It's you again. Haven't I talked to you
recently? I talked to you last week.
Why? Why am I talking to you again?
How? How is this happening?
Why are you talking to me again? I don't know, Drew, I don't
know. These are big questions above my
pay grade. It's the Subtle Art of Not
Giving a Fuck podcast with your host Mark Manson.
What are we talking about today? What are we giving a fuck about
today? Bro what?
What are the big fucks of the week?
The fucks given of the week, the fuck of the week, difficult
conversations. Mark I I'm terrible at this, I
think. I don't think I'm very good at
it anyway and. Excited for it, going to be a
great podcast. Going to be a great one, going
to be a great one. I don't, I, I, I think there are
a lot of conversations in my life that I avoid that I need to
like kind of, I need to address. I feel like you're actually
probably pretty good at this. Like you're more
confrontational. You might be too
confrontational. I think I'm more agreeable
until, until I'm, I'm not obviously, but the, the, the
conversation I'm thinking of is I need to have some difficult
conversations with my siblings actually.
All right, I don't know. We grow up.
If you have siblings, you grow up thinking that you all grew up
the same. I, I think there's, that's a
common thing like, oh, we all grew up in the same household.
We had the same parents, the same experiences.
When actually, you know, I, I have two siblings.
There's three of us. All three of us had very
different experiences. When you really think about it.
I have an older sister. I grew up in a small town
conservative area. She was a female.
You know, she got treated differently than I did.
My little brother is 8 years younger than me, right?
So completely different. Completely different.
So like when I'm, you know, a teenager, he's a little kid,
right? And I, I recently learned he
said he felt like an only child for those eight years.
He was basically an only child. And that kind of was like a wake
up call to me. Like, oh, we had very, very
different experiences. And I think that's kind of where
the sibling beefs come in a little bit.
And I need to address some of those things what I think with
my siblings. What do you guys beef about?
I actually don't think that's The thing is I'm not sure what
the beefs are because we haven't had these conversations.
That's what I'm saying. So is that there's just like
this unspoken rivalry or like sense of competition that goes
on like do? You think a little bit.
Is it more passive aggressive or do you guys like openly butt
heads about stuff? It's more passive aggressive OK
sometimes. Yeah.
Is there like shit talking behind each other's backs like
like you? Mean No, not so much What?
I don't think we take the. Picture here.
We have a pretty good relationship I would say, but I
think there just are some like things that we need to to dig
into. The whole reason I want to do
this actually with my my siblings is because like my
parents are getting older. This is actually a common
question you get a lot too, like how to deal with aging parents
and stuff like that. And I, we have my siblings and I
are at the point now where we need to sit down and talk about
those things. And I started thinking about
that and I was like, it would be a lot better if we could clear
some of the air and some of these tougher conversations that
we probably need to have. It's funny because my, my
brother and I, we butt heads all the time until I guess mid 20s
and then all of a sudden we just got on the same page.
And but it one of the things that was very helpful for him
and I was recognizing that we had completely different
childhood experiences. So he's about four years older
than me and my parents divorced when I was 12/13.
He was 16. He was almost out of high
school. So like that's a very different
experience than it was for me. So recognizing a lot of those
different experiences, I do think is helpful and healthy.
But I agree that like, if, if your parents are getting old and
there's like you can see some family shit coming down the, the
Turnpike, it's better to get ahead of that.
Like set some boundaries and expectations now of like, OK,
who's still in town, who's around, who has a, who has a
really strong relationship with mom or who who like gets along
really well with dad And like who's better at like handling, I
don't know, money issues or logistical issues.
It's probably useful to get together and like divvy up those
things. But I'm curious like what is
this mysterious beef the the elephant in the room?
Like how would you describe the beef?
I I think with any, anyone who has siblings, there's probably
at some point you think, oh, you got treated better in this way
or I got treated worse in this way, that, that sort of thing
that goes along. Like I mentioned, like, you
know, my sister was a, a, a female.
She was the oldest growing up in a conservative area.
I think my parents obviously treated her different and they
treated me and my brother. And then by the time I got, you
know, my brother was young and they've been through two kids
who were kind of difficult to, to raise.
He they kind of just, they let him do whatever.
So it was kind of like that gradient down the line.
And so there's a lot of, I think there was maybe some, there's
might be some beefs around you were preferentially treated in
this way and I wasn't. So yeah, you, you got the things
I didn't get, whereas you all have those things like you got
certain things that. I think that's a big one.
I don't know if there's any there.
I, you know, there's no bad blood.
I don't think between us necessarily, but I think we're,
you know, we're adults now and we are going into this like new
phase of our life. Our parents are entering this
new phase of their lives. That's something I just want to
get like, OK, I, I want to understand their perspective
when we go into that a little bit better.
And I think it's an uncomfortable conversation that
we need to have. Gotcha.
So it's less about confrontation, it's more just
about like mutual understanding and like clearing the air.
I think so. OK.
I think that's a big. So there's no, there's no like,
you know, your sister stole 50 bucks from you when you were 12
and oh, there's. Yeah, there's that kind of shit,
but I'm not I'm. Not holder of that.
You're still holding on to it, you know, like.
Pretty sure I would have been the one you blow the money.
Ninja Turtle What? I've never let it go.
Don't even. That probably is, yeah.
OK. Well, that that's interesting.
I think so. I can just tell you how I would
approach it. You know, I would, I would like
organize like a dinner or something between the three of
you next time you're in town or something.
And it's and it's like just the kids, right?
Like it's just the three of you like go out for for tacos or I
don't know. What do they eat in Nebraska?
Like corn? Steak man, that's nice, yeah.
