you’ve got this four year period that
has been carved out of your lives by
society they it’s given you an identity
like a high quality identity and freedom
at the same time and you’re not gonna
get that again in your life
you’ve got a you’ve got a respectable
identity University student and complete
freedom associated without or as near as
you’re ever going to get and you’ve got
these unbelievable libraries that are
full of the writings of people who are
who are intelligent and articulate
beyond comprehension and you know and
and you can go there and you can learn
all this and you might think well why
should you learn it well you’ve learned
it to get a job or you learn it to get
good grades or you learn it to get a
degree and that’s all nonsense it’s
nonsense
the reason that you come to university
to be educated is because there is
nothing more powerful than someone who
is articulate and who can think and
speak its power and I mean power of the
best sort and its authority and
influence and respectability and
competence and so you come to university
to craft your highest skill and your
highest skill is to be found in
articulated speech and if you’re if
you’re if you’re a master at formulating
your arguments you win everything and
better than that when you win everything
everyone around you wins to because to
transform yourself into let’s consider
you consider your transformation to
something approximating the logos it
means you shine a light on the whole
world well there’s nothing more exciting
to do than that there’s nothing better
you can possibly do and to think that
you’re coming to university to be you
know trained to have a job it’s like
great that’s a hell of a lot better than
being unemployed and covered with cheeto
dust while you’re snacking away in front
of your video game in the basement
you’re spectacular you’ve you’re you’re
all capable of being world beaters you
transform yourself into something that’s
articulated and sensible and grounded in
history and knowledgeable and wise men
you can do anything you want and
hopefully anything you want for good
because if you have any sense everything
you want to do would be for the good
because there’s nothing more compelling
or meaningful or or useful in combating
the tragedy of life than to than to
struggle with all your soul on behalf of
the good and the universities have
forgotten that it’s why everyone’s
bailing out of the humanities and they
should the humanities are corrupt and
they’re corrupt because they’re not
telling students this it’s so bloody
obvious it’s like learn to think learn
to speak learn to read it makes you a
superpower an individual superpower you
have and I don’t understand why that
isn’t just told to students it’s not
that hard to understand and everyone
wants to hear it’s like really I could
do that I could do that like yeah really
you could do that and the whole society
around you is labored for really
thousands of years to provide every
single one of you with this spectacular
opportunity that you have while you’re
undergraduates and graduate students
here man
they’re just everyone’s just praying
that you would come here and manifest
everything that you could manifest and
that’s what you should be doing instead
of waving placards and complaining about
how you’re oppressed for God’s sake the
only reason you’re not rich is cuz
you’re young you know that’s the best
really that’s them if you look at the 1%
even the dreaded 1% you know most of
those people are old why well when you
progress through life if you’re
reasonably successful you trade in your
promising youth for your wealthy old age
but you’re still bloody old would you
would you trade it would you trade your
youth for that like if you factor age
out of the economic equation things look
a lot different well of course older
people have more money if they have any
sense they’ve been collecting it for
their whole life is that somehow unfair
it’s not unfair unless you want to want
to be poverty-stricken when you’re 70
and you and you don’t want to be poorer
strict or poverty-stricken when you’re
70 so I just don’t understand what’s
happened to the universities I can’t
believe that you’re not told when you
come the first day look man you are out
you’re here on a heroic mission you’re
going to take your capacity to
articulate yourself to levels that are
undreamed-of you’re gonna come out of
here unstoppable you’re going to be able
to do anything you want it’s like that’s
what you’re here for
instead you’re taught that well you know
the world is a pretty oppressive place
and you’re probably the bottom of the
victim pile and and and there’s and
there’s there’s virtually nothing you
can do about it except know deconstruct
the patriarchy and it’s so we need and
so pathetic that
that university should be embarrassed
that that’s what they’re peddling to
students I’m embarrassed by them
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’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 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 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 helped you but don’t
arbitrarily throw out any possibilities
because you might not have that
tree 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 in to me and sees to
see me and they say they’re depressed I
always ask them a very standard set of
questions I 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 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 it 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 is so powerful
that it can push back the adversity that
would otherwise characterize life
Nietzsche said the person who has a Y
can bear any how 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 what the hell
I’ve been working on this for seven
years and I handed it in and what 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 because that’s how our
nervous systems work most of your
positive emotion is bold 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’t aaron eyes 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
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 gotta 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 I thought god that’s such
a good idea
because it’s not optimistic exactly you
know some people tell you what you could
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 do 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
so 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 10 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 it’s
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 them you know if you take people
then 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 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’d 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 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 so if your life isn’t everything it
could be you could ask yourself well
what would happen if you just stop
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 your
maximally motivated debt 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 then
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 cycle physiologically so that’s
partly why while 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 $300 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 for like that
you’ll see they’ll you’ll see that they
pop their ugly little head up and you
know and you might want to turn away
might not to 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
your
self 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 ever do anything and
the answer 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
cuz 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 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
say 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 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 that would be good
great you know and you you’re you
horrible so you’ve 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 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’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 anyways 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 if 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 lists bliss what
you do is you suffer existentially and so that seems like a stupid solution
