Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. So today I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to have Mark Manson on the show. Mark is an author, blogger,
Speaker 1: and entrepreneur. In his own words, he writes personal development
Speaker 1: advice that doesn't suck. His latest book is The Subtle
Speaker 1: Art of Not Giving a Fuck, a counterintuitive approach to
Speaker 1: living a good life. Great to have you on the show. Mark,
Speaker 1: Good to be here, Scott, Thanks for having me. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I actually was deliberating for a good five minutes whether
Speaker 1: not to say the word fuck or not. And I
Speaker 1: decided because on iTunes like they get put in explicit
Speaker 1: rating when you do. And I decided that we'll make
Speaker 1: this entire show completely uncensored in the spirit of your book,
Speaker 1: you decided not to give a fuck exactly for this
Speaker 1: for this episode. I think if every single one of
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast episodes were rated E. It would take
Speaker 1: it into another category, maybe of it would take it
Speaker 1: out of social sciences. And I don't know, but I'm
Speaker 1: really great to have you on the show. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed reading your book. It resonated a lot of levels cool, awesome.
Speaker 1: So I want to start with Charles Bukowski. What does
Speaker 1: he illustrate about why it might be a good thing
Speaker 1: not to give a fuck? Well, I wanted to One
Speaker 1: of my big goals with this book was I wanted
Speaker 1: to write kind of a self helpish style book that
Speaker 1: focused very heavily on negativity. And there's a variety of
Speaker 1: reasons for that, and we can we can kind of
Speaker 1: get into that, but I was actually I wrote all
Speaker 1: of chapter one, which kind of the point of the
Speaker 1: chapter one is to just introduce some of the concepts,
Speaker 1: the idea of not giving a fuck or giving a
Speaker 1: fox or whatever, and and kind of introducing the reader
Speaker 1: to the style and the overall theme of the book.
Speaker 1: But I needed to fill in, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to have that opening story that every uh like nonfiction
Speaker 1: book is required by law to have, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: quite figure one out. And then I kind of I decided.
Speaker 1: I was, like, you know what I want. I want
Speaker 1: to find somebody who is maybe like the absolutely worst
Speaker 1: role model that you could possibly have, or the best
Speaker 1: one for your book. Yeah, exactly. And uh and and
Speaker 1: I'm a huge Bukowski fan. I've written about him on
Speaker 1: my site before, and he came to mind, and I
Speaker 1: actually realized that it was perfect because on paper, Bukowski's
Speaker 1: story is it's class, it's a classic one of success.
Speaker 1: He was a failed writer for over thirty years. He
Speaker 1: had all sorts of personal struggles, he was broke all
Speaker 1: the time, and then suddenly in his fifties, he broke
Speaker 1: through and became this this big success. But the funny
Speaker 1: thing about him is that there's not him as a person.
Speaker 1: There's nothing admirable about him, Like he wasn't waking up
Speaker 1: at five am and meditating and like doing affirmations, like
Speaker 1: he was getting drunk and wasting his money both before
Speaker 1: and after his fame and success. And so I really
Speaker 1: liked kind of using him to illustrate this idea that
Speaker 1: personal growth and success sometimes happen together, but they don't
Speaker 1: always happen together, and that it's important that people kind
Speaker 1: of realize that they're they're different things. So how does
Speaker 1: the story illustrate that exactly? Well, because he was still
Speaker 1: a loser, like, okay, good, okay, even once he became famous,
Speaker 1: Like he he used to go to his like his readings,
Speaker 1: and he would he would be so drunk he like
Speaker 1: couldn't even stand up, and he would start screaming at
Speaker 1: the audience. And he still got arrested for hiring prostitutes,
Speaker 1: even you know, even after he was making all this money.
Speaker 1: So it's like he was actually just this a really
Speaker 1: horrible person. And well, you know that's so interesting. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, you can be a success and be a
Speaker 1: loser at the same time. Yeah. And and and if
Speaker 1: you read Bukowski's work, like, one of the things, the
Speaker 1: thing that makes his work so amazing, yeah, is that
Speaker 1: he never flinches from that, like he is he knows
Speaker 1: who he is, he knows he's a fuck up, and
Speaker 1: he knows that he's never going to be this like
Speaker 1: glamorous literary figure. Yeah. Uh. And and it's the fact
Speaker 1: that he is so painfully honest about that in his work,
Speaker 1: like who he is and how dysfunctional he is is
Speaker 1: actually what makes his work great and So I love that.
Speaker 1: I that that theme of of you know what, and
Speaker 1: this kind of leads into the rest of the book.
Speaker 1: But it's like, we shouldn't be striving to like become
Speaker 1: this great, amazing person. And it's more we should strive
Speaker 1: to become comfortable with with our failures and our faults
Speaker 1: and our dysfunction. That's one element of that. Is another
Speaker 1: element of it that that I get from the story
Speaker 1: as an importance of authenticity, yeah, or honesty, And that's
Speaker 1: a that's like another point. Probably, So I want to
Speaker 1: quote you. It might be weird if I'm going to
Speaker 1: be quoting you a couple of times thout this interview
Speaker 1: to hear yourself, but I hope you could deal with it.
Speaker 1: So the key to a good life is not giving
Speaker 1: a fuck about more. It's about giving a fuck about
Speaker 1: giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate
Speaker 1: and important. You just maybe say the word fuck three
Speaker 1: times in word sentence thank you, and you had to
Speaker 1: send it call in to just like elongate the pain.
Speaker 1: I'm here to destroy your shows. Thanks a lot. Man.
Speaker 1: It felt slightly uncomfortable saying that, but but maybe that's
Speaker 1: your point. Maybe I should learn to become more comfortable.
Speaker 1: So yeah, can we a lot of ways? I thought
Speaker 1: that was kind of a big essence of the whole book,
Speaker 1: was that sentence, right, Yeah, Yeah, I again coming back
Speaker 1: to this idea of like a negative form of self help,
Speaker 1: like so much there's so much pressure on us, both
Speaker 1: in like the personal growth and self development industry, but
Speaker 1: also I think just in our culture at large, to
Speaker 1: always be striving for more, and there's just this implication
Speaker 1: that more is always better, So more success, more happiness,
Speaker 1: more stuff, you know, more better relationship, more relationships, more friendships,
Speaker 1: more money, you know. And I think there's there's a
Speaker 1: certain point, like it's good to have, you know, to
Speaker 1: strive for things and to want to accomplish things. But
Speaker 1: I think I almost think that our culture has kind
Speaker 1: of reached a point where it's it's becoming unhealthy a
Speaker 1: little bit, where this constant striving for more and more
Speaker 1: and more creates this feeling that we're never enough, and
Speaker 1: then that leads to a very like emotionally unhealthy place,
Speaker 1: or it doesn't necessarily lead, but it supports kind of
Speaker 1: like an unhealthy relationship with oneself. And I really love
Speaker 1: the idea, I mean, in my own life I've always
Speaker 1: found that when I kind of have these breakthroughs or
Speaker 1: these periods where I feel like I become a better person,
Speaker 1: it's usually because I'm simplifying my life rather than trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, become like the best at everything and do everything.
Speaker 1: And and so I really wanted to write, I guess,
Speaker 1: like a self help book about caring about less, like
Speaker 1: pursuing less. Yeah, and you know, you put a really
Speaker 1: fastenating spin on it. I mean obviously others have written
Speaker 1: about that, Like the word you know, deep work by
Speaker 1: Cal Newport is about getting deep into your work and
Speaker 1: ignoring distractions. And you know, uh ars, Charles duhig right
Speaker 1: wrote you know, Faster, Stronger whatever, the book that all
Speaker 1: the books called. I just I just I just had
Speaker 1: him on my podcast and I can't remember his name,
Speaker 1: so but he it's a good book. I just say
Speaker 1: it's a good book. Uh yeah. And it talks he
Speaker 1: talks a lot about and by the way, in the
Speaker 1: spirit of this, I'm not going to edit that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna let it all out in this podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be human, I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show that I'm human right be be authentic so that
Speaker 1: I'm getting Alzheimer's the age of thirty seven, I can't
Speaker 1: remember anything, okay, but yeah, and so so this is
Speaker 1: in the air, this idea of focus on what matters.
