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it’s like you don’t need to have all
these things but you better have most of
them
family friends career educational goals
plans for you no time outside of work
attention to your mental and physical
health etc you know those are that’s
what life is about and if you don’t have
any of those things well then all you’ve
got left is misery and suffering so
that’s that’s a bad that’s a bad deal
for you so so once you but once you set
up that that goal structure let’s say
and that’s really in many in many ways
that’s what you should be doing at
universities is that’s exactly what you
should be doing is trying to figure out
who it is that you’re trying to be right
and you aim at that and then use
everything you learned as a means of
building that person that you want to be
and and I really mean want to be I don’t
mean should be even those things those
things are going to overlap and it’s
important to distinguish between those
because that’s partly and this is back
down to the micro routine analysis so I
should I saying well you’re gonna try to
make yourself more industrious okay
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 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 and
that can easily happen by the time
you’re 40 so so I would recommend that
you don’t let that happen
so that’s willful blindness right you
could have known but you chose not to
okay so once you get your goal structure
set up you think okay if I could have
this life looks like that might be worth
living despite the fact that it’s gonna
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
okay so then what do you do well then
then you turn down to the micro routines
it’s like okay 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 okay so what’s
the rule with the schedule it’s not a
bloody prison that’s the first thing
that people do wrong is well I don’t
like to have 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 that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s going to go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were that then at the beginning of the
day right
that’s a stupid day if you have a bunch
of those in a row you just dig you know
you dig yourself a hole and then you
bury yourself in it’s like sorry that’s
just not a good strategy it’s a bad
strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in 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 okay you got
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay 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 the
be good great you know I knew you’re
useless and horrible so you’ll probably
only hit it with about 70% accuracy but
that beats the hell out of zero right
and if you hit it even with 50% accuracy
another rule is well aim for 51% 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
loopback positively and spiral you
upward and so so that’s one way that you
can work on your conscientiousness it’s
a plan of life you’d like to have and
and you do that partly by referring to
social norms that’s more or less
rescuing your father from the belly of
the whale but the way 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’re 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 be 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 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 a hundred
thousand dollars 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
fifty bucks its thirty 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 worth while 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 to
know if you take people and I’ve told
you this and you expose them 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 by the death by your
own definitions right within the value
structure that you’ve created to the
degree that you’ve done that 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 said if they
spoke their being forward and they’d get
stronger and stronger and stronger and
we don’t know the limits to that we do
not know the limits to that and so you
could say well in part perhaps the
reason that you’re suffering unbearably
can be left at your feet because you’re
not everything you could be and you know
it and of course that’s a terrible thing
to admit and it’s a terrible thing to
consider but there’s real promise in it
right because it means that perhaps
there’s another way that you could look
at the world and the number another way
that you could act in the world so what
it would reflect back to you would be
much better than what it reflects back
to you now and then the second part of
that is well imagine that many people
did that because we’ve done a lot as
human beings we’ve done a lot of
remarkable things and I’ve told you
already I think before that today for
example about 250,000 people will be
lifted out of abject poverty and about
300,000 people attached to the
electrical power grid
making people were lifting people out of
poverty collectively at a faster rate
that’s ever occurred in the history of
humankind by a huge margin and that’s
been going on unbelievably quickly since
the year 2000 the UN a plan to have
poverty between 2000 and 2015 and it was
accomplished by 2013
so there’s inequality developing in many
places and you hear it lots of political
agitation about that but overall the the
tide is lifting everyone up and that’s a
great thing we have no idea how fast we
can multiply that if people got their
act together and really aimed at it
