Well, it's that time of year again, Drew.
You know what time it is. What time is?
It it is, it is time, it is that time that we do every roughly
365 days where we arbitrarily decide that this is the time
that we're finally going to change something about
ourselves. And then we sit and we obsess
and we get really excited and we write down a bunch of goals, and
then by February we we're back to snacking on the couch and
watching Love is Blind reruns, right?
Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, I don't know.
About you, That checks out. Pretty much, yeah.
It's the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast with your
host Mark Manson. Are you ready for this time of
year? Are you excited for this?
Yet another new year, new you, Special I.
Do like a fresh start? I do, and maybe that's just
because of the novelty of it or whatever, but I do appreciate
the the fresh starts. Yeah, yeah, I, I will say my
evolution with New Year's or New Year, new you it, it's changed.
You know, when I was younger, I was very cynical about it.
I was like, this is stupid. You should be able to change
your life any time of the year. You don't need a specific date,
but I do think there is some some sort of value to the
ritual. Of.
Hey, first week of January, let's sit down, assess your
life, what's working, what's not.
I, I think that's, that's the whole reason we have holidays,
right? Is that they are reminders for
us to check in on certain things or topics about ourselves.
So I in my older age, I've mellowed a bit and I've, I've
come around OK. Good, good.
Well, that's good, because it's January 1st.
And and we have to do another fucking new year.
New you I think it was you at one point you compared this like
the self help industry. This is like our Christmas album
or something like that, right? Like you have to do something on
January 1st it. Is impossible not to because
it's just it it's especially now that I've been in this industry
for like 16 years like I I'm like oh it's another January 1st
oh God we need to like what are we going to promote this year
what's our new like PDF or special recourse or whatever
like every year it's something right so this year you guys get
a podcast it's. No longer A blog post, right?
Now which is? Which is the sack of coal
equivalent of the. The sack of coal equivalent.
I mean, it's just a podcast. I mean, this is, people are
probably going to listen to 20 different New Year's podcasts,
you know, trying to set their goals or anything.
So we'll, we'll do our part, right?
We will, we will check in. You know, last year you and I
made New Year's resolutions and then we did a check in in June.
I'm curious, yours was sleep better.
Yeah, you are currently under slept.
Honestly, the year went pretty well.
Last night did not go well. So if we if we step back, take
the forest for the trees, I I have improved my sleep.
Habits. Well, I set a goal to run a
marathon and I quit by March, so.
Time by March, Yeah. I think I was, I was like the,
the typical New Year's resolution candidate for the
last year, but I like what we're doing this year.
So what we're doing today is actually, I've never been a huge
new Year resolution guy. Long time listeners and readers
know I, I think most of the value of goals is just that they
get you to do something. It's like the goal itself isn't
really that important. So it won't surprise people that
I've never been huge on big New Year's resolutions.
What I've always liked to do is I've like to set a theme for the
year of like this year I'm focusing on X and to focus on X.
These are like the two or three modest changes or goals that I
have throughout the year. So today, instead of doing fuck
of the week, we're doing fuck of the year.
The. Fuck of the year.
What is our fuck of the year? What is it?
What is either the thing that we want to give more fucks about or
give fewer fucks about and why? And then we'll talk about what
the repercussions of those things are.
So. So do you want to kick us off?
I fuck this off. Yeah, do this.
Yeah. Mine is perfectionism and this
is a lifelong battle and 2025 is my year to finally slay this
dragon, I think. I think.
How are you going to go about doing that?
Well, first of all, what I did is I kind of took an inventory
of like how much how perfectionism is kind of like
fucking up my life or there's areas where I'm like, I don't
really pay attention to it. But I'm like, if you weren't so
perfectionist about this, you would probably do a little bit
better on that. So I kind of took an inventory
first of that. What are some of those things?
Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, the
big one I've noticed over years and years now is that
perfectionism just leads to more paralysis around taking any sort
of action. For me, I have that kind of
perfection. There's a few different flavors
of perfectionism. The one I have is kind of leads
to that anyway. And when you want everything to
be perfect, you just don't even start on things sometimes, or
you get a little bit started on them and then you're just like,
I got to wait and let this like be a little bit more perfect in
my life. And that's just, I can't keep
doing that because you end up spinning your wheels or I got
like 10 projects that I start that I don't finish, that sort
of thing. So yeah, that's a big one.
So what's your what's your plan of attack here?
What, what is what? What are you, well, tangibly
going to change? Yeah, so, so the the thing I've
learned, especially if I'm like doing this podcast is like how
how like you just don't you, you can't get it perfect, you won't
get it perfect. And so accepting, being more
accepting around that and just trying more things and like
failing in public, that's kind of that's kind of going to be a
big part of this, I think too is just be like.
Well, you've done plenty of that.
Done plenty of that, done plenty of that, but just being a little
bit more open about things with people too and just be like,
Hey, I'm planning on doing this and knowing that.
I mean, I not even for the social pressure.
I think a lot of people do that for like, oh, it's going to be
social pressure, but just be like letting people kind of nuck
in on some more of like my plans.
Because I'm, I, I usually keep pretty private about things
because of the fear of like, oh, if I tell somebody this and I
don't do it, it's going to look really bad and it'll be
imperfect, you know? Is there a fear of criticism or
judgement? Or 100%.
Yeah. OK.
I'm. I'm.