Speaker 1: But you know it is and you know when I
Speaker 1: reading your book, you know, I got new insights. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of the framing of this as caring less
Speaker 1: about the things that don't matter. Not just like caring less,
Speaker 1: but you know, like this aspect of of of of
Speaker 1: the paradox of everything that is positive as negative, and
Speaker 1: then pursuing the negative generates the positive. I mean that's
Speaker 1: like a really that is a counterintuitive idea, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so can you impack that quite that that a little more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually an idea that comes from Alan Watts
Speaker 1: and well, and he got the idea from from studying Buddhism.
Speaker 1: But you love Alan Watts. But he called it the
Speaker 1: backwards law, which is basically, the more you try to
Speaker 1: pursue positive experiences, that the pursuit itself is a negative
Speaker 1: experience because what you're doing when you're chasing after happiness
Speaker 1: or you're chasing after some kind of like ideal idealization.
Speaker 1: You're putting yourself in the state where you're you're not
Speaker 1: good enough already, where you're lacking something, where you're insufficient
Speaker 1: in some way. And counterintuitively, when you accept and embrace
Speaker 1: the negative parts of your life, the pain in your life,
Speaker 1: the struggle in your life, that acceptance or that embracing
Speaker 1: is itself a positive experience. And so there's something actually
Speaker 1: very liberating in acknowledging your own weaknesses or exposing your
Speaker 1: own insecurities because they don't they don't control you anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really like that. That's a common theme throughout the
Speaker 1: whole book of Relinquishing. There are a lot of power
Speaker 1: paradoxical ways where we really push that control and we
Speaker 1: get better outcomes without directly striving for it. And I
Speaker 1: really like that point a lot. I know it's another
Speaker 1: common theme throughout the whole book is the word entitlement.
Speaker 1: That seems to be a very common threat in almost
Speaker 1: every chapter. So what does Why is entitlement not a
Speaker 1: good thing? Well? I loosely define entitlement in the book,
Speaker 1: and it's funny you you noted that I had a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble choosing which word to put on this concept,
Speaker 1: and eventually I think my editor and I talked about
Speaker 1: it and we settle on entitlement. But the way I
Speaker 1: describe in my book is entitlement is basically a sense
Speaker 1: or belief that you deserve special treatment, or that you
Speaker 1: deserve something that you didn't necessarily earn or aren't responsible for.
Speaker 1: In the classic man of station of this is you know,
Speaker 1: it's all the like the articles shitting on millennials saying
Speaker 1: that you know, oh, these kids they demand they want
Speaker 1: to make six figure jobs, have six figure jobs without
Speaker 1: you know, working for it, and they want their parents
Speaker 1: to pay for their apartments and all this stuff like
Speaker 1: that's one form of entitlement. But in the book, I
Speaker 1: talk about entitlement more in terms of like it's kind
Speaker 1: of a figment of a delusional self perception. So people
Speaker 1: who have an irrational sense of how important they are
Speaker 1: or how good they are at things, and also people
Speaker 1: who have an irrational sense of how bad they are.
Speaker 1: So entitlement I describe like entitlement actually comes in two forms.
Speaker 1: You have two You have one group of people who
Speaker 1: says like, I'm amazing and everyone else sucks, so I
Speaker 1: deserve special treatment. And then you have another form of entitlement,
Speaker 1: which is I suck and everyone else is amazing, so
Speaker 1: I deserve special treatments. And the trick of like being
Speaker 1: a rounded human being is kind of like just realizing
Speaker 1: that you're actually not very special at all, and that
Speaker 1: pretty much all the pain and suffering that's going on
Speaker 1: in your life is going on in millions of other
Speaker 1: people's lives as well. But isn't that also to have
Speaker 1: a just have a realistic sense of self that's neither
Speaker 1: inflated or deflated, but just is what it is exactly,
Speaker 1: Because you know, in the psychological literature there's there's two
Speaker 1: forms of narcissism that map onto the two forms you
Speaker 1: just talked about. There's vulnerable or covert or closet narcissism,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, I'm really what was me, I'm horrible,
Speaker 1: I'm a victim. The world doesn't really realize how special
Speaker 1: I am. And then there's the grandiose form of narcissism,
Speaker 1: which is the other form you talk about. And it
Speaker 1: seems like the way forward is to not, yeah, just
Speaker 1: not be too inflated or too deflated. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: to just be grounded and and kind of humble, about it.
Speaker 1: And it's funny you pointed that out because I I
Speaker 1: originally wrote the book with narcissism as the term because
Speaker 1: I done some research on it, and I'm sure you
Speaker 1: came across the underground narcissist. Yeah. Yeah, I just made
Speaker 1: up that phrase. But yeah. But but when it got
Speaker 1: to like my editor was like, dude, you got to
Speaker 1: chill out on the narciss Like it's like, this isn't
Speaker 1: really that fun to read. It was like, is there
Speaker 1: another word of Like how about entitlement? How about entitled people?
Speaker 1: Is that that's like in all the headlines these days?
Speaker 1: But all right, But honestly, honestly, I say this, I
Speaker 1: say this, you know, seriously, I think you nailed. You
Speaker 1: nailed the core of it, because I actually just the
Speaker 1: last podcast I had it was with Kristin Dombek, who
Speaker 1: wrote the Selfishness of Others and actually putting up that
Speaker 1: episode after yours. I'm trying to get yours out quickly
Speaker 1: because of the book. But the listener, so the listener
Speaker 1: is listening to this right now, will be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: where's that episode? But no, you'll get it. But basically
Speaker 1: my conversation, oh my god, what was I going to say,
Speaker 1: just now, my god, wait, what do you say about
Speaker 1: talking about narcissism? And I have to use the word entitlement?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay. So christ and I were trying to
Speaker 1: talk about what is selfishness? What is the essence of narcissism?
Speaker 1: Is it just grandiosity? Well, no, it's not. We want
Speaker 1: people to have to have ambition. You know, having ambition
Speaker 1: is not narcissism. What about other common things that we
Speaker 1: tend to conflate with narcissm Well, vulnerability. Vulnerability is not
Speaker 1: necessarily narcissism. It could have But so it does seem
Speaker 1: like the core is entitlement. Uh So without even saying it,
Speaker 1: you know, without directly saying the word, I think you
Speaker 1: still nailed the core of it. So anyway, if you
Speaker 1: wanted any justification at all, Yeah, And it's it's it's
Speaker 1: funny because like I often have to stop myself from
Speaker 1: I mean, this book it's it's it's geared. The purpose
Speaker 1: of this book was very much written for like an
Speaker 1: individual person, but in the course of writing it, I
Speaker 1: often had to like stop myself like veering off into
Speaker 1: cultural commentary. Right, and and you're as you're I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're aware, and a lot of listeners are aware, Like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of discussion and research going on in
Speaker 1: terms of around the idea that our culture is becoming
Speaker 1: more narcissistic, particularly younger generations are becoming more narcissistic. And uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm absolutely fascinated by this topic and and so
Speaker 1: I try to touch on I tried to touch on
Speaker 1: it in a number of ways in the book that
Speaker 1: you know, wouldn't necessarily like set off alarm bells, trigger, trigger,
Speaker 1: But I do think it is something that is it's
Speaker 1: a legit thing that's going on, and I see it
Speaker 1: as is not necessarily uh, you know, like helicopter parenting
Speaker 1: or or whatever, but it's I think there's something kind
Speaker 1: of innate in all the technology these days, like having
Speaker 1: like having all this information. What I think what tends
Speaker 1: to happen is the technology selects information that or is
Speaker 1: heavily bias towards information that makes us feel good and
Speaker 1: that reaffirms our own biases and what we want to
Speaker 1: hear about ourselves. And I think that is what's leading
Speaker 1: to a culture of people who just feel like they
Speaker 1: deserve all this because you turn on the TV and
Speaker 1: It's like a Budweiser is telling you like you deserve
Speaker 1: to be happy this weekend. And I think that stuff
Speaker 1: starts to sink in after a while. Hey, let me
Speaker 1: ask you a question, because I've read, you know, Brandon's
Speaker 1: work all the self esteem, his books on self esteem
Speaker 1: and stuff, and he says high self esteem is not
Speaker 1: being entitled to happiness, but feeling as though you're you're
Speaker 1: worthy of happiness. That does seem like a good thing
Speaker 1: to me, to be worthy to feel like, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's I'm allowed. But maybe that's different than entitled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think entitled is that I deserve
Speaker 1: yes and good and I and I think I think it's.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing I try to get across in
Speaker 1: my book, it's that like it's okay, yeah, like everybody
Speaker 1: deserves to be happy sometimes, but you you don't deserve
Speaker 1: to be happy all the time. You don't everybody like
Speaker 1: life is full of problems, it's full of suffering, it's
Speaker 1: full of struggle, and and nobody is above that. Hey,
Speaker 1: speak for yourself, man, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm happy
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, do not see my golden crusted
Speaker 1: water bottle here, I'm joking to the readers. To the listeners,
Speaker 1: listen to readers. No, it's a great point. So you know,
Speaker 1: you got me thinking about all sorts of things in
Speaker 1: this book. You talk about how people you know don't
Speaker 1: give a fuck, They just do it, like they stop
Speaker 1: thinking about it at a point, do it. And you
Speaker 1: know it does apply to social anxiety, Like, can we
Speaker 1: clearly link this to social anxiety for a second, because
Speaker 1: you do talk about your personal's personal struggles. And I
Speaker 1: want to be very honest here, I have I struggle
Speaker 1: with this too, very much, and I actually find humor
Speaker 1: is like the best tool for me to overcome it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you found that has been helpful
Speaker 1: in your own battle with the social anxiety. But this
Speaker 1: idea of just doing it and kind of letting the
Speaker 1: feedback from whatever action you just took kind of guide
Speaker 1: you then to the next action without just planning it
Speaker 1: all ahead of time. I love this idea. I love
Speaker 1: it well. It's so throughout the book. I've got a
Speaker 1: I've got a few different chapters in the book where
Speaker 1: I try to and again the book is very negative focused,
Speaker 1: so I have a chapter based on all about being wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's one area that people, like, there's
Speaker 1: some people that are just really terrified of being wrong
Speaker 1: about something or people finding out that they're wrong about something.
