Drew I'm, I'm wondering if my, if I'm becoming a boring person,
like, which is funny because I spent so many years of my life
optimizing to be unboring to just optimizing my life to be as
interesting as possible. But it's funny because lately
I've I've really found a lot of peace and liberation and in
things that are generally considered boring life
practices. And it's weird because like
there's a still little piece of me like the inner 20 year old
who's like, dude, you're so lame.
Like, what do you get out of this house?
Get out of the house, go do something.
And but meanwhile, you know, I'm so happy, like life is so calm.
So I think that's the fuck of the week.
We're going to talk about what is a routine?
What is a rut? When are you avoiding life by
sticking to your routines? And when are you embracing and
and celebrating life when you follow your routines?
And this one gets personal for me too because it's like causing
marriage problems. Oh, OK, yeah, let's dig into
that in a minute. In a minute.
But yeah. It's the Subtle Art of Not
Giving a Fuck podcast with your host Mark Manson.
Sum up, what are we talking about?
Well, I I'm very similar to you too.
Where as I've gotten older, I've found my little routines that I
really like. And recently it occurred to me
it was something like I hit like a 5 day streak where I did the
exact same thing five days in a row.
And it's all actually fairly healthy and I enjoyed those five
days, but there was like the same thing five days, not the
exact same thing, you know, but like I worked out at the same
time. I, I worked the same hours.
I went to bed at the same time, got up at the same time and it
was nice in a way, but then I thought, oh God, is this?
Is this? Is this all there is to is?
This all there is to it. Is this a Groundhog Day?
Like a healthy Groundhog Day? Yeah, Yeah.
When does a routine become a rut?
When when do our healthy habits become actually kind of toxic
habits? This is fucking with me because
it. It is.
I've long held the belief that a modest amount of chaos is is
optimal for one's life. Like you, you want a certain
amount of spontaneity and unexpectedness.
Yeah, man, I really like just doing the same thing every day.
I know. That's me too.
Yeah. Like I, I think that novelty is
amazing and awesome and I want to seek it out.
But then I also, it's like 5 days in a row.
I'll just sit there and be the exact same thing.
Yeah, it is. That's what it is.
It's a lot of effort. You have to expend a lot of
energy. I you know, there's so many
angles I could attack this. This is a very new thing for me,
I have to admit. A big part of it is since I quit
drinking, so when I quit, when I drank, I like something about
the interaction between alcohol and like the dopa dopamine
circuits or whatever. I just kind of had this unending
craving for novelty. And since I stopped drinking, I
don't have that anymore. And it on, I actually kind of
have the opposite of that. Like now when it's now, when
there's an opportunity to, to do something spontaneous or fun or
cool, my immediate thought is like, well, what's the, what's
the point of this? Like, what is this going to get
me closer to my goals? Is this going to help me grow in
some ways, which is fucking lame, right, right.
That's the official term. It's fucking lame.
So I, I have mixed feelings about it.
I, I would define the difference between a routine and a rut is a
routine is something that you feel helps optimize your life
and it invigorates your life. It, it, it, you know, adds
meaning and purpose and efficiency to your life.
A rut is when you are doing the same things over and over
because you are afraid not to. So I think the defining element
is, is fear and avoidance. You know, like where I'm at in
life, I don't fear doing different things.
Like I, there are plenty of time, like I go on trips and do
a bunch of stuff for work and still, still go on vacations
and, and do a crazy thing here or there and, and I enjoy it,
but I don't know, I don't crave it the way I used to.
Yeah, yeah. What about, I remember when you
wrote that big piece about Immanuel Kant, right.
And I didn't realize I didn't know this, but Kant either never
left the town he grew up in or only left it like once.
And he basically. Did the same thing over and over
and over again and now he's one of the most famous philosophers
of all time. Arguing probably one of the, you
know, 25 most influential humans on world history, one of the
most important philosophers ever lived in the same town his
entire life, had the exact same routine his entire adult life.
His his neighbors used to joke that they could they could set a
clock to when he came and left his apartment.
And despite living, I think he only lived like 25 kilometers
away from the ocean. He never saw it.
Yeah, his entire life. Yeah.
He saw no reason to. That is insane.
Like that to me sounds like I wasn't worth it, right?
Like for us it probably was, but for him I'm not sure.
I don't know. I, I do think there is a
fundamental value of novel experience, especially when
you're young and you don't have many experiences.
I think, I think I, you know, it's novelty is a diminishing
returns curve. Like the older you get, the more
experiences you have, the less impactful or insightful or
useful each subsequent new experiences.