Yeah. I think that's a big part of my
perfectionism, too. OK.
I fear that. Yeah.
OK, Yeah. So being more open about plans,
being more OK with things not going great.
Like how, how are you going to keep yourself accountable on
this stuff? Because it's.
Easy. Just going to ask you about this
because this is kind of wishy washy, a little bit like
abstract. How do you take something that
is more abstract like that and you have this.
I mean, just in general, what we're doing here is more.
We're saying, we're not going to say resolutions, we're going to
have these themes. Well, that's pretty abstract.
So how do we make that more concrete?
Or should we? I think, I think it's useful
when I approach this stuff, I I always like think of the theme
or the issue that you want to attack perfectionism in is in
your case, right. And it's like the the thing
about stuff like this as well is you've struggled with
perfectionism your entire life. You're not going to get rid of
it in in a year like the the place you want to get to it is
where it's manageable. And so the goal almost isn't
necessarily to get rid of perfectionism.
It's to develop tools and habits and behaviors that allow you to
manage your own perfectionism. So what I would look for is, you
know, identify common situations where perfectionism fucks you
over and then develop a plan of action of like, OK, in that
situation in the future or this year, I'm going to do this other
thing instead, right? So, you know, broadcasting
decisions, I would get very, very clear on like, OK, where
that has tripped you up in the past and where you've been
afraid to kind of express your plans or, or your, your
ambitions or your motivations. Like get get really clear on.
I'm gonna share this with people in this context.
So before I do this sort of thing, I'm going to shoot a
message to my friends or my family or my siblings or
whatever and be like, hey, this is what I have planned.
And, and make that commitment to include that the next time these
situations come up essentially. And I think it's, it's probably
useful to find like two or three situations like that and create
those very tangible action plans.
Because yeah, if you kind of just go through the year all
wishy washy of like, I want to be less perfectionist, then as
we all know it, it kind of you kind of don't really change.
So you so you have to like whittle it down to the actual
behaviors that you're going to modify.
And again, I think the goal shouldn't be to get rid of the
perfectionism. It should be to find courses of
action that help mitigate or compensate for the
perfectionism. Yeah.
The outcomes of it, yeah, OK. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Like damage control mostly. So I'll, I'll create an example
and, and, and I don't think you have a problem with this, but
let's say, let's say that you were struggling with
perfectionism, like within our, our business, the podcast,
right? It's like every time I ask you
for a podcast outline, it shows it like it's crickets, like
nothing shows up. And it's because you're just
obsessing over all this stuff. And let's say that that was a
consistent problem. What I would do is I would, I
would create a like an agreement with yourself or even
communicate it to me and be like, I'm, I'm gonna sit when I
think it's 75% done. I just have to send it tomorrow
no matter what and communicate it say like, Hey, heads up, this
is only 75% done. But this is where I'm at.
This is the direction I'm heading.
And that's just an example. You know, you could apply it to
a lot of other things too. Like I'm trying to think like if
you're a perfectionist about, oh, shit, now I'm blanking.
Like what another perfectionist? What's another area that it
fucks you up? I think any sort of like
personal project outside of work right now that I'm like, I
should like start to, I don't know, a newsletter or something
like that. I just sat on my just like, no,
I'm not going to do that, you know.
And for, for I the, the, the procrastination around it is
like palpable too. It's just like, oh, this like
hurts and I just need to stop thinking about it.
So I avoid it that way. Yeah.
So I don't know, personal, like more personal projects that have
some sort of, or what at least what I see is like a a big
component of myself worth wrapped up in them, you know,
for whatever reason though, like for with work.
And I think part of it is just working alongside you where
you're pushing it along. You're like, no, let's go, let's
go, let's get this going. So that helps like
accountability wise for me. I need that kind of like
external like accountability I think.
Do you have other people in your life that are like that?
Like so for instance, we've talked about this before.
How I I'm like an anti perfectionist.
I'm just like fucking ship it whatever, it's a mess.
Let's let's figure out how to fix it as like let's build the
ship as we as we sail. And it's funny because I found
that I naturally end up with a lot of perfectionists around me.
Yeah, but it's funny 'cause it, it works both ways, right?
Like it's, it's like I help the perfectionist in my life because
I just like force them to ship. And the perfectionist helped me
because they helped me like slow down and be like, whoa, wait, we
could probably fix this thing really quickly or, or maybe
actually you, you want to like, yeah, address that before you go
any further. Like I know that's, it's been
true in my work career, but it's also like in my personal life,
like my wife's a huge perfectionist and I see that
dynamic play out there as well. Do you have people in other
areas of your life that are like that?
Yeah, I think so. There's, there's, I mean, I have
a a pretty supportive network of people who, you know, would
support me either way and and offer good criticism too, I
think at the same time. So yeah, leaning on that might
be a a big thing for me. Yeah, seeking those people out
and then like really leveraging them as well.
My fuck of the year is related. You'll you'll get a kick out of
this. I know.
So I'm, I am very good at, you can almost look at not giving a
fuck in like 2 different dimensions.
The first one is, is kind of the classic like not worrying about
the things that don't really matter to you.
And I think I'm excellent at that.
Like there, there's a handful of things that I care about in my
life and I'm really good at focusing on those and caring a
lot about them. And then the things that are not
within that small little sphere, it's kind of dead to me.
Like I, I don't really, I don't lose any sleep over it.
