As I scroll through LinkedIn sometimes, I come across many useful tips and tricks that we are supposed to use in our day-to-day life. Tips which will help us get better, more productive, and be better than our peers. They are tips like “how to draft a good email.” Or what is someone’s “greatest learnings after they cracked all the top FAANG interviews.”

Even though I know that these tips and tricks are not something that I will remember in a few moments, because of the amount of information and content I consume in my day-to-day life, I still pause my scrolling. I read a couple of lines, sometimes even the whole post. And then I scroll and instantly forget it. Sometimes though few of these tit bits do come up randomly in my head, but never in real situations when they will be helpful.

I wonder, why do I stop and read them? It is not new, these tips and tricks the influencers make posts or short videos about. I have been seeing them for some time now and I know they are not especially useful to me. Most of these advices are shallow and do not have depth that an advice should have. They lack the nuances required to manage the complexities of real-life situations. These advices, most of the time, gloss over the complexities and give very generic solutions to challenging multi-faceted problems. Not one of these posts can hold a candle to a well-structured book on the subject. I know all of this, but still, I stop scrolling. I read a bit, sometime more.

Why do I do it? Is it only me that does it or does others do it too? Is it the alure of easy direct solutions to our complex life problems that attracts me and others to read these posts? Is it the incessant necessity to get ahead of our peers, be better than them that drives such behavior? The deep never filling empty well within us that does not show any sign of filling up no matter how many posts, tips, and tricks I learn. When I think about it, it feels like greediness. The inherent greedy self within me, which is always hyperactive and is always hungry to digest any scrap of information that will help it have an edge over others. Not necessarily for money, but for recognition, fame and the never achieved feat called “being successful”.