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Jordan Peterson_ The Real Cost of Avoiding Your Problems · Motivation study

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So one of the common themes, for example, in mythology
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: is what's roughly being described as a hero myth. And
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a hero myth involves someone who's part of a demolished community,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: community under threat. The threat's usually signified by something vaguely
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: like a dragon. And the dragon comes out.
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  Speaker 2: It's eternal.
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  Speaker 1: It comes out to attack the village. The hero comes
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  Speaker 1: out and confronts the dragon and then gets the.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Gold and.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Human beings learned to understand over time that the most
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: reliable leader was the person who could step outside the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: structure when it was damaged to confront something that was
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: chaotic and dangerous in whatever form that might be and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: then to bring something valuable back as a consequence. Pursue
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: what's meaningful and you'll encounter that which you least want
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  Speaker 1: to encounter.
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  Speaker 2: That's the dragon, right? That's the dragon that hoards gold,
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  Speaker 2: for example.
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  Speaker 1: And the dragon is also something that lives inside you
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and It's not something that you take the encounter with lightly.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Well, now I'm going to tell you this story. It's
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  Speaker 2: written for four year old kids.
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  Speaker 1: But I want you to take a look at it
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  Speaker 1: for a moment from a different perspective and see if
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: you can imagine exactly what.
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  Speaker 2: It is that it's saying. There's no such thing as
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: a dragon.
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  Speaker 1: Billy Bixby was rather surprised when he woke up one
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: morning and found a dragon in his room. It was
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  Speaker 1: a small dragon about the size of a kitten. The
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  Speaker 1: dragon wagged its tail happily when Billy patted its head.
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  Speaker 1: Billy went downstairs to tell his mother. There's no such
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  Speaker 1: thing as a dragon, said Billy's mother. And she said
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  Speaker 1: it like she meant it. By the time Billy came
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  Speaker 1: back downstairs, the dragon had grown so much he filled
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  Speaker 1: the hall. I didn't know dragons grew so fast.
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  Speaker 2: Said Billy.
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  Speaker 1: There's no such thing as a dragon, said mother firmly.
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  Speaker 1: Why did it have to grow so big? I'm not sure,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: said Billy, but I think it just wanted to be noticed.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: You think back in your own experience when you've gone
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  Speaker 1: to a house where there's a dragon hiding underneath the
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  Speaker 1: living room rug and nobody's saying anything about it.
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  Speaker 2: And then you think, how long.
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  Speaker 1: Does it take to get something absolutely simple done in
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  Speaker 1: a house that's absolutely jammed to the rafters with unfinished business? Well,
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  Speaker 1: because there's something going on in the household. that has
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  Speaker 1: been studiously ignored for a very long time and has
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  Speaker 1: grown so large as a consequence that it occupies the
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  Speaker 1: whole domain. The dragon is the most primordial symbol of
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: that which lurks beyond which is known. Anything that's truly
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: unknown brings with it a tremendous amount of new possibility.
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  Speaker 1: That's why dragons hoard gold or why they also hoard princesses.
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  Speaker 1: You could also say to some degree that whether a
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  Speaker 1: dragon is positive or negative depends to some degree on
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the manner in which you approach it, because the psychological
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: reality is that dragons approached voluntarily well small are most
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: likely to be positive. It's a good rule of thumb
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  Speaker 1: to help you stop avoiding things that you shouldn't avoid
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  Speaker 1: so that they don't grow and magnify beyond your capacity
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  Speaker 1: to deal with them.
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  Speaker 2: Mrs.
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  Speaker 1: Bixby doesn't want to contend with the dragon because she
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  Speaker 1: would have to abandon some of her presuppositions about the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: state of the household and the world, and that would
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: throw her into a state of at least temporary confusion
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: and perhaps serious confusion. So you don't go from conviction
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  Speaker 1: to new learning like this. You go from conviction to
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  Speaker 1: chaos and confusion to new learning. And the fact of
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  Speaker 1: the intermediary chaos and confusion is enough to dissuade people
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  Speaker 1: from attending, let's say, to the dragons when they make
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  Speaker 1: themselves manifest. Well, because dreams concentrate on threat. We know
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that they present threats to you, threats you haven't been
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  Speaker 1: able to deal with well. There's a part of your
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  Speaker 1: brain that tracks threats, and it's not really all that
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  Speaker 1: smart in some ways.
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  Speaker 2: All it does is say, look, here's the problem.
