okay so if you’re suffering you are
obligated in a sense to hold on to
whatever rope someone throws you and one
of the things I do with my clients all
the time especially if they’re really in
trouble is to tell them look I don’t
know exactly what’s gonna have you but
don’t arbitrarily throw out any
possibilities because you might not have
that luxury antidepressants help a lot
of people and there are technical
reasons why that’s the case so that’s a
simple answer it’s not relevant to what
I already described except that if
you’re offered a gift by your society
and it works try it I don’t care what
your presuppositions are apart from that
lots of the lots of time lots of the
time you see people who are suffering
with depression for example there’s a
multitude of reasons but I’ll take one
common reason you can think about it as
associated with the story of Peter Pan a
Peter Pan is someone who won’t grow up
right now the problem with Peter Pan is
he gets to be king but it’s king of
Neverland
Neverland doesn’t exist so being king of
nothing isn’t that helpful well one of
the things that you often see with
people who suffer from depression and
and I’m not making a blanket statement
about the cause of depression because
there’s lots of them is that people who
don’t have enough order in their life
tend to get overwhelmed so for example
if someone comes into me and sees to see
me and they say they’re depressed I
always ask them a very standard set of
questions do you have a job if you don’t
have a job you’re really in trouble in
our society first of all you your
biological rhythms tend to go off the
rails right away because there’s no
reason to go to bed at any particular
time and there’s no reason to get up and
for many people if they don’t get up at
the same time they follow up the
functioning of their circadian rhythms
and that’s enough to make them depressed
right off the bat especially if they
start napping during the afternoon they
don’t also don’t have a purpose people
aren’t good without a purpose and this
isn’t this isn’t hypothesizing we
absolutely understand the circuitry that
underlies positive emotion when you’re
attending to something you’re interested
in and you’re engaged if that’s when
you’re alive that’s when life is
worthwhile it’s so worthwhile that in
those moments you don’t even ask the
question about it the question itself
goes away because the meaning that
you’re Li United with this
powerful that it can push back the
adversity that would otherwise
characterize life Nietzsche said the
person who has a Y can bear anyhow we
know how it works almost all the
positive emotion that any of you are
likely to experience in your life will
not be a consequence of attaining things
it will be a consequence of seeing that
things are working as you proceed
towards a goal you value that’s
completely different and you need to
know this because people are often
stunned for example they finish their
PhD thesis and their presupposition is
that they’re going to be elated for a
month and often instead they’re actually
depressed and they think hell I’ve been
working on this for seven years and I
handed it in why do I do now and that’s
what depresses them right it’s the what
do I do now well they’re fine if they
enjoyed it
pursuing the thing as long as it was
working out they get a lot of enthusiasm
and excitement over that because that’s
how our nervous systems work most of
your positive emotion is goal pursuit
emotion if you take drugs like cocaine
or amphetamine the reason they’re
enjoyable is because they turn on the
systems that help you pursue goals
that’s why people like them so if you
don’t have a job you got no structure
that’s not good plus you tend not to
have a point
so you’re overwhelmed by chaotic lack of
structure and you don’t have any
positive emotion assuming you want to
get better there’s usually something you
can figure out that would constitute a
step towards some sort of concrete goal
and my presumption it’s a behavioral
presumptions fundamentally is that small
accruing gains that repeat unbelievably
powerful
you can tyrannize yourself into doing
things but I wouldn’t recommend it what
I would recommend instead is that you
ask yourself what you’re willing to do
it’s a really effective technique it’s
like a meditative technique so for
example you can get up in the morning
and you can think well you know I’d like
to have a good day today so I’d like to
go to bed tonight without feeling guilty
because I you know didn’t do some things
I said I was gonna do and I you know I’d
like to have kind of an interesting day
so you got to fulfill my
responsibilities and I want to you know
enjoy the day then you can ask yourself
well okay what would I have to do in
order for that to happen that I would do
and the probability if you practice this
for three or four days is your brain
will just tell you say well you know
there’s that piece of homework that you
haven’t done for like three weeks you
should knock that sucker off because it
would only take you ten minutes and
you’ve been avoiding it and torturing
yourself to death for
you know like like 72 hours straight and
say well let’s figure out what your aims
are you got to have some aims whatever
they are and they might say well I’m so
depressed I don’t have any aims and then
I say well pick the least objectionable
of the aims and act it out for a while