because you know my my experience is
with people that were 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 in efficient 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 know it 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 if your time is worth twenty
dollars an hour which is a radical
underestimate it’s probably more like 50
if you think about it in terms of
deferred wages if you’re wasting 20
hours a week you’re wasting fifty
thousand dollars a year and you are
doing that right now and it’s because
you’re young wasting fifty thousand
dollars a year is a way bigger
catastrophe than it would be for me to
waste it because I’m not gonna last
nearly as long 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 20 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
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well and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time
not only do they not do what they should
to make things better they actively
attempt to make things worse because
they’re spiteful or resentful or
arrogant or deceitful or or homicidal or
genocide alors all of those things all
bundled together in an absolutely
pathological package if people start
really really trying just to make things
worse we have no idea how much better
they would get just because of that so
there’s this weird dynamic that’s part
of the existential system of ideas
between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are major causes
of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt and
that’s the thing that’s interesting too
is that and like one of the another
thing I’ve often asked my undergraduate
classes is you know there’s this idea
that that people have that people have a
conscience and you know what the
conscience is it’s it’s this feeling or
voice you have in your head just before
you do something that you know is stupid
telling you that probably you shouldn’t
do that stupid thing you don’t have to
listen to it
strangely enough but you go ahead and do
it anyways and then of course exactly
what the conscience told you was going
to happen inevitably happen so that you
feel even stupider about it than you
would if it happened by accident because
you know I knew this was going to happen
I got a warning it was going to happen
and I went and did it anyways and the
funny thing too is that that conscience
operates within people and we really
don’t understand what the hell that is
so you might say well what would happen
if you abided by your conscience for
five years or for ten years what sort of
position might you be in what sort of
family might you have what sort of
relationship might you be able to forge
and you can be bloody sure that a
relationship that’s forged on the basis
of who you actually are is going to be a
lot stronger and more welcome than one
that’s forged on the basis of who you
aren’t now of course that means that the
person you’re with has to deal with the
full force of you in all your ability
and your catastrophe and that’s a very
varied
thing to negotiate but if you do
negotiate it well at least you you have
something you have somewhere solid to
stand and you have somewhere to live you
have a real life and it’s a great basis
upon which to bring children into the
world for example because you can have
an actual relationship with them instead
of torturing them half to death which is
what happens in a tremendous a
tremendously large minority of cases
well it’s more than that too because and
this is what I’ll close with and this is
why I wanted to introduce social nets as
ratings to you you see because it isn’t
merely that your fate depends on whether
or not you get your act together and to
what degree you decide that you’re going
to live out your own genuine being it
isn’t only your fate it’s the fate of
everyone that you’re networked with and
so you know you think well there’s nine
billion seven billion people in the
world we’re going to peak at about nine
billion by the way and then it’ll
decline rapidly but seven billion people
in the world and who are you you’re just
one little dust mote among that seven
billion and so it really doesn’t matter
what you do or don’t do but that’s
simply not the case it’s the wrong model
because you’re at the center of a
network you’re a node in a network of
course that’s even more true now that we
have social media you’ll you know you’ll
know a thousand people at least over the
course of your life and they’ll know a
thousand people each and that puts you
one person away from a million and two
persons away from a billion and so
that’s how you’re connected and the
things you do there like dropping a
stone in a pond the ripples move outward
and they affect things in ways that you
can’t fully comprehend and it means that
the things that you do and that you
don’t do are far more important than you
think and so if you act it way of course
the terror of realizing that is that it
actually starts to matter what you do
and you might say well that’s better
than living a meaningless existence it’s
better for it to matter but I mean if
you really ask yourself would you be so
sure if you had the choice I can live
with no responsibility whatsoever the
price I pay is that nothing matters or I
can reverse it and everything matters
but I have to take the responsibility
that’s associated with that 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
and you have the option of taking the
pathway of the martyr so that’s a pretty
good deal all things considered