Within that sphere, I am definitely and you have
experienced this directly within the sphere of the things I give
a fuck about. I think I'm a little bit
obsessive and a little bit of a control freak.
I knew I knew you'd enjoy this. I knew you'd, you'd, you'd you'd
really get I'll. Let you finish, you're the 1st.
Co host for this episode. And as you know, so the team's
growing, there's a lot more people on the team, which means
I need to like, delegate and trust people, like get things
done and not meddle as much. But also like, as listeners are
going to discover, we're doing a lot of new things this year.
Like my business is going to change a lot over the next 6 to
8 months. And in many ways, by 2026, like
my career is going to look very different than it does today.
And that's terrifying. I am definitely discovering that
I, there's a certain amount that I just need to let go and let it
happen. Like try not to.
Part of this too is, is controlling the audience's
perception of me. Like I'm, I think I've been a
little bit too worried over the years of like, well, we can't
really do that 'cause that's like not a Mark Manson thing and
it doesn't really fit with the brand.
And, you know, it's like all these people, they don't want to
hear that. Like, like I've worried a little
bit too much about that. Or maybe it wasn't too much.
But I think at this point in my career, I'm older, you know, the
books are 6-8 years old. It's time to move on to another
phase of my career. And I think that moving on or
that transition into like whatever the next version of my
career is, it means letting go. It's like, OK, a large
percentage of my fans, my audience are gonna hate the next
thing I do. I need to live with that and not
try to like protect it and coddle everything.
And, you know, go the the same way that it's always gone.
Because I think in a, in a creative field, that's just,
that's death, you know, if you're not evolving and
changing. So it's, it's, I see it on two
fronts. I see it as the, as the team
grows and expands, I need to relinquish a little bit of
control and, and trust some of you guys to, you know, handle it
and, and not meddle and everything.
And then, but also, as I move into this next phase of my
career, not worry so much that not everything is going to be
loved or adored by all, all the people.
You said it's terrifying. What about it is terrifying?
It's, it's the loss aversion, like it's, it's, it is, it feels
good to, to create something and put it out there and have a lot
of people like it. It feels really good to get all
that attention. And you know, people get really
excited over it. The feeling of, let's say, let's
say the feeling of pleasing 10,000 people is like, it's a
very nice feeling. The feeling of pissing off
10,000 people is like five times worse.
At least it feels five times worse than pleasing 10,000
people feels good. And so I think what happens with
people like me who have been doing what they do for a very
long time and have built a very large audience kind of doing the
same sort of thing for a long time, is you you get complacent,
right? It's like, well, I can just,
it's kind of like the rock band that just keeps playing the same
hit from, yeah, from like 1989. So it, it, it's safe.
And, you know, it's going to be a crowd pleaser, but you're
also, it's not all it. It's also not as creatively
satisfying and. I think you have that
personality for that, which is like you need to keep.
I get new things and and doing different things and I get bored
and pissing people off too. Totally.
I get that's part of it. I get bored easily and I've
definitely felt there's been a really strong tension in my
career probably the last three, 4-5 years of like, I wanna do
something new, I wanna do something different, I wanna try
something, something novel. But man, if I just keep churning
out the fucks, the whole not give a fuck thing, like it's
just, it's just safe and comfortable and everybody likes
it and it's what people know me for.
And it's been hard to leave that comfort zone.
It's become a comfort zone, which is odd because I think the
reason it did so well ten years ago is because it was outside of
everybody's comfort zone, right? And now it is the comfort zone.
And so now I need to like push outside of the comfort zone
again, OK, Which means trying new things and maybe doing some
things that that people don't love as much, which my goal this
year is to let go of control. OK, well, I think we can help
keep you accountable then too. I just thought of something like
we should have a safe word. I think for when Mark is being
too controlling, we'd say a. Team.
Safe word. Yeah.
I don't know banana or whatever, you know, like I don't know
something like that. And we can call you out on that.
Sure. I'm in.
OK, I'm in. We'll come up with something.
OK, I'm nervous just talking about this.
I've like my palms are sweaty. Is it?
Really. That is that extent right now.
Yeah. Yeah.
I I didn't, I mean, I didn't realize up until like probably
the last couple of years of how much of that, because when it
was just small, it was just a few of us, you know, we all kind
of had our own little area and you could kind of pull the
strings from at wherever you need.
Yeah. But it's a very different beast
now. Yeah, it when it was just three
or four of us, it's easy, 'cause it's just, it's like all of us
talked about everything. So it, it didn't feel intrusive,
it didn't feel taxing on me. You know, now we have 1213
people. So if I'm worrying about every,
if I'm hearing about every little problem that's going on
with all 12 or 13 people, I, I will get nothing else done the
entire day. Yeah.
And I will be stressed the entire day.
Right. So it's, there have to be
boundaries. And at some point, it's like,
hey, this is your problem or this is her problem or this is
that guy's problem. It's not my problem.
It only becomes my problem if it, like, clears certain
thresholds, you know, that it's worth bringing to my attention.
So some of that is just like business management and stuff,
but it's I think the, the emotional experience and the
thing that I'm working on is just the, the letting go of
control. Because like.
You know, I don't get to always determine what the outcome is
and everything in my life, and this is true by the way, and
other like other things that I care about in my life like I
also could probably do with. Backing off a little.
Backing off a little, yeah, like I, I'm, I'm just all in or all
out. OK, That's just my personality.