and see what happens because sometimes
your emotions your emotional systems are
so fouled up that you have to pretend
you have to act the thing out before you
can start to believe it
life can be meaningful enough to justify
its suffering if a god that’s such a
good idea because it’s not optimistic
exactly you know some people tell you
what you can be happy it’s like those
people are idiots I’m telling you
they’re idiots there’s gonna be things
that come along that flatten you so hard
you won’t believe it and you’re not
happy then and so if life is to be happy
well in those situations what are you
doing well I even live but light isn’t
life isn’t to be happy if you’re happy
your bloody fortunate and you should
enjoy it you should because it’s the
grace of God so to speak with regards to
to meaning I thought well people know
when they’re doing something meaningful
they can tell some why the hell don’t
they do meaningful things all the time
it seems obvious you could do it I mean
it’s hard you know because other people
want you to do other things and it’s a
struggle but everything’s a struggle and
then I thought well oh I get it I see
why it took me about ten years to figure
this out people have a choice choice
number one nothing you do means anything
well that’s kind of a drag right
meaninglessness of life and all that
existential angst you know that’s kind
of a pain but the upside of nothing that
you do be meaning is meaningful is you
don’t have to do anything
you’ve got no responsibility now you
have to suffer because things are
meaningless but that’s a small price to
pay for being able to be completely
useless the alternative the alternative
is everything you do matters really if
you make a mistake it’s a real mistake
if you betray someone you tilt the world
a little more sharply towards evil
rather than good it matters what you do
well if you buy that then you can have a
meaningful life but there’s no mucking
around it means responsibility it means
that the decisions you make are
important it means that when you do
something wrong it’s wrong well do you
want that you know if you take people
and you expose the
voluntarily to things that they are
avoiding and are afraid of you know that
they know they need to overcome in order
to meet their goals their self defined
goals if you can teach people to stand
up in the face of the things they’re
afraid of they get stronger and you
don’t know what the upper limits to that
are because you might ask yourself like
if for ten years if you didn’t avoid
doing what you knew you needed to do
what would you be like well you know
there are remarkable people who come
into the world from time to time and
there are people who do find out over
decades long periods what they could be
like if they were who they were if they
spoke their being forward and they be
get stronger and stronger and stronger
and we don’t know the limits to that we
do not know the limits to that probably
running at about 51% of our capacity
something mean you can think about this
yourselves I often ask undergraduates
how many hours a day you waste or how
many hours a week you waste and the
classic answer is something like four to
six hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done that’s
probably four hours right there no you
think well that’s 2025 hours a week it’s
a hundred hours a month that’s two and a
half full work weeks it’s half a year of
work weeks per year and so if your life
isn’t everything it could be you could
ask yourself well what would happen if
you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
ten times more efficient
twenty times more efficient that’s the
Pareto distribution you have no idea how
efficient efficient people get it’s
completely it’s off the charts it’s not
so obvious to me that people would take
the meaningful path now when you say
well nihilist suffered dreadfully
because there’s no meaning in their life
and they still suffer yeah but the
advantages they have no responsibility
so that’s the payoff and I actually
think that’s the motivation say well I
can’t help being nihilistic all my
belief systems have collapsed it’s like
yeah maybe maybe you’ve just allowed
them to collapse because it’s a hell of
a lot easier than acting them out and
the price you pay is some meaningless
suffering but you can always whine about
that and people will feel sorry for you
if you live a pathological life you
pathologize your society and if enough
people do that then it’s hell you’re
asked to outline the place you’d like to
end up which is your desired future and
also the place that you could end up if
you let everything fall apart is so that
your anxiety chases you and your
approach systems pull you forward
you’re maximally motivated bit and it’s
important because otherwise you can be
afraid of pursuing the things that you
want to pursue right and that’s very
common and so then the fear inhibits you
as the promise pulls you forward but it
makes you weak because you’re afraid you
want to get your fear behind you pushing
you and so what you want to be is afraid
more afraid of not pursuing your goals
than you are of pursuing them putting
yourself in a challenging mind frame is
much better much easier on you cycle
physiologically because you don’t
produce you don’t go into the
generalized stress response to the same
degree and you’re activating your
exploratory and seeking systems which
