Cumulative Experiences

A New Lens for Understanding Human Behavior

This isn’t my usual kind of post. I’m not sure it belongs here. But the idea wouldn’t leave me alone - so here it is.

The boy won’t sit still. Seven years old, maybe eight, squirming in his chair, tapping his pencil, staring out the window while the teacher explains fractions. She asks him twice to pay attention. The third time, she stops mid-sentence. “Are you listening?”. The fourth time, he’s sent to the principal’s office. Another disruption, another consequence, another mark in his file.

What if I told you that boy is doing the best he possibly could in that moment?

Not that he’s trying his best - but that given everything that shaped him up to that point, he literally could not have done differently. That his fidgeting, his inattention, his defiance aren’t moral failures but inevitable outcomes of an equation he didn’t write.

Here’s the framework as I see it: Every person is the sum of their DNA (the biological wiring that shapes temperament, personality, and how they process the world) and their Cumulative Experiences (every single thing that has happened to them). At any given moment, what someone does is the only thing they could do given that unique combination. Call it their inevitable response, or if you prefer simpler language, their Best.

I realize “Best” sounds wrong when we’re talking about harmful behavior. I’m not saying the liquor store robber made a good choice or that the neglectful parent deserves praise. I’m saying something more fundamental: given their specific DNA and the totality of their experiences up to that moment, they could not have acted differently. The equation produced the only answer it could.

Everyone Is Doing Their Best

For the most part, I’ve never met a “bad” person. The child who can’t focus. The employee who works at half the speed of their peers. The man who held up a liquor store at gunpoint. Even the political candidate you cannot find a single redeeming quality in. At the moment of their action, they are all doing their Best.

You didn’t pick your intelligence. Your grit, your energy, whether you can focus when things are loud and chaotic - none of that was up for a vote. It came with the body, or it came from what happened to the body. Either way, it wasn’t a choice.

Consider two public figures: a Vice President who grew up with a drug-addicted mother in a difficult environment, and a President’s son who grew up with wealth and privilege but struggled with addiction and legal troubles throughout his adult life.

The Vice President can rightfully take pride in his accomplishments - he persevered through immense challenges to reach the second-highest office in the nation. But can we say with certainty that his success was purely a matter of choice? His intelligence, his drive, his resilience - how much of that was preprogrammed into his DNA? Did his particular neurochemistry give him an advantage in processing trauma? Did his temperament make him naturally better at delaying gratification or maintaining focus despite chaos?

Now consider the President’s son. Growing up in the spotlight, carrying the weight of a famous name, exposed to opportunities but also to intense scrutiny and pressure. His struggles with addiction and poor judgment have been well-documented. But given his unique DNA - perhaps a neurochemistry more vulnerable to addiction, perhaps a temperament less equipped to handle public scrutiny - and given his Cumulative Experiences, could he have reasonably achieved what the Vice President achieved?

One man climbs out. Another man sinks. We call the first one good and the second one weak, but neither one wrote the equations they’re solving.

The Forces That Shape Us

Humans are deeply malleable. A drug-addicted mother, a high-profile senator father, close friends, an abusive uncle, a teacher who believed in you, a coach who humiliated you - all profoundly affect the person who experiences them. These forces mix with our unique genetic programming and that determines how we process and respond to them.

Some children emerge from trauma resilient; others are shattered by it. Some people have the neurological wiring to focus despite distractions; others don’t. Some can delay gratification easily; for others, it’s a constant, exhausting battle. These aren’t moral distinctions - they’re differences in the equation.

Further, you are not just shaped by the world. You shape it. Every time you respond to someone - praise, punishment, indifference - you become part of their equation. What their Best looks like tomorrow depends partly on how you treated them today.

Our Reflexive Responses

When someone’s Best isn’t acceptable to us, we respond. These responses are often reflexive, driven by fear, frustration, or disgust. Our own version of doing our Best in the face of incoming stimuli.

A child disobeys, and we send them out of the classroom. A man commits a crime, and we lock him in a cell. A political candidate disgusts us, and we demonize them on social media. We don’t calculate anything. We just react, and the equation changes.

Societal systems codify these reflexes. The penal code is built around punishment and deterrence, not understanding. Schools default to removing disruptive students rather than investigating why they’re disrupted. We respond to behavior we don’t like by adding negative consequences, hoping the pain will force change.

Sometimes it works. Often it doesn’t. And rarely do we pause to ask: Could we respond with intention instead of reflex?

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If someone’s attacking you, protect yourself. There’s no time for philosophy when the threat is real.

But most of life isn’t that. Most of life is your kid acting out and you yelling because you’re tired and you don’t know what else to do. That’s fine. That’s your Best in the moment. You’re also working from an equation you didn’t design.

But later - after the adrenaline fades - you can ask: Why did they do that? What am I missing? And next time, could I add something to their equation that isn’t just more punishment?

That’s where change lives. Not in the reflex, but in what you do after.

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Societies do this too. Our prisons punish. Our schools expel. Our policies default to pain as the primary tool for changing behavior.

Norway runs its prisons differently. The cells look more like dorm rooms than cages. Inmates get education, job training, therapy. The guards act less like enforcers and more like people preparing someone to leave. Twenty percent of released prisoners end up back inside within two years. In the U.S., it’s seventy percent.

Some schools stopped suspending kids automatically and started asking why the kid’s acting out. Hungry? Traumatized? Brain wired differently? They still have consequences, but they pair them with help - counseling, tutoring, someone checking in. The behavior improves. The grades improve.

These aren’t fantasies. They’re working. The question isn’t whether we know how to change the equation. It’s whether we’re willing to try.

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Believing everyone’s doing their Best doesn’t mean excusing harm. It means recognizing that punishment alone rarely produces the change we want. It means asking what would actually alter the equation.

Some people drew easier equations than others. Better DNA, softer landings, more people who cared. Others got a brutal problem set from the start. When their Best falls short of what we need, we have two options: add more pain and hope it works, or figure out what’s missing and try to add it.

One of those approaches changes things. The other just keeps the cycle spinning.