But when you're young and you haven't had many new experiences
at all, they're super important and you should definitely seek
out a lot of novelty in your life.
So some of this I just feel like it's just age, like people get
fucking boring when they get old.
But in my case, some of it is the alcohol thing and and some
of it too is the health thing. It's, it's so I realized at some
point in the last couple years that's like really maintain a
healthy lifestyle. You, you have to be kind of
rigid with your, your, your daily routines and, and your,
your daily practices. I guess I just brainwashed
myself into, into thinking I love it right?
Or something, I don't know, because I guess the alternative
wasn't wasn't amenable anymore. Right.
Yeah, but I mean, when, when the routine is healthy, like I was
saying that my, I have a fairly healthy routine that I stick to
more or less when it's healthy, when it's parts of it are at
least invigorating for me. But also like that week ended
with that those like 5 day streak that I have that week
ended and I'm like, I don't remember that week very well.
Like it's just kind of all a blur because it was all the same
over and over. Again.
So, and they say that too, but when you get older, that's one
of the reasons like time seems to go faster just because you
end up doing the same thing over and over again.
I could see that. Yeah.
I mean, on the one hand, OK, so I, I wrote this article years
ago called The Four Stages of Life, and it's still, it's one
of my favorite things that I've ever written.
And the four stages, the first one was mimesis or mimicry,
second one was exploration, third one was commitment, and
the fourth one was legacy. So stage 1 is you just copy what
other people do. It's what all chill.
It's how children learn. It's how we learn when we're
young. It's like you watch other people
do things, you see what they care about, you see what they're
interested in, and you try to do what they do.
You try to care about the things they care about.
It's basically the the way that you learn everything for the
first time. At a certain point, you have to
branch out and do things that the people around you aren't
necessarily doing. You have to explore your own
personal identity. You need to find your own
interests, find your own passions, find the things that
you care about or that you're good at that other people aren't
because that's what differentiates you.
And so that's kind of like the first, that transition is kind
of like the first big meaningful project I think of most people's
lives. And that leads you in the
exploration. Exploration is about maximizing
novelty. It's maximizing experience.
It's figuring out, you know, what you like, what you dislike,
who, who you want to spend time with, who you don't want to
spend time with, what sort of pursuits you're good at on and
on and on. And I think most people spend
their early adulthood in the exploration phase.
But then the next transition, the next big project is picking
the few things to commit to, picking the few things that are
like, OK, these are like the three or four most important
people are things in my life. And so I'm going to build my
entire life around those things. And that leads you in the stage
3, which is the commitment stage.
And so it's funny, it's like I totally recognize going by my
own framework, I've left the exploration phase, which is fun
and exciting and sexy, and you get a bunch of really cool
stories to the commitment phase, which is like Groundhog Day, as
you put it, a healthy Groundhog Day.
And so it feels from like an emotional point of view, it can
easily feel like a downgrade. But at the same time, when,
like, I really do an inventory on what I'm spending my time on
day in, day out, it's like, man, I fought tooth and nail for
years to figure out what I fucking care about.
Yeah. And now I found it and I've
managed again, fought tooth and nail to build a life where I can
optimize for those things that I care about.
And now I'm doing that. And then, of course, being a
fucking human, I'm sitting around being like, well, this is
kind of boring, isn't it? Right.
This is like always mildly dissatisfied no matter what
happens. You're you're always A6 or A7
out of 10. Yeah, there's always something
you can be optimizing, always something you can be working on.
Always more fun out there. Yeah, yeah.
OK, So what? How is this destroying your
marriage mark? OK, that's a bit of an
exaggeration, but it's funny because so my wife, she, she
really loves novelty and and it's not even novelty.
Like, it's not even like it's definitely not chaos.
Like she loves exploring new things.
So she loves food, she loves architecture, she loves design.
So like for her going across town to a new restaurant and
trying a new dish or looking at a new museum, like these things
are like very meaningful for her.
And back when I wasn't boring, I was always down the go do it
with her, you know? But now that I'm in this new
phase of life, I'm kind of like, I'm good.
Like I've been to a restaurant before.
I don't need to go again, right? And and so, yeah, basically
she's just getting frustrated. She's like, what happened to
you? Like you went, you aged like 20
years and two. She keeps joking.
She's like, I didn't sign up for this.
I signed up for the fun, the fun party guy.
And I'm like, yeah, that guy was drunk.
So I joke that it's ruining my marriage, but it, it's been,
it's been a point of contention lately.