are dopaminergic Lee mediated and that
involve positive emotion so if you can
face something voluntarily rather than
having it chase you it’s way better for
you psycho physiologically so that’s
partly why well it’s worthwhile to go
find the dragon in its lair instead of
waiting for it to come and eat you so
and especially when you also add the
idea that if you go find the dragon in
its lair you might find it when it’s a
baby instead of a full-fledged bloody
monster that is definitely gonna take
you down don’t avoid small problems that
you know are there face them because
they’ll grow into big problems all by
themselves and you can think about
imagine the tax department sends you a
notification you owe them like three
hundred dollars well it’s you know
that’s annoying maybe you don’t even
want to open the letter or maybe if you
do you just put it on the shelf but that
damn thing doesn’t just sit there like a
piece of paper on the Shelf right you
ignore that for five or six years it’s
gonna become attached to all sorts of
horrible things and if you ignore it
long enough you get the idea it’s gonna
turn into something that is completely
unlike the little piece of paper that
it’s written on and and many many
problems in life are like that you’ll
see they’ll you’ll see that
they popped their ugly little head up
and you know and you might want to turn
away my not a want not want to think
about it which is the easiest way of
turning away right you just don’t attend
to it you know if you could have your
life the way you wanted it in three to
five years if you were taking care of
yourself properly you know what would
you want from your friendships what
would you want from your intimate
relationship how would you like to
structure your family what do you want
for your career well how are you going
to use your time outside of your job and
how are you gonna regulate your mental
physical mental and physical health and
maybe also your drug and alcohol use
because that’s that’s a good place to
auger down you know because alcoholism
for example wipes out you know five to
ten percent of people so you want to
keep that under control and then and
then so maybe you know you you you
develop a vision of what your life what
you would like your life to be and that
associates the so the goal well once the
goal is established and then you break
down the goal into micro processes that
you can implement the micro process has
become rewarding in relation to their
causal association with the goal and
that tangles in your your incentive
reward system and that’s the thing that
keeps you moving forward and the way it
works is that it works better if it
produces positive emotion when it can
see you moving towards a valued goal
okay well what’s the implication of that
better have a valued goal because
otherwise you can’t get any positive
motivation working out and so the more
valuable the goal in principle the more
the micro process is associated with
that goal start to take on a positive
charge and so what that means is well
you get up in the morning and you’re
excited about the day you’re ready to go
and so as far as I can tell what you do
is you specify your long term ideal
maybe you also specify a place you want
to stay the hell away from so that
you’re terrified to fail as well as
excited about succeeding because that’s
also useful you specify your goal you do
that you do that in some sense as a
unique individual you want to you want
to specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you
do anything and the answer to that has
to be because you’ve determined by some
means that it’s worthwhile number one
specify your damn goals because how are
you gonna hit something if you don’t
know what it is that isn’t going to
happen and often people won’t specify
their goals too because they don’t like
to specify conditions for failure so if
you keep yourself all vague and foggy
which is real easy because that’s just a
matter of not doing as well then you
don’t know when you fail and people
might say well I really don’t want to
know when I fail because that’s painful
it so I’ll keep myself blind about when
I fail that’s fine except you’ll fail
all the time then you just won’t know it
until you’ve failed so badly that you’re
done ok so once you get your goal
structure set up you think ok if I could
have this life looks like that might be
worth living despite the fact that it’s
going to be you know anxiety provoking
and threatening and there’s gonna be
some suffering and loss involved in all
of that obviously the goal is to have a
vision for your life such that all
things considered that justifies your
effort ok so then what do you do well
then then you turn down to the micro
routines it’s like ok well this is what
I’m aiming for how does that instantiate
itself day to day week to week month to
month and that’s where something like a
schedule can be unbelievably useful
Google Calendar
it’s like naked am schedule and stick to
it ok so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have to follow
a schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do it’s like wrong set
the damn schedule up so that you have
the day you want what’s the right ratio
of responsibility to reward and you can
ask yourself that just like you’d
negotiate with someone who is working
for you it’s like ok guy work tomorrow
ok so I want you to work tomorrow and
