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Childhood Lessons You Must Unlearn (Ep. 4) · How to Be an Adult

0:00
Power is
0:02
analogous to a tool. Mhmm. Right? But there
0:04
comes a point where eventually you have to
0:07
allow your kid to fall over. It causes
0:10
2 people to suffer Mhmm.
0:13
Where 0 people have to suffer. 2 hours
0:16
hanging out with friends, talking about absolute nonsense.
0:18
And you're not these are not friends that
0:20
you can get anything out. Welcome to How
0:23
to be an Adult, a podcast created by
0:26
the practitioners at the Morpheus Clinic For Hypnosis
0:29
in Toronto Canada.
0:31
We've made this show for people just like
0:33
you who've virally become adults
0:36
and have no idea what to do about
0:38
it.
0:39
I'm Luke Chao. And I'm Pascal Langdell. And
0:42
whether you're 18 or 80, this is the
0:44
trail guide to life that you didn't get
0:47
when you gained equality with your parents.
0:50
We discuss these things
0:52
publicly in order to democratize
0:55
self assurance.
0:56
In this episode, we're going to be talking
0:58
about things you were told as a child
1:00
that become obsolete when you're an adult.
1:03
I'm gonna do something extremely out of character,
1:06
which is to quote the Bible. This is
1:08
the King James version. I was an English
1:10
graduate, so I think it's
1:12
fitting,
1:13
for that reason. This is from 1 Corinthians
1:16
13:11:
1:18
When I was a child,
1:19
I spake as a child.
1:21
I understood
1:22
as a child.
1:24
I thought as a child.
1:26
But when I became a man, I put
1:28
away childish things.
1:30
In today's episode, we're gonna speak about anti
1:32
principles.
1:34
The childish things to put away
1:37
now that you have reached adulthood
1:40
the first of these anti principles is that
1:42
you have to turn to other people people
1:45
in power people who are older than you
1:47
people who might be more knowledgeable
1:50
for validation
1:51
or permission
1:53
since your own
1:55
thoughts, values, discernment,
1:57
opinions, knowledge, etcetera,
1:59
are not good enough on their own. But
2:02
this is the attitude
2:04
not
2:05
of someone who's experienced and knowledgeable it's the
2:08
attitude of the student of the apprentice
2:10
and I want to point out that reputable
2:13
universities around the world give 23 year olds
2:16
the title of Master Master of Sciences Master
2:19
of Arts
2:21
and when it comes to the domains
2:24
of your life your thoughts your hopes goals
2:28
and dreams as an individual
2:30
to claim mastery
2:32
I think is
2:34
is no over statement.
2:36
When you've had at least 18 years
2:39
living your life in your body, in your
2:41
own head and heart,
2:44
You can value your own thoughts and opinions
2:46
about yourself. You can exercise
2:49
your taste when it comes to you.
2:51
Within that there's also the,
2:54
idea that you're,
2:56
you know, you're still gonna be a lifelong
2:57
learner. It's not like you're the finished article
3:00
And in fact, your tastes will change, your
3:03
understanding of yourself will change, and within that
3:05
your identity will change
3:07
throughout your life as well. So it's not
3:09
to say that you're it's it's a done
3:10
thing.
3:11
But there is a moment of which, you
3:13
know, being the the student, you've got to
3:15
start taking responsibility for yourself and start stepping
3:19
away from the master. In this case, the
3:21
apprenticeship is childhood.
3:23
Da Vinci
3:24
had an enormously long apprenticeship and partly because
3:26
he really really liked his master. But it
3:29
was almost
3:30
kind of
3:31
unheard of that you'd stay that long.
3:34
And there are some people who think that
3:35
well, it's because he basically had
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an emotional codependency
3:40
with his master.
3:42
In contrast, I think it was Michelangelo was
3:44
like I'm out of here. I'm gonna go
3:46
do stuff. So, even if you're extraordinarily
3:49
clever, everything as far as the world might
3:51
be concerned, you're extremely accomplished. That doesn't actually
3:54
mean that you're actually taking that step.
3:57
I would guess that part way through his
3:59
apprenticeship. Mhmm.
4:00
Da Vinci
4:02
started to use his own eyes in the
4:04
absence of his master Mhmm. And he judged
4:07
his work with his own judgment. Mhmm. Let
4:10
me put this in a 21st century context.
4:12
Yes.