Speaker 1: And then I have a chapter on failure, and then
Speaker 1: I have a chapter on rejection, and I have a
Speaker 1: chapter on death, and it's I chose these these topics
Speaker 1: as chapters because, like, the overarching goal of the book
Speaker 1: is to get people to stop seeing these things as
Speaker 1: bad things. To stop seeing being wrong is a bad thing,
Speaker 1: to stop seeing being rejected is a bad thing. And
Speaker 1: sure it feels bad, but just because it feels bad
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean it is bad for your life. And
Speaker 1: I think where a lot of this anxiety comes from,
Speaker 1: Like you said, social anxiety, it comes with the meaning
Speaker 1: that we attach to the social rejection. And I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but like for me personally, when I
Speaker 1: struggled with social anxiety in my early twenties and my teens,
Speaker 1: and looking back, I think it's because I had this
Speaker 1: kind of narrative in my head that if I, like
Speaker 1: went to a party or something, or if I sat
Speaker 1: down in class next to somebody and tried to talk
Speaker 1: to them and they didn't want to talk to me.
Speaker 1: That necessarily meant that I was not They didn't think
Speaker 1: I was cool enough or smart enough, or which may
Speaker 1: have been true, which may have been true, which may
Speaker 1: who cames a fuck? Yeah, yeah exactly. And but I
Speaker 1: had this whole narrative in my head of like that
Speaker 1: every single social interaction was like this judgment on my
Speaker 1: character as a human being. And it wasn't until I
Speaker 1: let that go that I just realized that. You know, like,
Speaker 1: first of all, if you walk into a room at
Speaker 1: a party, half the people there are just as anxious
Speaker 1: as you are, and that could have all It's like
Speaker 1: nobody's going to, like if you'd like spill mustard on
Speaker 1: your shirt or something like, nobody's going to remember it
Speaker 1: in ten minutes, you know. And it's just it's like
Speaker 1: relinquishing these these these stories that we tell ourselves in
Speaker 1: this eating that we create around this stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know you talk about you know, seeking, you saw
Speaker 1: validation through lots of sexual experiences, just like the numbers
Speaker 1: as opposed to the quality. Right. Yeah, didn't you write
Speaker 1: a book about models about how to get a model? No?
Speaker 1: I wrote a book called Models Attract Women through Honesty.
Speaker 1: So I started out, my career started out, I wrote
Speaker 1: dating advice, Oh so interesting, primarily for men. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and so that was that was kind of an extension
Speaker 1: of my own fixation on my sex life. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, so this has been quite a journey
Speaker 1: for you then, like it leading up to this, Like
Speaker 1: you couldn't like this book you wrote, couldn't have probably
Speaker 1: in terms of order of your life, probably wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been as rich if you wrote before the Model's book. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I was completely unprepared. Yeah, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been able to. Yeah, but in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: like you needed that in order to make this book
Speaker 1: what it is, right, So that's really cool. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you said you don't know if this it was like
Speaker 1: this for me, and I feel like you're being so vulnerable,
Speaker 1: like I should be honest as well. Yeah. I felt
Speaker 1: for my especially in my twenties, like if I were
Speaker 1: if I went on dates and stuff and I felt
Speaker 1: like the girl didn't look like she was interested. That
Speaker 1: I became so preoccupied with that that it didn't even
Speaker 1: dawn to me to ask myself, am I happy with her? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like I spend an entire date thinking like something's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? Why isn't she interested? And then trying to
Speaker 1: make a relationship work just so that I get validated,
Speaker 1: and that I wasn't even happy in the relationship, And
Speaker 1: so it never even like dawned in me to ask,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, an't I allowed? Again? Not entitled, but allowed?
Speaker 1: Aren't I allowed to not be happy with this person myself?
Speaker 1: I don't know if you resonate with that at all,
Speaker 1: but oh totally. I actually wrote I wrote an article
Speaker 1: years ago, probably like twenty ten. Yeah, it was called
Speaker 1: change your Mind about Dating, and it was basically the
Speaker 1: entire article was like, next time, if you're worrying if
Speaker 1: the person across from you likes you, maybe stop and
Speaker 1: ask yourself if you like them. You're worried that it's great,
Speaker 1: I don't think you're attractive, stop and ask yourself if
Speaker 1: you think they're attractive. It just went through like a
Speaker 1: laundry list of these questions. Yeah, basically, just like, stop
Speaker 1: worried about yourself for a while, right right, because think
Speaker 1: about the person in front of you. Because the universe
Speaker 1: has does have a funny way of working itself out
Speaker 1: in a sense that there's probably a reason there, like
Speaker 1: if this person seems wholly uninterested in you, like there
Speaker 1: might be like a reason there in the sense like
Speaker 1: it might not be a good fit. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you're a crumb a shitty person. By the way,
Speaker 1: if it's not a good fit, you know, it means
Speaker 1: it's not a good fit. Like just stop there, you know, like, yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: that's really cool. So you talk about happiness, which is
Speaker 1: I mean, this is cool. Like I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know anything about me or whatever, but I'm in
Speaker 1: the field called positive psychology. I do research on this,
Speaker 1: you know, Like so is some of the field of
Speaker 1: posit psychology talks about various aspects of all being, which
Speaker 1: is not just happiness. Is also meaning purpose relationships, good
Speaker 1: quality relationships, like values. You talk about about dues, a
Speaker 1: lots of things you're told you're definitely interested in, But
Speaker 1: happiness seems to be disproportionately focused on in popular self
Speaker 1: help books and things you're right, you're right like pulled
Speaker 1: out as like even though it's only one source of
Speaker 1: well being, you know, but you know, it does get magnified.