Go out for some nice steaks, you know, maybe, maybe order a round
of drinks or something. And and then, and then just like
slowly get into it. And I would just be like really
blunt, just be like, hey, I kind of want to talk about this
'cause I feel like, you know, it'd be useful, like understand
each other's perspectives. And I think it's probably useful
in like, because nobody wants to feel like they're walking into a
therapy session for no reason. So I think I think it's.
That's what I want to avoid. Yeah.
So I think it is very useful to anchor it to like, OK, hey, mom
and dad aren't what they used to be, right?
Like, and it's, it's probably not going to get any better.
It's you know, it's going to be, it's only going to get more
difficult from here, not not less difficult.
So I think the three of us should be on the same page and
like, really understand each other and like what we're like,
willing to do and not willing to do.
And if there's any resentments or any hang ups or anything like
we should talk about it or whatever and you can just broach
it that way. And then I think the principle
for any sort of conversation like this, it's it's like the go
first principle. You should be the first one to
open up a. 100%. And like table something of
like, hey, you know, this, this has eaten at me for a long time. 00:07:27,520 Or like this bugged me for a
long time and it took me a long time to like realize that it's
not such a thing. There's, it's just human nature
that people, we tend to be more willing to open up when somebody
else opens up first. So it's like, if you are willing
to go first, then that kind of gives them permission to like,
you know, well, it's funny you say that because I used to like
be really resentful of this or that the other thing.
And so hopefully that can get the ball rolling.
But it, it's funny because it's, I don't know.
I sometimes I wonder, like I grew up in a family of people
who just never like people who just bury all their shit.
Like both of my parents, my brother, most of my extended
family, you know, it's, it's like the, the fucking house
could be burning down and, you know, everybody's just sitting
there pretending everything's fine.
And I think one of the reasons I've done well at this job is
because I kind of had like, I think almost as like a form of
survival at a young age, I became the person who would like
speak up and say the thing that nobody else was willing to say.
Like I would point out the elephant in the room.
And, and I think it's, it's like that is carried over into my
writing and into my profession, But it's, it's hard and it's,
it's like, I often play that role in my family.
And so I, I've just, I think almost chronically, like there
were probably about 10 years where I think I, I maybe overdid
it. It was like, just going to ask.
OK, Yeah. Any like nagging little thing
that was going on, I felt like I had to bring it up and like make
a thing out of it. And, and, and The funny thing
with these conversations in it, and I would be aware of this
going into going into the conversation with your siblings
too, is like sometimes talking about it can actually make it
worse. Like, yes, it's an uncomfortable
thing, but it's not consequential.
And so sometimes by talking about it, you actually make it
more consequential. It's like everybody's got like
little resentments and little like some baggage with family
members. Any relationship you've had for
a long time, there's going to be some baggage.
And sometimes addressing the baggage alleviates it, but
sometimes it just like makes it into bigger baggage.
And I think that's the lesson I've had to learn over the long
term of like getting a little bit more choosier with like.
Choosier Battles. Yeah, like, is this really worth
picking a fight over? And back to the parents thing
too, You know, I, I've definitely, you know, 10/10/15
years ago, it was like anything that pissed me off, I would like
bring it up with my parents and make a whole fucking thing out
of it, you know, now, now they're in their 70s.
Like I I only see them once or twice a year.
Let let some shake. Out, yeah.
Yeah, so you think that you went from being, maybe you were too
confrontational and, and you think the wisdom over the years
has become choosing your battles.
And I mean, how do you know which battles to choose?
They're like you did, you did mention like if you're only
seeing somebody a few times a year, probably just let that
shit go. You know, like I don't bring
shit up at like Thanksgiving and Christmas and stuff like that.
Cause a lot of those people too I I only see them.
Well, it's so much, Yeah. I mean, so much of it also
depends on where you're at in your life.
So I like, I do think it there, it was more strategically
rational to pick more fights when I was younger because my
parents were younger. I was younger, You know, I
wasn't married yet. I didn't have an established
career yet. I didn't really know where my
life was going. And so when you're young,
there's all these open questions of like, you know, I'm going to
bring girlfriends home. I'm going to like, I'm going to
move cities. I'm going to, like, have to
figure out finances and how often I'm going to come home and
visit and like, is our mom and dad going to help me with this
thing or that thing? Like there's all these open
questions still throughout your life.
And so I think any sort of issue that's being unaddressed or any
baggage that's being like left under discussed, you know, like
that has consequences. And that does have repercussions
because you're like, OK, you know, I'm going to have to deal
with mom and dad for like the next 20-30 years.
I think where I'm at in my life now, I'm like, I'm 40, my
parents are in their 70s, I'm married, I have an established
career, I've got a house. Like I don't really need them
for anything at this point in my life.
I only see them or interact with them because I want to.
So I think that changes things where it's like, you know, let's
not spoil like the one Thanksgiving we get, right.
Yeah. Over, over like some comment
that my stepmom made last year, like it's just not worth it.
And and you, you kind of learn to let it go.
So I don't know, I don't know if I went too far.
I don't know if it was if it actually was rational it, you
know. You know what's funny though,
that I've noticed, like I, I picked a lot of fights with my
parents over, I guess you would call it our family dysfunction
over the years. And and I ended up in a lot of
very useful arguments, and I also ended up in a lot of very
stupid arguments that were very stressful.
What's the difference? But I will say that I think it
is, it is developed a certain amount of like respect and trust
with my parents. And I don't want to like, I
don't know, I don't want to speak for him.
But like, I've noticed that like my brother still has a little
bit more trouble with them than I do.
And I think it's because I picked those fights and and he
didn't. And so now it's like when I talk
to my parents and if I say something's good, like they
know, they know I feel it's good, right?