4:14
Getting dressed in the morning. Mhmm. Right. So
4:16
when you're 5 years old,
4:19
maybe your mom, your dad decides
4:22
here's what you're gonna wear today it's clean
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and they think it's stylish
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so you put it on
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and then you realize after, you know, a
4:31
few years of elementary school
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that
4:34
the other kids might or might not
4:37
accept what your parents had put on you
4:40
in the morning. This opinion might contradict with
4:42
what your parents might want for you,
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But we do reach an age where we
4:47
can dress ourselves in the morning
4:49
based on a combination of practicality
4:53
as well as fashion. We all, at some
4:56
point in our lives,
4:57
you know, have to trust ourselves in in
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the morning quite literally.
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And it you know it's usually before we
5:03
turn 18 but definitely once we reach our
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twenties
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we don't
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even want a parent choosing our clothing for
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us.
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And at that point, our taste, our sense
5:15
of aesthetics, our discernment,
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our understanding of our own bodies our understanding
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of how we want to present socially
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all of this helps us decide
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what ends up in in our closet in
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the first place
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as well as which item we're gonna pick
5:32
off the rack to to wear at any
5:34
given day.
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So that's a very
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modern and relatable example, I think, of where
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we're no longer the apprentice turning
5:43
to mom or dad saying,
5:45
well how about this?
5:47
No? Well, okay.
5:49
In
5:51
so many areas of life in, you know,
5:54
like like,
5:55
what are you gonna stock your fridge with?
5:57
What are you gonna cook? Which career path
5:59
are you gonna take? Mhmm.
6:01
Where are you gonna go for university?
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Some people get degrees, some don't.
6:06
You're 18
6:07
at least and even if you're 20, 30,
6:10
40, 50, 60, you may need to become
6:12
masters in different domains. So what's the difference?
6:16
And from what you're saying is that well,
6:18
there are some fundamental aspects
6:21
of being able to basically take care of
6:23
yourself. So you feed yourself correctly,
6:26
you can dress yourself in the morning, you
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have,
6:30
idea you have, but work ethic that will
6:33
serve you and therefore serve others. That would
6:35
be an important one as well. Because that's
6:38
also what a university
6:40
is also about
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is being able to is to give you
6:43
a work ethic, basically. So in some ways
6:46
it's not really about university. But it's about
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stepping out into adulthood and throughout adulthood having
6:52
that attitude of there are some fundamental things
6:55
that I've already mastered at the age of
6:57
18 and everything on top of that
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is bonus. Basically. The very the very least
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that's what I can do and that in
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itself is enough and then from that I
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can master more things as I go through
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life. Right. Well, university is where a lot
7:12
of people first learn how to like cook
7:15
Mhmm. And budget. Mhmm. And you know, to
7:18
shop for their own clothes and to to
7:20
these things we had to do for the
7:21
rest of our lives as adults.
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You could argue that universities, when you're not
7:26
taking a program like law or engineering
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they're finishing schools basically
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they they take the rough form of a
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high school graduate and it you turn them
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into a well rounded citizen. Or you could
7:36
say that it's a rite of passage. Just
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like we were talking about in the in
7:39
the first episode, you could say that for
7:40
a lot of people, universities, again less about
7:42
the degree
7:44
itself, but a rite of passage where they've
7:46
stepped away from the family that did the
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things for them. And now they're in a
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sort of
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a relatively
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supportive community, I would say,
7:55
that allows them to to start, you know,
7:58
taking the reins in their own life. Yeah.
8:00
And that's probably the closest thing that many
8:01
people have to a rite
8:03
rite of passage. Yeah. And as part of
8:05
that rite of passage to go from childhood
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to adulthood
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and to then have to leave behind childhood
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lessons.
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You leave behind the idea that your teachers
8:16
are going to get on your case
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regarding the homework you've not yet submitted,
8:22
you have to let go of of the
8:23
idea that there's someone gonna be who's gonna
8:25
be hovering over you
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to make sure you get dressed and you're
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being driven to school and so on. So
8:32
for many people you're right, this is the
8:35
situation where being away from home especially,
8:38
people first
8:40
come into being
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as adults.
8:44
So when I talk about mastery I'm not
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really talking about, you know, me being anything
8:48
like Da Vinci. Mhmm. If I do hypnotherapy
8:52
very very very well, then maybe when I'm
8:54
60 or 80 years old, you know, I
8:56
could be recognized as a master of hypnotherapy.