especially when they are when the
alternative is to bear your burden
properly and to live forthrightly in the
world well what Solzhenitsyn figured out
and so many people in the 20th century
it’s not just him even though he’s the
best example is that if you live a
pathological life you pathologize your
society and if enough people do that
then it’s hell really really and you can
read the Gulag Archipelago if you have
the four tit fortitude to do that and
you’ll see exactly what hell is like and
then you can decide if that’s a place
you’d like to visit or even more
importantly if it’s a light if it’s a
place you’d like to visit and take all
your family and friends because that’s
what happened in the 20th century how to
think about motivation well think about
it from the hypothalamic perspective so
we could say one thing that motivation
does is set goals we could say that
emotions track progress towards goals
and I’m gonna use that schema even
though it’s not exactly right so you say
well motivation determines where you’re
gonna aim so if you’re hungry you’re
gonna aim it something to eat and then
that will organize your perceptions so
that you zero out everything that isn’t
relevant to that task which is almost
everything you concentrate on those few
things that are going to facilitate your
movement forward when you encounter
those things that produces positive
emotion as you move through the world
towards your goal and you see that
things are laying themselves out that
facilitate your movement forward those
things cause positive emotion and if you
encounter anything that gets in the way
then that produces negative emotion and
it can be like threat because you’re not
supposed to encounter something that
gets in the way it can be anger so that
you move it away it can be frustration
disappointment grief
those would if you had a response that’s
serious to an obstacle it would probably
punish the little motivated frame right
out of existence you know so you walk
down stairs and I don’t know the
contracting company is set a wrecking
ball through your kitchen it’s like
that’s going to be disappointing you’re
not going to keep eating the peanut
butter sandwich in the rubble that
little frame is going to get punished
out of existence and some new goal is
going to pop up it instead and you know
one of the things we’re gonna try to
sort out is how do you decide when
you’ve encountered an obstacle that’s so
big that you should just quit and go do
something else because that’s not
obvious you know and you can you can get
into counter productive persistence
pretty easily so we don’t know how
people solve that problem it’s a really
complicated one so anyways we’re gonna
work on that scenario your hypothalamus
pops up micro goals that are directly
relevant to biological survival that
produces a frame of reference so it’s
not a goal it’s not a drive and it’s not
a collection of behaviors it’s of little
personality and the personality has a
viewpoint it has thoughts that go along
with it it has perceptions it has action
tendencies all of that you can see this
in addiction most particularly so one of
the things that you find often with
people who are alcoholic is they lie all
the time and that’s because when they’re
they built a little alcohol dependent
personality inside of themselves or a
big one it might maybe it’s 90 percent
of the personality and one of that one
of the things that component consists of
is all the rationalizations that they’ve
used over the years to justify their
addiction to themselves and to other
people and so the addiction has a
personality you know and so when the
person is off ma-maybe they’re addicted
to meth or something like that where we
know the addiction is more it’s more
short-term powerful that I would say
than an alcohol addiction they’ll say
anything and that the the words are just
tools used to get towards the goal and
if they happen to be deceptive whatever
it doesn’t matter
they’re just practical tools to get
towards the goal and then when you get
towards the goal and you take a nice
shot of meth or something like that you
reinforce all those rationales that you
use to get the drug
then the next time your even a better
deceiver and liar so okay so we’re gonna
say motivations one way of thinking
about as they set goals but it’s not the
right way of thinking about it they
produce a whole framework of
interpretation and so we’re gonna think
about that framework of interpretation
and then emotions emerge inside of that
so that’s it so the world is framed
motivation set goals you could say the
world has to be framed so motivation
sets that frame whose goals emotions
perceptions and actions and then actions
track progress so positive emotion says
you’re moving forward properly towards
your goal and if you encounter something
you don’t expect you stop
that’s anxiety it’s like oh we’re not
where we thought we were and so we don’t
know what to do so we should stop
because we don’t know where we are what
we’re doing stop
frozen and then the more powerful
negative emotions like pain they might
make you get out of there so emotions
forward stop reverse that’s your
emotions within that motivated frame so
and that’s another example of how your
mind is embedded in your body you know
emotions are like they’re they’re
offshoots of action tendencies that’s
that’s the right way to think about it
because action is everything
fundamentally so what are some basic
motivations most of these are regulated