And it because they know that like I'll pick a fight over it
if it's not. Whereas I think with him,
there's still a little bit of like tiptoeing around each other
and they don't really know like, well, he says it's good, but is
it good? Like, I don't, you know, he
might still be upset about it or maybe he's like still holding on
to that thing that happened four years ago or, you know,
whatever. So I, I, I will say that it's,
it's even if the like, the discussion itself is
contentious, it's stressful. And even if it doesn't
necessarily resolve anything or like go anywhere, I do think
it's it builds trust and respect for each other because it's
like, OK, well, Drew will fucking speak his mind now.
Like, I know when Drew tells me a thing is what it is.
Like, I know that's what he believes.
And he's not just bullshitting me.
He's not just like, you know, trying to get by through
Christmas this year or whatever. Do you do you approach
confrontation with family different than you would with
say friends or, or your your wife or is there any difference
there, do you think? Or that's a good question.
You know, because like family, we can't get away from family a
lot of times, right? And I think that's the big rub
with a lot of people who e-mail into you saying, you know, I
can't get away from these people.
What do I do versus your friends?
You know, you know, you kind of have more choice there.
I almost think it's easier with friends for that reason because
there, there are consequences, right?
It's like if you have a fight with a friend, there is a very
real possibility or, or a, a partner, right?
Like there's a very real possibility that like this
relationship could end and like you just decide not to see each
other anymore. So it puts stakes on the
argument and it like, people are invested in it.
And also people are willing to look out for themselves a little
bit more, I think because it's like, OK, yeah, if this
friendship's not working for me, then like, we're both better off
not being friends. Where's with family, you know,
you can't necessarily always get away from them.
Like you can't. Your mother is always your
mother, no matter how often you see her or don't see her.
Do you think that makes us take our family for granted then?
Right, Because it's like, well, they're going to be there no
matter what for a lot of people, yes.
Is that, does that make us take our family for granted more
often? I I feel like it does, for me
anyway. I think it does and I think
that's part of it, that's part of what makes family so hard is,
is because people don't there, there aren't those stakes,
right? And I think that that works both
ways too, right? It's like if you have a, if you
have a parent who kind of treats you poorly, part of the reason
they do that is because it's, it's like they take you for
granted. Like they're like, well, he's
not going to get another, another father, right?
So he's just got to, he's got to.
He's got to deal with me. Or the reverse is true.
If you treat your your parents like shit, yeah, they're your
only parents, right? I, I do think that, you know,
there's this interesting proportionality that I've
noticed is that generally the more intimacy we have with
somebody, the easier it is to fight with them and the more off
and like, the more they trigger us, right?
Like, I do think there is, there's something about that.
Like, I, I think part of it is like the, the closer you are
with somebody, like the, the easier it is for them to like
rub you the wrong way or, or, or like rub up against one of your
sensitivities. But it also it's the easier it
is to confront them and talk to them because the stakes, I don't
want to say they're lower, but it's like they're there's like a
safety net like like it's you can't, it's not like a friend,
you can't just like, or it's very difficult to cut them off
for life compared to like say a friend or an ex-girlfriend or
something. So back to your original
question, like do I approach it differently?
I don't know if I necessarily approach it differently.
I just, I do, I just think the discussions are different.
Yeah, sure, sure. You know, yeah, I mean, it's to
me, it's one of those very basic like, you know, you just pull
somebody aside and like, hey, can I talk to you for a second?
Like, this thing is kind of bugging me.
I don't know. I just think with family, there
is so much history and baggage that people get triggered much
more easily and it's more difficult to to remain rational
on both sides. Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, I I would. And I guess for anybody
listening, like that's the thing I would caution against.
It's like, it's so easy. Like if you confront your mom
about a thing, it's so easy to get dragged back to.
Like, well, when you were 16, you did this and this and, you
know, like you didn't come to my soccer games and like all this
shit starts coming up. That might be useful, but also
very realistically is probably not.
Yeah. And I think that's something you
need to really consider before you go into these is like, what,
what level? How much are you going to bring
up? Because I think people who are
non confrontational and they get a little taste of confrontation,
they're like, oh, that's that. That felt good.
And now you're going to way overshoot it.
Like you were saying you would bring up every little thing.
It's like maybe every little thing doesn't need to be brought
up. Yeah.
So this is a really good point. Like there is a little little
bit, like there's a little bit of a high that you get from a
confrontation that ends positively.
Like when you resolve something with somebody and the
relationship feels more solid and there's more trust and
respect. Like it feels really, really
good. It's like OK that that
conversation was not fun, but the result?
The air monkey off my back feels.
Great. And so I think there's a
tendency in some people to start looking for the next thing.
I mean, this kind of gets into like just personal development,
addiction or therapy addiction in general.
Like there's a there's an addictiveness to the sensation
of improvement or growth. And so there's a tendency in
some people to find the the smallest, most minute thing
possible to bring up and and make a big deal out of and and
then that in and of itself become self defeating.
Cool. So how do you how do you feel?
Are you are you? Do you feel equipped?
Yeah, I think that helps a lot because especially the whole,
the whole like be targeted and not, don't, don't get
overzealous with this little bit.
There's just a few, there's a few things in particular I would
like to bring up to my my siblings and eventually my
parents too. And you know, we can all sit
down and talk about it. And I think that that is that
that's, that's the approach I want to take.
And so that helps a lot. Yeah, yeah.
Rather than just like, let's have this big knock down drag
out. Yeah, I wasn't going to do that,
but you know. I think a lot of it, I think, I
think a big mistake a lot of people make is, is that it's
more about like creating the context and container for the
conversation than like actually just being like, I got to tell
you something, you fucking sucked 'cause you did this.