You know, she's like, she's been urging, like we need to get out.
We need to do more things. And, and, and my, my point of
view has been like, we spent like 12 years doing all of the,
the things. So like, why don't we just like
slow down a little bit? So yeah, that's that's our
current project. So so I mean, there's a whole
thing about, you know, growing together and your routines
evolving with one another in there as well.
But what would you say to somebody who is maybe stuck in a
rut? Like how do you inject chaos,
good chaos into your life? Like is there AI mean?
We've talked about travel a lot. That's a really good one.
I think it also makes you appreciate your routines.
I think when you leave, like, you know, you've been traveling,
I've been traveling a little bit this year too, and that really
makes you appreciate your healthy routines and gives you
some perspective on that. Is there are there any other
ways to just inject some some good chaos into your life?
It's hard because, I mean, chaos by definition is kind of
unexpected right there. There's got to be like I, I
imagine, do. You even want to get
prescriptive with this for people like, I don't know, chaos
is different. We we define that very.
Differently. We do define that very
differently. You and I would define it
differently I. Think I, I, I do think there is
value of intentionally breaking your routine periodically.
If anything, that just give you an appreciation for it.
Yeah. And remind you of like, This is
why I have this in my life. This is why this matters.
But I imagine there are going to be some occasions where you're
like, maybe I should change my routine.
Like I actually kind of like this, this new thing I tried or
this new thing I did. You know, everybody that's going
to be different. Like, you know, for some people
that's going to be changing out the coffee they have in the
morning or, you know, waking up 30 minutes later, you know,
yeah, you get really wild and crazy.
But other people, you know, it's going to be like, I'm going to
go spend 6 months a year in Mexico and see how that works.
Right. So it's mileage is going to vary
quite a bit. But I do think it is important
to consciously spice things up. Yeah.
And try, try different things. I'm also a big fan of like,
it's, it's funny. Like, have you been like a
Brazilian steakhouse? Oh yeah, I like.
The Fogo de Chao. Yeah, yeah, I.
Fucking love that shit all right, so Brazilian steakhouses
for people who don't know Brazilian steakhouses, the way
it works is you just they give you a card and there's one side
is green and one side is red and you just flip the side over to
green and they just start bringing you random food And
like every time they walk up to the table, you just say yes or
no. And if you say yes, they put it
on your plate. And if you say no, they leave.
And you could stay as long as you want.
You can eat as much as you want. It's awesome.
So my wife and I, we think of this as like flipping the card
green in our lives of like, OK, you know, we need a few months
where we just say yes to everything.
And we we create that rule. It's like any invitation, any
opportunity, any like opening going on in the neighbourhood or
get together or neighbourhood like I, I, So we're currently in
a say yes to everything mode. OK, I like that.
And it's funny because it's just like a lot of unexpected stuff
shows up. So like, I just got a invitation
to join like my neighbourhood organization or whatever and
like start attending neighbourhood meetings to like,
I don't know, do whatever people in California do complain about
housing. So I'm going to sign up and I'm
going to go to the meeting. You know, like, there's a lot of
sexy things, but also a lot of like completely random and
unsexy things. Right.
I like that idea. There's there's almost like a
seasonality to it. I like that a lot better than
like, Oh yeah, you should do this.
You should, you know, like inject this type of chaos in
your life or whatever. It's more of a seasonality type
of thing. Cal Newport, who we had on, he
talks about the seasonalities of work.
You could have a seasonality too of just your routines and.
Because what inevitably happens is you say yes to too many
things and then you get over committed, and then you start
feeling burnt out and overwhelmed.
And so that's when you flip the card back to red, which at a
Brazilian steakhouse let's the waiters know, leave the table
alone, don't bring anything over.
And then you can, like, eat what's on your plate.
And then when you're hungry again, you flip the card
back-to-back to green. Yeah, that's another reason I
think balance is a little bit of an illusion because you have to,
there's times to be out of balance and times to be to seek
balance. It's like a thermostat type
thing. Maybe that should be like the
title of my next book, Life is a Brazilian Steakhouse.
And it said the cover is you with a green, a big old green.
With like paddle, with a giant, like 5 lbs of steak on my plate.
Yeah, this is going to kill. Publishers are going to love
this one. They're going to love it.
Actually, do you know what? The only time I've been to one,
I was with you in Sao Paulo. Oh shit, that was the only time
I've been to a FOGO. That's right.
That is right. And I meet it was Thanksgiving.
We we were there on Thanksgiving Day.