9:00
But when it comes to getting dressed,
9:03
when it comes to what I'm gonna stock
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my fridge
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with. When it comes to these basic life
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essentials, I absolutely do believe I've mastered them,
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and I've mastered them in, let's say, my
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early twenties.
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The principle, the the anti principle that I
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presented was that as an adult, you have
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to turn to others for validation and permission.
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So I think that in some occupational
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contexts
9:27
or let's say that you're learning how to,
9:31
cave dive Mhmm. And you're 40,
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you probably do want to turn to others
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for validation
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and their opinions.
9:39
But when it comes to the basic life
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foundations and I'm gonna also include how to
9:45
make friends, how to,
9:48
be a decent person,
9:49
how to be a good neighbor. Mhmm. When
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it comes to this kind of thing,
9:53
most people,
9:54
we would hope,
9:56
have mastered Mhmm. These life essentials
9:59
that will serve them for the remainder of
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their lives
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by their early twenties.
10:04
Mhmm. Have you ever come across
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people who have not made that transition much
10:10
later in life?
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Yes. And it's always
10:13
because of
10:15
I mean, I'm not sure if the term
10:16
helicopter parents
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applies to adults.
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It's
10:22
I mean, there are cultures where there
10:25
are intergenerational
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households
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and that's quite normal.
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So I do see that.
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And in other situations
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it's parents
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who would not let go
10:37
it's parents
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who
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extend
10:41
their adult
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children's childhood. That's just the mother Gothel kind
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of idea. Mother Gothel is is
10:50
trying to stop her daughter from basically maturing
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and does everything that she can.
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And in in a lot of narratives, a
10:58
parent that stops the adolescent from developing and
11:01
becoming an adult is in effect a monster.
11:04
It's it's one of the archetypal monsters. And
11:06
the reason for that is I think as
11:07
you suggest is that there's
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something very
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damaging
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about the skills and perspectives of somebody who
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has not been allowed to
11:17
test out and become an adult in their
11:19
own right. And the very fact that the
11:20
archetype exists at all suggests that this does
11:23
happen and that this is a this is
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part of the part of the range of
11:27
human stories that have regularly played out across
11:29
generations.
11:30
My mind went to the Pink Floyd song
11:33
Mother. Right. Which is quite edible. Mhmm.
11:36
So I'm gonna quote from this song. Mother,
11:39
should I build the wall? Mother, should I
11:41
run for president? Mother, should I trust a
11:43
government?
11:44
Mother, will they put me on the firing
11:46
line? And then
11:48
it
11:49
switches to the mother's perspective.
11:53
Hush now, baby. Baby, don't you cry. Mama's
11:56
gonna make all your nightmares come true. Mama's
11:58
gonna put all her fears into you, mama's
12:01
gonna keep you right here under her wing,
12:04
she won't let you fly but she might
12:06
let you sing,
12:08
Mama's gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
12:12
Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby.
12:15
Of course, mama's gonna help
12:18
build the wall.
12:19
In the lyrics, it it paints the the
12:21
mother got the situation. So so then you
12:23
should think, well,
12:25
why is why does that even exist? And
12:26
part of it I think is that as
12:27
a
12:28
parent, at least for the first part of
12:31
a child's life,
12:33
they are absolutely dependent on you and you
12:36
have to swing all your ego basically in
12:39
the service of
12:41
this other creature. Mhmm. But there comes a
12:43
point where eventually you have to allow your
12:46
kid to fall over. You have to allow
12:48
your kid to make a mistake.
12:51
You have to allow your kid to be
12:52
foolish and it is so painful.
12:55
And so you can see that people who
12:56
again fear that pain or fear the lack
12:59
of reward, if you like, that they get
13:00
from have from being the,
13:03
the creature on which the the child depends.
13:05
It's a validation. It's a role. It's a,
13:07
you know, it's a it's a life's purpose,
13:09
if you see what I mean. It's very
13:10
fulfilling, if that's what you need. But at
13:13
some point you have to turn around and
13:14
go, okay, now I'm gonna be a parent,
13:16
I'm not gonna be your friend, and I'm
13:17
I'm not going to be your I'm going
13:19
to do better by you by allowing you
13:21
to do things I can watch and be
13:23
in distinct pain over. Mhmm. You know, and
13:26
it's a horrible thing to do. But you
13:27
understand why Yeah. Therefore this archetype exists.
13:30
I'm gonna do a slight detour Mhmm. Because
13:34
I I've had quite a number of clients
13:37
who are mothers
13:39
with adult children Mhmm. And they're still losing
13:42
sleep over their adult children. Yeah.
