 Why do some people eat fast food when we know how harmful they can be? Why is it so hard for many to save money and think long term? Why is our willpower sometimes just not good enough? In this video, I will discuss evolutionary mismatch why we make bad decisions, our instincts and whether we can trust them or not, and then discuss some solutions to solve the problem. Pioneering geneticist Theodosius Dubzhansky famously wrote, Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. So if you do not accept the theory of evolution by natural selection, or at least not open to the idea, then this video is not for you. With that said, let's begin with the story of the mystery monkey in Tampa Bay, Florida, several years ago. This monkey had been living for more than three years on the city streets, scavenging food from dumpsters and trash cans, dodging cars, and cleverly evading capture by frustrated wildlife officials. Many was amazed by how the monkey was able to thrive in a novel environment away from its natural habitat. But what many don't realize is that you and I exist about as far removed from our natural environment as the mystery monkey. You could even say we're like rats in a lab maze. Scientifically speaking, our genes change approximately only 1% for every 10,000 years. This means that our instincts and impulses that control our responses to our environment are influenced by our historic heritage. Now let's divide the brain into three sections. Interestingly, each section evolved in different periods of our evolutionary history. And yes, of course, I know the brain is much, much more complicated than this, but I am merely simplifying. First, we have the new brain, which some will argue is what makes us human. Let's say this is where our logic and willpower is, and it gets a vote in our decision-making process. Next, we have the midbrain, which is where our emotions are, and you can say it gets a handful of votes when making decisions. But we also have the reptilian brain. It's our instincts, and this gets like 10,000 votes. We all like to believe we're in control that we're mostly operating using our new brain. But the reality is that our reptilian brain is the master, the decision-maker, and where the whispers of 10,000 generations live. You can either choose to accept this or deny this, but every day the voices of 10,000 generations from our ancestors whisper to us. And we need to develop the awareness to adapt to this fact, because our world, like the mystery monkeys, has changed. Yes, some of our instincts are still useful. Like when we're crossing a street and we see a car suddenly appear from our peripherals, and then we suddenly jump out of the way. Yes, instincts are great in the sense that they are fast and require minimal effort. And the great news is that skills and thinking patterns can become instinctual if practiced enough times. But other times, what our instincts and gut tells us to do might not be good anymore, because it is built on thousands of generations that had different living conditions. Just 100 years ago, around 90% of the population lived in rural areas and only 10% in urban areas. Today, this ratio has been reversed. Or look at type 2 diabetes and ask why it's a growing problem. Like why aren't we better at encouraging people to eat healthier food and become more physically active? Well, for our ancestors, food was scarce, so when we found food with sugar, fat, and salt, our brains told us to eat as much as we can. In our modern world, the same brain still tells us to eat sweet, saltier, fat food, although we now live in abundance and it is now bad for us. To make things worse, Michael Moss tells us in his book Salt, Sugar, and Fat that our brains are being manipulated by the food industry to make us crave these things even more. But back to the point that our environment has changed but our genes didn't change with it. Like why do so many people have lottery-winning mentalities and have trouble saving their money? Well, our ancestors were accustomed to spend their resources because life was short. Like there was no reason to plan 30 to 40 years ahead. Saving was just not part of our evolutionary heritage. This is very important because literally half the battle is to understand and to be aware of who is in control and who is the enemy. Sun Tzu said, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of 100 battles. So how do you deal with these 10,000 voices who can't seem to think long-term? Well, the first step is to truly understand the long-term effects of being persistent and I made a video summary about the compound effect by Darren Hardy on this topic. Next, you have to learn to pick your battles. The world is at war with you. So don't depend on your willpower to not eat the chips because you have the voices of 10,000 generations against you. As much as possible, don't put yourself in environments that will tempt you to eat or buy junk. Reverse engineer your bad habits. If you find you're always drinking alcohol when you hang out with a particular person, then consider spending less time with that person or cut them off completely. Another thing is to start breaking big tasks into small ones and reward yourself for getting productive work done. Optimally, you want to aim for goals that are reachable within a stretch. Far enough that you're putting effort outside your comfort zone, but not so far that you'll give up. So my favorite solution is to find ways to automate things that you know will be good for you in the long run. For example, have money to be automatically sent to your savings account monthly or consider installing something that will disable your ability to access certain distracting websites after a certain amount of time using it. One of the reasons I created this channel is to automatically combat the whispers of 10,000 voices in my head which are often giving me bad advices. My motivational alarm clock, daily affirmations, my habit of reading daily, and the rest are designed to help me automatically stay on track toward success. To learn more about evolutionary mismatch, I highly recommend The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman. If you didn't realize the importance of understanding evolutionary mismatch until now, don't beat yourself because a big problem with humans is that we weren't born with a manual that explains how our brains truly work. But now that you know who the master is, what will you do to outsmart the whispers of 10,000 voices? Disappear.