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  Speaker 1: And it's waiting for the rest of your brain to
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  Speaker 1: conjure up some solution to that problem. And if it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't conjure up a solution, then it just presents the
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  Speaker 1: problem over and over and over and over and over.
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  Speaker 1: So people who have post traumatic stress disorder, for example,
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  Speaker 1: who've been really upset by their contact with something unexpected,
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  Speaker 1: dream about the same tragedy forever until they solve it.
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  Speaker 1: And they solve it by facing it and living it
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  Speaker 1: over and over. Let's say something truly terrible has happened
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  Speaker 1: to you, and as a consequence of that you're in shock,
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  Speaker 1: post-traumatic shock, which is a condition that's sufficiently serious to
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  Speaker 1: damage your brain over time. It's not only a psychological disorder,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it's a physical disorder. If you're really stressed, your cortisol
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: levels shoot up, and if your cortisol levels shoot up,
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  Speaker 1: that cortisol in high doses is a.
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  Speaker 2: Neurotoxin, starts to damage your brain.
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  Speaker 1: If your path from point A to B is being
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  Speaker 1: blocked by something that you're afraid of, you better learn
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  Speaker 1: to confront it because if you don't, it will grow
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  Speaker 1: and expand until it turns into the kind of dragon
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  Speaker 1: that occupies your whole house. But it's also the principle
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  Speaker 1: of learning itself because when you learn, you encounter something
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  Speaker 1: that is challenging and difficult and that might reshape you
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  Speaker 1: dramatically and that might even knock you into the desert
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  Speaker 1: before it takes you to the promised land and you
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  Speaker 1: stand on that edge of discovery voluntarily and In consequence,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: you become much stronger. I was at my sister-in-law's house once,
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  Speaker 1: and her son was running around. He's about four. Very precocious,
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  Speaker 1: very verbal, very intelligent. Running around with a knight hat
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  Speaker 1: on and a sword. So he's engaged in this pretty
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: intense play world. And when he goes to sleep, he
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  Speaker 1: puts the knight hat on his pillow and the sword
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  Speaker 1: by his pillow. And at the same time, he's having...
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  Speaker 1: Night terror. So he's waking up, and had been for
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a number of weeks. Nate waking up screaming. And then,
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  Speaker 1: but he doesn't know why. There's some things that aren't
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  Speaker 1: going so well in the household. And the parents get
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  Speaker 1: divorced shortly afterwards. Okay, so that's what's going on underneath, right?
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  Speaker 1: And he's also going to go to kindergarten. And so
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  Speaker 1: he's about to go into the world. And so he's
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  Speaker 1: coping with this. I'm watching him zoom around as this
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  Speaker 1: night and thinking that's pretty cool. And that night he
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: woke up and was screaming. And so we were all
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  Speaker 1: at breakfast the next morning. And I said, did you
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  Speaker 1: dream anything? And he got really intense. And he said, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I had a dream. I was out on this field.
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  Speaker 1: And all these like dwarfs came up to me. They
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  Speaker 1: were only about as high as my knees. And they
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  Speaker 1: didn't have any arms. They had powerful legs. And they
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  Speaker 1: had beaks. And Whenever he moved anywhere, they would jump
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  Speaker 1: at him with their beaks. And there were lots of them.
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  Speaker 1: And everyone, like, just said nothing at breakfast.
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  Speaker 2: It was like....
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  Speaker 1: And he was right into this story, eh? And then
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  Speaker 1: he said, yeah, and then in the background there was
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  Speaker 1: a dragon. And every time the dragon puffed out smoke,
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  Speaker 1: it would turn into these dwarves. It's like, oh man, kid,
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  Speaker 1: you really got a problem there. You got, you got
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  Speaker 1: beet things that are biting you and you can kill
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  Speaker 1: them and that's fine. But then there's the dragon just
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  Speaker 1: puffing out new ones. So it's like a hydra problem, right?
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  Speaker 1: The old hydra is the serpent. You cut off one head,
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  Speaker 1: seven more grow. It's not a good thing. And it's
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  Speaker 1: such a cool dream because it really portrayed this class
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  Speaker 1: of all possible monsters problem. So you've got the specific
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  Speaker 1: monsters and that's a problem. So you've got to get
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  Speaker 1: rid of them.
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  Speaker 2: That's not the problem.
