Latest / Motivation study / Jordan Peterson_s Ultimate Advice for Students and College Grads - STOP WASTING TIME

Transcript

Jordan Peterson_s Ultimate Advice for Students and College Grads - STOP WASTING TIME · Motivation study

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: My experience is with people that we're probably running at
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: about 51% of our capacity. I mean, you can think
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: about this yourselves. I often ask undergraduates, how many hours
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a day you waste, or how many hours a week
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: you waste. And the classic answer is something like four
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to six hours a day. You know, inefficient studying, watching
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: things on YouTube that not only do you not want
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to watch, that you don't even care about, that make
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you feel horrible about watching after you're done, that's probably
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: four hours right there. You know, you think, well, that's 20,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: 25 hours a week, it's 100 hours a month, that's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: two and a half full work weeks, it's half a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: year of work weeks per year. And if your time
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is worth $ 20 an hour, which is a radical underestimate.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: It's probably more like $ 50 if you think about it
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in terms of deferred wages. If you're wasting 20 hours
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a week, you're wasting $ 50, 000 a year. And you are
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: doing that right now. And it's because you're young, wasting $ 50, 000
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: a year is a way bigger catastrophe than it would
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: be for me to waste it because I'm not going
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to last nearly as long. And so if your life
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: isn't everything it could be, you could ask yourself, well,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: what would happen if you just stopped wasting the opportunities
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: that are in front of you? You'd be who knows
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: how much more efficient, 10 times more efficient, 20 times
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: more efficient. That's the Pareto distribution. You have no idea
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: how efficient efficient people get. It's completely, it's off the charts.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Best thing you can do is teach people to write,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: because there's no difference between that and thinking. And one
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of the things that just blows me away about universities
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: is that no one ever tells students why they should
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: write something. It's like, well, you have to do this assignment. Well,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: why are you writing? Well, you need the grade. It's like, no,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: you need to learn to think. Because thinking makes you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: act effectively in the world. Thinking makes you win the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: battles you undertake. And those could be battles for good things.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: If you can think and speak and write, you are
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: absolutely deadly. Nothing can get in your way. So that's
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: why you learn to write. It's like, And I can't
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: believe that people aren't just told that. It's like... It's
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the most powerful weapon you can possibly provide someone with.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I know lots of people who've been
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: staggeringly successful and watched them throughout my life. I mean,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: those people, you don't want to have an argument with them.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: They'll just slash you into pieces. And they're not in
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a malevolent way. It's like, if you're going to make
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: your point and they're going to make their point, you
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: better have your points organized because otherwise you are going
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to look like and be an absolute idiot. You are
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: not going to get anywhere. And if you can formulate
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: your arguments coherently and make a presentation, if you can
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: speak to people, if you can lay out a proposal, God,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: people give you money. They give you opportunities. You have influence.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Make it a schedule and stick to it. Okay, so
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: what's the rule with the schedule? It's not a bloody prison.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: That's the first thing that people do wrong. They say, well,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I don't like to follow a schedule. It's like, well,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: what kind of schedule are you setting up? Well, I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: have to do this, then I have to do this,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: then I have to do this, you know, and then
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I just go play video games because who wants to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: do all these things that I have to do? It's like, wrong.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Set the schedule up so that you have the day
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: you want. That's the trick. It's like, okay, I've got tomorrow.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: If I was going to set it up so it
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: was the best possible day I could have, practically speaking...