And it's, it's like, no, like, pull them aside, go, go into
another room, go to dinner, go to lunch and be like, Hey,
actually I wanted to bring something up and just kind of
like lightly step into it and then kind of see where it goes.
Because a lot of times people react differently than you
expect. Like sometimes you go into, into
a conversation like expecting a, a knock down, drag out fight and
the other person's like, Oh my God, I'm so glad you brought
this up. This has been eating at me too,
right? And then you have this like
really wonderful, like kind conversation.
And then other times you think you're going to have like a very
simple. You know, clear the air type
conversation and you end up in like a fucking screaming match.
So it's like, as with all human interactions, there's an element
of unpredictability. To it for sure.
Yeah. Well, I think that helps.
I think that'll, that'll equip me.
I I like the the idea of going to dinner with them, sitting
them down. I think they'd both be very
amenable to that. And I'm, I'm not expecting a
knock down drag out in any of these things.
You know, we're old enough and mature enough now that that
probably won't happen. You would hope.
I would hope no guarantees. We'll see though.
Yeah, Yeah. No, my, my, my siblings are both
there, you know, they're, they have their own opinions and
their own lives and they'll they'll let me know.
Cool. But I think it'll be productive. 00:20:48,480 Yeah.
Nice. Yeah.
All right. We'll be back after this break
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We're back with brilliant or bullshit.
What are we talking about today, Drew?
Like what's what's the what are the myths that we're dispelling
or what are we digging into? Well, there's a trend going on
and it relates back to this whole confrontational
discussions you need to have with your family, cutting off
your parents. This is kind of become a little
bit of a trend, a cultural trend, especially on social
media, I think. Yeah, there's.
TikTok just ruining everything. TikTok is ruining families now
too. I know, I know.
Destroying families. There's, there's just there's
some some studies that have found anyway that about about
25%, maybe a little bit over of adult children are estranged
from one or both of their parents at any given time.
OK, now we don't know if this is increasing or not because we
don't have good longitudinal date on this.
Like is, is this any different than it was from the past?
But there it is again, it's in the cultural zeitgeist, social
media especially. And so it seems to be like a, a
real prevalent thing right now. But a lot of people seem to be
walking away from parental relationships that they have.
And sometimes it seems like it's for kind of bullshit reasons.
You know, it's not necessarily an abusive relationship.
It's just like, oh, you know, maybe you favored one of my
siblings over me and I'm not going to talk to you about that. 00:23:29,600 That's what it seems like for
some people anyway. Abigail Shrier brought this up
when you when you interviewed her on the show.
And it you know, it, that's a very big decision and a very, it
could be a very kind of like just gonna say traumatic event,
but I'm not sure if that's, I mean, cutting off your parent is
is kind of can't be a traumatic experience.
I don't know. When should you cut off a parent
and when should you not? Is it brilliant or bullshit to
do it? When is it brilliant or.
Bullshit when is it brilliant or bullshit to cut off a parent?
I'm I'm gonna say it's it's mostly bullshit.
I, I really think cutting off a family member, it is last resort
and it, and it, the offenses must be so egregious that and,
and the, the attempts at rehabilitation or reconnection
have been all exhausted and tried so many times that you
feel you have no other option. Like it, it, it should honestly
feel like the only way I can continue to be like a healthy
independent person is to never speak to this parent again.
And I just think that it, it's going to be rare that that is
the case, right? There are a lot of shitty
parents that like, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of shitty
parents out there. There are a lot of abusive
parents out there. But it, I think the shittiness
and abusiveness really needs to approach a threshold of you
feeling like your mental or physical health is threatened
consistently. So for everybody else in the
middle who like struggles with their parents and let's be
honest, like everybody fucking struggles with their parents.
There's nothing new about this. My answer to this question
whenever people ask is, is it's, it's a, it's a issue of exposure
and frequency. Like you have to manage your
exposure to to the parents. Like you can't just like be
like, well, mom doesn't respect my decision, so I'm never going
to talk to mom again. It's like, well, which
decisions? OK, so maybe don't talk to her
about those decisions. Maybe talk to her, maybe focus
on these other aspects of your life.
I think a lot of issues that seem permanent, they sometimes
they just need time. Like sometimes they're just
needs to be like, OK, we needed a year or two apart to kind of
like chill out about this topic and then we can kind of come
back together and like both manage it to together.
So I, I feel like in general, you only get one mom, one dad.
You're only going to have them for a certain amount of time
when possible. You should, you know, you should
find that threshold that is bearable to be around them, you
know, and that could be how often you see them.
That could be the duration that you see them.
Like I love my parents, but man, like more than three or four
days and I'm like losing my mind and I, I'm pretty sure they feel
the same way. So, so you know, it's like it's
understanding where that threshold is and, and, and like
getting right up to it. And then also understanding
which topics are off limits, which topics are on limits.
And then like setting boundaries around that.
You know, it's like if your mom starts giving you shit about
something, be like, mom, I'm not going to talk about that with
you. Right, right.
Period. Yeah, done.
Then change the subject. You know, so I, I do think so
much of this can be like managed tactically.
Yeah, there's. So while about 25% of adult
children are estranged from one parent or another, the vast
majority of them end up making amends at some point.
So like you're saying that one to two year break can't be very
productive. 70 to 80% of of the people who find themselves
estranged from one parent or more or both will get go back
and they'll figure it out, which is, you know, that's promising
in some way. But do you think, and you kind
of touched on this before, but do you think the expansion of
definitions of things like trauma, you know, the, the, the
blue dot effect basically right, where we're applying it more to
more situations. You know, a traumatic experience
for you as a child might be something different as an adult,
or you interpret it differently as an adult, or you've now
expanded, you know, the the the word trauma has entered the
lexicon to a degree that's probably a little loose with the
definition. Sure, there's been a concept
creep not just around trauma, but the word narcissism, right?