Speaker 1: So when you wrote this chapter happiness is a problem,
Speaker 1: I was like, first of all, I was like, yeah, go,
Speaker 1: you know, Mark Manson, No, it's really cool. So you
Speaker 1: frame happiness as so finding a problem to solve can
Speaker 1: just not organically lead to happiness. Is that right? Without
Speaker 1: like just saying I'm buying a book on how to
Speaker 1: be happy? Yeah, it's uh. I really wanted to find
Speaker 1: a way. And it's funny, I struggled. I struggled like
Speaker 1: putting words around this concept for a long time, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately I kind of landed on the problem language.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to find a way to kind of
Speaker 1: just demonstrate that that happiness requires some degree of struggle
Speaker 1: in your life. Like it's not like like if you
Speaker 1: just want to feel good all the time. And I know,
Speaker 1: like in positive psychology, you guys, you differentiate between like
Speaker 1: pleasure and fulfillmentonia. Yeah, yeah, and and so I I
Speaker 1: wanted to make that distinction clear. And then I also
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of make make the point that like
Speaker 1: if you think about everything in your life that makes
Speaker 1: you happy, it's there's some sort of like struggle or
Speaker 1: low level problem solving that's involved. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a sense of accomplishment requires overcoming some sort of resistance,
Speaker 1: you know, a sense of satisfaction with yourself requires some
Speaker 1: some perception that like you've overcome something or grown from something.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted and I feel like most of
Speaker 1: the self help stuff out there, it focuses on happiness
Speaker 1: in such a way and that people are just running
Speaker 1: away from what makes them feel bad. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's a bunch of tools that if you stand in
Speaker 1: front of a mirror and say them, or if you
Speaker 1: go to a seminar and repeat after me, like, you'll
Speaker 1: feel good for a while. And and I just I
Speaker 1: saw that as it's just offering kind of I guess
Speaker 1: you'd say, like the hethonic solution, like just the pleasure
Speaker 1: based solution. And I wanted to try to offer the
Speaker 1: I'm totally gonna mispronounce it that you did monic solution.
Speaker 1: I think I think different people honestly pronounce the different ways.
Speaker 1: I say, you pnemonia, but yeah, but it's I wanted to, like,
Speaker 1: I wanted to show that like a lasting long term
Speaker 1: happiness or satisfaction with oneself, is it requires these struggles
Speaker 1: in your life, It requires challenge and pain, and is
Speaker 1: it comes from how you deal with it. But you
Speaker 1: also make the point that you it also you have
Speaker 1: to choose your struggles wisely. Yeah, you know, because a
Speaker 1: lot there are a lot of struggles that are really
Speaker 1: so stupid. I'm just because like you know, like like
Speaker 1: like I I've chosen, and we don't realize we can choose.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a word. I just made that up.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can realize, like you know what,
Speaker 1: Like I keep replaying and ruminating my head over and
Speaker 1: over again, like what is this person like when I
Speaker 1: said that earlier today, Like oh my gosh, maybe they
Speaker 1: misinterpreted it. Oh my gosh, maybe like I'm not like
Speaker 1: I should have said this and that. Can I just decide,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to choose to struggle with
Speaker 1: that today. Yeah, I don't know. I never know what's
Speaker 1: going to come out of my mouth. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: so are you Can you give me permission? Mark Manson
Speaker 1: too when I kind of get in this like ruminative
Speaker 1: existential rut sometimes or not even existential, because sometimes those
Speaker 1: are actually good issues, but just like a stupid problem
Speaker 1: that I can just be like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: going to choose that one. Just don't give a fuck
Speaker 1: about it many like it's yeah, yeah, it all comes
Speaker 1: back to that. Yeah, I mean I joke with people
Speaker 1: like I've been so I've been doing it. I've been
Speaker 1: doing a bunch of interviews about this and people, you know,
Speaker 1: the you it wasn't your first question, but it was
Speaker 1: like a lot of like the more generic interviews, Like
Speaker 1: the first thing comes out of their mouth is they're like, so,
Speaker 1: why shouldn't we give a fuck about things? And I
Speaker 1: what I end up telling him was, I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: I wanted to write a book about values, but nobody's
Speaker 1: going to go out and buy a book about values,
Speaker 1: so but so, especially especially a bunch of like struggling
Speaker 1: millennial kids. So I needed to start. I needed to
Speaker 1: couch it in this this language of like not giving
Speaker 1: fucks and being a big badass to get to get
Speaker 1: people start asking themselves these questions about like what is
Speaker 1: important in my life? Like what do I value? What
Speaker 1: do I care about? Why do I care about this?
Speaker 1: Should I? Is it worth it? It's so evident to
Speaker 1: me that that is the core of the book. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, and especially when you get you get to
Speaker 1: the latter parts of your book, you talk about the
Speaker 1: difference in good values and shitty values, and it's it's like, ah,
Speaker 1: this is really like what his heart is you know,
Speaker 1: into here. Yeah, it's a lot. I mean it's to
Speaker 1: me at least, it's evident. Yeah. So you talk about
Speaker 1: that like emotions are overrated, and but what you really
Speaker 1: mean there is not emotions are like we should be psychopaths?
Speaker 1: Is you? You? Your I mean, your book is hilarious.
Speaker 1: So you make a point there about how like I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you should be empty inside? You know, that
Speaker 1: would mean you're really fucking psychopath. What I'm saying, what
Speaker 1: you're saying is that the meaning we are with like
Speaker 1: letting emotions control our lives is overrated pretty much, right, Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: I think people put generally put too much emphasis on
Speaker 1: their emotions, and I think there's a number of influences
Speaker 1: in the culture that kind of encourage people to to
Speaker 1: overemphasize their emotions. And and yeah, it's it's not that
Speaker 1: emotions aren't important. It's just that they are one piece
Speaker 1: of our psychological puzzle that we need to like pay
Speaker 1: attention to. It's it's it's an important part of of
Speaker 1: I guess use the the your term well being. But
Speaker 1: it's it's not the whole pie itself. Absolutely, No, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a great point that kind of needs to
Speaker 1: be made. I I just want to pick some other
Speaker 1: sort of sentences because it's pretty cool. I don't Sometimes
Speaker 1: I read like a couple of paragraphs and then I'll
Speaker 1: type like one sentence summary of it. So I read
Speaker 1: about three pages and then I realized the one in
Speaker 1: the summary of it was accept your mundane existence. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and I and I will just that phrase asself.
Speaker 1: So can you unpack those three pages for me? But
Speaker 1: I but for podcasts. I thought for podcast purposes. If
Speaker 1: I knew that if I just said that sentence, it
Speaker 1: would it would spring a lot of what you were saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny, this this idea. I became really intrigued with
Speaker 1: this idea about a year and a half ago. I
Speaker 1: actually wrote an article called in Defense of Being Average,
Speaker 1: and the whole article was kind of like encouraging people
Speaker 1: to not try to be so extraordinary all the time.
Speaker 1: But where this actually started, where it came from, is
Speaker 1: you know, like get I get tons of reader emails
Speaker 1: through my website and my audience at Skews Younger. But
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it's pretty broad but I'd say
Speaker 1: the bulk of it is like people in their twenties, twenties,
Speaker 1: early thirties. And I noticed I was getting tons and
Speaker 1: tons of emails from like college kids, people just out
Speaker 1: of school, people who are like twenty six, twenty seven,
Speaker 1: figuring out their career. And they would they would send
Speaker 1: me their like people can't see me, but I'm doing
Speaker 1: air quotes, their quote problem in their life, And basically
Speaker 1: the only problem was they had these astronomical expectations for themselves.
Speaker 1: I think they saw like way too many movies or
Speaker 1: like YouTube videos of people just doing incredible shit all
Speaker 1: the time, and and they were upset. Like they would
Speaker 1: they would describe their life and I'm like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is a really smart, successful, upper middle class twenty five
Speaker 1: year old who's doing great. And then they would they
Speaker 1: but they would talk about it as if their life
Speaker 1: was just this utter failure and that they had like
Speaker 1: everything they were and they were doing was kind of worthless.
Speaker 1: And it just intrigued me that the bar for some
Speaker 1: people was being pushed so high and why that was happening,
Speaker 1: and why that's not that that's like not necessarily like
Speaker 1: a healthy thing. And I know, for for me personally,
Speaker 1: like I used to get really excited, Like I used
Speaker 1: to love astronomy in school, and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: I loved it was just how massively, like if you
Speaker 1: spend an hour contemplating how massive the universe is, you
Speaker 1: start feeling so insignificant yourself. And for some reason that
Speaker 1: always felt like very liberating for me, because it really
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized, you know, like when you start thinking
Speaker 1: about like how big the galaxy is for an hour
Speaker 1: and then you think back to like the stupid thing
Speaker 1: you said to the cute girl after lunch, like you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: that really doesn't matter, Like it's like such a like
Speaker 1: a non issue in terms of universe. It's so well,
Speaker 1: but you know it doesn't matter to the universe, but
Speaker 1: yeah it could matter. I mean it's like all it's
Speaker 1: all you have, though, Yeah, it's like oh yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's by the way, I lay in my bed all
Speaker 1: night thinking about this stuff too, so yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: like you get to choose what it means, you know,
Speaker 1: Like it's no, there's no like definitive law saying like
Speaker 1: you're a dork because you like embarrass yourself in front
Speaker 1: of an attractive person. And at least when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I always found this like very all mean in a
Speaker 1: weird way and all what do you say? Call mean?
