Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / Focus on Yourself, Not Others: Take Control of Your Life

Transcript

Focus on Yourself, Not Others: Take Control of Your Life · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Some sort of one eyed motivational monster that's got you
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in its grip, that really isn't considering everything at once, right,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: like considering your life tomorrow, or your life next week,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: or your family's life, or or maybe you're maybe even
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: your well being half an hour from now, you know,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: because you lash out in anger and it's you can
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you know people do that. It's understandable, sometimes it's even necessary,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: but it's not wise generally. And the instinct for meaning
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: seems to be a consequence of the integration of all
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of those underlying motivations and emotions with social being, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: then the manifestation of something like the proper pathway forward
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and so. And you need that because you need to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: know how to move forward in life. Because you need
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: to move forward in life, you need to act in life.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And the other thing that's I suppose part and parcel
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of let's say, twelve rules for life is the insistence
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: upon action as of primary import We're not fundamentally creatures
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: who passion massively perceive the objective world. That's not the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: goal of our perceptual systems. It's not the goal of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: our memory. The reason that you have memories isn't to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: remember the past. The reason you have memories is so
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: that if something bad happened to you in the past,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you can figure out what it was that was bad,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and you can figure out why it happened, and then
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you cannot do it again in the future. Right, It's
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: very practical, and it's the same on the positive end
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of the spectrum. If good things happened to you in
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the past, then conceivably duplicating whatever you did to get
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: those good things to happen could have them happen again
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: in the future. So it's practical memory, and it's oriented
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: towards action, and it's oriented towards like the quality of
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: your life, not to the description of the objective world,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: even though that may be a useful thing to do,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: at least under some circumstances. It was easier for people
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to be good at something when more of us lived
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: in small rural communities. Someone could be Homecoming Queen, else
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: could be spelling bee champ, math whizzard, basketball star. There
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: were only one or two mechanics and a couple of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: teachers in each of their domains. These local heroes had
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to enjoy the serotonin fueled confidence of the Victor.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It may be for that reason that people who were
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: born in small towns are statistically overrepresented among the eminent.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: If you're one in a million now but originated in
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: modern New York, there's twenty of you, and most of
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: us now live in cities. What's more, we have become
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: digitally connected to the entire seven billion. Our hierarchies of
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: accomplishment are now dizzyingly vertical. No matter how good you
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: are at something, or how you rank your accomplishments, there's
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: someone out there who makes you look incompetent. You're a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: decent guitar player, but you're not Jimmy Page or Jack White.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: You're almost certainly not even going to rock your local pub.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: You're a good cook, but there are are many great chefs.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Your mother's recipe for fish heads and rice, no matter
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: how celerated in her village of origin, doesn't cut it
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: in these days of grapefruit foam and Scotch tobacco ice cream.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Some mafia don has a tackier yacht. Some obsessive Coeo
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: has a more complicated self winding watch kept in his
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: more valuable mechanical hardwood and steel automatic self winding watch case.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Even the most stunning Hollywood actress eventually transforms into the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: evil queen on Eternal Paranoid Watch for the New Snow White.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And your career is boring and pointless. Your housekeeping skills
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: are second rate, your taste is appalling. You're fatter than
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: your friends, and everyone dreads your parties. Who cares if
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you're Prime Minister of Canada when someone else is the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: President of the United States. Inside as dwells a critical
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: internal voice and spirit that knows all this. It's predisposed
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to make its noisy case. It condemns our mediocre efforts.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It can be very difficult to quell worse critics of
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: its sort are necessary. There is no shortage of tasteless artists,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: tuneless musicians, poisonous cooks, bureaucratically personality disordered middle managers, hack novelists,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and tedious ideology written professors. Things and people differ importantly
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: in their qualities. Awful music torments listeners everywhere. Poorly designed
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: buildings crumble in earthquakes. Substandard automobiles kill their drivers when
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: they crash. Failure is the price we pay for standards,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: and because mediocrity has consequences, both real and harsh standards
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: are necessary. We are not equal in ability or outcome,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and never will be. A very small number of people
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: produce very much of everything. The winners don't take all,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: but they take most. And the bottom is not a
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: good place to be. People are unhappy at the bottom.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: They get sick there and remain unknown and unloved. They
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: waste their lives there, they die there. In consequence, the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: self denigrating voice in the minds of people weaves a
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: devastating tale. Life is a zero sum game. Worthlessness is
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the default condition. What but wilful blindness could possibly shelter
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: people from such withering criticism. It is for such reasons
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: that a whole generation of social psychologists recommended positive illusions
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: as the only reliable route to mental health. They're credo,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: let a lie be your umbrella. A more dismal, wretched,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: pessimistic philosophy can hardly be imagined. Things are so terrible
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that only delusion can save you. Here's an alternative approach,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and one that requires no illusions. If the cards are
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: always stacked against you, perhaps the game you are playing
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: is somehow rigged, perhaps by you unbeknownst to yourself. If
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the internal voice makes you doubt the value of your endeavors,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: or your life, or life itself. Perhaps you should stop
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: listening if the critical voice within says the same, denigrating
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: things about everyone, no matter how successful, how reliable can
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: it be. Maybe it's comments or chatter, not wisdom. There
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: will always be people better than you. That's a cliche
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of nihilism, like the phrase in a million years, who's
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: going to know the difference. The proper response to that
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: statement is not, well, then everything is meaningless. It's any
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: idiot can choose a frame of time within which nothing matters.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Talking yourself into irrelevance is not a profound critique of being.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: It's a cheap trick of the rational mind. Standards of