Yeah, I'm it's, I don't, I have no chill mode.
OK, we're gonna we'll see how this one goes.
You I just from my perspective, you've hired a very competent
team there. There's I don't think there's
anybody on the team who who can't handle.
Sure. What you've assigned them to do
in any way so? You're a little biased, but.
That's true. That's true.
Also, we need to talk about a pay raise.
Oh God. Oh God, here it comes.
Here it comes. No, no, we're good.
I, I OK. I'm excited to see how this goes
for you. Yeah, so there we go.
All right, we'll be right back. Hey everybody, Mark here quick
little favor to ask. If you're watching or listening
to this and you haven't already subscribed to the show, please
take a few seconds and hit that follow button or subscribe.
It helps me spread the good gospel of fewer fucks given, and
it makes Drew feel better about himself.
So if you don't want to do it for me, do it for Drew.
And while you're there, why not leave a review and let us know
how we're doing? And in case it needs to be said,
thank you for listening to watching wherever you are.
It does mean a lot to us. I'm a state, motherfuckers.
All right, we're back with another edition of Brilliant or
Bullshit. What are we talking about today?
This one, Mark, you're gonna have to keep me on the rails
today, all right? Oh, boy.
Evolution gave us our purpose in life.
Data evolution gave us our purpose in life.
OK. So there's tell me more.
There's this study. It's called surviving and
thriving. The fundamental social motives
provide purpose in life. It's by these two researchers
out of Arizona State essentially what they do First, let's let's
first provide a definition, a nerdy psychological definition
of purpose in life because that's important here.
Purpose in life, as psychologists define it is a
sense that one has direction, meaning and significance in
their life. Some sort of, OK, it involves
long term goals basically like you have direction in your life
essentially as well as now where we've typically in the past
derived meaning, purpose in our lives is from outer sources,
like, you know, the divine religion, that sort of thing.
But what they say is that actually evolution probably gave
us the pathway for having a purpose in our Life, OK,
Logically, right, From a general evolutionary perspective, OK,
you should actually have some sense of well-being in your life
if you are doing things that would increase your quote UN
quote, reproductive fitness, right?
Like passing your genes on to the next.
And that can involve that's not just like sex, you know, or
anything like that, but that can involve relationships, anything
indirect ways of doing that too, Helping other people status in
your life, gaining social status in some way, affiliating with
other people to keep you safe in a group, that sort of thing that
they say should drive purpose in life.
But nobody's ever really tested this before, and so they tested
it out all right, and. How did they test it?
Yeah, so the methods of this, it's a it's a kind of an
exploratory study, OK. The methods of this study, I'm
going to say are, are like, I'm not going to call them bullshit
because I I think they knew that they're like, OK, this is
exploratory and kind of like we're going to stop.
Basically, they have people come in and they're like, OK, write
about different things in your life and and they give them
different inventories. How much purpose do you feel in
your life in this area, that area Write about the things that
that you think would give you more purpose or meaning in your
life. And then they kind of analyze
those, put them into buckets and and figure out what people are
OK. So it is pretty subjective by a
lot of terms in a in a lot of ways, but I think it's getting
they're starting to get at something.
This is kind of the foundational exploratory research they have
to do in order to get to the next stage.
I. Oh man, I have really like mixed
feelings about this. OK, OK.
Well hold on, hold on. OK.
So I think it's. A little both, but keep going.
Probably. Probably.
That's what we always do. We pot all the time.
Come on. But I I'll I can take the
bullshit round on those, but finish, finish.
So the, the specific social motives, what they're calling
social motives, which are these evolved drives that we have in
social settings. They're saying that they've,
they they found self protection, just like keeping yourself safe
in a physical environment, avoiding disease made
acquisition, you know, finding somebody to get naked with,
right mate retention. So if you're already in a
relationship, retaining like keeping them around.
Yeah, relationship maintenance, what they call affiliation,
basically just social connection, having friend group,
that sort of thing. Kin care.
So caring either for children or just other people in your
family. And then the last one is status
to achieving some sort of social standing and respect within a
social hierarchy. So they found evidence for all
of those things. If you if you engage in
behaviors that increase those in your life, you have a higher
sense of a more an increase sense of purpose in your life
and direction. You have direction in your life
by engaging in these types of behaviors.
And we can pick apart one of those.
There's one in particular I want to dive into with.
But first let me get your reaction to some.
I feel like this is so and there's a lot of particularly
evolutionary psychology, you see this a lot.
I. Think I never go with this.
There's a lot of circular, like thinly veiled circular reasoning
that happens, which is, and in this case, it's essentially
like, hey, we have this term purpose.
We're going to define it as feeling a sense of direction or
feeling like there's something in our future that's going to
make us feel good or be happy. So let's take all the things
that people feel is in their future is going to make them
feel happy. Let's measure those things.
Oh my God. Look, it correlates with
purpose, the way we decided to to define our key metric.
Like it, it feels like they're just it.
It's like, yeah, it's, it's a little bit masturbatory
intellectually, you know, like it's.
But that said, I do, it makes sense to me that a sense of
purpose, you know, much like pleasure, much like happiness,
like I, these are all kind of psychological levers or
evolutionary levers that we probably evolved to help us do
the behaviors and actions that help our reproductive status.
It's like it is by definition, it makes sense.
So I think there's a little bit of voodoo going.