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: What would it look like? Well, then you schedule that.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And obviously, there's a bit of responsibility that's going to
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: go along with that. Because if you have any sense,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: one of the things that you're going to insist upon
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: is that at the end of the day, you're not
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: in worse shape than you were at the beginning of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the day, right? Because that's a stupid day. If you
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of those in a row, you just dig,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: you know, you dig yourself a hole and then you
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: bury yourself in it. It's like, sorry, that's just not
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a good strategy. It's a bad strategy. So maybe 20%
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: of your day has to be responsibility and obligation. Or
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: maybe it's more than that, depending on how far behind
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: you are. But even that, you can ask yourself, okay, well,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I've got these responsibilities. I have to schedule the things in.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: What's the right ratio of responsibility to reward? And you
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: can ask yourself that just like you'd negotiate with someone
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: who is working for you. It's like, okay, you got
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to work tomorrow. Okay, so I want you to work tomorrow.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: And you might say, okay, well, what are you going
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to do for me? that makes it likely that I'll
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: work for you? Well, you could ask yourself that, you know?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So maybe you do an hour of responsibility and then
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: you play a video game for 15 minutes. I don't know,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: whatever turns your crank, man. But, you know, you have
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to negotiate with yourself and not tyrannize yourself. Like you're
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: negotiating with someone that you care for, that you would
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: like to be productive and have a good life. And
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: that's how you make the schedule. It's like, and then
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: you look at the day and you think, well, if
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I had that day, that'd be good. Great! You know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and you're useless and horrible, so you'll probably only hit
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: it with about 70% accuracy, but that beats the hell
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: out of zero, right? And if you hit it even
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: with 50% accuracy, another rule is, well, aim for 51%
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the next week, or 50.5% for God's sake, because you're
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: going to hit that position where things start to loop
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: back positively and spiral you upwards. Well, and if we
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: all got our act together collectively and stop making things worse,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: because that's another thing people do all the time. Not
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: only do they not do what they should to make
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: things better, they actively attempt to make things worse because
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: they're spiteful or resentful or arrogant or deceitful or homicidal
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: or genocidal or all of those things all collectively. bundled
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: together in an absolutely pathological package. If people stopped really,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: really trying just to make things worse, we have no
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: idea how much better they would get just because of that.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So there's this weird dynamic that's part of the existential
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: system of ideas between human vulnerability, social judgment, both of
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: which are major causes of suffering, and the failure of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: individuals to adopt the responsibility that they know they should adopt.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: It isn't merely that your fate depends on whether or
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: not you get your act together and to what degree
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: you decide that you're going to live out your own
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: genuine being. It isn't only your fate. It's the fate
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: of everyone that you're networked with. And so, you know,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you think, well... There's 9 billion, 7 billion people in
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the world. We're going to peak at about 9 billion,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: by the way, and then it'll decline rapidly. But 7
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: billion people in the world. And who are you? You're
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: just one little dust moat among that 7 billion. And
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: so it really doesn't matter what you do or don't do.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But that's simply not the case. It's the wrong model
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: because you're at the center of a network. You're a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: node in a network. Of course, that's even more true
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: now that we have social media. You'll know a thousand people,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: at least over the course of your life. And they'll
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: know a thousand people each. And that puts you one
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: person away from a million. And two persons away from
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a billion. And so that's how you're connected. And the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: things you do, they're like dropping a stone in a pond.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: The ripples move outward. And they affect things in ways
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: that you can't fully comprehend. And it means that the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: things that you do and that you don't do are
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: far more important than you think. And so if you
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: act that way, of course, the terror of realizing that
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: is that it actually starts to matter what you do.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: And you might say, well, that's better than living a
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: meaningless existence. It's better for it to matter. But I mean,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: if you really asked yourself, would you be so sure
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: if you had the choice? I can live with no
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: responsibility whatsoever. The price I pay is that nothing matters.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Or I can reverse it and everything matters. But I
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: have to take the responsibility that's associated with that. It's
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: not so obvious to me that people would take the
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: meaningful path. Now, when you say, well, nihilists suffer dreadfully
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: because there's no meaning in their life and they still suffer. Yeah,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: but the advantage is they have no responsibility. So that's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the payoff. And I actually think that's the motivation. Say, well,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I can't help being nihilistic. All my belief systems have collapsed.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, maybe. Maybe you've just allowed them to
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: collapse because it's a hell of a lot easier than
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: acting them out. And the price you pay is some
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: meaningless suffering. But you can always whine about that and
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: people will feel sorry for you. And you have the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: option of taking the pathway of the martyr. So that's
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a pretty good deal, all things considered. Especially when the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: alternative is to bear your burden properly and to live
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: forthrightly in the world. Well, what Solzhenitsyn figured out, and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: so many people in the 20th century, it's not just him,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: even though he's the best example, is that if you
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: live a pathological life, you pathologize your society. And if
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: enough people do that, then it's hell. Really. Really. And
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you can read the Gulag Archipelago if you have the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: fortitude to do that. And you'll see exactly what hell
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: is like. And then you can decide if that's a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: place you'd like to visit. Or even more importantly, if
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: it's a place you'd like to visit and take all
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: your family and friends. Because that's what happened in the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: 20th century. No one can live without a routine. You
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: just forget that. If you guys don't have a routine...