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  Speaker 1: The problem is that there's something in the background that's
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  Speaker 1: just generating monsters like Matt. And so I said to him,
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  Speaker 1: what do you think you could do about that? And
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  Speaker 1: that's a loaded.
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  Speaker 2: Question, right? That's like leading the witness in a trial.
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  Speaker 1: You don't get to ask a question like that because
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  Speaker 1: it implies the answer. What could you do about that
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  Speaker 1: is not any different than saying you could do something
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  Speaker 1: about that.
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  Speaker 2: Right, so I hinted at that as a possibility. And
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  Speaker 2: his eyes lit up. Now, you remember, he's already running
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  Speaker 2: around as a knight, eh? So he kind of already
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  Speaker 2: knew what to do, because he had the whole sword.
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  Speaker 1: And the hat. And he said, I'd get my dad,
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  Speaker 1: and then I'd jump up on top of the dragon,
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  Speaker 1: and I'd poke out both of its eyes with my sword,
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  Speaker 1: and then it'd go right down its throat to the firebox,
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  Speaker 1: where the fire comes out, and I'd carve out a
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  Speaker 1: piece of the firebox, and.
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  Speaker 2: Then I'd use that as a shield. And I thought, yes! Right!
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  Speaker 1: Right! Man, it's so smart, eh? Because he got the
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  Speaker 1: thing instantly. So, imagine, first of all, he thought, okay,
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  Speaker 1: I have to go to the heart of the problem. Right?
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  Speaker 1: And really to the heart, not to the dragon. But
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  Speaker 1: right down the damn thing's gullet. Right to the place
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  Speaker 1: where the fire was actually being.
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  Speaker 2: Created.
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  Speaker 1: Because there, it was there you could find the shield.
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  Speaker 1: And that he'd take this thing that was fireproof and
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  Speaker 1: make a shield out of it. And so that was
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  Speaker 1: just dead, bloody perfect. It was so cool. And you think, well,
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  Speaker 1: how could a kid come up with that? So you
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  Speaker 1: could say that the kid already had within him not
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  Speaker 1: only the capacity to represent not only the monster, but
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  Speaker 1: the class of all possible monsters. And the fact that
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  Speaker 1: the problem wasn't monsters. the problem was that monsters could
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  Speaker 1: continually be generated. It's a way worse problem. And then
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  Speaker 1: the answer to that isn't to kill an individual monster.
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  Speaker 1: The answer to that is go to the source of
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  Speaker 1: the monstrous itself and defeat it. What you might do
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  Speaker 1: about a particular monster is hide or go out and
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  Speaker 1: get rid of it.
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  Speaker 2: If it was just an actual animal, right?
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  Speaker 1: But that doesn't help because there's all the other potential
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  Speaker 1: predators that are still there. And so maybe you can
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  Speaker 1: go hunt all them down, but that doesn't help either
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  Speaker 1: because you can't hunt them all down.
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  Speaker 2: It's not very likely anyways.
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  Speaker 1: So instead, what you have to do is figure out
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  Speaker 1: how to configure yourself so that you're in the best
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  Speaker 1: possible position to fight off the monsters when they come.
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  Speaker 1: That's your best bet. All right, so now people are
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  Speaker 1: trying to figure this out forever. They're trying to figure
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  Speaker 1: out What's the answer to the problem of the class
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  Speaker 1: of all possible monsters? And so sacrifice is actually one
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  Speaker 1: way that you can tame the monsters. If you think
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  Speaker 1: about the monster as the set of all negative future potentialities,
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  Speaker 1: you make the proper sacrifices, those monsters stay at bay.
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  Speaker 1: But then there's heroism as an alternative too, which means
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  Speaker 1: the active confrontation of the class of all possible monsters
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  Speaker 1: and the building of yourself up into the sort of
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  Speaker 1: courageous person that can do that.
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  Speaker 3: I've realized that it's scary when you find a thing
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  Speaker 3: that you're going to fully commit yourself to the pursuit of,
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  Speaker 3: especially if it's excellence that you're going after, because there's
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  Speaker 3: no more room for your inadequacies to hide. There's no
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  Speaker 3: more rejectacy, right? I've committed to this.
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  Speaker 1: Commit to at least one thing.
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  Speaker 3: As hard as you can and see what happens.
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  Speaker 1: I had a rule with my clients because, you know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: you might say, well, I've gone halfway down this path
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  Speaker 1: and I found out it's wrong. Well, how do you
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  Speaker 1: distinguish that from just giving up? Well, that's a really
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  Speaker 1: hard question, right? It's a moral hazard. Because it's inappropriate
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  Speaker 1: to continue in a direction you now realize to be wrong.