Speaker 1: Call oh call me? Got yeah, call mean? And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I think it's important to just remember,
Speaker 1: like how inconsequential ninety percent of our actions are. And
Speaker 1: you have a very existential philosophical approach to life, yeah,
Speaker 1: or stoic as well, yes, yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: I tend to as well, which I think is why
Speaker 1: I resonated so much with this book. And but it
Speaker 1: also the humor of the book is very essential too, right,
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I can't explain it, but it is. That's
Speaker 1: just what it is. It's it is, right, It's it's
Speaker 1: you're aware, you're of the absurdity. You're of the meta
Speaker 1: absurdities of existence or not of existence, of of what
Speaker 1: what we put you know, the kind of things that
Speaker 1: we worry about, you know, in our existence. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's very freeing too. Yeah. So you probably could have
Speaker 1: been a comedy writer as well, right, in a different
Speaker 1: career maybe, I mean, it's I mean, especially if you
Speaker 1: look at some of the articles on my site, like
Speaker 1: it's there's a lot of comedy in there, and and
Speaker 1: I feel like i've honestly, I feel like some of
Speaker 1: my biggest influences are people like like George Carlin and
Speaker 1: John Stewart. It's like, like I I grew up loving
Speaker 1: Carlin not just because of how funny he was, but
Speaker 1: like he could take like a really deep, insightful, kind
Speaker 1: of painful philosophical point and show it to you and
Speaker 1: just make you laugh your ass off while hearing it.
Speaker 1: You know, like he could like change your life while
Speaker 1: you're laughing about it. And I always loved that. And Stuart.
Speaker 1: I felt like Stuart was really good at doing that
Speaker 1: with like world events and politics and things like that.
Speaker 1: So I draw a lot of inspiration from those guys. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And you know, the in the ego defense or the
Speaker 1: defense mechanism literature, you know, they have they label all
Speaker 1: these defenses like immature defenses like projection and displacement all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and then you have neurotic defenses. But one
Speaker 1: of the mature defenses is humor, and in that exact way,
Speaker 1: not in a way that puts yourself down, but puts
Speaker 1: things in perspective by magnifying it. You know, in the
Speaker 1: other direction. So, yeah, you have a good coping mechanism
Speaker 1: to the reality of it, of existence, which is that
Speaker 1: re existence is inevitably shitty, right, totally, Like I mean, well,
Speaker 1: it's like no extanded cause doesn't exist, or finding out
Speaker 1: for the first time. What if some of our listeners
Speaker 1: for the first time are finding out, you know, that
Speaker 1: that their existence is really shitty and insignificant. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: my apology. I guess the point is it's supposed to inspire,
Speaker 1: inspire them to Well, well, you would be the first
Speaker 1: one to say the point in this book is not
Speaker 1: to inspire you. But I think I think as an outcome,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to offend your sensibilities, but I
Speaker 1: would say your book could be inspirational as an as
Speaker 1: an unintentional outcome, because it lets you kind of relax. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I see it. I see my work in general as
Speaker 1: it's Yeah, it's not inspiring it and in fact, like
Speaker 1: it's it should be uncomfortable to read sometimes for people,
Speaker 1: And I get those emails a lot that people are
Speaker 1: like this, this was hard to read. Oh, I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'm going to get shut down. I'm sure my podcast
Speaker 1: will get shut down after this interview because all the appos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I I see this stuff as liberating. I mean
Speaker 1: it comes back to the the kind of the original
Speaker 1: point that like embracing the negative aspects of your life
Speaker 1: actually frees you from them. And and so if you
Speaker 1: can find a way that like you can like hold
Speaker 1: somebody's hold, a reader's hand or a listener's hand and
Speaker 1: like guide them into that place to do it, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's through humor or storytelling or whatever. Like I
Speaker 1: think it's a very liberating thing. Like one of my
Speaker 1: one of the most popular articles on my site is
Speaker 1: an article it's called love is Not Enough, And I
Speaker 1: get emails from people who are like I cried from
Speaker 1: like sadness reading this. But it's also one of the
Speaker 1: most you know, important things I've read from my relationship
Speaker 1: or my marriage or whatever, because it's just it's it's shocking,
Speaker 1: but like they need to hear it, so I'll have
Speaker 1: to read that one. Yeah, it's uh, it's funny. I
Speaker 1: did another interview I did the listeners won't understand this reference,
Speaker 1: so you can just edit it out. Like I did
Speaker 1: another interview I did. The guy was like, oh, so
Speaker 1: you are disappointment Panda like, Oh, yeah, that's your that's
Speaker 1: that's who you are. I'm like, yeah, that's your superhero.
Speaker 1: You're you're the superhero. Yeah. And but for the record,
Speaker 1: I actually have this cheeky idea I'm gonna just be
Speaker 1: the first psychology podcast episode that's one hundred percent raw
Speaker 1: and uncut. So I'm just gonna leave it all. I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna leave. I think I'll do that. I
Speaker 1: love it. But now that I've said that, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be the now actually cant of for the next twenty minutes. No,
Speaker 1: but now that, now that I'm my conscious of that
Speaker 1: that I made that decision. But no, what, so what
Speaker 1: is the difference between good value and a shitty value? What?
Speaker 1: What is the difference? So, yeah, this is where it
Speaker 1: gets nerdy and philosophical because it's so I mean, let
Speaker 1: me just preface this by saying that anybody, anybody listening
Speaker 1: to this who wants to write a book about values, uh,
Speaker 1: don't because it's like, it's such it's such an abstract
Speaker 1: concept to describe and and and like boil down into
Speaker 1: like like example, because everything when you reach that level
Speaker 1: of abstractions, like everything relates to everything and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure, Like especially you being in like academia,
Speaker 1: like you probably run into this all the time. But like,
Speaker 1: uh I my definition of good values versus bad values
Speaker 1: is good values are reality based, socially constructive, and they're
Speaker 1: immediately controllable by you. Bad values are superstitious, socially destructive,
Speaker 1: and not immediate or controllable. And you can take that
Speaker 1: in like so many different directions that we're just like
Speaker 1: we're just like smoking pots someday and like and you're like,
Speaker 1: what are good better? I mean, how does how do
Speaker 1: you come up with that? Like it makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense, but how did you? Yeah, it took a
Speaker 1: long time. Well, I mean I knew so valuing things
Speaker 1: that are immediately immediate, controllable like that that is self
Speaker 1: help one on one. So any self help seminar you
Speaker 1: go to people are like, you know, you should only
Speaker 1: care about things you can control or you can you know,
Speaker 1: if if something's out of your control, then just like
Speaker 1: let it go, don't let it affect you or whatever.
Speaker 1: I added the socially constructive socially destructive because one of
Speaker 1: the big problems I have with the self help industry
Speaker 1: in general is that it takes a bunch of miserable
Speaker 1: people and turns them into narcissistic, feel good people who
Speaker 1: unknowingly or unintentionally like maybe a little bit socially destructive
Speaker 1: in their behaviors. Would you say a lot of the
Speaker 1: gurus who write the books have the same exact personality profile.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I definitely think that there's got to be there's
Speaker 1: a common threat there somewhere. There's definitely some sort of like,
Speaker 1: let me just put it this way, I think self
Speaker 1: help gurus as a population would score extremely high on
Speaker 1: the narcissistic personality as or whatever. Okay, I just I agree.
Speaker 1: I agree, But I just got something in my head
Speaker 1: that I'm want to run it by you, because I
Speaker 1: don't It's just entered my head, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: It could be not true. You talk, really, you talk
Speaker 1: the best interesting way. You say that the person who
Speaker 1: likes playing the victim and the person who is deeply
Speaker 1: insecure and depends on other on helping others for their
Speaker 1: own sense of self esteem and value, they actually tend
Speaker 1: to go well together. But it's a very destructive relationship.