13:45
The message
13:46
I give to them that the attitude I
13:48
want them to adopt is that being a
13:51
mother to an adult child
13:53
is much more liberating
13:55
and gratifying
13:57
than being a mother to a newborn.
14:00
You know all of the sleeplessness
14:02
often dates back to when you actually had
14:04
to be sleepless for a newborn. But if
14:07
you do a good enough job, your kid
14:09
stays alive and then it reaches
14:12
the age of being a toddler and then
14:14
elementary school and then middle school and increasingly
14:17
the mother can breathe easy. And then by
14:19
the time they're seeing the kid off to
14:21
university, they can sleep a whole lot
14:24
better
14:25
because of their
14:27
diligence
14:28
earlier in the child's development.
14:31
This message
14:32
that being a mother to an adult child
14:35
is a lot more liberating, it's a lot
14:37
more
14:38
freeing
14:39
and relaxing and comfortable and peaceful
14:42
than being a mother to a newborn
14:44
this I think it's not just my clients
14:47
who sought out help with this it's I
14:49
think a lot of my listeners who are
14:51
older women
14:52
would benefit from hearing that. Mhmm. Yeah. Because
14:54
it's good for both the mother and the
14:57
child. Maybe you could also say what's to
14:59
use the the the Greek, phrase amor fati
15:02
meaning
15:03
looking back and seeing and appreciating the destiny
15:06
that got you here.
15:07
That means that there was a time when
15:10
that you were absolutely the carer of a
15:13
helpless being. Then there was a time where
15:15
that was slowly,
15:16
changed.
15:17
And the rewards of that time is
15:20
also painful. You have to be able to
15:22
step away from each of those times until
15:25
the point at which you can let go
15:27
of your son or your daughter. Mhmm. And,
15:30
as you say, still sleep easy. And that's
15:34
I can see how that process can be
15:36
stalled if somebody holds on for too long
15:39
for some other reasons. You see what I
15:41
mean? I would suggest that it's not necessarily
15:44
painful. Mhmm.
15:46
Or
15:47
if if we see If you watch a
15:49
kid, you know, and you're watching them and
15:51
and they're playing with matches and and you
15:53
told them not to and you kind of
15:55
think, well, I don't want them to burn
15:56
the house down so they're gonna have to
15:58
learn. It's painful, man. I mean, I haven't
16:00
done that. I just wanna say, that's not
16:01
what I I Well, you know, I I
16:03
have the luxury of kinda speculating upon parenthood.
16:07
Literally, I mean, childless. It it literally, it's
16:11
like So for instance, if my if my
16:13
kid is hanging over the banister. Yeah. Right?
16:16
Literally, I feel vertigo.
16:18
Yeah. It's a deeply visceral
16:21
reaction to whenever you see your kids doing
16:23
something that could harm them, when they would
16:25
jump down from a high space, it would
16:27
lit my guts would just go. It was
16:29
it's an extraordinary thing.
16:31
I can understand why in some ways having
16:33
that feeling and having
16:35
protected can be a sort of a very
16:38
compelling thing.
16:39
And
16:40
the ability to tolerate that, and this is
16:42
another tolerate discomfort,
16:44
right? That's gonna come up a few times.
16:47
Is that being able to tolerate that discomfort
16:50
incrementally over time is easier than if you're
16:53
holding on for too long then you have
16:54
to take it off. I mean, that's that's
16:57
hard. But either way, it's hard. There's nothing
17:00
there's no easy route down that road. I
17:02
think that
17:03
that must explain what
17:04
why so many for some reason it's usually
17:07
mothers more than the dad Mhmm. But it
17:09
explains why so many parents
17:11
cuddle.
17:12
Yeah. I I completely understand it.
17:15
They're adult children.
17:17
So the the question then is, you know,
17:19
if
17:20
you've
17:21
passed the age of 18
17:22
and and you have a parent who still
17:26
does this to you as though you can't
17:29
judge
17:30
the height you can safely jump from. Even
17:32
at the age of 40, even at the
17:33
age of 60, this could still be happening.
17:35
Right? That's what I kinda wanna talk my
17:37
clients out of when they are the parent.
17:39
Yeah. Because it it causes
17:42
2 people to suffer
17:45
where 0 people have to suffer.
17:48
The good news is that your parents are
17:50
not the only influence on you
17:52
And the opinions you choose to listen to
17:56
will,
17:57
I think, over time,
17:59
make a bigger impact.