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: better or worse are not illusory or unnecessary. If you
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: hadn't decided that what you are doing right now was
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: better than the alternatives, you wouldn't be doing it. The
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: idea of a value free choice is a contradiction in
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: terms value judgments are a precondition for action. Furthermore, every activity,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: once chosen, comes with its own internal standards of accomplishment.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: If something can be done at all, it can be
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: done better or worse. To do anything at all is therefore,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: to play a game with a defined and valued end,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: which can always be reached more or less efficiently and elegantly.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Every game comes with its chance of success or failure.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Differentials in quality are omnipresent. Furthermore, if there was no
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: better and worse, nothing would be worth doing. There would
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: be no value, and therefore for no meaning. Why make
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: an effort if it doesn't improve anything? Meaning itself requires
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the difference between better and worse. How then, can the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: voice of critical self consciousness be stilled? Where are the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: flaws in the apparently impeccable logic of its message? We
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: might start by considering the all too black and white
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: words themselves, success or failure. You are either a success,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a comprehensive, singular, overall good thing, or its opposite, a failure,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a comprehensive, singular, irredeemably bad thing. The words imply no
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: alternative and no middle ground. However, in a world as
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: complex as ours, such generalizations, really such failure to differentiate,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: are a sign of naive, unsophisticated, or even malevolent analysis.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: There are vital degrees and gradations of value obliterated by
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: this binary system, and the consequences are not good to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: begin with. There is not just one game at which
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to succeed or fail. There are many games, and more specifically,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: many good games. Games that match your talents, involve you
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: productively with other people, and sustain and even improve themselves
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: across time. Lawyer is a good game. So is plumber, physician, carpenter,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: or school teacher. The world allows for many ways of being.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: If you don't succeed at one, you can try another.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: You can pick something better match to your unique mix
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: of strengths, weaknesses, and situation. Furthermore, if changing games does
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: not work, you can invent a new one. I recently
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: watched a talent show featuring a mime who taped his
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: mouth shut and did something ridiculous with oven Mitz that
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: was unexpected, that was original to be working for him.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: It's also unlikely that you're playing only one game. You
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: have a career and friends and family members, and personal
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: projects and artistic endeavors and athletic pursuits. You might consider
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: judging your success across all the games you play. Imagine
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that you are very good at some, middling at others,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and terrible at the remainder. Perhaps that's how it should be.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: You might object, I should be winning at everything, but
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: winning at everything might only mean that you're not doing
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: anything new or difficult. You might be winning, but you're
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: not growing, and growing might be the most important form
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of winning. Should victory in the present always take precedence
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: over trajectory across time. Finally, you might come to realize
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that the specifics of the many games you are playing
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: are so unique to you, so individual, that comparison to
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: others is simply inappropriate. Perhaps you are overvaluing what you
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: don't have and undervaluing what you do. There's some real
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: utility in gratitude. It's also good protection against the dangers
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of victimhood and resentment. Your colleague out performs you at work.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: His wife, however, is having an affair while your marriage
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is stable and happy. Who has it better? The celebrity
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: you admire is a chronic drunk driver in bigot? Is
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: his life truly preferable to yours? When the internal critic
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: puts you down using such comparisons, here's how it operates. First,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it selects a single arbitrary domain of comparison, fame, maybe,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: or power. Then it acts as if that domain is
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the only one that is relevant then it contrasts you
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: unfavorably with someone truly stellar within that domain. It can
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: take that final step even further, using the unbridgable gap
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: between you and its target of comparison is evidence for
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the fundamental injustice of life. That way, your motivation to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: do anything at all can be most effectively undermined. Those
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: who accept such an approach to self evaluation certainly can't
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: be accused of making things too easy for themselves. But
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: it's just as big a problem to make things too difficult.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: When we are very young, we are neither individual nor
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: inform We have not had the time nor gained the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: wisdom to develop our own standards. In consequence, we must
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: compare ourselves to others, because standards are necessary. Without them,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. As
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: we mature, we become, by contrast, increasingly individual and unique.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: The conditions of our lives become more and more personal
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and less and less comparable with those of others. Symbolically speaking,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: this means we must leave the house ruled by our
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: father and confront the chaos of our individual being. We
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: must take note of our disarray without completely abandoning that father.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: In the process. We must then rediscover the values of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: our culture, veiled from us by our ignorance, hidden in
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the dusty treasure trove of the past, rescue them and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: integrate them into our own lives. This is what gives existence.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: It's full and necessary meaning. Who are you? You think
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: you know, but maybe you don't. You are, for example,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: neither your own master nor your own slave. You cannot
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: easily tell yourself what to do and compel your own
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: obedience any more than you can easily tell your husband, wife, son,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: or daughter what to do and compel theirs. You are
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: interested in something, not in others. You can shape that interest,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: but there are limits. Some activities will always engage you,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and others simply will not. You have a nature. You
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: can play the tyrant to it, but you will certainly rebel.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: How hard can you force yourself to work and sustain
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: your desire to work? How much can you sacrifice to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: your partner before generosity turns to resentment? What is it
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that you actually love? What is it that you genuinely want?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Before you can articulate your own standards of value, you
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: must see yourself as a stranger, and then you must
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: get to know yourself what do you find valuable or pleasurable?