I'm not. The irony here is I think I
agree with their hypothesis. I agree that like a sense of
purpose is probably something that we evolved to get us to do
things to increase our our our survival and our reproduction.
Well, OK, but let let's take that point right there, OK, what
you what you agree with, OK. And I think the the the kind of
the conclusion of the study they make is that, or at least one
that I took away was we often have these like, oh, I need to
find my purpose in life and I need to go out and I need to
some grand thing. I need to be a writer.
I need to be an artist. I'm like that kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
And they're saying, actually what you need for direction and
purpose in your life is to like, do the things that humans do.
Yeah. You know, like, like the three
biggest ones they found too. But the three strongest
relationships they found too were affiliation, so friends and
and social relationships working on those Kincare, what they call
kincare. So taking care of people in your
family or you know, whatever you consider your family
necessarily. The last one was status to
actually, which I found interesting.
People actually derive some sort of sense of well-being from stat
like seeking and, and status within their social groups.
Interestingly, though, they they're like, OK, there's other,
there's other research out there saying when you seek status,
this doesn't work. It actually ends up with a lot
of bad outcomes, negative outcomes in life.
But what they found was it's more like seeking social status
within your social hierarchy in socially positive ways.
All right, so like 11? What are you laughing at?
I and I'll say. Yeah, when I'm saying it out
loud, sure, it sounds really obvious, but but I think the,
again, the larger point is, is that there's like these really
basic things that I think we can turn to.
You don't have to like, change the goddamn.
World So as you know, I, I totally agree with that that I
think people overlook, especially in this day and age
people. And I think this would be a nice
explanation of like why a sense of a lack of of purpose seems to
be epidemic at the moment. And I think it's because people
just overestimate how high the bar is to feel a sense of
purpose, which 100% with you there.
Absolutely. It's it's a sense of purpose is
is not found. It's generated.
You're just doing a bunch of basic things that improve your
life one step at a time, hanging out with friends and family,
getting a little bit better at your job, getting a little bit
healthier. You know, it's it's all
incremental improvements. So that I'm with you there.
Like dispelling that kind of illusion of of what purposes.
But yeah, I guess, I guess it's one of those I'm just kind of
like having this like, well, So what like, obviously, right.
Maybe, maybe we, we got a reaction to Robert Greene's
episode. Remember Robert Greene's episode
where he talks about your life task, right?
And there were some, there were some reactions in the comments
and people emailing and saying, well, that would be really nice
to, you know, usually the language they would use is
that'd be really nice to pursue my passion.
But right now, you know, I'm just trying to put food on the
table or something like that, right?
And I mean, I my response is he didn't say what you're like.
You need to find your passion, he said.
You need to find your life task. Yeah, sometimes your life task
also, it's given to you. You don't get to choose it.
Yeah. You don't necessarily like it
all the time. Right.
And so if, if you, if you are somebody who is struggling, you
know, financially or whatever it is, that's like a safety issue,
you need to take care of that is your life's task at that moment.
It's not about your passion, it's about security, like having
some sort of security, which is a basic need that we all have,
you know, then it slips into like Maslow's hierarchy of needs
and all that kind of thing. But I the the larger point, I
think, is that there are really just some of these basic human
drives that we have to fulfill. And it's not, I don't, it's just
not this pie in the sky. We need to all find our quote UN
quote passion. Yeah, I, I definitely think the
passion thing gets overrated. I think people can like
overestimate what is required to feel a sense of purpose in their
lives. I have a OK, I have a little bit
of a harebrained theory. You mentioned religion, how
people traditionally would find purpose through religion.
I've got a little bit. I made this argument in my
second book. I I think it still holds.
So we're talking about purpose. A feeling of purpose is
ultimately feeling a sense of direction, feeling a sense of
things are improving in some way, that your action is bearing
fruit in the future in some shape or form.
And my second book, I described it as hope, like a vision of a
better future that is tangible and possible for yourself.
For most of human history, most people's actions had absolutely
no bearing on the quality of their own future.
There were no opportunities. Things didn't really get better.
There was no economic growth. There was no job growth.
There was no like, like people were hungry and impoverished and
insecure their entire lives and nothing changed that no matter
what they did. Which is why you needed religion
to provide a vision of a positive or better future,
right? It's like your whole life is
shit if you're like a random peasant in say, the 9th century,
right? Your entire life is shit and
nothing you say or do is ever going to improve the fact that
it's shit. But if you believe in this
religion, the religion offers you promises and visions of a
better future, in this case an afterlife.
And as long as you stay focused on that religion, that that
positive afterlife is guaranteed to you.
And so it makes sense that from that it drives a lot of sense of
direction and purpose and fulfillment.
These days. I think there's probably still a
little bit of that, you know, like religion correlates very
strongly with life satisfaction and psychological well-being and
all that. There might be still be some of
that leftover these days. I think the reason religion
probably correlates so well with all these like psychological
outcomes is because of what this paper is saying is that
generally people who are who are religious and they're involved
in the local religious communities, they have a strong
network of friends. They feel like they're part of a
community. They've got a little bit of
social status among that community.
They are able to meet mates, they're able to maintain those
relationships. That's like all these basic
nuts, nuts and bolts things that people struggle with in the 21st
century. Old school religious communities
actually do those things very, very well.