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I would recommend, like, you get one going because you
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: cannot be mentally healthy without a routine. You need to
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: pick a time to get up. Whatever time you want,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: but pick one and stick to it because otherwise you
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: dysregulate your circadian rhythms and they regulate your mood. Plan
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a life you'd like to have. And you do that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: partly by referring to social norms. That's more or less
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: rescuing your father from the belly of the whale. But
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the other way you do that is by having a
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: little conversation with yourself about as if you don't really
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: know who you are, because you know what you're like.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: You won't do what you're told. You won't do what
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: you tell yourself to do. You must have noticed that.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: It's like you're a bad employee and a worse boss.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And both of those work you know, for you. You
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: don't know what you want to do, and then when
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: you tell yourself what to do, you don't do it anyways.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: You should fire yourself and find someone else to beat. But,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you know, my point is that you have to understand
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that you're not your own servant, so to speak. You're
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: someone that you have to negotiate with, and you're someone
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that you want to present the opportunity of having a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: good life to. And that's hard for people, because they
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: don't like themselves very much. So, you know, they're always
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: like cracking the whip and then procrastinating and cracking the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: whip and then procrastinating. And it's like, God, it's so
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: boring and such a pathetic way of spending your time.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I think what you have to do, and this is
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: part of humility, is you have to look around you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: within your sphere of influence, like the direct sphere of influence,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and fix the things that announce themselves as in need
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: of repair. But one of the main reasons that people
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: don't get what they want is because they don't actually
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: figure out what it is. And the probability that you're
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: going to get what would be good for you, let's say,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: which would even be better than what you want, right? Because,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you might be wrong about what you want, easily.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: But maybe you could get what would really be good
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: for you. Well, why don't you? Well, because you don't try.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: You don't think, okay... Here's what I would like if
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I could have it. And I don't mean in a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: way that you manipulate the world to force it to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: deliver you goods for status or something like that. That
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: isn't what I mean. I mean something like, imagine that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you were taking care of yourself like you were someone
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you actually cared for. And then you thought, okay, I'm
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: caring for this person. I would like things to go
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: as well for them as possible. What would their life
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: have to be like in order for that to be
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the case? Well, people don't do that. They don't sit
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: down and think, all right, you know, let's figure it out.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: You've got a life. It's hard, obviously. It's like three
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: years from now, you can have what you need. You've
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: got to be careful about it. You can't have everything.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: You can have what would be good for you. But
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you have to figure out what it is. And then
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you have to aim at it. Well, my experience with
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: people has been is if they figure out what it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: is that would be good for them, and then they
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: aim at it, then they get it. And it's strange
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: because they don't necessarily, it's a strange thing. It's not
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: quite that simple because, you know, you may formulate an
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: idea about what would be good for you. And then
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you take 10 steps towards that and you find out
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that your formulation was a bit off. And so you
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: have to reformulate your goal. You know, so you're kind
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of going like this as you move towards the goal.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: But a huge part of the reason that people fail
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is because they don't ever set up the criteria for success.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And so since success is a very narrow line and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: very unlikely, the probability that you're going to stumble on
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: it randomly is zero. And so there's a proposition here,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and the proposition is, if you actually want something, you
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: can have it. Now the question then would be, well,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: what do you mean by actually want? And the answer
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: is that you reorient your life in every possible way,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: to make the probability that that will occur as certain
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: as possible. And that's a sacrificial idea, right? It's like,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you don't get everything. Obviously. Obviously. But maybe you can
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: have what you need. And maybe all you have to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: do to get it is ask. But asking isn't a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: whim or today's wish. It's like, you have to be
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: deadly serious about it. You have to think, okay, like,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I'm taking stock of myself. And if I was going
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: to live properly in the world and I was going
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to set myself up such that being would justify itself
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: in my estimation, and I don't mean as a harsh judge,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: exactly what is it that I would aim at? Sit
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: on your bed one day and ask yourself, what remarkably
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: stupid things am I doing on a regular basis to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: absolutely screw up my life? And if you actually ask
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that question, but you have to want to know the answer, right?
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Because that's actually what asking the question means. It doesn't
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: mean just mouthing the words. It means you have to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: decide that you want to know. You'll figure that out
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: so fast it'll make your hair curl.