by the hypothalamus by the way and that
tells you just how important a control
system it is the other thing that’s
useful to know about the hypothalamus is
that it has projections going up from it
that are like tree trunks and inhibitory
projections coming down that are like
grape vines so you can kind of control
your hypothalamus as long as it’s not on
too much but if it’s on in any serious
way it’s like it it wins so partly what
you do to stop yourself from falling
under the Dominion of your hypothalamus
is to never ever be anywhere where it’s
action is necessary right you don’t want
to go into a biker bar because you might
find yourself in a situation where
panicked defensive aggression is
immediately necessary you probably don’t
want that you don’t want the panic you
don’t want the terror you don’t want the
frenzied fight you don’t want any of
that you don’t want to have to run away
in absolute panic so you just don’t go
there
and then a huge a huge part of how we
regulate our emotions is just by never
going anywhere where we have to
experience them and so that has very
little to do with internal inhibitory
control and everything to do with
staying where you belong
the myth of mental illness by Thomas
says s-said asz it’s a classic you
should read it if you’re interested in
psychology read it like it’s a classic
and he basically said most people have
problems in living they don’t have
psychological problems and so I’ve
experienced despite my love for the
psychoanalysts very frequently what I’m
doing as a therapist is helping people
have a life that would work you know and
you can parameterize that it’s like what
do you need how about some friends that
people kind of like that how about an
intimate relationship with someone that
you can trust that maybe has a future
that’d be good
how about a career that puts you in a
dominant Sarki somewhere so at least
you’ve got some possibility of rising
some possibility of stabilizing yourself
and our schedule in a routine because no
one can live without a routine you just
forget that if you guys don’t have a
routine I would recommend like you get
one going because you cannot be mentally
healthy without a routine you need to
pick a time to get up whatever time you
want
I’d pick one and stick to it because
otherwise you dis regulate your
circadian rhythms and they regulate your
mood and eat something in the morning I
had lots of clients who’ve had anxiety
disorders I had one client who was
literally starving very smart girl she
there’s very little that she liked she
kind of tried to subsist on like half a
cup of rice a day she came to me and
said I have no energy I come home all I
want to do is watch the same movie over
and over what like is that weird and I
thought well it depends on how hard you
work you know it’s a little weird but
whatever
it’s familiar you’re looking for comfort
so I did an analysis of her diet it’s
like 3/4 of a cup of rice it’s like
you’re starving eat something you know
you’ll feel better
so she modified her diet and you’re all
her anxiety went away and she had some
energies like yeah you got to eat so
schedule that’s a good thing man
your brain will thank you for it it will
stabilize your nervous system with it’s
a bit of a plan that’s a good thing you
need a career you need something
productive to do with your time you need
to regulate your use of drugs and
alcohol most particularly alcohol
you need a family like the family you
have your parents and all that would be
nice if you all got along you can work
on that that’s a good thing to work on
and then you know you probably need
children at some point that’s life
that’s what life is and if you’re
missing you know you may have a good
reason to not be operating on one of
those dimensions it’s not mandatory but
I can tell you that if you’re not
operating reasonably well on four I
think I mentioned six if you’re not
operating reasonably well on at least
three of them there’s no way you’re
going to be psychologically thriving and
that’s more pragmatic in some sense than
psychological right human beings have a
nature there’s things we need and if we
have them well that’s good and if we
don’t have them well then we feel the
lack and so behaviorists behavioral
psychologists concentrate a lot more on
that sort of thing you know it’s
practical
strategizing make a career plan figure
out how to negotiate cuz that’s bloody
important figure out how to say what you
need figure out how to tell the truth to
figure out how to listen to your partner
in particular because if you listen to
them they will actually tell you what
they want and sometimes you can give it
to them and maybe they’ll return the
favor and if you practice that for like
15 years well then maybe you’re
constantly giving each other what you
want well hooray
that would be good and then there’s two
of you under all circumstances and it’s
better to have two brains than one
because people think differently because
of their temperament mostly and so the
negotiation is where the wisdom arises
and it’s part of the transformation the
psychological transformation that’s
attendant on an intimate relationship
and one of the fundamental purposes of a long-term intimate relationship
it’s like you don’t need to have all
these things but you better have most of
them
family friends career educational goals
plans for you no time outside of work
attention to your mental and physical
health etc you know those are that’s
what life is about and if you don’t have