So there's even like, you know, I guess dogma around health and,
you know, taking care of being safe and just in your physical
environment. Too Yeah, but I do think I mean
the point you make about how purpose isn't necessarily and I
guess This is why it's a useful metric aside from just like
happiness or fulfillment or something but like purpose isn't
always pleasant. It's all it's not always fun.
It's not even the status thing. It like I I kind of smirked at
that caveat about like, well positive social status.
I think that's bullshit. I think it's just social status
like it's it's you can feel a great sense of purpose from
building up your own social status to the detriment of
others. Like that's purpose doesn't have
to be a pro social thing all the time.
It can be, but it doesn't have to be right.
Like you can feel a lot of purpose, you know, trying to
earn 1,000,000 bucks and buy yourself a mansion or something.
Like there are a lot of people who derive a lot of purpose out
of materialistic things like that.
So like all those things like happiness as well, you know, you
can be happy doing terrible shit.
So you know the happiness purpose like they aren't
necessarily good in and of themselves.
They are psychological tools that you need to leverage one
way or the other. Like ethics is another question,
in my opinion anyway, sorry for shitting on this.
Sorry for shitting on the circularity of the definitions,
but it just like, I don't know, like I've just read so many
evolutionary psych things over the years that it's like we're
we have an evolutionary mandate to behave in XYZ fashion.
So we're gonna take we're gonna take this term and we're gonna
define it as pursuing XYZ. Oh my God.
Look, it all correlates to each other.
I'm like, well, yeah, of course it does.
OK. Because we're all just kind of
theorizing here. That's true.
It is. It's very much like abstract in
the mind. You can run these experiments in
your own head and come to whatever conclusion you want.
I do. I do.
Agree with that, I do with that. The larger point I think I
wanted to make was in this new year, when you're going out and
you're setting goals and you're trying to find some sort of
direction in your life, it's probably right in front of you.
It's not. You don't need to go out and,
you know, reinvent the wheel here.
We, we, you have it right in front of you.
Take care of people. Incremental improvements will
take you much further. Than maybe that's cheesy, but I
think it's, you know. It's true.
I mean, it's, it's boring, so it gets overlooked.
It's not, it's not the big sexy, you know, a complete life
makeover that people dream about or that you see on television,
But it's, you know, those, those small one percent, 2%
improvements each month. That's that's the real shit.
I'll, I'll say too, OK, that the, the host, the status thing,
the one thing that kind of clicked for me in this was that
I do this in my friend group, in my social group that I have, and
I've talked about this before, is my, my status is gained
through through helping like virtue signal before that I'm so
helpful, you know, with my friends and whatever.
But like I, I've noticed that and I think that is within my
like friend group, like I'm the helpful 1, you know, I'll, I'll
be there for you, that kind of thing.
Everybody else has their own thing too.
So, and it's not really a hierarchy.
It's just everybody has their own little status thing that
they do, and that's mine. I make my friends beg and
grovel. For your attention and for.
My attention, yes I withhold it. I psychologically, no I don't.
Where do we land on that bullshit?
Brilliant. It was OK.
We should have 1/3 option. Brilliant Bullshit or it's OK.
I like the. I mean, I, I, I guess I like the
the idea of it, I like the content of it.
I like the general thrust of it. I understand the the nuances
where it is getting a little bit circular or could be circular.
Yeah, yeah, that's a little bit bullshit.
Yeah, OK. We punted once again.
So. It was a little bit of both.
Yeah, but isn't everything a little bit of both?
Brilliant and bullshit. True.
OK, we'll be right back. Hey, fuck face, are you trying
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Listener Question Time. What are we talking about today?
Yeah, we're talking about habits.
Great and good habits kind of on theme for the new year here.
And it's a a fairly basic question that I think has a a
fairly complicated answer. Why is it so difficult to create
good habits and do them on a regular basis, but so easy to
fall into bad habits and create more of them in a very short
space of time? Well, it it is a perennial
question. I think it's simply because most
good habits are short term not fun and long term very
satisfying. And most bad habits are short
term fun and long term very unsatisfying.
That's kind of what makes them both good and bad habits.
And ultimately I think this is just a struggle, a universal
struggle of every human on this planet of trying to balance your
short term sad pleasure and satisfaction with your long term
interests in, in in health and better judgement.
And it's something that I think we all suck at initially, and
it's something we all have to learn as we go through our lives
and get better at as we go through our lives.
I don't think anybody has it completely like nails it every
single time. So that's the why.
I guess the next question is the how.
Yeah. So to dwell on that for just a
second that there's, you know, in habit science, there's like
the the habit loop, right? You have the cue, then you have
the behavior, then you have the reward.
That's Charles Duhigg did that in his book on habits.
And then James Clear kind of elaborated on that for sure.
And what you're saying is there's this tension between
immediate and long term benefits and the reward part of that Q
behavior. Reward with bad habits so, so
often comes almost immediately. So it's reinforced.
It's much more easily reinforced for us.
Whereas the benefits of good habits are usually long term,
you know, eating healthy, exercise, sleep, all of that is,
is often delayed. And so we don't see that.
So, yeah, the how part, that's the real question.
How do we, how do we shift that? Do we shift that time curve?
Maybe do we, I I've seen some suggestions like having a
relationship with your future self, like being, yeah, like
that sort of thing. Is there, is there anything to
do that for you? I don't know.
I I not really like, I don't think about that in that
context. I don't think about future and
past mark a whole lot. I mean, for me, and again, this
is Duhigg and clear land on this as well.
