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I Asked Life to Guide Me. Then Everything Fell Apart. · Just Julia

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: So picture this.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're sitting by the window of a commercial airplane,
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know, somewhere high above the clouds.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Setting the scene.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're flying home from Bucharest, and your stomach is just completely tied in knots.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you've been incredibly anxious about work for a while now.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, man.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: That visceral work anxiety.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have definitely all felt that.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: The pressure is mounting.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: The structure feels suffocating.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just staring out that tiny overwindow.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you're quietly repeating a mantra to yourself over and over again.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: What's the mantra?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: You are saying, show me, guide me, use me.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: I am listening.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I am at your service.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And like you mean every single word of it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: You are literally asking life for a sign.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the universe tends to have a very funny sense of humor when you make
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: a massive request like that.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: It really, really does.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because just a few days later, you lose your job.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ouch.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is rough.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And today's deep dive is an exploration of that exact moment.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're synthesizing a stack of sources today,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: but we are really anchoring this on an incredibly grounded,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: deeply personal essay by Julia Callas.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: She's the creator behind the project Just Julia.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Her writing is fantastic.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the mission of our deep dive today is to explore a profound,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: honestly kind of uncomfortable question.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like what actually happens when we ask life for guidance,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: but the answer it gives us looks absolutely nothing like what we wanted.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And setting the parameters of this conversation early is really crucial here because
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: the immediate assumption,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: especially in our hyper individualistic culture, is to immediately blame ourselves.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like you manifested your own firing.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Julia writes about this with a lot of self-aware humor.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: She jokes that perhaps she should have been more specific with her airplane request.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: But she makes it abundantly clear she does not believe she placed some magical,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: disastrous order with the universe that caused her to get fired.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I am so glad we're tackling that right away because it is so easy to slip into
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: that woo-woo territory of toxic self-blame.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, my airplane mantra vibrated at the wrong frequency and caused my unemployment.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, that is absolutely not what we're discussing here.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's no magical causality being claimed.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Good, because the timing of it is still undeniable, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it forces this really heavy confrontation with reality.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, What if you ask life to show you another way and you absolutely hate
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: the way it shows you?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Usually,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: if you lose your job days after repeating a mantra of surrender,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: the natural human reaction is to just abandon the practice entirely.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You assume the universe is either ignoring you or is like actively hostile.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: You just delete your notes app full of inspirational quotes and become deeply cynical.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: But Julia did the opposite.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Her relationship with affirmations didn't break.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It evolved.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And to understand how...
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of have to look at the mechanics of what an affirmation actually is in the first place.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's break that down because she talks about how her old approach
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: to affirmations relied heavily on statements,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: things designed to change a belief like Marisa Peer's famous I am enough
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: or those standard manifestation quotes like money comes to me abundantly.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those are declarations.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're telling your subconscious how things are or how they should be.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem with declarations,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: and cognitive science actually backs this up, is cognitive dissonance.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: How so?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you look in the mirror and say,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I am a millionaire,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: but your bank account is currently overdrawn,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: your brain's logic centers immediately reject that statement as a lie.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sure.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Your brain is like, who are you kidding?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It creates a lot of internal friction.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Julia noticed that
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: the words affecting her most deeply had actually stopped being statements entirely.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: They had become questions.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's interesting.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Give me an example.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of declaring, I am enough, she started asking, what is this asking of me?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or where would you have me go?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: That structural shift changes everything.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because traditional affirmations, they kind of treat the universe like a drive-through window.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great analogy.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: you pull up,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: you place your order,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: you're like, I'll take one abundance and a side of immediate success, please.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you just expect it to be handed to you at the next window.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's very transactional.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: But when you shift to a question, it's more like opening an ongoing, really vulnerable dialogue.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you ask,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: show me, you're implicitly admitting that you don't actually know the answer.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the mechanism behind why questions work better than statements is just...