Speaker 1: Is that the relationship that we're talking here about the
Speaker 1: guru and the I just thought of that for that,
Speaker 1: I just thought of that. But I does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It's a codependent relationship? Could that be true? It doesn't
Speaker 1: in my opinion. It doesn't just apply to relationships. You
Speaker 1: can see it in friendships. You can see it in
Speaker 1: family relationships. You can see and you could see it
Speaker 1: in and self help guru client relationships. And I used
Speaker 1: to so I used to do uh, used to be
Speaker 1: used to be I I flirted with gurudom earlier in
Speaker 1: my career and I quickly developed a distaste for it,
Speaker 1: and I try to avoid it now. But it's weird
Speaker 1: because when you when your whole job is to write
Speaker 1: about life advice, it's a sticky situation. But I used
Speaker 1: to us. I used to do some some like personal
Speaker 1: consulting with people. And I noticed that I would get
Speaker 1: clients that they basically just wanted me to save them,
Speaker 1: like they wanted they were willing to sit, to do
Speaker 1: or try any like crazy half baked idea I had,
Speaker 1: and and it made me one, it made me uncomfortable
Speaker 1: having that much power and responsibility. But two, I I
Speaker 1: quickly started to realize that like that itself was their
Speaker 1: problem was that they were looking for somebody to come
Speaker 1: save them rather than trying to work on saving themselves.
Speaker 1: And and as soon as I realized that, I realized
Speaker 1: that I was also part of their problem, and therefore
Speaker 1: the best thing I could do for them is to
Speaker 1: just refuse their money and not not work with them anymore.
Speaker 1: So I ended, I ended. I stopped doing personal consulting
Speaker 1: years ago, and that and that was one of the
Speaker 1: big reasons why. Yeah, makes a lot, a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of other sense, and I, yeah, I think there's
Speaker 1: such a good linkage there. And cool, Well, thanks for
Speaker 1: letting me just play that idea out and discuss it
Speaker 1: with me, because I think there is something there with
Speaker 1: that relationship. Yeah, I do so like that. Yeah, it's unhealthy.
Speaker 1: Was it Spider Man who said that with great power
Speaker 1: comes great responsibility? It's Uncle Ben? Uncle Okay, so uncle
Speaker 1: I think some people attribute that to Spider Man. But
Speaker 1: so Uncle Ben said that. But you're saying Uncle Ben
Speaker 1: was off his rocker. He uh, he kind of got
Speaker 1: that mixed up. Yes, he had it backwards the whole time.
Speaker 1: Uncle Ben had it backwards. Senility. Yes, so let's not
Speaker 1: let's not speak poorly of the dead. Do you mean
Speaker 1: the fictional dead. The fictional dead uncle Ben died a
Speaker 1: very tragic death. Okay, fair enough, we shouldn't be too
Speaker 1: harsh on it enough, but yeah, it's uh. I actually
Speaker 1: I heard this, and of all places, I heard this
Speaker 1: in a marketing seminar, somebody said. Somebody was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you flip those around it also, it makes even
Speaker 1: more sense with great response, with great responsibility comes great power.
Speaker 1: And I was like, WHOA mind blown because that that
Speaker 1: just and I don't think, yeah you said it. He
Speaker 1: was talking about, like I don't know, buying Google ads
Speaker 1: or something, but like as soon as he said that,
Speaker 1: I was like, that applies to so much psychologically in life,
Speaker 1: Like this is huge, and uh yeah, well could you
Speaker 1: explain to the reader what that what that means about
Speaker 1: the importance of accepting responsibility. So it basically it's I
Speaker 1: have a chapter on the chapter is called you are
Speaker 1: Always Choosing, and I make the point that and it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very classic, I guess life advice point,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, no matter what happens to you,
Speaker 1: no matter how bad things get, no matter how victimized
Speaker 1: you are, you always you're always able to choose both
Speaker 1: the meaning you attach to the event and also your response,
Speaker 1: how you react what's going on around you. And so
Speaker 1: in fact, we're always choosing in every moment. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like if if a car hits you and you
Speaker 1: end up in the hospital like you didn't, it's not
Speaker 1: your it's not your fault that a car hit you,
Speaker 1: but it's still your responsibility to deal with that car
Speaker 1: hitting you. And so in a sense, we are. It's
Speaker 1: it's this radical form of responsibility that we are always
Speaker 1: responsible for every moment of our life, everything that happens
Speaker 1: in our life, because we are always responsible for making
Speaker 1: the choices of how we react to everything. And and
Speaker 1: there's a there's a huge sense of personal empowerment that
Speaker 1: comes with that, and in that sense that we are
Speaker 1: we are in control of our own destiny and that
Speaker 1: and that we always have some sort of influence on
Speaker 1: the events of our lives. Are you there? I am?
Speaker 1: I am? Okay? Oh? Were you done talking? I was
Speaker 1: the cadence of that laws it didn't didn't feel like
Speaker 1: it was. It was done. I won't edit this out.
Speaker 1: I won't out you were deep in thought about your
Speaker 1: next question? Yes? Yes, so can you repeat the last
Speaker 1: sentence you said, a crap, what was the last sense
Speaker 1: it was? Uh? I mean basically, and and I think
Speaker 1: you find this in the the literature as well, the
Speaker 1: psychological literature is that like people, people need to feel
Speaker 1: a sense that like they have some degree of control
Speaker 1: over their own lives, and that the more they feel
Speaker 1: they're able to like affect what's going on in their life,
Speaker 1: the the you know, the better they feel about their life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: self efficacy, that's what psychologist would call Albert Bandora would
Speaker 1: call it self efficacy. Uh. But also you know, you
Speaker 1: are you are very existential because you know a lot
Speaker 1: of the like Sauter, a lot of people talked about
Speaker 1: there was the points of taking responsibility. So yeah, actually
Speaker 1: I got this idea. I didn't mention him in the book,
Speaker 1: but I read some starter in college. I don't even
Speaker 1: remember what it was, but he talked about how like
Speaker 1: you are responsible for everything that happens in your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I remember that was. That was one of those
Speaker 1: like nineteen year old mind blow blown moments for me,
Speaker 1: you know, like sitting in my dorm room hung over, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is amazing. Yeah, no, it is.
Speaker 1: It is quite profound when you understand the applications of
Speaker 1: it fully. Yeah. Yeah, So you talk about the importance
Speaker 1: of saying no and the and and the importance with
Speaker 1: that of being committed to things you do want to
Speaker 1: say yes to, whether it's a relationship partner, whether it's
Speaker 1: a job, et cetera, and the kind of freedom that
Speaker 1: comes from that. And that's also a very existential point
Speaker 1: as well. But could you collaborate a little bit more
Speaker 1: on what might be a counterti about the relationship between
Speaker 1: commitment and freedom. So, one thing I in my when
Speaker 1: I was younger, I very much Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: let's get this out there. I've always been a commitment fobe.
Speaker 1: It's like it's been one of my most sensitive areas
Speaker 1: in my life. And I think, as kind of a
Speaker 1: side effect of that, my ambitions when I was younger
Speaker 1: were generally all outwardly directed and directed towards like an
Speaker 1: accumulation of experiences or events or whatever, you know. So
Speaker 1: it was I wanted to travel the world, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to travel like everywhere and do everything. And in
Speaker 1: my personal relationships, I wanted to have like tons and
Speaker 1: tons of friends and date tons and tons of women
Speaker 1: and learn a bunch of languages and study this subject
Speaker 1: and stuff multiple businesses and do all this stuff and
Speaker 1: and so it was this constant process in my life
Speaker 1: of jumping from one thing to another. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of uh, there's a lot of language in our
Speaker 1: culture that that sees that as freedom. You know, the
Speaker 1: idea that you can go like you can start an
Speaker 1: online business and go live anywhere in the world, and
Speaker 1: you can teach yourself anything and work your own hours
Speaker 1: and all this stuff like this is it's a very
Speaker 1: conventional notion of freedom. And I was a little bit
Speaker 1: obsessive with this kind of interpretation of like a freedom
Speaker 1: and living life that way. And but eventually, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you start to mature a little bit and you and
Speaker 1: you realize, like, wait a second, Like if I ever
Speaker 1: want to get like really really good at something, I
Speaker 1: need to work on it for a long time and
Speaker 1: get good at it. Or if I want to build
Speaker 1: like a really great business or a great career, I
Speaker 1: need the buckle down and like put a couple of
Speaker 1: decades into it. And similarly, I met my my fiance,
Speaker 1: and I was like I started to realize once I'd
Speaker 1: been with her for a while that it's there's there's
Speaker 1: this whole there's this whole level of experience that you
Speaker 1: don't achieve without like it's depth based basically, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: we everything. All the freedom that I the ideas of
Speaker 1: freedom that I had bought into when I was younger,
Speaker 1: were based on like a breath of experience and a
Speaker 1: breath of options, Whereas there are some things in life
Speaker 1: that you just you simply can't access unless you've worked
Speaker 1: on it for ten years or less. There's or a
Speaker 1: relationship that you've had for ten twenty years, Like, there's
Speaker 1: just certain parts of the human experience that you can't
Speaker 1: access without that commit And that realization for me was
Speaker 1: a real game changer. It was. It was very eye
Speaker 1: opening for me because it kind of went against I
Speaker 1: guess you would say the the way that all the
Speaker 1: stuff that I had been telling myself for years due
Speaker 1: to like my insecurities. No, that makes a lot of sense. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for being so honest about all that. Yeah, dude, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's part of it. Yeah, No, I agreed, Absolutely agreed.