you might say ok well what are you gonna
do for me that makes it likely that I’ll
work for you well you could ask yourself
that you know maybe you do an hour of
responsibility and then you play a video
game for 15 minutes I don’t know
whatever turns your crank man but you
know you have to negotiate with yourself
and not
tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that you would like to be productive
and have a good life and and that’s how
you make the schedule it’s like and then
you look at the day and you think well
if I had that day that’d be good great
you know and you you’re useless and
horrible so you’ll probably only hit it
with about 70 percent accuracy but that
beats the hell out of zero right and if
you hit it even with 50 percent accuracy
another rule is well aim for 51 percent
the next week or 50 and a half percent
for God’s sake or because you’re gonna
hit that position where things start to
loop back positively and spiral you
upward and so so that’s one way that you
can work on your conscientiousness
there’s a plan of life you’d like to
have the other way you do that is by
having a little conversation with
yourself about as if you don’t really
know who you are because you know what
you like you won’t do what you’re told
you won’t do what you tell yourself to
do you must have noticed that it’s like
you’re a bad employee and a worse boss
and both of those work you know for you
you don’t know what you want to do and
then when you tell yourself what to do
you don’t do it anyway so you should
fire yourself and find someone else to
beat but but you know my point is is
that you have to understand that you’re
not your own servant so to speak you’re
someone that you have to negotiate with
and that’s and you’re someone that you
want to present the opportunity of
having a good life to and that’s hard
for people because they don’t like
themselves very much so you know they’re
always like cracking the whip and then
procrastinating and cracking the whip
and then procrastinating and it’s like
god it’s so boring and such a pathetic
way of spending your time and you know
what that’s like because you probably
waste like six hours a day and I think
we did an economic calculation about
that a while back right your time is
probably worth 50 bucks an hour
something like that I mean you’re not
getting paid that now but you’re young
and so this is investment time and what
you do now is going to multiply its
effects in the future so so let’s say
it’s 50 bucks an hour which is perfectly
reasonable so if you waste six hours a
day and you are then you’re wasting
about two thousand dollars a week or
about $100,000 a year so like go ahead
but that’s what it’s costing you every
hour and you need to know what your damn
time is worth so let’s say it’s not 50
bucks it’s 30
whatever maybe it’s a hundred it’s
somewhere in that range one of the
things you should be asking yourself is
when you spend an hour was that well
what have I paid someone 50 bucks to
have had that hour and if the answer is
no it’s like well maybe you should do
something else with your time and it
depends on whether or not you think that
your time is worthwhile but the funny
thing about not assuming that is if you
assume your time isn’t worthwhile what
happens is you don’t just sit around
sort of randomly in a state of
responsibility list bliss what you do is
you suffer existentially and so that
seems like a stupid solution
imagine someone that you treat well that
you love then try to treat yourself that
way you got to detach from yourself a
bit you got to think okay well I’m a
person among other people and I deserve
at least as much respect as a person
among other people and I should be
trying to help myself across time and
instead of being self contemptuous and
self-destructive I need to take care of
myself
as if I’m potentially valuable and to
lay out my life that way and so that’s
what that’s that chapter is about and
it’s it it’s hard for people you know
they don’t take care of themselves as
well as they should and I don’t mean you
know take care of yourself I mean that
is what I mean it’s like it’s not a
moralistic attack it’s like it’s an
encouragement to give yourself a bit of
the benefit of the doubt and it means
take care of your room take care of your
things like have some respect for
yourself as a as a well I would say in
some sense as a miraculous being because
that is actually what you are there is a
lot of potential within you and there’s
many things that you can do and you’re
necessary you’re necessary more than you
think to the unfolding of things like if
you make a bunch of bad decisions things
get worse not just for you like things
get worse and maybe way worse like I
don’t know what mistakes talons mother
made you know and she brought he didn’t
necessarily think they were that
important but it turned out they were
pretty important mm-hmm you don’t know
how your
actions echo and so it matters what you
do and and so part of what you do is you
want to treat yourself as if what you do
matters
obligated in a sense to hold on to
whatever rope someone throws you and one
of the things I do with my clients all
the time especially if they’re really in
trouble is to tell them look I don’t
know exactly what’s gonna have you but
don’t arbitrarily throw out any
possibilities because you might not have
that luxury antidepressants help a lot
of people and there are technical