The word abuse, you know, emotional abuse, right?
Gets thrown around a lot now, you know so.
The definition of That's very. Right, like a a dad who doesn't
approve of anybody you date is now emotionally abused.
You know, it's like is he? No, he's probably not.
Maybe he's a Dick, but like he's there's a difference just
between being disagreeable and unenjoyable to be around and
actually being emotionally, emotionally abusive.
And again, like I say this again and again, but like the the
problem with with concept creep, the problem with like expanding
the definitions of all these things, Not only does it cause a
problem of just like leading people to catastrophize normal
everyday experiences. Like to think that like, I don't
know, getting cut off at a red light is like a, a trauma.
What people don't don't realize is that it, it does a disservice
to people who are actually traumatized.
It like it removes credibility from people who actually have to
deal with a narcissist, from people who actually suffer from
emotional abuse. You know, it's like if everybody
on the street is suffering from emotional abuse, then the person
who's actually being abused isn't going to be noticed and
and isn't going to get the attention or care that they
need. So not only are you like making
yourself worse, but you're also harming the people who are
actually victims. So yeah, concept creep is bad,
bad, bad, not good. I'm sure there's a lot of this
happening. I've definitely, like, I've seen
my fair share of posts on social media of, you know, teenagers
and 20 year olds crying and saying that their mom is abusive
because they like, wouldn't buy them the shoes that they wanted
or something like that. So like, I think it, it's like a
certain amount of this is just teenagers pushing boundaries.
The problem is, is that the boundary we've created is like a
diagnosable, like mental health intervention.
I think in that sense, like it's the health, like the mental
health approach is like backfired to a certain extent.
We've like trained teenagers to understand all these terms and
understand these boundaries. And so being teenagers, they
want to see what happens when they cross them and not not
realizing that like we actually have like legal and medical
repercussions when those get crossed.
So, yeah, all of that is to say, like, I do find a lot of this
concerning. It my gut is that like, there's
an inflation of this going on that like 25% is probably higher
than it was when, you know, in the 80s and 90s, definitely the
50s and 60s. So I, I, I don't know, I, I
think people need to like, chill out a little bit.
Well, not only that, but you know, we've talked about before
like in the loneliness epidemic and everything like that, the
where people are not living with close, close to families as much
and more. You move to a new city, you go
off to college, you never move back.
You never, you don't see your parents as much.
You know, you have David Brooks on and you talked about this
where when you live with family members, especially extended
family, or they're closer, they're around more, you learn
to deal with difficult people that you can't avoid.
And that has escaped us to a large extent where more and more
people are living alone. We don't have to necessarily
address difficult people in our lives.
And it's it might just be easier to cut people off as well.
It's it's the default almost for some people.
There's a value to friction. Like that was my big take away
from that conversation. And, and I still think about
that a lot. Like there is a value to having
friction in life because it, it forces you to prioritize and,
and to like stick with things. When it's easy to leave a
community or a group or a friendship, then like when
things get tough, you're not, you're not going to stick
around. You're not going to like develop
the skill set to to build a relationship, have hard
conversations, negotiate outcomes, make compromises, like
you never build those skills. And so you you actually look
kind of robbed yourself of having strong, healthy long term
relationships in the future. Yeah.
I love the idea of there being a certain barrier to exit.
I don't know. You know, I think historically
the barrier exit was like, it was usually like a religious
community or, you know, it, it had a lot to do with like, shame
and judgement. That's probably bad.
But like, there is something to the like social life being so
frictionless now that I think backfires on us.
What what do you think? I mean, there is a larger kind
of cultural trend too of cutting people off just in general, not
just parents, but you know, oh, this this friend again, it goes
back to everybody's a narcissist or I've been traumatized in this
way or that way, and I'm just going to cut these people off.
You and I have probably even recommended this on the podcast
at some point to cut certain people out of your life.
What do you think is like the, I don't know, is there kind of a
rule you would go by to when to cut somebody off and when to
like actually go into confrontation with them?
Oh man, I. Mean, that's a tough one, I
know. That's really hard.
And I'm going to say like this one, I'm bad at this one.
Like, I've actually noticed this with myself, especially the, say
the last 10 years, like now that I'm well into adulthood, like my
tolerance for people who annoy me has gotten so low.
And like, that sounds like a good thing on paper.
That sounds like, yeah, I, I suffer no fools.
I deal with zero bullshit. The problem is, is that like,
everybody's going to annoy you at some point and everybody has
a little bit of bullshit in them.
And so I've actually, I've run into this problem the past 10
years and is in that like, I have to stop myself.
Like I will meet somebody and, and hang out with them a few
times and they'll do something that that annoys me.
And I'm like, I don't want to hang out with this person again. 00:33:53,720 Like that's annoying.
They're kind of full of shit and, and then a few years go by
and I don't have any friends and I'm like, I'm like, oh shit, you
know, maybe I should have stuck with it a little bit more.
So that's actually something that that I've been working on
and, and it's conversation my wife and I have been having of
like giving people more chance, like just showing up and like
sticking with sticking with people through like the minor
nuisances and like the the ticks or proclivities that we don't
love. Or, you know, maybe they say
this thing that we find, you know, offends us a little bit.
It's like, let the shit go, try again.
And I've definitely been pleasantly surprised in a few
cases, Like they're, they're I can death.
I can think of two good friends off the top of my head that like
the first two or three times I hung out with them, I thought
they were annoying as fuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's like you just keep, you keep giving it another chance.
