Tools of Titans

by Timothy Ferriss

  Roughly 30 minutes later, I had to run. My girlfriend had just landed at the airport, and I needed to meet her for dinner. I started walking toward the elevators.

  “Excuse me, Tim?” It was Silas. He’d been waiting for me. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Sure,” I said, “but walk with me.”

  We meandered around tables and desks to the elevator vestibule, and I hit the Down button. As soon as Silas started his story, I forgot about the elevator.

  He apologized for not having an answer earlier. His younger brother—the one I signed the book for—had recently committed suicide. He was 22.

  “He looked up to you,” Silas explained. “He loved listening to you and Joe Rogan. I wanted to get your signature for him. I’m going to put this in his room.” He gestured to the book. I could see tears welling up in his eyes, and I felt my own doing the same. He continued.

  “People listen to you. Have you ever thought about talking about these things? About suicide or depression? You might be able to save someone.” Now, it was my turn to stare at him blankly. I didn’t know what to say.

  I also didn’t have an excuse. Unbeknownst to him, I had every reason to talk about suicide.

  Some of my closest high school friends killed themselves.

  Some of my closest college friends killed themselves.

  I almost killed myself.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said to Silas. I wondered if he’d waited more than three hours just to tell me this. I suspected he had. Good for him. He had bigger balls than I. Certainly, I’d failed his brother by being such a coward in my writing. How many others had I failed? These questions swam in my mind.

  “I will write about this,” I said to Silas, awkwardly patting his shoulder. “I promise.”

  And with that, I got into the elevator.

  INTO THE DARKNESS

  * * *

  “They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”

  — Mexican proverb

  There are some secrets we don’t share because they’re embarrassing.

  Like that time I met Naval Ravikant (page 546) by accidentally hitting on his girlfriend at a coffee shop? Oops. Or the time a celebrity panelist borrowed my laptop to project a boring corporate video, and a flicker of porn popped up—à la Fight Club—in front of a crowd of 400 people? Another good example.

  But then there are dark secrets. The things we tell no one. The shadows we keep covered for fear of unraveling our lives.

  For me, 1999 was full of shadows.

  So much so that I never wanted to revisit them. I hadn’t talked about this traumatic period publicly until April 29, 2015, during a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything).

  What follows is the sequence of my downward spiral. In hindsight, it’s incredible how trivial some of it seems. At the time, though, it was the perfect storm.

  I include wording like “impossible situation,” which was reflective of my thinking at the time, not objective reality.

  I still vividly recall these events, but any quotes are paraphrased. So, starting where it began . . .

  It’s the beginning of my senior year at Princeton University. I’m slated to graduate around June of 1999. Somewhere in the next six months, several things happen in the span of a few weeks.

  First, I fail to make it to final interviews for McKinsey consulting and Trilogy software, in addition to others. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, and I start losing confidence after “winning” in the game of academics for so long.

  Second, a long-term (for a college kid, anyway) girlfriend breaks up with me shortly thereafter. Not because of the job stuff, but because I became insecure during that period, wanted more time with her, and was massively disruptive to her varsity sports season. What’s wrong with me?

  Third, I have a fateful meeting with one of my thesis advisors in the East Asian Studies department. Having read a partial draft of my work, he presents a large stack of original research in Japanese for me to incorporate. I walk out with my head spinning—how am I going to finish this thesis (which generally run 60–100 pages or more) before graduation? What am I going to do?

  It’s important to note that at Princeton, the senior thesis is largely viewed as the pinnacle of your four-year undergrad career. That’s reflected in its grading. The thesis is often worth around 25% of your entire departmental GPA. After the above, things unfolded as follows . . .

  I find a rescue option! In the course of language learning research for the thesis, I’m introduced to a wonderful PhD who works at Berlitz International. Bernie was his name. We have a late dinner one night on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. He speaks multiple languages and is a nerd, just like me. One hour turns into two, which turns into three. At the end, he says, “You know, it’s too bad you’re graduating in a few months. I have a project that would be perfect for you, but it’s starting sooner.” This could be exactly the solution I’m looking for!

  I chat with my parents about potentially taking a year off, beginning in the middle of my senior year. This would allow me time to finish and polish the thesis, while simultaneously testing jobs in the “real world.” It seems like a huge win-win, and my parents are supportive.

  The Princeton powers that be okay the idea, and I meet with the aforementioned thesis advisor to inform him of my decision. Instead of being happy that I’m taking time to get the thesis right (what I expected), he seems furious: “So you’re just going to quit?! To cop out?! This better be the best thesis I’ve ever seen in my life.” In my stressed-out state, I hear a series of thinly veiled threats and ultimatums in the exchange that follows . . . but no professor would actually do that, right? The meeting ends with a dismissive laugh and a curt “Good luck.” I’m crushed and wander out in a daze.

  Once I’ve regained my composure, my shock turns to anger. How could a thesis advisor threaten a student with a bad grade just because they’re taking time off? I knew my thesis wouldn’t be “the best thesis” he’d ever seen, so it was practically guaranteed to get a bad grade, even if I did a great job. This would be obvious to anyone, right?