That's right, it was in Rio, actually.
Ate my I was in Rio. That's yeah.
Ate my weight in whatever meat they brought.
Me on Oh yeah, that that's how you do it.
That's how you like Fast for the day.
I didn't have breakfast like I went no breakfast.
No, nothing, you know, and then you show up like ready to ready
to fucking work and, and you put you, you put the hours in, you
put the put the pounds in you got, you got to get you got to
get that like that 6999 worth of of beef, like at least 2 lbs of
it so. I was sweaty and greasy when I
left so. On that note, we're going to cut
it to a message from our sponsors.
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All right, we're back from our meat hangovers.
What's on the docket for brilliant or bullshit this week?
Well, we we found a study. This study's been out for a
while and some people might have heard of it, but.
No, nobody's heard of it. True.
No, nobody reads this shit like you.
Do Yeah, I'm the only one. You're not like this.
Well, it's a study about boredom, actually.
So we're talking a little bit about boredom.
But what they did basically is they they took people and
they've just stuck them in A room and took all their phone
away from him, took everything away from him and said jump,
just sit there. Sounds horrible.
Right, Yeah. So they give him 6 to 15
minutes. And there was a series of
studies in the early studies, people were just like, this is
torturous, I don't want to do this anymore. 6 to 15 minutes up
to. 15 minutes that people couldn't handle it.
Yes, yes. And then they started giving me
giving them different tasks or options where they could do
something if they wanted to. The most interesting finding
though that they found is that there's a lot of people who will
give them self a shock. Rather than just sit there with
their own thoughts. They would rather shock
themselves. Electrical shock.
Electrical shock, Yeah, a a mild electrical shock.
They would rather give themselves a mild electrical
shock. Unshockingly, 2/3 of men, of
course we shocked themselves. Only about 25% of women shocked
themselves so. This is why women live longer.
Yes, yes, one of the many reasons, but it's it's really
interesting because it just it shows just how averse we are to
being bored. This study's almost 10 years
old, so it's probably gotten worse since then, but I like.
This for two reasons. 11 is and we'll talk about the boredom
piece, but I also like it because it it very much
philosophically aligns with a lot of the Buddhist stuff that
I've always talked about, which is the mind kind of craves pain.
Even if you put people in a perfectly fine situation, the
mind will start finding things wrong with it and find things to
be upset about and get up, get attached to certain sensations
or thoughts or feelings that feel dissatisfying.
And it's like this to me, this is just like the most
fundamental expression of that facet of human nature, which is
like, well, there's nothing else to do, so I might as well just
hurt myself because that would give me something to focus on
and think about and be upset about, you know?
Yeah. So yeah.
It's it's it's like. It's almost poetic in a way.
I'm not surprised. I'm honestly.
I'm honestly not surprised. I'm not either.
I it's just it, it speaks to
just how is it? Are we afraid of our thoughts?
Are we are we like we don't want to stare at our own thoughts?
Is that what it like? Are we just so afraid of what's
inside our heads that we just don't want to face it either?
To the the instructions on some of these words to just just sit
there, just don't do anything. Notice any thoughts that come up
or whatever and we'll ask you about them later, but don't do
anything. And people were just like, no,
I'm like, my mind wanders. I want to think about other
things. I want a fidget.
I want to, you know, if you don't have your phone with it,
you, you probably think about I wish I had my phone with me.
Like is if we're just so, so averse to being bored.
I mean, a lot of a lot of creative people will say boredom
is like the that's the playground of the creative,
right? And we avoid a lot of that.
Like boredom is the mother of invention.
Yeah, something like that, right?
It, it also makes me think not not having another thought
related to the pain thing, which is they say this about people
who, who commit suicide, that it's not like, if you think of
like 911 like the people who jumped out of the towers, it's
not that they weren't afraid of jumping out of the towers.
It's that what was inside was so much more painful than the fear
of falling, right? That that became appealing by
comparison on a much more micro scale.
I wonder if this is sort of the same thing that like sitting
alone with your own thoughts is so burdensome and painful that
an electric shock feels appealing in comparison.
That it's like, well, that's less painful.
So what is it about our own thoughts that is like so
burdensome? What is it, Mark?
That's what I'm asking you do. Do we really have?
Is there just a fear of like what's underneath all of that
and that lizard brain or? Is it?
I don't know. I just think boredom is painful.
Yeah, I do. And I, and I think our tolerance
for boredom is just probably all time low.
I don't know, man. Like I the, the, what this
brings to mind is I remember I went on a, a number of
meditation retreats in my early 20s when I lived in Boston.