And, and I think it pays off. I, I do think that one of the
side effects of, you know, the social media age, it's just that
like our, our tolerance and patience for discomfort,
especially socially is extremely low.
And I think that backfires. I think it really it comes back
to embracing the friction and allowing it into our lives.
It also just shows that you know where good advice can turn to
bad. Like yeah sure, cut toxic people
out of your life, but not every little toxic thing that somebody
does gives them a toxic person, right?
So. And it's in it in the moment.
It's easy to bullshit yourself, right?
Like it's, it's a, you know, I had AI had a friend recently who
did something that I thought was it was manipulative.
Like it was, they were definitely like not being on the
level. And it really pissed me off.
And in the moment I was like, fuck that person.
I don't want to see him again. And I don't know, like now a few
months have gone by and I'm like, you know, you don't know
what's going on in people's lives.
Like I've since found out that they had just lost a job.
They were going through like a hard time.
They were, you know, they just dealt with it poorly.
Like they approached me in kind of the wrong way and that
they're not a bad person. Like they're just, they had a
moment of weakness or made a bad choice.
So I, I don't know, I'm trying to be more forgiving and more
patient. But I guess my point with that
is that it's easy to inflate things in the moment of like,
wow, that's so toxic. I don't tolerate that shit.
And you know, and then a month goes by and you're like, was it
toxic? Like, yeah, it wasn't good, but
like, I don't know what is the definition of toxic.
Like I I feel like toxic is like a consistent repeatable dynamic
that happens over and over again.
OK. And where's like everybody's
going to have a one off shitty moment, you know, even like the
coolest person is going to just be kind of an ass occasionally.
So I don't know, that's like that's something that I'm I'm
still struggling with. OK.
So just to recap, going back to the parents, cutting off a
parent, you think that it should be like a level of toxicity or
even abuse where it's impeding your own personal growth and
development to such an extent that you just you can't.
It's not even growth and I would say it's well-being well-being.
And I would say too that you you've exhaust like it's not
getting better. You've exhausted all sorts of
interventions, confrontations. The person shows 0 interest in
changing. That's a big one, I think, yeah. 00:37:24,360 Absolutely.
And I realize it's, it's hard, like it's easy to say these
things, but like in the moment, it's emotionally very difficult
to like deal with a parent who you've got like a lot of history
with. But I, I do think like the
permanent cut off is pretty drastic.
Like it needs to be the last resort.
Very much a last resort, yeah. Yeah.
OK, OK. Well, there you have it.
There you have. It All right, We'll be back
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All right, we're back. We've got listener questions.
What are what are listeners giving a fuck about?
What do we got? Kingsley sent this question in
from YouTube. They're asking how do I deal
with a family that's kind of fucked.
So what we've been talking about more or less.
I want to be better, and typically that means distancing
myself from them. But then I feel guilty and
shitty for not trying to help. But when I do, I just seem to
get dragged down into their unhealthy habits, conversations,
and limiting beliefs. It feels suffocating.
I don't know how to properly balance this desire to grow and
break generational traumas without completely abandoning my
family. I think I wish my wife was here
because I think she could relate to this a lot.
I, the thing that stands out to me in that question, and I see
this a lot and I actually felt this too, is like when you're
working on yourself and you're like resolving a lot of the
messy shit that you grew up with.
I think there's this, this natural proclivity and for lack
of a better term, to go back and like fix your family or fix your
parents. And I definitely felt that very
strongly when I was younger. I've talked to many, many people
who like struggle with that as well.
You grow into all these realizations and understand
things about yourself and realize things about your
childhood and what your family's like.
And you try to go back and share that with them because it's
liberated you and you want to liberate them as well.
But then they're having none of it.
And they're just, it's like same old shit.
They like shoot you down. They they pull you back down and
I think the issue is not what the questioner thinks it is.
It sounds like the questioner like thinks the issue is just
like, should I abandoned them entirely?
Should I go away? There's a middle ground, which
is you don't have to fix them. You can still have a
relationship with them. You can just not engage on that
level, right? Like if they start talking a
bunch of shit and have all these like really unhealthy
conversations, like you can just get up and leave the room.
You know, you can go find something else to do.
You can, you can make it so that you only go home for one day,
you know, one day during each holiday, each year.
You can have boundaries without even necessarily communicating
them. Like you can decide, hey, if my
mom starts talking about this or acting this way, I'm just going
to leave or I'm going to go in the other room or I'm going to
like call my my partner, whatever it is, right?
You can manage that exposure. And it's not your responsibility
to fix your family. I do think it's good.
Like it's good to be a person who offers your family
opportunities, who like puts the availability there in front of
them of like, hey, if you're interested, it's here.
But you can't make them change and you can't make them stop
being who they are. And so I think for me, I found
it incredibly liberating when I stop trying to change my family
and just be there and just let them be who they are.
It actually ironically they actually the relate.
My relationship with them got much better when I stop trying
to fix everything. Right, but what is it though?
We we had several questions that were very similar to this.
Someone is trying to improve their life and they either they
either actively take it to the people around them and and as
you were just talking about like trying to help them change,
which, you know, you can't make somebody change, or they just
they get a lot of Flack from the people around them for all these
new habits they have or they're trying to, you know, be better.
What is it about that? You know, like a common thing I
hear about that is, oh, these people are they're just trying
to justify that their own kind of like, you know, mediocrity or
whatever it is and their own decisions and trying to be OK
with them. And they don't like seeing other
people strive around them. Is that it?
Or what is it about this where people just when we try to
better ourselves, they kind of resist it?