Like the easiest modify modification you can make in
that loop is the queue, right? It's like just remove the queues
as much as possible. So like, let's say you, you're a
midnight snacker, right? Like the easiest thing to to do
is to just get rid of the snacks in your house.
Like it removes that queue. You can also figure out like
what is it that makes you hungry or like what, what is the, the
impulse or the emotion that makes you want a snack at a
certain time each day. Maybe it's because you're you're
eating too big of a dinner and too light of a lunch.
And maybe if you eat a larger lunch and a smaller dinner, like
it fixes that that craving in the middle of the night.
Like so figuring out like what are the impulses that are
driving the bad behavior is, in my opinion, the most most of it,
right? Like for me, the willpower is
not really a factor as much. Or if you are relying on
willpower, then you you've probably lost.
It's just right. Yeah, it's you're delaying the
inevitable. Yeah, there has to be some sort
of like change you have to make there because just thinking
about this stuff doesn't work obviously, right.
Like like you mentioned the environmental stuff, I know for
me like cleaning up my diet was just like it was removing.
I just, when I grocery shop, I don't buy junk or I actually
like do a lot of delivery and pick up now.
So I'm not even in the store and don't grab those because it's
it, you know, you're, you're not fighting the, the, the diet
challenge at the, at the refrigerator door.
Then you you know, you do it way ahead of time.
Yeah, if you're relying on your own decision making, constantly
plan beforehand so that you're just not triggered in the 1st
place. I guess I'm trying to think like
what else is there blinking right now?
With that I recently so this is I've always been proud a proud
non gamer. I recently borrowed a Nintendo
switch from borrowed. Yeah yeah, from a friend.
OK, she wasn't using she's a new mom and she's like, I don't got
time for this. So I I borrowed it just to see
what I was like. Oh my God.
Oh my God, Zelda is so far. Oh man, that's such a cool game.
What I found there was like, OK, I need to like stop playing
this. Whatever.
I unplugged the thing and like set it somewhere else from the
TV completely. So I don't, I can't just like
sit right down and do that. So that's like a, you know, and
inserting those friction, inserting like strategic
friction. Strategic friction is a huge
one. We had near a all a good friend
of mine on the podcast a few months ago and and I remember he
did something which you can get these plugs.
Oh yeah, the timers. With the timers on them, so you
can like you can put a put a plug, plug it into your light
socket and plug a device into it.
And then you can program it so that it only gives power to that
device. Like certain, you know, say from
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM every day. So he, he attached his video
games to that. And so it's like the, the
PlayStation wouldn't even work until 6:00 PM every day.
So it just doesn't even give him the option like to change it.
He has to like climb under the furniture and like redo
everything. So being adding friction to the
things that you don't want to do and then also adding rewards and
incentives to the things you do want to do.
Again, increasing the reward of, of the positive habits.
So this could be something like having an accountability buddy
at the gym, you know, joining a class instead of, you know,
trying to exercise alone, doing a miserable workout, like pick
up a sport, a game that you can play, a new hobby, you know,
anything you can add on the, it, it like we're animals, right?
It's the old carrot and stick. Like we, I, I almost think of it
as like training myself, like a dog, like I use the smarter
instead of like using your enlightened part of your mind to
like fight your animalistic mind in the moment because it's
probably going to lose most of the time.
Use the smart, enlightened part of your mind to like, create
incentive structure, incentives and frictions around your life
and just nudge yourself in the right direction.
See, OK, but I think a lot of people have heard these things
before and I certainly have. And I think anybody who's been
really into like this, this space is self help or you know,
self improvement space, they've heard these things.
Is that just is, is that treating the symptoms a little
bit 'cause I think, I think it might be because you and you
mentioned there are these like emotional triggers and cues that
we have and that's probably really the root of the problem
and addressing those long term. I think in the short term,
those, those things, all those things work.
They do, I know they do, they work for me, they definitely
work for me. But there's, there's still a
little bit in my mind. I'm always like, you know, when
that the animal does rear its head, like what is actually
going on? I, I don't think you can even
have the space to address that until you've at least modified
the behavior in the short term, right?
So like give you an example, Let's use video games as an
example, right? Like if you, let's say you're
binging video games, which I've done many times throughout my
life, it's, it's only until you get yourself to stop binging
video games that you actually have the, the cognitive space to
sit there and evaluate what am I feeling at this moment?
Why am I so why am I being so compulsive around this?
What is driving this? Is there a way that I could
maybe not be so compulsive around this?
It it those questions, you don't even have space to deal with
those questions until you've like, gotten yourself to stop to
a certain extent. That's a really good point
because with with the video game, my example of the video
game too, I know I was like, OK, I just need to unplug it and
like set it aside. And then after that I was like,
oh, why do I need that? Why do I have to force myself to
do that? And it did get me to thinking
about that. It goes back to the
perfectionism thing too. I was avoiding work because I
wasn't going to be perfect SO at all.
And the nice thing about video games is, is that they've
actually built into the video game a clear road map towards
perfection. So that's right, you can collect
all the all the items, you can beat all the bosses, you can get
all the rewards and everything and Max out your your save file.
And which I love doing, but it's funny, like it's also having
good people around you to not only keep you accountable, but
also just be an observer. So like, for example, at some
point in maybe six or seven years ago, you know, I would go
in these periodic video game binges.