any of those things well then all you’ve
got left is misery and suffering so
that’s that’s a bad that’s a bad deal
for you so so once you but once you set
up that that goal structure let’s say
and that’s really in many in many ways
that’s what you should be doing at
universities is that’s exactly what you
should be doing is trying to figure out
who it is that you’re trying to be right
and you aim at that and then use
everything you learned as a means of
building that person that you want to be
and and I really mean want to be I don’t
mean should be even those things those
things are going to overlap and it’s
important to distinguish between those
because that’s partly and this is back
down to the micro routine analysis so I
should I saying well you’re gonna try to
make yourself more industrious okay
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 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 and
that can easily happen by the time
you’re 40 so so I would recommend that
you don’t let that happen
so that’s willful blindness right you
could have known but you chose not to
okay so once you get your goal structure
set up you think okay if I could have
this life looks like that might be worth
living despite the fact that it’s gonna
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
okay so then what do you do well then
then you turn down to the micro routines
it’s like okay 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 okay so what’s
the rule with the schedule it’s not a
bloody prison that’s the first thing
that people do wrong is well I don’t
like to have 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 that’s
the trick it’s like okay I’ve got
tomorrow if I was gonna set it up so it
was the best possible day I could have
practically speaking what would it look
like well then you schedule that and
obviously there’s a bit of
responsibility that’s going to go along
with that because if you have any sense
one of the things that you’re gonna
insist upon is that at the end of the
day you’re not in worse shape than you
were that then at the beginning of the
day right
that’s a stupid day if you have a bunch
of those in a row you just dig you know
you dig yourself a hole and then you
bury yourself in it’s like sorry that’s
just not a good strategy it’s a bad
strategy
so maybe 20% of your day has to be
responsibility and obligation or maybe
it’s more than that depending on how far
behind you are but even that you can you
can ask yourself okay well I’ve got
these responsibilities I have to
schedule the damn things in 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 okay you got
work tomorrow okay so I want you to work
tomorrow and you might say okay 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 the
be good great you know I knew you’re
useless and horrible so you’ll probably
only hit it with about 70% accuracy but
that beats the hell out of zero right
and if you hit it even with 50% accuracy
another rule is well aim for 51% 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
loopback positively and spiral you
upward and so so that’s one way that you
can work on your conscientiousness it’s
a plan of life you’d like to have and
and you do that partly by referring to
social norms that’s more or less
rescuing your father from the belly of
the whale but the way 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’re 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 be 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 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 a hundred
thousand dollars 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
fifty bucks its thirty 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 worth while 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 to
know if you take people and I’ve told
you this and you expose them 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 by the death by your
own definitions right within the value
structure that you’ve created to the
degree that you’ve done that 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 said if they
spoke their being forward and they’d get
stronger and stronger and stronger and
we don’t know the limits to that we do
not know the limits to that and so you
could say well in part perhaps the
reason that you’re suffering unbearably
can be left at your feet because you’re
not everything you could be and you know
it and of course that’s a terrible thing
to admit and it’s a terrible thing to
consider but there’s real promise in it
right because it means that perhaps
there’s another way that you could look
at the world and the number another way
that you could act in the world so what
it would reflect back to you would be
much better than what it reflects back
to you now and then the second part of
that is well imagine that many people
did that because we’ve done a lot as
human beings we’ve done a lot of
remarkable things and I’ve told you
already I think before that today for
example about 250,000 people will be
lifted out of abject poverty and about
300,000 people attached to the
electrical power grid
making people were lifting people out of
poverty collectively at a faster rate
that’s ever occurred in the history of
humankind by a huge margin and that’s
been going on unbelievably quickly since
the year 2000 the UN a plan to have
poverty between 2000 and 2015 and it was
accomplished by 2013
so there’s inequality developing in many
places and you hear it lots of political
agitation about that but overall the the