Well, I, I definitely think that's doubly true in families
because so look, everybody who feels stuck or is kind of stuck,
like they have stories and justifications for why they're
stuck. And it's one thing to see
somebody else start striving and doing new things and improving
themselves. And of course, you know these
people will talk shit about that person.
But when it's your own family member, right?
When it's when it's like your sibling who grew up in the same
bullshit you grew up with, with the same abuse, with the same
terrible neighborhood and shitty schools.
And they're actually doing things and making things of
themselves that forces you that like, that destroys a lot of
those stories and narratives you've used to justify your
complacency. And so the, the, the
compensation of the reaction, the negative reaction towards it
is going to be that much stronger.
And I, I think this is a very common reaction.
I, I, there are a number of people that I've talked to who
grew up in poverty and like they've experienced this and
like it. It's because one person fighting
to get out shows that it's possible.
And so all the stories that they've created of why it's
impossible to get out of poverty no longer apply.
And then that forces them to look at their own lives and be
like, oh shit, what have I been doing the last 10 years?
And that's a very uncomfortable thing.
So, you know, it is kind of a cliche of like, when you try to
improve yourself, people are going to try to pull you back
down. I don't think it's because
they're like necessarily evil or you know, it is nothing.
It is everything to do with them.
And rather than you, you know you're you're popping their
their illusions of why they didn't make more of themselves.
It's like it's threatening their identity.
You think to some extent or is it?
For sure, there's a comfort and just kind of surrendering to
your circumstances of just being like, well, always been poor,
always going to be poor. Nothing I can do about it,
right? And then it's like, suddenly
your cousin gets into Harvard and you're like, oh, well, fuck,
maybe I was wrong. You know, Like it, it, it makes
it difficult to like, maintain that illusion that you've been
keeping up. It's just, it's such a mind fuck
though, 'cause it's like the people you love and closest to
you and they're doing well and then you like you're like
you're, you're no better than I am.
You know that kind. That's such a mind fuck I think
to go through because it's like the these people are supposed to
love and support you. That's what you think.
And you go to them. You're like, hey, I figured this
thing out. You're really excited about it
and they're like, sit down, stay in your lane.
That's a mind fuck I think for a lot of people.
For sure, but it's like people aren't really able to to love
and support the people they love if they don't love and support
themselves. So like, if they've, if their
relationship with themself is really dysfunctional and they've
got all these stories about why they don't deserve good things
and, and why nothing good is ever going to happen to them
and, and why, why everything seems to go wrong and, and
they're just horribly unlucky and they're victims and all this
stuff. And that's what keeps them
comfortable and, and feeling safe.
And then you start like fucking popping those balloons one after
another. They're actually going to,
they're going to react defensively like they're not
going to see that they're not going to be happy for the good
things happening to you. They're going to like scramble
to find justifications of why you just got lucky or why, why
it's not true or why you're being selfish or why you're,
you're, you know, you're, you should be doing something else.
You, you know, whatever it is. And I think it's really, really
hard to see that. Like, it's really hard to
understand that you can really only be happy for somebody
else's success when you're already happy with who you are.
And people who are not happy with who they are, they're just
going to react with envy and jealousy and and anger.
What, so a lot of people feel guilty though then right when
they either do distance themselves, put up some sort of
boundary, reduce contact with them, cut them off completely.
There's a lot of guilt that can come with that as well,
especially when it comes to family.
I don't know, is there a good way to deal with that?
Because, you know, people get, you know, guilt and shame, they
have their place, right? But to what extent, Like it's
obviously not fair for family members to use guilt against you
in most situations anyway. I don't know.
Is there is there any way to deal with that?
Like familial guilt? You know what I will say, and
I'm not going to go into details, but this has been like
incredibly profound for me. You know, like, I don't know
about most people, but like before I had a lot of money.
I always fantasize like if I get a lot of money, I'm going to
take care of everybody in my world.
I'm going to like friends, family, you know, anybody who
needs help, I'm going to help them.
And that was a really, you know, when when my career really took
off and I did start making a lot of money.
Like that was a very exciting thing for me.
And interestingly enough, I think most people would be
shocked at how how often that doesn't go well.
Like there will be somebody in your life that you really care
about and you will go to them and you will, you will help them
financially. You will buy them things.
You will pay for schools, you'll get them signed up for classes.
You'll get like lay out everything for them, for them to
succeed to, to make their life better.
And it's, it's crazy how many people don't take it.
And it's crazy how many people actually resent it.
Or if they do take it, but then they resent you for it because
it feels like you did it and not them.
And it's a really complicated thing.
And I think I definitely had this illusion that like, OK,
well, one day if I have money, I'm just going to help everybody
and everybody's going to be happy and we're going to live
happily ever after. And it's like, no, humans are
fucking complicated. And so the guilt thing is just,
I think it's important to understand that it's even if you
could go back and give those people everything you wanted to
give them, there's a good chance that a lot of it wouldn't work.
A lot of it wouldn't really move the needle.
Some of it might, you know, there might be one person in the
family that's like, Oh my God, here's an opportunity And they
they snatch it and they take it and run.
But in a lot of cases, like it doesn't go well or it doesn't
change anything, you know, like you think it's going to change
everything and it just, it's the exact same dynamic, just in like
a slightly nicer house, you know.
So like, I think a lot of that guilt is comes from the fantasy
of like, I can fix this. Maybe it's almost like a, it's
like a messianic complex of like, I'm going to be the
savior. I'm going to save my family.
I'm going to come back, I'm going to make something of
myself and I'm going to come back and I'm going to save
everybody. And it turns out you like can't
save anybody or you can only, it's very difficult to save
anybody. And and all that guilt and that
pressure you were putting on yourself was just completely
like delusional and self important.