  I meet with multiple people in the Princeton administration, and the response is—simply put—“He wouldn’t do that.” I’m speechless. Am I being called a liar? Why would I lie? What’s my incentive? It seems like no one is willing to rock the boat with a senior (or tenured) professor. I’m speechless and feel betrayed. Faculty politics matter more than I do.

  I leave my friends behind at school and move off campus to work—remotely, it turns out—for Berlitz. “Remote” means I work at home by myself. This is a recipe for disaster. The work is rewarding, but I spend all of my non-work time—from when I wake to when I go to bed—looking at hundreds of pages of thesis notes and research spread out on my bedroom floor. It’s an uncontainable mess.

  After 2 or 3 months of attempting to incorporate my advisor’s original-language Japanese research, the thesis is a disaster. Despite (or perhaps because of) staring at paper alone for 8 to 16 hours a day, it’s a Frankenstein’s monster of false starts, dead ends, and research that shouldn’t be there in the first place. At least half is totally unusable. I am, without a doubt, in worse shape than when I left school.

  My friends are graduating, celebrating, and leaving Princeton behind. I am sitting in a condo off campus, trapped in an impossible situation. My thesis work is going nowhere, and even if it turns out spectacular, I have (in my mind) a vindictive advisor who’s going to burn me. By burning me, he’ll destroy everything I’ve sacrificed for since high school: great grades in high school got me to Princeton, great grades in Princeton should get me to a dream job, etc. By burning me, he’ll make Princeton’s astronomical tuition wasted money, nothing more than a small fortune my family has pissed away. I start sleeping in until 2 or 3 p.m. I can’t face the piles of unfinished work surrounding me.
My coping mechanism is to cover myself in sheets, minimize time awake, and hope for a miracle.

  No miracle arrives. Then one afternoon, as I’m wandering through a Barnes and Noble with no goal in particular, I chance upon a book about suicide. It’s right there in front of me on a display table. Perhaps this is the “miracle”? I sit down and read the entire book, taking copious notes into a journal, including other books listed in the bibliography. For the first time in ages, I’m excited about research. In a sea of uncertainty and hopeless situations, I feel like I’ve found hope: the final solution.

  I return to Princeton campus. This time, I go straight to Firestone Library to check out all of the suicide-related books on my to-do list. One particularly promising-sounding title is out, so I reserve it. I’ll be next in line when it comes back. I wonder what poor bastard is reading it, and if they’ll be able to return it.

  It’s important to mention that, by this point, I was past deciding. The decision was obvious to me. I’d somehow failed, painted myself into this ridiculous corner, wasted a fortune on a school that didn’t care about me, so what would be the point of doing otherwise? To repeat these types of mistakes forever? To be a hopeless burden to myself and my family and friends? Fuck that. The world was better off without a loser who couldn’t figure this basic shit out. What would I ever contribute? Nothing. So the decision was made, and I was in full-on planning mode.

  In this case, I’m dangerously good at planning. I have 4 to 6 scenarios all specced out, start to finish, including potential collaborators and covers when needed. And that’s when I get the phone call.

  [My mom?! That wasn’t in the plan.]

  I’d forgotten that Firestone Library had my family home address on file, as I’d technically taken a year of absence. This meant a postcard was mailed to my parents, something along the lines of “Good news! The suicide book you requested is now available at the library for pickup!”

  Oops (and thank fucking God).

  I’m caught on the phone with my mom, totally unprepared. She nervously asks about the book, so I think fast and lie: “Oh, no need to worry about that. Sorry! One of my friends goes to Rutgers and didn’t have access to Firestone, so I reserved it for him. He’s writing about depression and stuff.”

  I am snapped out of my own delusion by a one-in-a-million accident. It was only then that I realize something: My death wouldn’t just be about me. It would completely destroy the lives of those I cared about most. I imagine my mom, who had no part in creating my thesis mess, suffering until her dying day, blaming herself.

  The very next week, I decide to take the rest of my “year off” truly off (to hell with the thesis) and focus on physical and mental health. That’s how the entire “sumo” story of the 1999 Chinese Kickboxing (Sanshou) Championships came to be, if you’ve read The 4-Hour Workweek.

  Months later, after focusing on my body instead of sitting around trapped in my head, things are much clearer. Everything seems more manageable. The “hopeless” situation seems like shitty luck but nothing permanent.

  I return to Princeton, turn in my now-finished thesis to my still-sour advisor, get chewed up in my thesis defense, and I don’t give a fuck. It wasn’t the best thesis he’d ever read, nor the best thing I’d ever written, but I had moved on.

  Many thanks are due to a few people who helped me regain my confidence that final semester. None of them have heard this story, but I’d like to give them credit here. Among others: My parents and family (of course), Professor Ed Zschau, Professor John McPhee, Sympoh dance troupe, and my friends at the amazing Terrace Food Club. I graduated with the class of 2000 and bid goodbye to Nassau Hall. I rarely go back, as you might imagine.