And I remember the first one, it was a single day.
It was like 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM or whatever.
I got about halfway through that day.
Like the back half of that day was so excruciating for me.
I never at the time I never really meditated for more than
like 20 minutes maybe. And how old were you at this
time? 21.
OK, so maybe. 2021. So this is early to mid 2000s,
yeah. Yeah.
And it's had had a very modest experience of meditation and I
signed up for this full day retreat.
And so it was basically like 9 hours non-stop silent.
You basically walked in, took your shoes off, sat down,
started meditating and you you weren't done until like 9 or 10
hours. They gave you no instruction or
anything, they just. Very basic.
Very, very basic and. And you paid for this, I'm
guessing like you just, you paid to just go sit and.
It was like donation, but my memory of that is that that
afternoon was was absolutely excruciating.
Like, I desperately wanted to get up and leave so bad.
It actually reached a point where I, I, I started like,
singing songs in my head 'cause it was the only thing that could
like, kind of get me through it, which I realize is literally the
opposite of meditation is like finding entertaining things to
do in your mind. But yeah, I don't know.
It's, it's, it's, it's, I do think this is, for me, this is
where meditation, the value of meditation kicks in because the
meditation is the practice of learning to sit with stillness
and nothingness and become comfortable with boredom.
And I, I, I think that's got to be a valuable skill.
No, for sure. I, I, I think a lot of us too,
we don't think of boredom as being painful.
We just, we think of it as Oh my God, I'm bored, I'm
uncomfortable. We don't think of it as painful.
But if you really stop and pay attention to the boredom, it's
pain. It is painful.
Yeah, it is painful or a certain level of it I think is actually
pain. Like it's and it's not, it's not
pain specifically. I think it's more discomfort.
It's just like, yeah, when I really think back to that
retreat, like it just felt like, you know, how like when you're
stuck in a a shitty airplane economy seat and like, no matter
how you shift your weight or move your legs, it's
uncomfortable. Like, no matter how you sit,
it's just like dissatisfying. It's kind of like that for hours
and hours and hours and hours. So I don't know.
Speaking of which, have you heard of this raw dogging
flights? No, it's not what?
It's not what it's going on. It is not sexual.
So there is this movement like Jen Zeters are doing this where
they get on a flight. They do no phone, no music, no
TV, no movies, nothing. They just sit and like stare at
the back of the seat in front of them for the entire flight, OK.
And and they post on social media and they're like, I just
raw dog a four hour flight from Miami to New York or whatever.
And it's like everybody gets really excited about it.
And then there was like some guy who posted he did like a nine
hour flight, raw dogging, like no sleep allowed at all.
Oh, no sleep even. It's like, wow, it's like a
little mini meditation retreat in the sky.
But anyway, it's becoming a thing, OK, And and it's it like
it reminds me of this. It's almost like a macho thing.
It's like, oh, I raw dog the six hour flight.
Oh, I raw, I raw dog the red eye out across the Atlantic.
It's like, oh damn, dude, like you're fucking tough.
I don't know. This is like, I feel like this
is a world we're coming to where where stimulation is so over
abundant that like the new machismo status symbol is like,
well, I can be bored longer than you.
You can't. I'll be bored longer than you.
Like that's like the new like bicep.
That's not so bad. I think I kind of like that.
I don't know. I I've heard of raw dogging life
before where it's like you don't do drugs, alcohol, like no
caffeine, everything. There's raw dog in life I've
never heard of. Called Mormonism.
Yeah, straight edgers and like all that kind of yeah, yeah,
yeah. But I do.
I remember when Wi-Fi started to be get on planes, when they
started to add Wi-Fi to the planes and I thought, oh, this
is going to be amazing. And then it started happening.
I'm like, oh God, this was like one spot where I could just like
try to sleep detach. Yeah, yeah.
So dude. I love Wi-Fi on planes because
it's good enough to actually get useful things done, but it's
it's still bad enough that like you can't get on and watch.
I don't think of it too much much longer before it's all just
Starlink and it's high speed. I just like, I hope they keep
the connection bad because I'm so productive on flights.
So productive. Well, so is there is there some
value you think then in raw dogging life in general, you
know purposely how do you, is there a good way to leverage
boredom, I guess? I think so.
I mean I. You've talked before about like,
like writing, you know, where you like, I, I sit down and you
know, if you turn off your Wi-Fi or whatever it is and I have to
sit here for two hours and the only thing I can do is either
write or do nothing, I got two options.