tide is lifting everyone up and that’s a
great thing we have no idea how fast we
can multiply that if people got their
act together and really aimed at it
because you know my my experience is
with people that were 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 in efficient 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 know it 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 if your time is worth twenty
dollars an hour which is a radical
underestimate it’s probably more like 50
if you think about it in terms of
deferred wages if you’re wasting 20
hours a week you’re wasting fifty
thousand dollars a year and you are
doing that right now and it’s because
you’re young wasting fifty thousand
dollars a year is a way bigger
catastrophe than it would be for me to
waste it because I’m not gonna last
nearly as long 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 20 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
[Music]
well and if we all got our act together
collectively and stop making things
worse because that’s another thing
people do all the time
not only do they not do what they should
to make things better they actively
attempt to make things worse because
they’re spiteful or resentful or
arrogant or deceitful or or homicidal or
genocide alors all of those things all
bundled together in an absolutely
pathological package if people start
really really trying just to make things
worse we have no idea how much better
they would get just because of that so
there’s this weird dynamic that’s part
of the existential system of ideas
between human vulnerability social
judgment both of which are major causes
of suffering and the failure of
individuals to adopt the responsibility
that they know they should adopt and
that’s the thing that’s interesting too
is that and like one of the another
thing I’ve often asked my undergraduate
classes is you know there’s this idea
that that people have that people have a
conscience and you know what the
conscience is it’s it’s this feeling or
voice you have in your head just before
you do something that you know is stupid
telling you that probably you shouldn’t
do that stupid thing you don’t have to
listen to it
strangely enough but you go ahead and do
it anyways and then of course exactly
what the conscience told you was going
to happen inevitably happen so that you
feel even stupider about it than you
would if it happened by accident because
you know I knew this was going to happen
I got a warning it was going to happen
and I went and did it anyways and the
funny thing too is that that conscience
operates within people and we really
don’t understand what the hell that is
so you might say well what would happen
if you abided by your conscience for
five years or for ten years what sort of
position might you be in what sort of
family might you have what sort of
relationship might you be able to forge
and you can be bloody sure that a
relationship that’s forged on the basis
of who you actually are is going to be a
lot stronger and more welcome than one
that’s forged on the basis of who you
aren’t now of course that means that the
person you’re with has to deal with the
full force of you in all your ability
and your catastrophe and that’s a very
varied
thing to negotiate but if you do
negotiate it well at least you you have
something you have somewhere solid to
stand and you have somewhere to live you
have a real life and it’s a great basis
upon which to bring children into the
world for example because you can have
an actual relationship with them instead
of torturing them half to death which is
what happens in a tremendous a
tremendously large minority of cases
well it’s more than that too because and
this is what I’ll close with and this is
why I wanted to introduce social nets as
ratings to you you see because it isn’t
merely that your fate depends on whether
or not you get your act together and to
what degree you decide that you’re going
to live out your own genuine being it
isn’t only your fate it’s the fate of
everyone that you’re networked with and
so you know you think well there’s nine
billion seven billion people in the
world we’re going to peak at about nine
billion by the way and then it’ll
decline rapidly but seven billion people
in the world and who are you you’re just
one little dust mote among that seven
billion and so it really doesn’t matter
what you do or don’t do but that’s
simply not the case it’s the wrong model
because you’re at the center of a
network you’re a node in a network of
course that’s even more true now that we
have social media you’ll you know you’ll
know a thousand people at least over the
course of your life and they’ll know a
thousand people each and that puts you
one person away from a million and two
persons away from a billion and so
that’s how you’re connected and the
things you do there like dropping a
stone in a pond the ripples move outward
and they affect things in ways that you
can’t fully comprehend and it means that
the things that you do and that you
don’t do are far more important than you
think and so if you act it way of course
the terror of realizing that is that it
actually starts to matter what you do
and you might say well that’s better
than living a meaningless existence it’s
better for it to matter but I mean if
you really ask yourself would you be so
sure if you had the choice I can live
with no responsibility whatsoever the
price I pay is that nothing matters or I
can reverse it and everything matters