  [Sidenote: After graduating, I promised myself that I would never write anything longer than an email ever again. Pretty hilarious that I now write 500-plus-page books, eh?]

  Given the purported jump in “suicidal gestures” at Princeton and its close cousins (e.g., Harvard appears to have 2x the national average for undergrad suicides), I hope the administration is taking things seriously. If nearly half of your student population reports feeling depressed, there might be systemic issues to fix. Left unfixed, you’ll have more dead kids on your hands.

  And, by the way, it’s not enough to wait for people to reach out, or to request that at-risk kids take a leave of absence “off the clock” of the university to dodge liability. Perhaps regularly reach out to the entire student body to catch people before they fall? It could be as simple as an email offering help, resources, or a sympathetic ear.

  OUT OF THE DARKNESS

  * * *

  “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage . . .”

  — Lao Tzu

  First, allow me to give a retrospective analysis of my near obliteration. Then, I’ll give you a bunch of tools and tricks that I still use for keeping the darkness at arm’s length.

  Also, some of you might also be thinking “That’s it?! A Princeton student was at risk of getting a bad grade? Boo-fuckin’-hoo, man. Give me a break . . .”

  But . . . that’s the entire point. It’s easy to blow things out of proportion, to get lost in the story you tell yourself, and to think that your entire life hinges on one thing you’ll barely remember 5 or 10 years later. That seemingly all-important thing could be a bad grade, getting into college, a relationship, a divorce, getting fired, or a bunch of hecklers on the Internet.

  So, why didn’t I kill myself?

  Below are the realizations that have helped me (and a few friends). They certainly won’t work for everyone suffering from depression, but my hope is that they help some of you.

  1. If you’re in a dangerous place, call this number: (800) 273-8255. I didn’t have it, and I wish I had. It’s the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. They also have live chat at suicidepreventionlifeline.org. It’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in both English and Spanish.

  If you’re outside of the U.S., check suicide.org for a list of international hotlines.

  Sometimes, it just takes one conversation with a rational person to stop a horrible, irrational decision. If you’re considering ending your life, please reach out to them. If you’re too embarrassed to admit that, as I was, then you can ping them “just to chat for a few minutes.” Pretend you’re killing time or testing different suicide hotlines for a directory you’re compiling. Whatever works.

  Speaking personally, I want to see the gifts you have to offer the world. And speaking from personal experience, believe me: This too shall pass, whatever it is.

  2. I realized it would destroy other people’s lives. Killing yourself can spiritually kill other people.

  Your death is not perfectly isolated. It can destroy a lot, whether your family (who will blame themselves), other loved ones, or simply the law enforcement officers or coroners who have to haul your death mask–wearing carcass out of an apartment or the woods. The guaranteed outcome of suicide is NOT things improving for you (or going blank), but creating a catastrophe for others. Even if your intention is to get revenge through suicide, the damage won’t be limited to your targets.

  A friend once told me that killing yourself is like taking your pain, multiplying it by 10, and giving it to the ones who love you. I agree with this, but there’s more to it. Beyond any loved ones, you could include neighbors, innocent bystanders exposed to your death, and people—often kids—who commit “copycat suicides” when they read about your demise. This is the reality, not the cure-all fantasy, of suicide.

  If you think about killing yourself, imagine yourself wearing a suicide bomber’s vest of explosives and walking into a crowd of innocents. That’s effectively what it is.

  Even if you “feel” like no one loves you or cares about you, you are most likely loved, and you’re most definitely lovable and worthy of love.

 
3. There’s no guarantee that killing yourself improves things!

  In a tragically comic way, this was a depressing realization I came to while considering blowing my head off or getting run over. Damnation! No guarantees.

  The “afterlife” could be 1,000 times worse than life at its most painful. No one knows. I personally believe that consciousness persists after physical death, and it dawned on me that I literally had zero evidence that my death would improve things. It’s a terrible bet. At least here, in this life, we have known variables we can tweak and change. The unknown void could be Dante’s Inferno on steroids. When we just “want the pain to stop,” it’s easy to forget this. You simply don’t know what’s behind door #3.

  In our desperation, we often just don’t think it through. It’s kind of like the murder-suicide joke by one of my favorite comics, Demetri Martin:

  “Someone who commits a murder-suicide is probably somebody who isn’t thinking through the afterlife. Bam! You’re dead. Bam! I’m dead. Oh shit . . . this is going to be awkward forever.”

  4. Tips from friends, related to #2 above.

  For some of my friends (including high achievers you’d never suspect), a “non-suicide vow” is what made all the difference. Here is one friend’s description:

  “It only mattered when I made a vow to the one person in my life I knew I would never break it to [a sibling]. It’s powerful when you do that. All of a sudden, this option that I sometimes played around in my mind, it was off the table. I would never break a vow to my brother, ever. After the vow and him accepting it, I’ve had to approach life in a different way. There is no fantasy escape hatch. I’m in it. In the end, making a vow to him is the greatest gift I could have given myself.”

  As silly as it might sound, it’s sometimes easier to focus on keeping your word, and avoiding hurting someone, than preserving your own life.