reasons why that’s the case so that’s a
simple answer it’s not relevant to what
I already described except that if
you’re offered a gift by your society
and it works try it I don’t care what
your presuppositions are apart from that
lots of the lots of time lots of the
time you see people who are suffering
with depression for example there’s a
multitude of reasons but I’ll take one
common reason you can think about it as
associated with the story of Peter Pan a
Peter Pan is someone who won’t grow up
right now the problem with Peter Pan is
he gets to be king but it’s king of
Neverland
Neverland doesn’t exist so being king of
nothing isn’t that helpful well one of
the things that you often see with
people who suffer from depression and
and I’m not making a blanket statement
about the cause of depression because
there’s lots of them is that people who
don’t have enough order in their life
tend to get overwhelmed so for example
if someone comes into me and sees to see
me and they say they’re depressed I
always ask them a very standard set of
questions do you have a job if you don’t
have a job you’re really in trouble in
our society first of all you your
biological rhythms tend to go off the
rails right away because there’s no
reason to go to bed at any particular
time and there’s no reason to get up and
for many people if they don’t get up at
the same time they follow up the
functioning of their circadian rhythms
and that’s enough to make them depressed
right off the bat especially if they
start napping during the afternoon they
don’t also don’t have a purpose people
aren’t good without a purpose and this
isn’t this isn’t hypothesizing we
absolutely understand the circuitry that
underlies positive emotion when you’re
attending to something you’re interested
in and you’re engaged if that’s when
you’re alive that’s when life is
worthwhile it’s so worthwhile that in
those moments you don’t even ask the
question about it the question itself
goes away because the meaning that
you’re Li United with this
powerful that it can push back the
adversity that would otherwise
characterize life Nietzsche said the
person who has a Y can bear anyhow we
know how it works almost all the
positive emotion that any of you are
likely to experience in your life will
not be a consequence of attaining things
it will be a consequence of seeing that
things are working as you proceed
towards a goal you value that’s
completely different and you need to
know this because people are often
stunned for example they finish their
PhD thesis and their presupposition is
that they’re going to be elated for a
month and often instead they’re actually
depressed and they think hell I’ve been
working on this for seven years and I
handed it in why do I do now and that’s
what depresses them right it’s the what
do I do now well they’re fine if they
enjoyed it
pursuing the thing as long as it was
working out they get a lot of enthusiasm
and excitement over that because that’s
how our nervous systems work most of
your positive emotion is goal pursuit
emotion if you take drugs like cocaine
or amphetamine the reason they’re
enjoyable is because they turn on the
systems that help you pursue goals
that’s why people like them so if you
don’t have a job you got no structure
that’s not good plus you tend not to
have a point
so you’re overwhelmed by chaotic lack of
structure and you don’t have any
positive emotion assuming you want to
get better there’s usually something you
can figure out that would constitute a
step towards some sort of concrete goal
and my presumption it’s a behavioral
presumptions fundamentally is that small
accruing gains that repeat unbelievably
powerful
you can tyrannize yourself into doing
things but I wouldn’t recommend it what
I would recommend instead is that you
ask yourself what you’re willing to do
it’s a really effective technique it’s
like a meditative technique so for
example you can get up in the morning
and you can think well you know I’d like
to have a good day today so I’d like to
go to bed tonight without feeling guilty
because I you know didn’t do some things
I said I was gonna do and I you know I’d
like to have kind of an interesting day
so you got to fulfill my
responsibilities and I want to you know
enjoy the day then you can ask yourself
well okay what would I have to do in
order for that to happen that I would do
and the probability if you practice this
for three or four days is your brain
will just tell you say well you know
there’s that piece of homework that you
haven’t done for like three weeks you
should knock that sucker off because it
would only take you ten minutes and
you’ve been avoiding it and torturing
yourself to death for
you know like like 72 hours straight and
say well let’s figure out what your aims
are you got to have some aims whatever
they are and they might say well I’m so
depressed I don’t have any aims and then
I say well pick the least objectionable
of the aims and act it out for a while
and see what happens because sometimes
your emotions your emotional systems are
so fouled up that you have to pretend
you have to act the thing out before you
can start to believe it
life can be meaningful enough to justify
its suffering if a god that’s such a
good idea because it’s not optimistic
exactly you know some people tell you
what you can be happy it’s like those
people are idiots I’m telling you