but I have to take the responsibility
that’s associated with that 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
and you have the option of taking the
pathway of the martyr so that’s a pretty
good deal all things considered
especially when they are when the
alternative is to bear your burden
properly and to live forthrightly in the
world well what Solzhenitsyn figured out
and so many people in the 20th century
it’s not just him even though he’s the
best example is that if you live a
pathological life you pathologize your
society and if enough people do that
then it’s hell really really and you can
read the Gulag Archipelago if you have
the four tit fortitude to do that and
you’ll see exactly what hell is like and
then you can decide if that’s a place
you’d like to visit or even more
importantly if it’s a light if it’s a
place you’d like to visit and take all
your family and friends because that’s
what happened in the 20th century how to
think about motivation well think about
it from the hypothalamic perspective so
we could say one thing that motivation
does is set goals we could say that
emotions track progress towards goals
and I’m gonna use that schema even
though it’s not exactly right so you say
well motivation determines where you’re
gonna aim so if you’re hungry you’re
gonna aim it something to eat and then
that will organize your perceptions so
that you zero out everything that isn’t
relevant to that task which is almost
everything you concentrate on those few
things that are going to facilitate your
movement forward when you encounter
those things that produces positive
emotion as you move through the world
towards your goal and you see that
things are laying themselves out that
facilitate your movement forward those
things cause positive emotion and if you
encounter anything that gets in the way
then that produces negative emotion and
it can be like threat because you’re not
supposed to encounter something that
gets in the way it can be anger so that
you move it away it can be frustration
disappointment grief
those would if you had a response that’s
serious to an obstacle it would probably
punish the little motivated frame right
out of existence you know so you walk
down stairs and I don’t know the
contracting company is set a wrecking
ball through your kitchen it’s like
that’s going to be disappointing you’re
not going to keep eating the peanut
butter sandwich in the rubble that
little frame is going to get punished
out of existence and some new goal is
going to pop up it instead and you know
one of the things we’re gonna try to
sort out is how do you decide when
you’ve encountered an obstacle that’s so
big that you should just quit and go do
something else because that’s not
obvious you know and you can you can get
into counter productive persistence
pretty easily so we don’t know how
people solve that problem it’s a really
complicated one so anyways we’re gonna
work on that scenario your hypothalamus
pops up micro goals that are directly
relevant to biological survival that
produces a frame of reference so it’s
not a goal it’s not a drive and it’s not
a collection of behaviors it’s of little
personality and the personality has a
viewpoint it has thoughts that go along
with it it has perceptions it has action
tendencies all of that you can see this
in addiction most particularly so one of
the things that you find often with
people who are alcoholic is they lie all
the time and that’s because when they’re
they built a little alcohol dependent
personality inside of themselves or a
big one it might maybe it’s 90 percent
of the personality and one of that one
of the things that component consists of
is all the rationalizations that they’ve
used over the years to justify their
addiction to themselves and to other
people and so the addiction has a
personality you know and so when the
person is off ma-maybe they’re addicted
to meth or something like that where we
know the addiction is more it’s more
short-term powerful that I would say
than an alcohol addiction they’ll say
anything and that the the words are just
tools used to get towards the goal and
if they happen to be deceptive whatever
it doesn’t matter
they’re just practical tools to get
towards the goal and then when you get
towards the goal and you take a nice
shot of meth or something like that you
reinforce all those rationales that you
use to get the drug
then the next time your even a better
deceiver and liar so okay so we’re gonna
say motivations one way of thinking
about as they set goals but it’s not the
right way of thinking about it they
produce a whole framework of
interpretation and so we’re gonna think
about that framework of interpretation
and then emotions emerge inside of that
so that’s it so the world is framed
motivation set goals you could say the
world has to be framed so motivation
sets that frame whose goals emotions
perceptions and actions and then actions
track progress so positive emotion says
you’re moving forward properly towards
your goal and if you encounter something
you don’t expect you stop
that’s anxiety it’s like oh we’re not
where we thought we were and so we don’t
know what to do so we should stop
because we don’t know where we are what
we’re doing stop
frozen and then the more powerful
negative emotions like pain they might
make you get out of there so emotions
forward stop reverse that’s your
emotions within that motivated frame so
and that’s another example of how your
mind is embedded in your body you know