I and I've heard other writers talk about that too.
So is it like using, leveraging that pain of the boredom to do
something for sure. That's not boring for sure, but
difficult. I also just think like if you
develop a tolerance for boredom, it's going to give you an
advantage in so many areas of life.
Like if you're willing to sit with hard thoughts longer than
other people or have difficult conversations longer than other
people or listen, like educate, you know, watch a lecture or
read a educational manual or something longer than other
people. Like it's just we're entering a
world where, you know, boredom tolerance is a form of pain
tolerance and it, and it's any, any form of pain tolerance is
going to give you advantages in life.
So yeah, I think this is just like a.
It's a new dimension of that. Yeah, I think so too.
All right. Speaking of boredom, here's a
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you for it. Q&A time, Drew.
It is Q&A time. What do the people want?
Let's give the people what they want.
What do they want? Adina from YouTube, she asked
please explain the rules of quitting.
I like the way she puts it too. When to quit and when to grit?
When to quit and when the grit? No, but this was.
This was actually a pretty common question.
Or some variation of this. Question.
This comes up. Do I give up?
When do I this comes up? Stick it out.
All the. Time all different context to
whether it's a career path or a project you're working on a
relationship you. Know it's tough too because
persistence is super important but also not wasting time on
something that's never going to work out is also is also really
important for sure my here I have a couple of heuristics for
this One of them is I just think of as momentum.
So if something is very hard and it's not really working, do I
still feel, do I feel like my progress?
First of all, do I feel like progress is happening and do I
feel like that progress is accelerating?
So it's basically like, you know, the more time that I spend
trying, do the failures get better or, or the failures
improving? If they're not, then to me
that's, that's kind of a sign of like, all right, this is
probably not going to work out. Whereas if they are, you know,
so an example here is when I, I started my business, you know,
I, I basically made no money for like a year, year and a half.
But I was learning so much about marketing, sales, promotion
websites, e-commerce. Like my, my understanding of the
business was growing at such a such a fast pace that I was
like, you know, if I keep at this, it feels inevitable that
something will eventually work. So I should just keep going.
Like I, I had a lot of confidence that that was going
to be the case. Whereas I've had other things in
my life, like music, for example, I was a good musician.
I went to music school, I did decently in music school, but it
was so clear to me that the best guys in music school were able
to first of all, they were just so far ahead of me.
And the, the reality of the music industry is such that
like, you know, the top point O 1% get 99% of the, the, the
benefits that I was like, I don't see how this is going to
work out for me in the long run. Like, I'm either going to have
to work 10 times harder than that guy for the rest of my
life, or I can just go do something else that other people
have to work 10 times as hard as I do, you know?
So, so yeah, I gave it up. And I'm honestly, giving it up
was one of the best things I ever did.
Yeah, Does you, you talked about, you've talked about
before too, like when you were building your business and I
think it was not like you were living with a a girlfriend at
the time or something like that. And you said, yeah, I'm not
making a lot of money. Just like what you said, I'm not
making a lot of money, but I'm learning a lot as I go.
Not only are you learning, but you're like this, this learning
to me is very, very valuable. And like, I value this even if
nobody else around me does. Is that do you think that's a
good indication too? It depends what.
Because what I'm thinking about is there's, there's some,
there's like outlier examples of this where somebody like should
have given up. You, you think they should have
given up at some point, but they didn't.
They stuck it out. You, you've written a lot about
Charles Bukowski before. He didn't become really all that
famous until he was in his 50s. And even then it was kind of hit
and miss and he was up and down and all over the place.
There's other examples of that too.
I'm a really big fan of like it's Always Sunny in
Philadelphia, the show, right? Rob Mcelhaney, the the creator
of that show, I mean, he should have gave up a long time before
that. He wasn't getting roles in
anything. And so he just decided to go
make his own thing. And it turned out as Always
Sunny in Philadelphia. Most people would have given up
by that point, sure, and should have probably given up by that
point. What are those outliers teach
you, if anything? Well, with creative pursuits,
yeah, I think the equation's a little bit different.
My argument with creative pursuits is that you should be
doing what you would be doing for free anyway because that's
what you're going to be best at, that's what you're going to be
more most passionate about, and that's probably what people are
going to resonate with when they see your work.
But I think there's also, you just have to be realistic that
any creative industry or market, 99% of the benefits go to the
top .1%, right? So, and there's just in a
certain amount of that too, there's a certain luck factor,
right, timing factor that plays in as well.