So I'm curious though, like you grew up, very humble background. 00:51:23,880 And very working class, yeah.
Yeah, and like you, you had a really successful academic
career and like you're doing well.
Like did did you feel like because there's there's the
family piece. And then there's also like the
places you and I grew up, which is, you know, oh, you think
you're fancy now, right. Like like, oh, that's a nice
truck you got there. You think you're fancy now, you
know, like that sort of shit. And I I'm wondering, I'm
wondering if you've experienced anything like that?
I don't know, because, you know, in my family anyway, I, we were
all kind of brought up to be independent and take care of
ourselves. And then, you know, we've all
kind of done that. You know, my siblings and I have
done that. And so I've never felt a ton of
guilt from, from my family. I, I do like helping out as well
too. And I think I did have that same
kind of like fantasy of I'm going to fix everything and
realizing that that, you know, doesn't work.
It doesn't. Work.
It's like you know, you get an extreme example is like you got
a drug addict. The last thing a drug act needs
is more money. Right and.
That's not that my family is a bunch of drug addicts or
anything like that, But you do realize at some point like you
can't fix everything and it's almost egotistical of you to
think that you can. Like you were saying, there's
just delusions of being able to fix everything.
I don't think for, you know, I'm lucky in a lot of ways.
Yes, I grew up with humble means and working class and whatever,
but my, my family was always very much like, look, you take
care of yourself and we'll help where we can, you know, even if
that's the most minimal thing we can do, we're still going to do
it. So I never really felt that
there's been sometimes where I, I've, I have felt obligated to
help out and I've helped out and it's been fine.
But there were boundaries around that even too.
It's like I'm not going to help you out this way, but I'll help
you out this way and we find a compromise.
What about culturally? And I bring this up too because
I think not only is this typical of, I guess you'd call it like
rural America, like where I grew up, it was very much if you
stand out too much. Oh yeah.
That's like, oh, you think you're better than us.
You know, it, it that kind of attitude.
And I know that this, this is a common thing when I talk to like
Australians, New Zealanders, Scandinavians, a lot of
Europeans like there, there is very much this culture of if
you're too successful, people try to bring you down a notch.
And, and I, you know, I, I've definitely felt this a little
bit when I go back home, like there are certain certain places
or people I'll see and they like, they treat me very
differently. And sometimes it's kind of
condescending. Sometimes it's ass kissy,
sometimes it's kind of condescending.
You know, there's a lot, I'll get a lot of comments, you know,
from people like, oh, well, you're a big famous author now.
Like surprised you have time for people like us.
You know, it's just like really like, but it's very shitty.
It feels shitty. So I don't know, I'm wondering
if if you have any experience with that or if you have
thoughts on that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, when I go
back home, I anymore I just kind of hang out at my parents house. 00:54:27,600 I don't really go out and and
interact too much outside of that.
But also I, I don't know, I've, I mean, I obviously I'm not as
well known as you are so that I don't have that level, you know,
of, of exposure. But I think, I think I feel it
more in my head than than is actually the the case with my
family and the people back there.
I don't know what I found is mostly people don't, they don't
really care. They're just like whatever.
I don't, I don't know if I feel as much, no.
It's interesting, like, I don't know, I've talked to I, I, I
have some friends, some Australian friends who are like
very successful and they, they live in America and one of the
reasons they live in America is because they feel that at home.
And, but I, I don't know, it's interesting.
Like I, I think some of it has to do with how much you
identify. Like I, I have zero identity
wrapped up in, oh, I'm not going to say 0, but I very little of
my identity wrapped up in where I grew up.
Right. Yeah.
So when I go back and, and people act a little bit weird or
something to me, it's just kind of like, Oh yeah, that's why I
don't live here anymore. Like it doesn't, it doesn't
grate on me. But it's funny because when I
was growing up, that used to drive me crazy, you know, if you
tried to do something a little bit too different or, you know,
ambitious or something, like people kind of talk shit about
you. Yeah, yeah, no, especially, you
know, me growing up in the middle of the country, it's very
much like, hey, do the same thing and, you know, keep your
head down and yeah, don't make too much noise.
Totally. For sure.
That was that was part of it. I don't know though, too.
I grew up. I grew up with a lot of really
good teachers though, too. Who, you know, they were pretty
encouraging of, of people's success, I thought, even though
it was a small town and you know, they were, they were
teachers in a small town and they were very much like, they
were very, very supportive of all the kids around them.
I thought anyway, so I, I got lucky.
Yes, I grew up in a like a working class, humble family,
but there was a lot of people around me who, you know, maybe
didn't think you know, you, you're going to be the next
president or whatever. But they were at least like, go,
you know, go do something. Hey, the way the way this
election is going, you never know I.
Know, I know, we could be on the ticket.
Together holding, holding out for for the Bernie ticket.
Yeah, the Drew Bernie ticket. I know, but yeah.
Well, awesome. All right, so that's our episode
for the week. Be sure to submit your
questions. You can go to the the new
YouTube channel Subtle are Not Giving a Fuck podcast, submit
questions there in the community tab.
Or you can just e-mail us at podcast at parkmanson.net.
Please be sure to like subscribe, follow the show,
leave a review. It helps us, it helps the
algorithms. It just gives us good feedback
for what we're doing well, what we're not doing well.
And we'll leave you with the wisdom of the week, which is one
of my favorite, maybe my all time favorite author.
One of my favorite quotes, Leo Tolstoy, said all happy families
are like, every unhappy family is unhappy differently.
So there you go. We'll see you next time.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast is produced by Drew
Bernie. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura. 00:57:39,200 Jessica Choi is our videographer
and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we
will see you next week.