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It involves the reticular activating system, or the RAS, in your brain.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the filter thing.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: The RAS is essentially a bouncer for your brain.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It decides what information from the outside world actually gets your attention,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: and what just gets ignored is background noise.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you make a statement, you don't fundamentally believe.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: The filter just blocks it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But when you ask a question, you actually give the RAS a task.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It starts acting like a search engine.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if you ask,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: what is this asking of me,
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: your brain subconsciously begins scanning your environment for an answer?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It scans your environment, your memories, your skills.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's giving your brain a puzzle to solve rather than a lie to swallow.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: That is so powerful.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Julia finds this incredible resonance for this questioning mindset in
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: a seemingly unrelated place.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: She talks about listening to Oprah Winfrey in interviews,
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: specifically ones with Jay Shetty and Mel Robbins.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Oprah Connection.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oprah mentions a prayer she has carried throughout her entire life.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the language is almost identical to Julia's airplane mantra.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oprah says, use me.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: How can I serve?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And let's contextualize that Oprah connection really quickly,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: because it's not just an appeal to authority.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Julia isn't saying, well, Oprah does this.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, it's the objective truth of the universe.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's much more grounded than that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: She's observing a woman who possesses literally every conceivable marker
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: of conventional success.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oprah has the wealth, the status, the legacy, the influence.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: She's already acquired everything a person could possibly declare they want.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And yet she is still asking how to serve.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: It fundamentally shifts the paradigm for Julia.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: It makes her realize she hasn't actually been asking life to give her what she wants.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's been asking to understand what she is here for.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Which are two very different things.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Asking for what you want is all about acquisition.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Asking what you are here for, that's about purpose.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And six months prior to losing her job,
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Julia admits she wouldn't have just been sitting around pondering purpose
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: and service.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: She had a career, a title, a very clear structure.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: She knew the rules of the game she was playing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Which brings us to a really, really difficult emotional reality.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because asking, what am I here for?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds absolutely beautiful in theory.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: On a retreat, maybe.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: But when the literal structure of your daily life vanishes,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: when you're suddenly let go from your job, it is terrifying.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to be really honest here with you listening.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Intellectually, I understand the concept of asking what this is asking of me.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: But neurologically,
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: when my cortisol is spiking because I don't know how I'm going
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: to pay rent next month.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Bridging that gap between panic and purpose feels almost impossible.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Literally impossible.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that vulnerability is exactly what makes Julia's essay so compelling.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: She does not sugarcoat the liminal space,
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: that deeply uncomfortable transition period between what was and what will be.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, she really doesn't.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: This was not instantly viewed as a beautiful serendipitous blessing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: She experienced profound disappointment, anger, fear, and a massive hit to her ego.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: There is absolutely zero toxic positivity here.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't smile through her tears and say, oh, well, everything happens for a reason.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because the phrase everything happens for a reason is so often used as
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: a conversational off ramp,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: just a way to avoid dealing with someone else's actual pain.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: A conversational off-ramp.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is so perfectly stated.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: What Julia is doing is much braver.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: She is actively sitting in the discomfort of an identity crisis.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: In modern society, our identity is just dangerously enmeshed with our economic output.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Completely.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: When you lose your job,
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: you suddenly lose the easy answer to the most common social question in
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: the entire world.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you do?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that simple question carries so much weight.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: When you don't have an answer, you feel entirely unmoored.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're just adrift in your own life.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when you are sitting in all that fear and ego,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: it is remarkably easy to get paralyzed by a totally different question.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Which is?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why did this happen to me?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, yes.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: A completely natural question, but structurally, it's a total trap.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because you could spend years of your life trying to untangle why a company made
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: a specific restructuring decision or why the universe dealt you that specific hand.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: It just keeps you looking backward.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the crucial pivot in her journey happens when she stops asking that paralyzing,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: why did this happen?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And she replaces it with, what is this asking of me now?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Adding the word now is huge.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: The brilliance of asking, what is this asking of me now?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is that it doesn't require you to pretend you wanted the bad thing to happen.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't demand a happy Instagram filter over a genuinely painful event.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: It simply demands your engagement with the present reality.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It takes you out of the role of the passive victim of your past and it puts you into
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: the role of an active participant in your present.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It actually mirrors the stoic concept of amor fati, you know, a love of one's fate.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that concept.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily loving that a terrible thing happened,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: but loving the opportunity to decide what you will build out of the rubble.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that leads directly to the core mechanism of this whole philosophy.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: If these questions aren't magically bending the universe to our will,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: they are acting as a filter for our attention.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Back to the RAS.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because she asked what life was demanding of her,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Julia started brainstorming things she had never previously made space for.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: She started asking herself, what actually gives me energy?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: What do I want to build?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Who do I want to help?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And crucially, what do I have to say that perhaps only I can say in my particular way?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the physical manifestation of this process is her writing project, Just Julia.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Writing in this context is like running a diagnostic test on a messy hard drive.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great way to put it.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It forces you to defragment your actual thoughts from
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: the societal cache you've downloaded over the years.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you write,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: you can't hide behind a polished LinkedIn persona or what a career advisor tells you
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: to say.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: You are forced to confront your own authentic voice.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we're really unpacking this idea that affirmations change what we pay attention to.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: She gives three practical examples of these question-based mantras
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: that I think we really need to explore.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is a mantra she uses when preparing for job interviews
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: or really anytime she's afraid of a specific outcome.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: She says, it's this or something better.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: From a psychological standpoint, that is a highly effective tool for combating anxiety.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: When we want something badly, we develop tunnel vision.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: We just white-knuckle our grip on that single acceptable outcome.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Convincing ourselves that if we don't get this specific job, we are totally ruined.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Saying it's this or something better loosens the grip.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds your brain that your current imagination is not the absolute limit