So I think if, if, if we're talking about creative pursuits,
the equation changes a little bit in professional pursuits.
I, I think it's, you need to simply be really honest about
your skill, talent and what you're learning and
understanding when you are working in a pursuit that you
don't necessarily have like any natural advantages at that you
don't have any natural talent at, that's going to be something
that's hard to stick with in the long run.
So this is one thing that Tim Ferriss talks about is he, he
often says that like when he's faced with a difficult decision,
he will pick the option where failure teaches him the most.
And so he will often try things that are a long shot, but the
failure of that long shot will actually create a lot of 2nd
order benefits or teach him a lot of things or give him a lot
of experiences that could be valuable in other areas of life.
So that's a factor as well, right.
And that, that was true with my business of like, because I was,
I remember having a conversation with my dad about it, you know,
I, he was like, where's this going?
Like what? And I was like, look, even if
this doesn't go anywhere, I'm learning so many useful skills.
I learned how to, I literally became a web designer because I
was trying to like put my, put it together a website for one of
my businesses. And I did freelance web design
for a number of years. So I learned web design, I
learned copywriting, I learned, you know, Facebook ads and, and
promotions. I, I, I learned all these skill
sets that I probably could have gone and gotten a day job doing
one of those things if, if the writing hadn't worked out.
So that's another example of like, OK, even if this fails,
I'm developing skills or there are like second order effects
that are very beneficial. I was also building a network,
right? Like, let's say the the blog
never took off, but I had 500 really hardcore fans as readers
of those 500 people, like I can probably find something, you
know, I could probably ask that those 500 people like, hey, I
need a job or I want to work with somebody.
Like anybody have an opportunity?
So there's like there's a relationship capital that you
can get. So again, I think it's how
valuable is the process and how valuable is the failure?
And if those two things are valuable, then yeah, keep going.
And then there's also the momentum question.
It's like, is it getting easier the more you do it or is it
getting harder the more you do it?
If it's getting harder, that's a that's a sign.
The momentum thing is very true. I think when it comes to
relationships. I gave this I gave this analogy
to a friend a couple years ago and it inspired him to to dump
his girlfriend. I told him I.
Was like, please go on. Yeah, go on.
Yeah. Give us the secret, I told him,
because he, him and his girlfriend were like fighting
all the time. And I was like, look, I'm going
to ask you a simple question. I was like, when you guys go
through the fights and you like come to resolutions or
compromises, I was like, does it feel like each subsequent fight,
does it feel like you're pushing a rock up a hill or does it feel
like you're pushing a rock down a hill?
Like does each subsequent fight get easier because of the
previous fights or is it getting harder because of the previous
fights? And he said it's getting harder.
And I was like, OK, every relationship I've had that
failed it, it got harder. It was a rock going up a hill.
Whereas with my wife, it was a rock going down a hill.
Every subsequent fight got easier because of the the things
we learned in the resolutions we came to in the compromises we
came to in the previous ones. So the obstacles were still
there, but they just, they were much more manageable.
Yes, OK, yes, OK and it's you there's a momentum to to the
obstacles and I, I, I, I, I literally think it's a it's a
matter of like you are in the you are building a skill set
within the relationship. Like my my wife and I have a
Mark and Fernandez skill set that we've built together that
makes us really good at fighting now because we've.
Successfully fought and found resolutions and compromises so
many times whereas other people they like, they don't build that
skill set. They just kind of like take
turns suffering and in the resentment builds and you know,
nothing actually gets better. OK, All right.
You also see the other day you brought up this point to me and
I think it's really interesting about hard work.
What it what where does hard work come into this?
Like where does just like gritting it out?
You know when you when you really want something, when you
think you want something and you but you're not sure if to keep
going. What hard work?
How do you define it? How do you think other people
define it? And where does that fit into all
of this? Hard work is, you know, you're
expending a lot of time and energy, but what's funny is that
your definition of a lot of time and energy is going to shift
wildly based on your relationship with the activity.
So I think the example I gave to you when we talked about this
was like when I was in music school, I could feel myself
falling behind the other people in, in my program.
And so I started practicing more and I went from maybe practicing
2 to 3 hours a day to practicing like four to five hours a day.
And in my mind, I, that was like a massive investment and I was
kind of mentally at the ceiling of my capacity to practice and
improve on the instrument. So at the time I thought, I'm
working my ass off. This is like as much as I can
give and it's not, it's still not really working.
Meanwhile, there are other people in the program who were
practicing 8/10/12 hours a day. So in my head that was hard work
and it wasn't working. I ended up quitting.