has been carved out of your lives by
society they it’s given you an identity
like a high quality identity and freedom
at the same time and you’re not gonna
get that again in your life
you’ve got a you’ve got a respectable
identity University student and complete
freedom associated without or as near as
you’re ever going to get and you’ve got
these unbelievable libraries that are
full of the writings of people who are
who are intelligent and articulate
beyond comprehension and you know and
and you can go there and you can learn
all this and you might think well why
should you learn it well you’ve learned
it to get a job or you learn it to get
good grades or you learn it to get a
degree and that’s all nonsense it’s
nonsense
the reason that you come to university
to be educated is because there is
nothing more powerful than someone who
is articulate and who can think and
speak its power and I mean power of the
best sort and its authority and
influence and respectability and
competence and so you come to university
to craft your highest skill and your
highest skill is to be found in
articulated speech and if you’re if
you’re if you’re a master at formulating
your arguments you win everything and
better than that when you win everything
everyone around you wins to because to
transform yourself into let’s consider
you consider your transformation to
something approximating the logos it
means you shine a light on the whole
world well there’s nothing more exciting
to do than that there’s nothing better
you can possibly do and to think that
you’re coming to university to be you
know trained to have a job it’s like
great that’s a hell of a lot better than
being unemployed and covered with cheeto
dust while you’re snacking away in front
of your video game in the basement
you’re spectacular you’ve you’re you’re
all capable of being world beaters you
transform yourself into something that’s
articulated and sensible and grounded in
history and knowledgeable and wise men
you can do anything you want and
hopefully anything you want for good
because if you have any sense everything
you want to do would be for the good
because there’s nothing more compelling
or meaningful or or useful in combating
the tragedy of life than to than to
struggle with all your soul on behalf of
the good and the universities have
forgotten that it’s why everyone’s
bailing out of the humanities and they
should the humanities are corrupt and
they’re corrupt because they’re not
telling students this it’s so bloody
obvious it’s like learn to think learn
to speak learn to read it makes you a
superpower an individual superpower you
have and I don’t understand why that
isn’t just told to students it’s not
that hard to understand and everyone
wants to hear it’s like really I could
do that I could do that like yeah really
you could do that and the whole society
around you is labored for really
thousands of years to provide every
single one of you with this spectacular
opportunity that you have while you’re
undergraduates and graduate students
here man
they’re just everyone’s just praying
that you would come here and manifest
everything that you could manifest and
that’s what you should be doing instead
of waving placards and complaining about
how you’re oppressed for God’s sake the
only reason you’re not rich is cuz
you’re young you know that’s the best
really that’s them if you look at the 1%
even the dreaded 1% you know most of
those people are old why well when you
progress through life if you’re
reasonably successful you trade in your
promising youth for your wealthy old age
but you’re still bloody old would you
would you trade it would you trade your
youth for that like if you factor age
out of the economic equation things look
a lot different well of course older
people have more money if they have any
sense they’ve been collecting it for
their whole life is that somehow unfair
it’s not unfair unless you want to want
to be poverty-stricken when you’re 70
and you and you don’t want to be poorer
strict or poverty-stricken when you’re
70 so I just don’t understand what’s
happened to the universities I can’t
believe that you’re not told when you
come the first day look man you are out
you’re here on a heroic mission you’re
going to take your capacity to
articulate yourself to levels that are
undreamed-of you’re gonna come out of
here unstoppable you’re going to be able
to do anything you want it’s like that’s
what you’re here for
instead you’re taught that well you know
the world is a pretty oppressive place
and you’re probably the bottom of the
victim pile and and and there’s and
there’s there’s virtually nothing you
can do about it except know deconstruct
the patriarchy and it’s so we need and
so pathetic that
that university should be embarrassed
that that’s what they’re peddling to
students I’m embarrassed by them
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’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 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 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 helped you but don’t
arbitrarily throw out any possibilities
because you might not have that
tree 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 in to me and sees to
see me and they say they’re depressed I
always ask them a very standard set of
questions I 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 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 it 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 is so powerful
that it can push back the adversity that
would otherwise characterize life
Nietzsche said the person who has a Y
can bear any how 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 what the hell
I’ve been working on this for seven
years and I handed it in and what 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 because that’s how our
nervous systems work most of your
positive emotion is bold 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’t aaron eyes 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
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 gotta 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 I thought god that’s such
a good idea
because it’s not optimistic exactly you
know some people tell you what you could
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 do 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
so 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 10 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 it’s
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 them you know if you take people
then 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 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’d 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 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 so if your life isn’t everything it
could be you could ask yourself well
what would happen if you just stop
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 your
maximally motivated debt 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 then
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 cycle physiologically so that’s
partly why while 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 $300 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 for like that
you’ll see they’ll you’ll see that they
pop their ugly little head up and you
know and you might want to turn away
might not to 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
your
self 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 ever do anything and
the answer 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
cuz 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 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
say 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 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 that would be good
great you know and you you’re you
horrible so you’ve 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 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’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 anyways 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 if 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 lists bliss what
you do is you suffer existentially and so that seems like a stupid solution
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