Advice on building intellectual curiosity

I have a question, however it requires some background first. It's a bit long but if you bear with me, I feel as though it could lead to a decent discussion.

I am inherently lazy and social. I enjoy watching Netflix and sports, hanging with friends, crushing brews, etc. Part of me would be fine just doing this for the rest of my life, but the other part of me craves achieving high success. In fact one of my biggest fears is being mediocre. Now, while I view myself as lazy, I do usually work a lot harder than my friends and I doubt any of them would call me lazy (grinding so that I could land an IB internship this summer). Most of my friends will end up working at a F500 type 9-5 after graduation as they value work life balance (absolutely nothing wrong with this, still love them).

Now to grind for exams and last minute technicals, I've been known to pop an addy. For those who've taken addy (I'm guessing a good amount of this site), you know what it entails. I not only strip myself of any laziness, but I also gain that intellectual curiosity that I've always wanted.

There's lots of things I want myself to do on a daily basis and want myself to enjoy that would make me a better person, but struggle as I fall into that pit of laziness. These are things such as reading books, meditating, and most importantly having intellectual curiosity. I really wish I had the curiosity about finance and an industry (tech, health care, etc.) that I see a lot of people on this site have. While I find M&A interesting, I dont have a passion for any of the coverage areas that makes me want to read and learn more about it for hours on end. I also dont have enough curiosity about the technicals to just run dcfs and lbos on companies for fun like some of the people on this website claim to do.

I really want that extra drive and curiosity that the addy gives me, but I know addy isn't healthy long term so I try to mostly stay away from it. I have the extra discipline/desire when it comes to working out, eating healthy, etc., just lack it in an academic sense. I guess my question is how to build these things within yourself? Is it similar to working out, where it's hard for the first month or so but if you stick with it, it becomes relatively easy and just a part of you? Really looking to "fix" this as the people I generally see that are the most successful have any intellectual curiosity about their work, and also love to read books.

 

I don’t think that curiosity is something that is taught. You either like to read or you don’t, you are either hedonistic or you aren’t. The latter is something that’s been shown to be highly heritable, meaning that it’s just a part of your genetics.

What you can change is your habits (ie, work on being less self-indulgent). You can lower your hedonistic set point, I guess you could say, just in the same way an addictive personality could make it go up, up, up until you need a shit load of stimulus to feel something. Read up on dopamine fasting, maybe?

Anyway, if you don’t like reading books, don’t force yourself to read books. Listen to podcasts or, ugh, watch YouTube videos of motivational bs. At least that’s better than just wasting time doing nothing

 

I think the notion of either you like to read or you don't is interesting. I get what you mean, but at least from what I've seen, do you think that most people under the age of 25 nowadays dislike reading compared to previous generations? I feel as though technology, especially accessibility to TV (netflix, hulu, etc.), has diminished most of the younger generation's desire to read.

 

Agree that intellectual curiosity is innate. You either got it or you don't. But it doesn't have to apply just to academic / scientific subjects. You might be very curious about sports stats. No less curious, just a different topic. If you weren't curious about anything, you'd be pretty boring.

Might be curious about wine making or craft beer making or anything.

Also, as you age, you likely will find certain things more of interest than your youth (and others less).

 

This is a mindset issue. You have to take deliberate actions everyday to change, and small actions over a long period of time will make you intellectually curious. Try to do 3 things everyday that will help you achieve your goal. After 30 days, you will see a huge change.

Also, stop taking adderall. It's awful for your heart. That's why I don't take drugs when going to raves and parties. I have friends that can't have a good time without that stuff, and I feel bad for them.

 
Most Helpful

if you've followed me, maybe this advice sounds tired, but look at your wheel (see my "then and now" thread for what this means: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/then-and-now-thebrofessor). here's what I've noticed from the short bit you've said here

career/financial - you seem to be fine here physical/health - you say you have discipline with working out. my question is on diet. maybe your diet is giving you low energy? family/home - not sure mental/educational - we'll come back to this spiritual/ethical - no mention of this

my initial reaction is you don't have a problem. you've achieved what you set out to do, and you're lacking motivation to attack the next thing. a couple of random ideas/thoughts, hopefully one of them sticks

  1. maybe it's not you, it's finance. finance is inherently boring if you're a social creature. as much as I love reading warren buffett/howard marks, what I love even more is sharing those ideas and discussing stocks with my colleagues. research sucks, debate/discussion is fun. maybe your role's lack of a social aspect is hurting your curiosity
  2. maybe you haven't found interesting topics. do you find yourself forcefully looking into things just because you feel like you "should" know about them? as possible as it is you're just lazy, it's also possible you just haven't found something that interests you. maybe coverage areas are boring as shit to you, but new technology is something that greatly interest you, maybe it's scientific advances in medicine, maybe it's classic engineering like F1 racing. do some more exploring outside of finance. I'm not advocating you go back to school to change entirely, but maybe you're just looking in the wrong places.
  3. become extremely disciplined with goal setting. write out a narrative of what you want your life to look like in 1, 3, and 5 years. it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be meaningful to you. from that, you will identify things you need to accomplish short term and things that won't get done for years but you can start laying the foundation now. setting goals, both short and long term, assuming the goals are YOUR idea and not given to you by someone else, this will stoke your curiosity. you'll research to figure out how to accomplish your goals, you'll network with others to ask their input on how to accomplish, and so on.

I could go on, but this is already wayyyy too long (like most of my posts here), so I'll just say feel free to follow up with questions. all the best

 

Thanks @thebrofessor, I really appreciate you taking the time to write this. I'll reflect on some of the things you mentioned in your reply and also check out the post you mentioned.

 

Also, I don't find your posts too long as they're always full of thoughtful/actionable advice

 

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