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: of good things that can happen to you.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: The second one is used when she's making a project unnecessarily complicated
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: before she's even started.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: She says, show me how easy this gets to be.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now wait.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have to push back on this one a little bit.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Go for it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: If I just lost my job and my whole life is in upheaval,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: asking how this is easy feels incredibly out of touch.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, isn't this just toxic positivity wearing a different hat?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a completely fair critique, and I thought the same thing at first.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to look at how she actually applies it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: She isn't saying, show me how losing my income is easy.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: She is challenging a deeply ingrained cultural belief regarding her own effort.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, say more about that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So many of us are conditioned by hustle culture to believe that
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: if something is meaningful, it inherently must be a grueling, agonizing struggle.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you aren't literally bleeding for it, it doesn't count.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the whole no pain, no gain mentality.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Asking, show me how easy this gets to be,
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: it gives you permission to look for the path of least resistance in your next steps.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: It allows you to lean into your natural talents instead
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: of constantly forcing yourself to suffer just to prove your worth.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's about removing unnecessary friction,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: not pretending the road itself isn't completely bumpy.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Precisely.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: All right, what's the third mantra?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: The third one is, surprise me with possibilities beyond what I can imagine.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, my inner control freak struggles heavily with this one.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: It requires an immense amount of cognitive flexibility, honestly.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is a directed mission
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: that our brains literally cannot picture futures we haven't experienced yet.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right, because we base all of our desires on our past experiences and societal scripts.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: This mantra invites the unknown to be a positive force rather than an existential threat.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Which brings us to the fine print of surrender,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: because as much as I love the sound of all this, there is a catch.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you are going to actively ask life to surprise and guide you,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: you have to be willing to handle what actually comes next.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: The paradox of asking.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Julia points out that if you say,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: show me,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: you have to be willing to see what you didn't expect to see,
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: and often what you didn't really want to see about yourself.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those blind spots can be brutal.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if you say guide me,
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: you have to accept that the road might be completely unfamiliar,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: unpaved and poorly lit.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you say surprise me, you cannot demand only pre-approved surprises.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love that line.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get to hand the universe a list and say surprise me with one
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: of these three acceptable options.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a surprise.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's a gift registry.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It takes so much endurance.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: It really does.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And while she's sitting in this waiting room,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Julia is incredibly open about who she is actually talking to with these mantras.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't claim to have the spiritual mechanics all figured out at all.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, she leaves the theological language very open.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes she uses the word God.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes she says the universe.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes she admits she has absolutely no idea who she is speaking to.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: The theological ambiguity is actually kind of the point.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Proving who is listening on the other end of the line doesn't matter.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: The profound value is that she is finally listening.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: She is listening to her own intuition,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: to the questions she spent years avoiding,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: and she's acknowledging the career plans she has just simply outgrown.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the words aren't a megaphone pointed at the sky.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're a stethoscope pointed at her own chest.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, what a fantastic way to conceptualize it.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: It is an act of internal translation.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So armed with this hard-won self-awareness,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: let's look back at that initial mantra she was repeating on the airplane
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: from Bucharest.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Show me, guide me, use me.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because the words are identical, but the definitions have entirely changed for her.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: The evolution of those words is basically the thesis of her entire journey.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: She used to think show me meant show me the answer to my current problem.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now it means show me what I haven't been willing to look at.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Show me my blind spots.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And guide me used to mean take me somewhere better,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know, a promotion, a nicer apartment, a more prestigious title.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: But now it means take me somewhere unfamiliar.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Trusting that unfamiliar doesn't mean bad.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: It just means new.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, use me.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: This completely shifts the focal point of her existence.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: It moves her away from asking, what do I want to extract from my life?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And toward, what might my life be asking for me?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: What I appreciate most about this deep dive is that Julia's story does not end with
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: a neat cinematic resolution.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't write this essay from the deck of a yacht she bought after launching
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: a million dollar startup.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, she is very transparent that she is still deeply in the messy middle.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's still applying for jobs.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's still questioning her path,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: building her writing platform,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: worrying about the future,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: and admittedly, trying to control her destiny from her iPhone Notes app.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Which is so relatable.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: That unfinished quality is essential.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: If she claimed to have arrived at a state of permanent enlightenment just
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: because she changed her affirmations, it would undermine the entire premise.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: She hasn't crossed a magical finish line.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: She has simply developed the consciousness required to actively participate
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: in her own unfolding reality rather than just reacting to it.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: She is learning to sit in the extreme discomfort of asking braver questions.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that brings this whole conversation right to you, the person listening to this.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because everyone listening has their own version of that airplane ride from Bucharest.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: A moment in your life that did not go according to your carefully constructed plan.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: A moment where you ask for a door to open and instead the floor just completely vanished.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have all spent time in that waiting room.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when you look back at that moment,
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: or if you happen to be sitting in that waiting room right now,
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: we are not going to tell you that everything happens for a reason.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely not.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we want to leave you with a slightly provocative thought experiment.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Throughout this deep dive,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: we've talked a lot about finding purpose and asking what life is demanding of you.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: But consider this.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: For 99% of human history,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: purpose was simply surviving the winter and helping your immediate community do
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: the same.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good point.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: The modern,
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: intense pressure to find your passion or discover a grand,
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: individualized purpose is a very recent luxury.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that luxury becomes a trap.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: It creates an immense amount of suffering when the structure of our lives collapses
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: and we feel we've lost our grand purpose.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what if you stopped demanding a master plan from the universe?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: What if life isn't asking you for a definitive, lifelong purpose right now?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: What if,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: in the wake of an unexpected event,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: you simply asked Julia's grounded question,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: what are you going to choose to do with what has already happened?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: What is this asking of you, just for today?