they’re idiots there’s gonna be things
that come along that flatten you so hard
you won’t believe it and you’re not
happy then and so if life is to be happy
well in those situations what are you
doing well I even live but light isn’t
life isn’t to be happy if you’re happy
your bloody fortunate and you should
enjoy it you should because it’s the
grace of God so to speak with regards to
to meaning I thought well people know
when they’re doing something meaningful
they can tell some why the hell don’t
they do meaningful things all the time
it seems obvious you could do it I mean
it’s hard you know because other people
want you to do other things and it’s a
struggle but everything’s a struggle and
then I thought well oh I get it I see
why it took me about ten years to figure
this out people have a choice choice
number one nothing you do means anything
well that’s kind of a drag right
meaninglessness of life and all that
existential angst you know that’s kind
of a pain but the upside of nothing that
you do be meaning is meaningful is you
don’t have to do anything
you’ve got no responsibility now you
have to suffer because things are
meaningless but that’s a small price to
pay for being able to be completely
useless the alternative the alternative
is everything you do matters really if
you make a mistake it’s a real mistake
if you betray someone you tilt the world
a little more sharply towards evil
rather than good it matters what you do
well if you buy that then you can have a
meaningful life but there’s no mucking
around it means responsibility it means
that the decisions you make are
important it means that when you do
something wrong it’s wrong well do you
want that you know if you take people
and you expose the
voluntarily to things that they are
avoiding and are afraid of you know that
they know they need to overcome in order
to meet their goals their self defined
goals if you can teach people to stand
up in the face of the things they’re
afraid of they get stronger and you
don’t know what the upper limits to that
are because you might ask yourself like
if for ten years if you didn’t avoid
doing what you knew you needed to do
what would you be like well you know
there are remarkable people who come
into the world from time to time and
there are people who do find out over
decades long periods what they could be
like if they were who they were if they
spoke their being forward and they be
get stronger and stronger and stronger
and we don’t know the limits to that we
do not know the limits to that probably
running at about 51% of our capacity
something mean you can think about this
yourselves I often ask undergraduates
how many hours a day you waste or how
many hours a week you waste and the
classic answer is something like four to
six hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching
things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don’t even
care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you’re done that’s
probably four hours right there no you
think well that’s 2025 hours a week it’s
a hundred hours a month that’s two and a
half full work weeks it’s half a year of
work weeks per year and so if your life
isn’t everything it could be you could
ask yourself well what would happen if
you just stopped wasting the
opportunities that are in front of you
you be who knows how much more efficient
ten times more efficient
twenty times more efficient that’s the
Pareto distribution you have no idea how
efficient efficient people get it’s
completely it’s off the charts it’s not
so obvious to me that people would take
the meaningful path now when you say
well nihilist suffered dreadfully
because there’s no meaning in their life
and they still suffer yeah but the
advantages they have no responsibility
so that’s the payoff and I actually
think that’s the motivation say well I
can’t help being nihilistic all my
belief systems have collapsed it’s like
yeah maybe maybe you’ve just allowed
them to collapse because it’s a hell of
a lot easier than acting them out and
the price you pay is some meaningless
suffering but you can always whine about
that and people will feel sorry for you
if you live a pathological life you
pathologize your society and if enough
people do that then it’s hell you’re
asked to outline the place you’d like to
end up which is your desired future and
also the place that you could end up if
you let everything fall apart is so that
your anxiety chases you and your
approach systems pull you forward
you’re maximally motivated bit and it’s
important because otherwise you can be
afraid of pursuing the things that you
want to pursue right and that’s very
common and so then the fear inhibits you
as the promise pulls you forward but it
makes you weak because you’re afraid you
want to get your fear behind you pushing
you and so what you want to be is afraid
more afraid of not pursuing your goals
than you are of pursuing them putting
yourself in a challenging mind frame is
much better much easier on you cycle
physiologically because you don’t
produce you don’t go into the
generalized stress response to the same
degree and you’re activating your
exploratory and seeking systems which
are dopaminergic Lee mediated and that
involve positive emotion so if you can
face something voluntarily rather than
having it chase you it’s way better for
you psycho physiologically so that’s