When I when I got to writing and especially when it came to
blogging and the business around blogging, I would sit down and
start working on something and I wouldn't even get up to like.
Eat. For like 10 hours and then after
that 10 hours, I would like come back and still have more energy
to keep going. And I realized I'm like, oh,
this is hard work. Like this is what actually like,
it's not that it feels hard, like it's the, the subjective
experience of like what is difficult is often misguiding
because it's like the, the actual quantity of energy and
work that was going into it. Like 12 hours of writing felt
easier to me than 4 hours of music.
And so again, that's like, that's an indication I was in
the wrong thing before. The four hours feels like a lot
of hard work. Yeah, you're probably in the
wrong thing. Whereas if you're able to go 12
hours and still, like, be kind of excited to keep going or
like, have trouble falling asleep because you're still
thinking about it, that's a sign that you're in the right thing.
Right. So, so like the other students
in the music program who are there were practices 6810 hours
a day. Did you ever talk to them about
that? Yeah.
So there's a guy named Chris McQueen.
He's a couple Grammys now. He was like the top guy in my
program. OK.
He's a guitarist in a band called Snarky Puppy.
They're amazing. You should check them out.
I remember I like, I cornered him in the cafeteria one day and
I started talking to him and I was like, really curious about
his practicing, his practice regimen.
So I started asking about like, you know, how much do you warm
up and like, how do you work on a song and all this stuff?
And he was just giving me these blase answers just like, I don't
know, dude. Like I just kind of work on it
like whatever. It's like typical shit of like
anybody who's actually really good at something.
They don't think a whole lot about how they do it.
And so I remember I had this whole conversation with him and
I was like, you know, I'm just going to kind of tell him what
what's going on with me because I was thinking about dropping
out at that point. And so I told him I was like,
look, man, I'm like, I'm practicing like four or five
hours a day. I'm like starting to feel
tendonitis in my left hand. I'm exhausted.
I'm completely burnt out. I was like, what do you do when
you feel like that? And he was like, I've never felt
like that. And Mark walked out and he was
like all. Right.
I was like, all right, I need to get the fuck out of here.
This is not, you know, and it's it's he is a Grammy and I don't.
And that's why that's a huge part of why, right?
Definitely. So yeah, I think it's it's
important to be realistic about those things.
Right, right. Yeah.
What about for people who haven't found that thing?
Maybe that's another question, I don't know.
I mean, yeah, it is. That is kind of another podcast.
But I don't know, maybe that kind of comes back to the
boredom thing, like being able to stick with something through
the boredom, through the friction.
Like everything has some amount of friction, everything.
Like, even if you love something, you'll still wake up
not really wanting to do it maybe 20% of the time.
And but you, I don't know, you still go do it like that.
There have been so many times where like I wake up and I'm
like, I don't want to write today.
But then I force myself into the chair and I open the document
and I like write a couple sentences and then by like the
second paragraph, I'm like, oh, yeah, this feels good, you know,
and it comes back. But I feel like if people don't
have the So this is where the grit comes in.
If you don't have the grit to like put your ass in the chair
on those off days, you don't rediscover the fun, you know?
So grit is important too. Yeah, yeah.
Here's the final answer, All right, quitting puts you.
Quitting is important because it points you in the right
direction. And then grit is only important
once you've found the right direction.
If you use grit and you're pointed in the wrong direction,
it's just going to get you further off course.
Yeah, that's where the pain comes in.
Yeah, that the unnecessary pain, yeah.
That's when you start electrocuting yourself.
As we all want. To do as we all wish we could.
All right, what's the oh, the wisdom of the week.
So I, I picked this one out. This is a very orthogonal
thought, but I used to be a fan of the late Mitch Hedberg, the
the one liner comedian. I like this quote.
This quote's not going to sound wise, but I I would like people
to think of it in the context of like, quitting is never actually
quitting. Quitting is simply making space
for something else. So in those terms, Mitch Hedberg
once said, I like an escalator because an escalator can never
break. It just becomes stairs.
It's a great dad joke. Yeah, it is a great dad joke.
All right, we'll be back next week.
Be sure to subscribe, follow the show, leave a review.
And if you want to submit one of your questions, either leave it
as a comment under this show on YouTube, or you can submit it to
podcast at markmanson.net. We will be back next week.
Say goodbye, Drew. Goodbye, Drew.
Drew. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a
Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Bernie.
It's edited by Andrew Nishimura. Jessica Choi is our videographer
and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we
will see you next week.