Speaker 1: So let's this has been an extremely long interview and
Speaker 1: but the extremely interesting and I want to end with
Speaker 1: the fitting topic of death. Yeah, well, hopefully none of
Speaker 1: those will die the second after this podcast is over.
Speaker 1: Yeah wait wait till podcast is all ye die? Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, or buy my book didn't die. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that was narcissistic thing to say, but so, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm really happy you bring up Ernest Becker's book. Ernest,
Speaker 1: I guess Ernest Becker's book, And yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: I found it a profound, profound book as well, And
Speaker 1: and I think it's really interesting that he wrote that
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years of his life and
Speaker 1: maybe only get that kind of work out of out
Speaker 1: of it when when you kind of your your your
Speaker 1: your your mortality is so salient. But what what do
Speaker 1: you get? What do you what? What do you what?
Speaker 1: What does death acceptance by you? I guess how I
Speaker 1: would ask that, I think, I mean, and this was
Speaker 1: Becker's point is that, well Becker's Becker's kind of his
Speaker 1: whole point was that a lot of what we think
Speaker 1: is so important or the things that we cling to
Speaker 1: in our life desperately, which we often cling to them
Speaker 1: because it's it's our way of feeling as though we
Speaker 1: can become immortal or escape death, that we can create
Speaker 1: something or create some sort of influence that will outlive
Speaker 1: our physical selves. And and Becker pointed out that a
Speaker 1: lot of this that clingage to something, to some you know,
Speaker 1: ideology or movement or piece of work or whatever, actually
Speaker 1: leads to a lot of the violence and strife and
Speaker 1: suffering that happens in the world. And he basically kind
Speaker 1: of ended on the note that it's the more comfortable
Speaker 1: we get with you know, we're never going to be
Speaker 1: completely comfortable with our own our own death, but the
Speaker 1: more we think about it and make some space for it,
Speaker 1: I think, I think when I die, I'll feel pretty comfortable.
Speaker 1: Do you think so when I'm actually dead? Oh well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a joke. So it was a joke, but
Speaker 1: it Yeah, if we make some space for thinking about
Speaker 1: our own death, it I think it does two things. One,
Speaker 1: it helps us relinquish some of like the more like
Speaker 1: like fervent beliefs or impulses that we have. And then
Speaker 1: two it also it puts things in perspective. You know.
Speaker 1: I actually I had a friend recently who somebody close
Speaker 1: to them just died, and uh, she it inspired her
Speaker 1: to basically like in her marriage, and but she talked
Speaker 1: about it. It It wasn't like a negative thing. It was
Speaker 1: just like wow, Like my friend's death showed me, Ah
Speaker 1: showed me that what was actually real in my life
Speaker 1: and what was in all like the bullshit that I'd
Speaker 1: been telling myself for years and years and years. It has,
Speaker 1: death like has some ability to just clarify things for people.
Speaker 1: And I think I think most people who who've experienced,
Speaker 1: who have been close to death before, I've experienced that
Speaker 1: in some sense, like they you know, again, the book
Speaker 1: is about values, and so it's death is the single
Speaker 1: thing that that shines a very bright light on your
Speaker 1: values and whether they're they're really worth it or not.
Speaker 1: That's pretty uh pretty, I mean, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: It's also you know, it's profound. But I think people
Speaker 1: who have first hand faced that mortality definitely will resonate
Speaker 1: a lot with what you're saying. So, you guys, this question,
Speaker 1: you say, is this it? You know, like you talk
Speaker 1: about the sunny side of death is testing? You know,
Speaker 1: when framing it, you always want to end your whole
Speaker 1: book on a on a a positive note. You know,
Speaker 1: the sunny side of death? Is this it? You know,
Speaker 1: when you said, is this it. It reminded me I
Speaker 1: read a blog post of yours once that had stuck
Speaker 1: in my mind. You say something like, and then there's
Speaker 1: just the silence. Yeah, do you remember what blog post
Speaker 1: that was? I think you kind of like ended the
Speaker 1: whole blog post with that. I did. It's funny. I
Speaker 1: I have a weird habit of getting extremely existential and yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. I don't nowhere I'll have a blog
Speaker 1: post about like yeah, and then there's silence, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then and then all have a paragraph that just kind
Speaker 1: of like, oh, by the way, you know that that
Speaker 1: dating that we were just talking about it means nothing
Speaker 1: because the universe is ever expansive. Yeah, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't remember, but I have. I have a handful
Speaker 1: of articles that sure throw stuff like that in and
Speaker 1: and it's just yeah, I don't know, like sometimes I
Speaker 1: just get this. I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker 1: I I so I got really into zen Buddhism for
Speaker 1: a while, and and so I'm very I'm very influenced
Speaker 1: by that. And I remember there used to be this
Speaker 1: feeling that I would get when I would I would
Speaker 1: go do like meditation retreats, or I would listen to
Speaker 1: like Dharmatox, and every once in a while I would
Speaker 1: kind of like enter this state. It's not even I
Speaker 1: can't even say it's a feeling, because it wasn't an emotion.
Speaker 1: It was just this. It was this level of awareness
Speaker 1: of that I guess I was able to just see
Speaker 1: like the impermanence of everything, yes, and be able to
Speaker 1: observe everything within myself and also without myself in like
Speaker 1: just kind of a very indifferent way. And I think
Speaker 1: that there are just moments where I just get really
Speaker 1: into like writing something very philosophical, that that state kind
Speaker 1: of washes over me again. And and I talk about
Speaker 1: in that chapter that that one thing that brings me
Speaker 1: back to that place is like putting myself in these
Speaker 1: kind of crazy situations that make me think about my
Speaker 1: own death. And so yeah, sometimes it just comes out
Speaker 1: and it's and you know, one of the great things
Speaker 1: about being a blogger is you don't have like an
Speaker 1: editor screaming at you, telling you're crazy and you have
Speaker 1: to delete all this stuff, and so I just say
Speaker 1: fuck it. I mean, I put it up. But it's
Speaker 1: funny because I did stick in my head and I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, I must have read that a while ago,
Speaker 1: and and yet you know, that's what. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the rest of the post, but that, yeah, right, that
Speaker 1: really sticks in my head. You know, do you feel
Speaker 1: are you like me as well? Where are you like?
Speaker 1: Because I I do try to practice mindfulness, meditation and
Speaker 1: things and and and read on zen and stuff, but
Speaker 1: it kind of makes me snap back and forth between
Speaker 1: two modes of thought, one where I'm like I am
Speaker 1: human and I'm experiencing the world, and the other where
Speaker 1: I'm the observer and I'm standing outside of my body
Speaker 1: and it's like I can they're they're dratically different things
Speaker 1: like when you're in like you know, in a club
Speaker 1: or whatever and you're like doing normal human things. Like
Speaker 1: you don't want to always be existential about it because
Speaker 1: at some point you won't be happy if if you
Speaker 1: never actually exist be you know like like like say
Speaker 1: stupid things to all one or do something stupid like
Speaker 1: sometimes you want to do that, right, Yeah, but then
Speaker 1: you'll snap back into you know, observer of your self
Speaker 1: mode and then it just changes the whole frame of
Speaker 1: reference of everything. Yeah. It's a it's a weird thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I never I was always wary I never
Speaker 1: like got fully aboard the the Buddhist meditation train and
Speaker 1: went like hardcore about it. And I think, I think
Speaker 1: what you just said is kind of the thing that
Speaker 1: prevented me is because and who knows, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: if you talk to a zen master, they would probably
Speaker 1: say like, oh, yeah, that's your ego like resisting its
Speaker 1: own death, and uh, that's that's their answer for everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, like excuse me, excuse me, can you
Speaker 1: give me directions to wah wah, And They'll be like,
Speaker 1: that's your ego preventing the existence everyone, do you like, uh,
Speaker 1: oh okay, but yeah, but yeah, I just I I
Speaker 1: always had this kind of the same as you, like
Speaker 1: this overwhelming sense of like well yeah, but like I
Speaker 1: need to like live my life, you know. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: you just gotta like deuce like normal human things, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and be in it, be in it versus
Speaker 1: be above it. Yeah yeah, And I mean what I wish.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, I've tried to maintain like
Speaker 1: a casual meditation practice for years and I'm horrible at it.