partly why well it’s worthwhile to go
find the dragon in its lair instead of
waiting for it to come and eat you so
and especially when you also add the
idea that if you go find the dragon in
its lair you might find it when it’s a
baby instead of a full-fledged bloody
monster that is definitely gonna take
you down don’t avoid small problems that
you know are there face them because
they’ll grow into big problems all by
themselves and you can think about
imagine the tax department sends you a
notification you owe them like three
hundred dollars well it’s you know
that’s annoying maybe you don’t even
want to open the letter or maybe if you
do you just put it on the shelf but that
damn thing doesn’t just sit there like a
piece of paper on the Shelf right you
ignore that for five or six years it’s
gonna become attached to all sorts of
horrible things and if you ignore it
long enough you get the idea it’s gonna
turn into something that is completely
unlike the little piece of paper that
it’s written on and and many many
problems in life are like that you’ll
see they’ll you’ll see that
they popped their ugly little head up
and you know and you might want to turn
away my not a want not want to think
about it which is the easiest way of
turning away right you just don’t attend
to it you know if you could have your
life the way you wanted it in three to
five years if you were taking care of
yourself properly you know what would
you want from your friendships what
would you want from your intimate
relationship how would you like to
structure your family what do you want
for your career well how are you going
to use your time outside of your job and
how are you gonna regulate your mental
physical mental and physical health and
maybe also your drug and alcohol use
because that’s that’s a good place to
auger down you know because alcoholism
for example wipes out you know five to
ten percent of people so you want to
keep that under control and then and
then so maybe you know you you you
develop a vision of what your life what
you would like your life to be and that
associates the so the goal well once the
goal is established and then you break
down the goal into micro processes that
you can implement the micro process has
become rewarding in relation to their
causal association with the goal and
that tangles in your your incentive
reward system and that’s the thing that
keeps you moving forward and the way it
works is that it works better if it
produces positive emotion when it can
see you moving towards a valued goal
okay well what’s the implication of that
better have a valued goal because
otherwise you can’t get any positive
motivation working out and so the more
valuable the goal in principle the more
the micro process is associated with
that goal start to take on a positive
charge and so what that means is well
you get up in the morning and you’re
excited about the day you’re ready to go
and so as far as I can tell what you do
is you specify your long term ideal
maybe you also specify a place you want
to stay the hell away from so that
you’re terrified to fail as well as
excited about succeeding because that’s
also useful you specify your goal you do
that you do that in some sense as a
unique individual you want to you want
to specify goals that make you say oh if
that could happen as a consequence of my
efforts it would clearly be worthwhile
because the question always is why do
something because doing nothing is easy
you just sit there and you don’t do
anything that’s real easy the question
is why would you
do anything and the answer to that has
to be because you’ve determined by some
means that it’s worthwhile number one
specify your damn goals because how are
you gonna hit something if you don’t
know what it is that isn’t going to
happen and often people won’t specify
their goals too because they don’t like
to specify conditions for failure so if
you keep yourself all vague and foggy
which is real easy because that’s just a
matter of not doing as well then you
don’t know when you fail and people
might say well I really don’t want to
know when I fail because that’s painful
it so I’ll keep myself blind about when
I fail that’s fine except you’ll fail
all the time then you just won’t know it
until you’ve failed so badly that you’re
done ok so once you get your goal
structure set up you think ok if I could
have this life looks like that might be
worth living despite the fact that it’s
going to be you know anxiety provoking
and threatening and there’s gonna be
some suffering and loss involved in all
of that obviously the goal is to have a
vision for your life such that all
things considered that justifies your
effort ok so then what do you do well
then then you turn down to the micro
routines it’s like ok well this is what
I’m aiming for how does that instantiate
itself day to day week to week month to
month and that’s where something like a
schedule can be unbelievably useful
Google Calendar
it’s like naked am schedule and stick to
it ok so what’s the rule with the
schedule it’s not a bloody prison that’s
the first thing that people do wrong is
say well I don’t like to have to follow
a schedule it’s like well what kind of
schedule are you setting up well I
should I have to do this then I have to
do this then I have to do this you know
and then I just go play video games
because who wants to do all these things
that I have to do it’s like wrong set