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  Speaker 1: But it's also inappropriate to give up and use that
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  Speaker 1: rationalization as an excuse.
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  Speaker 2: And how do you distinguish?
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  Speaker 3: Especially since we're not transparent to ourselves.
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  Speaker 2: Well, right, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: So that is genuinely a moral hazard. You can change
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  Speaker 1: course as long as the next thing you do is
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: equally or more difficult. Because that's a check against just
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: giving up. So you want to discipline yourself so you
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: can get yourself organized so that you can go in
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a particular direction so that when you find the right direction,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you can really go in that direction. And that does
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: require an apprenticeship of sorts. And it might not matter
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: in some sense exactly what the apprenticeship is as long
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: as it is rigorous. Right? And so that's sort of
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: a bridge between moral relativism and moral absolutism. There's lots
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of games you can play. It's not that obvious a
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: priori which is the best game. So that's kind of
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a morally relative stance. There's multiple playable games. But then
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  Speaker 1: the absolute is, yeah, but you have to play one
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: of them. You have to learn to play one of them.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: You have to become an expert at at least one
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: of them. And then that's not a relative proposition. And
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  Speaker 1: I believe that's true. That seems to me to be
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  Speaker 1: the case. So you want to commit to something. And
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: then when you commit to something, you require yourself to
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  Speaker 1: bring all of your disparate components moving in a single direction,
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  Speaker 1: united in a single direction. So it's a unifying act.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: And then once having been unified, well, then you can
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: bring that unity to bear on a variety of different tasks.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But you have to bring it together first. And that
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: makes sense developmentally. You see children start out as a
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: disparate bundle of motivations and emotions, sort of warring with
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  Speaker 1: one another.
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  Speaker 2: And then they can.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Integrate that into single games that they can play with themselves.
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  Speaker 1: And then they integrate that with games they start to
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  Speaker 1: play with other people. And all of that is integration.
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  Speaker 1: It's not subjugation.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: It's not repression. Not if it's a good game. It's integration.
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  Speaker 1: You want to get integrated because then you have All
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the horses that are pulling your chariot pulling in the
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: same direction. And you're much more likely to get to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: where you want to go then. And also much more
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: likely to specify a good place to go.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Do you think that there's a usefulness in having a
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: nemesis to motivate you? I try to avoid making enemies
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: of people or groups or ideas.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Don't make unnecessary enemies.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: But there is an extra level of fire that gets
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: lit underneath you. When you're going up against someone, and
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I miss it sometimes, there's a price that you pay
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: for peace.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, then you just have to look at yourself
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  Speaker 1: harder and find the nemesis. Because it's there all the time.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's always parts of yourself that you can overcome.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: If you need something to grapple with, you probably do.
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  Speaker 1: You can find that. You just look inside. You'll find
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: something to grapple with. You know, inadequacy, weakness, susceptibility to temptation, narcissism, pride, envy, revenge, resentment, frustration,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: lack of faith, all of that. That'll keep you occupied
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: if you really grapple with it. And yeah, I mean,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: that's an ancient theological question.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: You know, what's up with the devil?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Why does the possibility of evil exist? Why is there
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: an eternal adversary? Why would God construct a reality where
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: an adversary exists? And maybe it's because all things considered,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a world with an adversary is a better world, just
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: like a garden with a snake in it is a
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: better garden. These things aren't easy to understand. No snake,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: no necessity to contend with snakes.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: So why be awake at all? No adversary, no challenge.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Why be challenged? Because maybe you're better for the challenge.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's the challenge, to see if you can
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: be better for the challenge.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: But that should be internal.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Well, fundamentally, well, if it isn't, you'll.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Find it externally because you'll demonize someone to turn them
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: into Satan so that you can find an adversary. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: then that's very unfortunate for you and for them.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: That's the problem. And it's just not as big a battle.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: It's like you battle with someone external who's malevolent, let's say,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: or you think they are. And usually you've got that
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: mostly wrong, but not always. But if the battle is inside,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: which is where it's supposed to be, most fundamentally, then, well,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: then it's the ultimate, it is the ultimate challenge.
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  Speaker 3: And that's the infinite game. The external one.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: The battle between good and evil on a playing field
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  Speaker 1: of chaos and order. It's the eternal game.