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The question

If you could alter one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Originally asked

Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire

Verbatim recurring item in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Others on this question

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I would be a better, faster, and more faithful writer of letters and e-mails, and returner of phone calls.
Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 3 April 2017 source ↗
Gloria Steinem Writer and feminist organiser
I would love to have a good memory. I’m at an age when remembering something right away is as good as an orgasm.
Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 24 September 2020 source ↗
Patti Smith Musician, poet and photographer
I would love to have a better sense of physical balance.
Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 24 July 2024 source ↗

More from Charlie Munger

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Question How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? Failure & regret
Life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. Doesn't matter. And some people recover and others don't. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion.
Recorded USC Gould School of Law commencement, Speakola, 2007 source ↗
Question What does everyone in your world seem to agree on that you think is wrong? Values & belief
I realized very early that non-egality would work better in the parts of the world I wanted to inhabit. What do I mean by non-egality? I mean John Wooden, when he was the number one basketball coach in the world. He just said to the bottom five players, “You don't get to play. You're sparring partners.” The top seven did all the playing.
Recorded USC Gould School of Law commencement, 2007, Speakola, 2007 source ↗
Question What is an unusual habit or small pleasure you are oddly fond of? Daily life
All my life, I've gone through life anticipating trouble. And here I am, well along on my eighty-fourth year, and like Epictetus, I've had a favored life. It didn't make me unhappy to anticipate trouble all the time and be ready to perform adequately if trouble came. It didn't hurt me at all. In fact, it helped me.
Recorded USC Gould School of Law commencement, Speakola, 2007 source ↗
Question What are you unwilling to optimise? Values & belief
The highest form that civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust. Not much procedure, just totally reliable people correctly trusting one another. That's the way an operating room works at the Mayo Clinic. If a bunch of lawyers were to introduce a lot of process, the patients would all die. So never forget, when you're a lawyer, that you may be rewarded for selling this stuff, but you don't have to buy it. In your own life, what you want is a seamless web of deserved trust. And if your proposed marriage contract has forty-seven pages, my suggestion is you not enter.
Recorded USC Gould School of Law commencement, Speakola, 2007 source ↗

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