the damn schedule up so that you have
the day you want what’s the right ratio
of responsibility to reward and you can
ask yourself that just like you’d
negotiate with someone who is working
for you it’s like ok guy work tomorrow
ok so I want you to work tomorrow and
you might say ok well what are you gonna
do for me that makes it likely that I’ll
work for you well you could ask yourself
that you know maybe you do an hour of
responsibility and then you play a video
game for 15 minutes I don’t know
whatever turns your crank man but you
know you have to negotiate with yourself
and not
tyrannize yourself like you’re
negotiating with someone that you care
for that you would like to be productive
and have a good life and and that’s how
you make the schedule it’s like and then
you look at the day and you think well
if I had that day that’d be good great
you know and you you’re useless and
horrible so you’ll probably only hit it
with about 70 percent accuracy but that
beats the hell out of zero right and if
you hit it even with 50 percent accuracy
another rule is well aim for 51 percent
the next week or 50 and a half percent
for God’s sake or because you’re gonna
hit that position where things start to
loop back positively and spiral you
upward and so so that’s one way that you
can work on your conscientiousness
there’s a plan of life you’d like to
have the other way you do that is by
having a little conversation with
yourself about as if you don’t really
know who you are because you know what
you like you won’t do what you’re told
you won’t do what you tell yourself to
do you must have noticed that it’s like
you’re a bad employee and a worse boss
and both of those work you know for you
you don’t know what you want to do and
then when you tell yourself what to do
you don’t do it anyway so you should
fire yourself and find someone else to
beat but but you know my point is is
that you have to understand that you’re
not your own servant so to speak you’re
someone that you have to negotiate with
and that’s and you’re someone that you
want to present the opportunity of
having a good life to and that’s hard
for people because they don’t like
themselves very much so you know they’re
always like cracking the whip and then
procrastinating and cracking the whip
and then procrastinating and it’s like
god it’s so boring and such a pathetic
way of spending your time and you know
what that’s like because you probably
waste like six hours a day and I think
we did an economic calculation about
that a while back right your time is
probably worth 50 bucks an hour
something like that I mean you’re not
getting paid that now but you’re young
and so this is investment time and what
you do now is going to multiply its
effects in the future so so let’s say
it’s 50 bucks an hour which is perfectly
reasonable so if you waste six hours a
day and you are then you’re wasting
about two thousand dollars a week or
about $100,000 a year so like go ahead
but that’s what it’s costing you every
hour and you need to know what your damn
time is worth so let’s say it’s not 50
bucks it’s 30
whatever maybe it’s a hundred it’s
somewhere in that range one of the
things you should be asking yourself is
when you spend an hour was that well
what have I paid someone 50 bucks to
have had that hour and if the answer is
no it’s like well maybe you should do
something else with your time and it
depends on whether or not you think that
your time is worthwhile but the funny
thing about not assuming that is if you
assume your time isn’t worthwhile what
happens is you don’t just sit around
sort of randomly in a state of
responsibility list bliss what you do is
you suffer existentially and so that
seems like a stupid solution
imagine someone that you treat well that
you love then try to treat yourself that
way you got to detach from yourself a
bit you got to think okay well I’m a
person among other people and I deserve
at least as much respect as a person
among other people and I should be
trying to help myself across time and
instead of being self contemptuous and
self-destructive I need to take care of
myself
as if I’m potentially valuable and to
lay out my life that way and so that’s
what that’s that chapter is about and
it’s it it’s hard for people you know
they don’t take care of themselves as
well as they should and I don’t mean you
know take care of yourself I mean that
is what I mean it’s like it’s not a
moralistic attack it’s like it’s an
encouragement to give yourself a bit of
the benefit of the doubt and it means
take care of your room take care of your
things like have some respect for
yourself as a as a well I would say in
some sense as a miraculous being because
that is actually what you are there is a
lot of potential within you and there’s
many things that you can do and you’re
necessary you’re necessary more than you
think to the unfolding of things like if
you make a bunch of bad decisions things
get worse not just for you like things
get worse and maybe way worse like I
don’t know what mistakes talons mother
made you know and she brought he didn’t
necessarily think they were that
important but it turned out they were
pretty important mm-hmm you don’t know
how your
actions echo and so it matters what you
do and and so part of what you do is you
want to treat yourself as if what you do
matters
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