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: How much leisure, enjoyment, and reward do you require so
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that you feel like more than a beast of burden?
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: How much do you treat yourself so you won't kick
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: over the traces and smash up your corral. You could
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: force yourself through your daily grind and kick your dog
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: in frustration when you come home. You could watch the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Precious Days tick bot, or you could learn how to
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: entice yourself into sustainable productive activity. Do you ask yourself
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: what you want? Do you negotiate fairly with yourself? Or
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: are you a tyrant with yourself as slave? When do
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you dislike your parents, your spouse, or your children, and
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: why what might be done about that? What do you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: need and want from your friends and your business partners?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: This is not a mere matter of what you should want.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about what other people require from you,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: or your duties to them. I'm talking about determining the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: nature of your moral obligation to yourself. Should might enter
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: into it because you are nested within a network of
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: social obligations. Should is your responsibility and you should live
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: up to it. But this does not mean you must
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: take the role of lap dog, obedient and harmless. That's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: how a dictator wants his slaves. Dare instead to be dangerous,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Dare to be truthful, To articulate yourself and express, or
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: at least become aware of what would really justify your life.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: If you allowed your dark and unspoken desires for your partner,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: for example, to manifest themselves, if you were even willing
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: to consider them, you might discover that they were not
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: so dark given the light of day. You might discover, staid,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: that you were just afraid and so pretending to be moral.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: You might find that getting what you actually desire would
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: stop you from being tempted and straying. Are you so
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: sure that your partner would be unhappy if more of
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: you rose to the surface. The family fatal and antihero
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: are sexually attractive for a reason. How do you need
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: to be spoken to? What do you need to take
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: from people? What are you putting up with or pretending
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to like, from duty or obligation? Consult your resentment. It's
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a revelatory emotion for all its pathology. It's part of
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: an evil triad arrogance, deceit, and resentment. Nothing causes more
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: harm than this underworld trinity. But resentment always means one
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of two things. Either the resentful person is immature, in
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: which case he or she should shut up, quit whining,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and get on with it, or there is tyranny afoot,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: in which case the person subjugated has a moral obligation
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to speak up. Why because the consequence of remaining silent
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: is worse. Of course, it's easier in the moment to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: stay silent and avoid conflict, but in the long term
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: that's deadly When you have something to say. Silence is
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a lie, and tyranny feeds on lies. When should you
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: push back against oppression despite the danger? When you start
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: nursing secret fantasies of revenge, when your life is being
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: poisoned and your imagination fills with the wish to devour
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: and destroy. I had a client decades ago who suffered
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: from severe obsessive compulsive disorder. He had to line up
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: his pajamas just right before he could go to sleep
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: at night. Then he had to fluff his pillow, Then
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: he had to adjust the bed sheets over and over
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and over and over. I said, maybe that part of you,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: that insanely persistent part, wants something inarticulate though it may be,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: let it have it say? What could it be? He said, control?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I said, close your eyes and let it tell you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: what it wants. Don't let fear stop you. You don't
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: have to act it out just because you're thinking it.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: He said, it wants me to take my stepfather by
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the caller, put him up against the door, and shake
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: him like a rat. Maybe it was time to shake
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: someone like a rat, although I suggested something a bit
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: less primal. But God only knows what battles must be
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: fought forthrightly, voluntarily on the road to peace. What do
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you do to avoid conflict? Necessary though it may be?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: What do you incline to lie about, assuming that the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: truth might be intolerable? What do you fake? The infant
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: is dependent on his parents for almost everything he needs
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the child, the successful child, can leave his parents, at
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: least temporarily, and make friends. He gives up a little
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of himself to do that, but gains much in return.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: The successful adolescent must take that process to its logical conclusion.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: He has to leave his parents and become like everyone else.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: He has to integrate with the group so he can
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: transcend his childhood dependency. Once integrated, the successful adult then
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: must learn how to be just the right amount different
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: from everyone else. Be cautious when you're comparing yourself to others.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: You're a singular being. Once you're an adult, you have
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: your own particular specific problems, financial, intimate, psychological, and otherwise.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Those are embedded in the unique broader context of your existence.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Your career or job works for you in a personal manner,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: or it does not, and it does so in a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: unique interplay with the other specifics of your life. You
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: must decide how much of your time to spend on
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: this and how much on that. You must decide what
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: to let go and what to pursue.