Speaker 1: I think most people are horrible at it. Like I
Speaker 1: go months without doing it and I'm always telling myself,
Speaker 1: I should do it, and it's really something about it.
Speaker 1: It's really really hard to do, but I know how,
Speaker 1: like I know how beneficial, not just in terms of
Speaker 1: like health and energy and things like that, it is
Speaker 1: incredibly beneficial, but also like having that perspective occasionally it's
Speaker 1: it's really nice to go back to that place, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's kind of I was talking earlier
Speaker 1: about being an astronomy class, like trying to conceptualize how
Speaker 1: big the universe actually is and how that put me
Speaker 1: in a state like it was very similar where you
Speaker 1: have that you just zoom out so far that it's
Speaker 1: called the overview effect. Yeah, yeah, well that I mean
Speaker 1: that's what one technology. Yeah, in psychology, my colleague David
Speaker 1: yayden Is is studying that and has this virtual reality
Speaker 1: system that he puts on people and where you see,
Speaker 1: you're this see it from that vantage point of an
Speaker 1: astronaut in space. You just see that little pale dot,
Speaker 1: or you see the universe of Earth and you're and
Speaker 1: it changes your perspective after being in that virtual reality environment.
Speaker 1: It didn't didn't the there was some astronaut who said
Speaker 1: something like that, Oh yeah, who said or maybe there
Speaker 1: are multiple of them, but I don't remember what, but
Speaker 1: I think there are multiple astronauts who are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like going like absolutely seeing the Earth from far away,
Speaker 1: it changed changed my beliefs, changed my perspective on everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where this came from. That's where this came from.
Speaker 1: This because they wanted to study it and the laboratory
Speaker 1: and be like, well, because it's hard to be an astronaut.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so like they thought it'd be easier to
Speaker 1: put a virtual reality thing on your head. But it
Speaker 1: seems like anyone could benefit from that change in perspective.
Speaker 1: Can I ask, are there people who have like adverse
Speaker 1: reactions to that? Like are there people that like get
Speaker 1: freaked out and scared or It's a great question. I'll
Speaker 1: have to ask my colleague. I'll like follow up with
Speaker 1: you an email about that. But I'm not sure. I
Speaker 1: I know that I personally when I you know, because
Speaker 1: he took me, my friend David, you know, he brought
Speaker 1: me in his in his office is like try this,
Speaker 1: and and to me it was it was pretty all inspiring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, me too. I don't know. Maybe, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I had like cheeked questions afterwards for him
Speaker 1: like you know, along the lines of like like I mean,
Speaker 1: like you could imagine something being like really narcissistic or
Speaker 1: something and not getting from it like oh wow, well
Speaker 1: how significant I am. But like, wow, look at all
Speaker 1: those suckers like an Earth and I'm I'm out of
Speaker 1: affording in space motherfuckers. Yeah, look at all those people
Speaker 1: that I'm better than. Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. But so
Speaker 1: I want to have this interview because it's been a
Speaker 1: really long interview, and I look, I want to say
Speaker 1: to my listeners who are still with us, like, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for getting going through this journey that
Speaker 1: we just had, and hope you are okay with the
Speaker 1: f bombs and we'll listen to future episodes of the
Speaker 1: Psychology podcast. But I want to end with one thing.
Speaker 1: So you in the sunny side of death. I think
Speaker 1: a big sunny side of it is something you say,
Speaker 1: this is the basic root of all happiness? And what
Speaker 1: is this? That's a great question. Let me pull out
Speaker 1: my book. It's so funny because like this keeps happening.
Speaker 1: So I wrote this book. I spent two years with
Speaker 1: this book, wrote it, edited it multiple times. It actually
Speaker 1: got to the point by like the fifth pass through,
Speaker 1: I was like completely sick of it. And this was
Speaker 1: back maybe like six months ago. And so once it
Speaker 1: was done done, like, I haven't read it in like
Speaker 1: six months, and so I keep getting questions. They're like,
Speaker 1: you know, so MARKT chapter three, you tell us what
Speaker 1: the most important thing about this is? What is that?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't know, I know, I know
Speaker 1: what you mean. I know, I know you mean though, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let me read it for you. Yeah. Please. The only
Speaker 1: way to be comfortable with death is to understand and
Speaker 1: see yourself as something bigger than yourself. To choose values
Speaker 1: that stretch beyond serving yourself, that are simple and immediate,
Speaker 1: controllable and tolerant of the chaotic quade around you. So
Speaker 1: it seems to me, you go, you return back to
Speaker 1: the values at the end of the day as being
Speaker 1: the basic root of all happiness. Yeah, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: I another way to think about it is, I think
Speaker 1: values are like the fundamental unit of human psychology in
Speaker 1: a way like it's it's because our ability to think
Speaker 1: about anything or feel about anything, I think comes back
Speaker 1: to how relatively important or unimportant we consider it to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so in a sense. I see them as like
Speaker 1: literally the building block of not only our identity but
Speaker 1: also our human experience. And and so I think, and
Speaker 1: that's never going to change. And so I think the
Speaker 1: questions that I raised in this book of developing that
Speaker 1: ability to question what you're giving a fuck about? What
Speaker 1: are you finding it important? What do you care about?
Speaker 1: That is literally I think I even I like jokingly
Speaker 1: say in chapter one, but I'm only kind of joking
Speaker 1: as I say, it is literally the most important question
Speaker 1: of your life. And yeah, I think it comes back
Speaker 1: to that. So and making sure that you choose the
Speaker 1: the best values, yeah, or healthy one healthy ones? Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and it's I I really I try to be
Speaker 1: delicate in the book about not choosing values for people
Speaker 1: because I really don't. I don't like that and I
Speaker 1: don't think I but you do give examples of shit
Speaker 1: of what you call shitty values. So yeah, and and
Speaker 1: they tend to be and they tend to be like
Speaker 1: pretty obvious. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like chasing money
Speaker 1: is a pretty shitty value to have. And I think
Speaker 1: I think everybody kind of knows that, and there's lots
Speaker 1: of research about that. Yeah, I think that I think it.
Speaker 1: It gets so like I'm willing to kind of make
Speaker 1: statements about stuff like that, but you know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, everybody, everybody's different, and everybody's you know,
Speaker 1: psychology is different, their biology is different, their experiences are different,
Speaker 1: their culture is different. So I try not to specifically
Speaker 1: boil down like here are the six most important values
Speaker 1: in your life, and here's my twelve step method to
Speaker 1: make you a happy person. It's it's really just I
Speaker 1: want to be the person who gets people to ask
Speaker 1: these questions for themselves, because I think most people don't,
Speaker 1: or at least they don't do it very often, and
Speaker 1: or they don't do it in a very conscious way.
Speaker 1: So that's really just the goal of the book is
Speaker 1: to get people to look at their values, look at
Speaker 1: what they care about, and decide if it's helping them
Speaker 1: or hurting them. And everything else I present is really
Speaker 1: just it's it's I guess, just principles to follow in
Speaker 1: terms of doing that. You know, it's like these tend
Speaker 1: to be what these these values, these types of values
Speaker 1: tend to create more happiness, These types of values tend
Speaker 1: to create more misery. Evaluate your own life and choose
Speaker 1: at your own discretion. I really like that approach. Mark,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for chatting with me today, and good
Speaker 1: luck with the book. Thanks Scott, it's been great being here.
Speaker 1: It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott barrk Kaufman. I hope
Speaker 1: you found this episode just as thought for booking and
Speaker 1: interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the
Speaker 1: show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you
Speaker 1: can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com.