emotions are like they’re they’re
offshoots of action tendencies that’s
that’s the right way to think about it
because action is everything
fundamentally so what are some basic
motivations most of these are regulated
by the hypothalamus by the way and that
tells you just how important a control
system it is the other thing that’s
useful to know about the hypothalamus is
that it has projections going up from it
that are like tree trunks and inhibitory
projections coming down that are like
grape vines so you can kind of control
your hypothalamus as long as it’s not on
too much but if it’s on in any serious
way it’s like it it wins so partly what
you do to stop yourself from falling
under the Dominion of your hypothalamus
is to never ever be anywhere where it’s
action is necessary right you don’t want
to go into a biker bar because you might
find yourself in a situation where
panicked defensive aggression is
immediately necessary you probably don’t
want that you don’t want the panic you
don’t want the terror you don’t want the
frenzied fight you don’t want any of
that you don’t want to have to run away
in absolute panic so you just don’t go
there
and then a huge a huge part of how we
regulate our emotions is just by never
going anywhere where we have to
experience them and so that has very
little to do with internal inhibitory
control and everything to do with
staying where you belong
the myth of mental illness by Thomas
says s-said asz it’s a classic you
should read it if you’re interested in
psychology read it like it’s a classic
and he basically said most people have
problems in living they don’t have
psychological problems and so I’ve
experienced despite my love for the
psychoanalysts very frequently what I’m
doing as a therapist is helping people
have a life that would work you know and
you can parameterize that it’s like what
do you need how about some friends that
people kind of like that how about an
intimate relationship with someone that
you can trust that maybe has a future
that’d be good
how about a career that puts you in a
dominant Sarki somewhere so at least
you’ve got some possibility of rising
some possibility of stabilizing yourself
and our schedule in a routine because no
one can live without a routine you just
forget that if you guys don’t have a
routine I would recommend like you get
one going because you cannot be mentally
healthy without a routine you need to
pick a time to get up whatever time you
want
I’d pick one and stick to it because
otherwise you dis regulate your
circadian rhythms and they regulate your
mood and eat something in the morning I
had lots of clients who’ve had anxiety
disorders I had one client who was
literally starving very smart girl she
there’s very little that she liked she
kind of tried to subsist on like half a
cup of rice a day she came to me and
said I have no energy I come home all I
want to do is watch the same movie over
and over what like is that weird and I
thought well it depends on how hard you
work you know it’s a little weird but
whatever
it’s familiar you’re looking for comfort
so I did an analysis of her diet it’s
like 3/4 of a cup of rice it’s like
you’re starving eat something you know
you’ll feel better
so she modified her diet and you’re all
her anxiety went away and she had some
energies like yeah you got to eat so
schedule that’s a good thing man
your brain will thank you for it it will
stabilize your nervous system with it’s
a bit of a plan that’s a good thing you
need a career you need something
productive to do with your time you need
to regulate your use of drugs and
alcohol most particularly alcohol
you need a family like the family you
have your parents and all that would be
nice if you all got along you can work
on that that’s a good thing to work on
and then you know you probably need
children at some point that’s life
that’s what life is and if you’re
missing you know you may have a good
reason to not be operating on one of
those dimensions it’s not mandatory but
I can tell you that if you’re not
operating reasonably well on four I
think I mentioned six if you’re not
operating reasonably well on at least
three of them there’s no way you’re
going to be psychologically thriving and
that’s more pragmatic in some sense than
psychological right human beings have a
nature there’s things we need and if we
have them well that’s good and if we
don’t have them well then we feel the
lack and so behaviorists behavioral
psychologists concentrate a lot more on
that sort of thing you know it’s
practical
strategizing make a career plan figure
out how to negotiate cuz that’s bloody
important figure out how to say what you
need figure out how to tell the truth to
figure out how to listen to your partner
in particular because if you listen to
them they will actually tell you what
they want and sometimes you can give it
to them and maybe they’ll return the
favor and if you practice that for like
15 years well then maybe you’re
constantly giving each other what you
want well hooray
that would be good and then there’s two
of you under all circumstances and it’s
better to have two brains than one
because people think differently because
of their temperament mostly and so the
negotiation is where the wisdom arises
and it’s part of the transformation the
psychological transformation that’s
attendant on an intimate relationship
and one of the fundamental purposes of a long-term intimate relationship
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