And my wife pointed out to me at some point she was like, you
know, when you go into these binges, I've noticed that
there's something wrong that you're not addressing.
Like she noticed a correlation between my video game binges and
like some sort of, you know, I don't know, issue with my family
or with my work or myself esteem or like some, some emotional
problem that I was definitely avoiding.
And until it got dealt with or resolved in some way, the the
binge would continue essentially.
OK, yeah, I've I've found that too with other like TV or
whatever it is, because I'll I'll binge TV sometimes yeah
God, I feel awful after that. Video games.
I don't feel as bad like you're actually, you feel like you're.
Accomplishing. Yeah, you're, yeah, Yeah.
So that's another. Lure of them too.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. That's that's really good, Mark.
Yeah, good job. Thanks, True.
Yeah, that is really helpful, I think, because I'm like, yeah,
but that's, you know, if I'm sitting here, I'm like, I really
want to get at the emotional thing.
It's like, well, yeah, OK, you can get at the emotional thing.
You need to stop the behavior first.
Yeah. And it's the space.
And it's, I, I want to be clear too, that like the emotional
thing, understanding the emotional component of the cure
or the trigger, it's useful and you can definitely soften it,
but it's not like like sometimes I feel like people get this
false impression of like, well, if you just deal with the
underlying emotion, then you'll never want to binge a video game
or drink alcohol or overeat midnight snacks ever again.
I was like, Nah, no, like that impulse will still be there.
It's just you'll have a much better understanding of what it
is, where it's coming from, and, and it, it'll have less control
over you when it shows up. So.
One other little thing I want to talk about too this, though, is
the idea of how good habits generally take you out of your
comfort zone right in a way that bad habits don't.
Bad habits of almost by definition are like helping you.
Into your comfort zone. Into your comfort zone, good
habits though often there's often a lot of friction up
front, you know, going to a new gym or something like that.
Like when I started yoga a couple years ago, that was super
uncomfortable, right 'cause it's not like I'd never moved that
way. I'd never been around, you know,
a bunch of half naked people like, you know, and there's all
body types and everything like that in there.
So anybody can feel comfortable I felt like, but it was just a
very just weird, you know, like the language they use and all of
that kind of stuff. I have good habits around half
naked people. How oh do you do you?
Very, very much in my comfort zone.
I need to hang out with you more, Alvin then, but there is
that there is that like initial, you know, the starting cost
basically are higher for for good habits.
And I don't know if there's a way to you just got to grind
through that or or what I don't know Same thing with like when I
stopped drinking. There was actually some some
initial friction around that because everybody.
Around me, right? And people ask and they some,
some people judge you and some people are like, come on man,
just have one drink. Yeah.
And then on top of that too, the drinking, like I you really
don't see the biggest effects for like months at a time.
So it's that's one of those that it's like there's all sorts of
things working against. You well, I think there's a
component here. I I've called it before meta
emotions, which is like an emotion about an emotion, right?
So, you know, going, going to a yoga class for the first time in
your life and doing all these weird poses and hearing all
these words you don't understand, like, yeah, it is a
totally uncomfortable, awkward, strange thing.
That's fine. Where a lot of people get
tripped up is then how they feel about that awkwardness and
discomfort, right? Because a lot of people will
exit that experience and it'll be like, that was so weird.
I never want to feel that again. I, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have
to feel something awkward, right?
Like this is supposed to be a good thing for me.
Whereas some people say like, OK, that was awkward and that
was difficult, but I'm really glad I did it.
I'm, I'm improving, I'm learning.
This is part of the process, right?
It's similar to when you fail a new habit, like no matter what
your goal is or whatever your desired habit is, like you're
going to slip up at some point, right?
You're going to eat the burger or miss the workout or whatever.
Again, the meta emotions have a huge role.
Like that's where they become very significant.
So you miss the workout that you're supposed to do.
Some people are very harsh with themselves.
They're they judge themselves horribly.
They're like, man, I fucked everything up.
This is why I never get better. This is why I never achieve any
of my goals, whereas some people are like, hey, you know, it
happens. Nobody's perfect.
It's this is a marathon, not a race.
Let's get back on the saddle. Let's do it again next week,
right? And it's so again, it's how much
are you judging yourself for the inevitable discomforts and
failures versus how accepting are you of yourself?
And then there's also, there's also being too accepting, right?
Like it's if you're missing every other workout and every
single one, you're like, well, I deserve, I deserve missing this
one because, you know, I worked late yesterday or, you know, oh,
I deserve missing this one because next week's my birthday.
Like if you're constantly excusing yourself, then that's
also a problem. So there is a emotional process
of around the emotions that you're experiencing, which I
think takes a lot of wisdom as well.
Yeah, we covered a lot of that in the self-discipline episode
too. So to that.
But yeah, that's that's a good point where self-discipline is
self correction. But there's a balance you got to
strike. Yes, yeah.
Absolutely cool. All right.
Is there a wisdom of the week of the year?
No, God damn it true, I forgot. Again, no.
No. The last time I left, I'll leave
you up to the outlining the episode.
This will never happen again. Oh.
No see. You're practicing your your
imperfection. Yes, and you need to let go of
control. And I'm I really?
I'm already over it. That's wise.
Don't give a fuck. That's wise.
So maybe that's our wisdom of the week.
All right, guys, we will see you next time.
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.