
Set impossibly high standards—especially for other people. Expect the world to behave exactly as you think it should, and stay disappointed when it doesn’t.