18:00
But then
18:01
the the opinions you happen to grow up
18:03
around or opinions that just happened to come
18:06
from from your mother or your dad.
18:09
Alright. So let's talk about power
18:11
because another anti principle
18:15
that we have to let go of in
18:17
adulthood
18:19
is that
18:20
we are incapable
18:22
of handling
18:24
power
18:25
that we would be like a bull in
18:27
a china shop
18:29
if we were given the power to operate
18:31
a vehicle to make our own decisions to
18:34
act upon the world to to to do
18:36
things.
18:38
And I say it's an anti principle because
18:40
by adulthood
18:42
we all should have had
18:45
have developed an idea
18:47
for how we're gonna handle power
18:49
and authority
18:51
that there is such a thing as good
18:53
power or legitimate authority
18:56
that when wielded by
18:59
an adult
19:00
causes good things to happen in this world.
19:03
Right. Power is often, I think, mischaracterizes
19:06
in a in and of itself a bad
19:08
thing
19:09
and yet,
19:10
as you say, without
19:12
hierarchical
19:14
structures
19:15
where
19:17
some people have more control over things than
19:18
others and ideally they've earned that and ideally
19:21
they are competent adults. Right? And with that
19:24
competency
19:25
comes the responsibility.
19:27
The responsible
19:28
Mhmm. Use of power
19:30
and the effective use of power
19:33
has to
19:34
be based on, I would say, knowledge.
19:37
Right.
19:38
As well as a kind of morality
19:41
that considers
19:42
those you wield power over. Mhmm. And of
19:44
course there are big consequences when that doesn't
19:47
happen. When the responsibility and power
19:50
are
19:50
not integrated. So I was reading a story
19:53
about a professor who specializes
19:55
in or specialized in adolescent development.
19:58
He was run over and killed by a
20:00
kid who was driving a Lamborghini,
20:02
you know. Which we know is like
20:05
if you ever driven a race car or,
20:07
you know, a car like that, it's a
20:09
very different affair. And, you know, the fine
20:11
tuning on that, that's a huge amount of
20:13
responsibility and a huge amount of power. Mhmm.
20:15
And when it goes wrong, it goes terribly
20:17
wrong. It went terribly wrong on that occasion.
20:19
So if you look at that, you say
20:20
well that's a single event that shows the
20:22
power is wrong.
20:24
You know, I shouldn't give kids the keys
20:25
to cars.
20:26
Period.
20:27
Power
20:28
is analogous to a tool. Mhmm. Right? Like
20:31
the chef's knife that could should be used
20:35
to to, you know, make sushi,
20:38
to dice vegetables,
20:39
to
20:40
make food more palatable,
20:42
but
20:44
used carelessly. Mhmm. Even without malice,
20:48
it
20:49
can harm you or others.
20:51
And, of course, used
20:53
with malice
20:54
it is gonna harm
20:56
people.
20:58
Power is the same way
21:00
where used properly
21:02
you have excellent control over your vehicle
21:05
and
21:06
it's
21:07
only when
21:09
power is used carelessly
21:11
or
21:13
of course when power is used maliciously
21:16
that it rightfully
21:18
gets
21:19
the the flak, the criticism that it deserves.
21:22
Just because we can criticize abuses of power,
21:26
that doesn't mean there's no such thing as
21:28
legitimate use of power.
21:30
We talked in the first episode about
21:32
Ben Parker, He said, with great power comes
21:35
great responsibility. We can turn that on its
21:37
head.
21:38
Star Wars. Right?
21:39
Yes.
21:41
That Marvel movie is Star Wars.
21:45
So to return to the idea of power.
21:46
So as an adult
21:48
looking at power, you shouldn't, you know, it's
21:51
not correct to say that power is
21:53
automatically corrupt, evil, and bad.
21:56
It's not correct to deny the possibility
21:59
that you
22:00
will be in a position of power or
22:02
that you should even desire it. That that
22:04
is not necessarily a bad thing, but this
22:06
is dependent on
22:08
your
22:08
values, your morals,
22:10
your prosocial
22:11
attitude. That will define
22:14
the correct and beneficial use of power.
22:17
The next
22:19
anti principle Mhmm.
22:21
Is that you always ought to follow your
22:24
heart or that your feelings
22:27
are automatically
22:29
right
22:31
so as an adult I'm gonna say that
22:33
facts and mutual consensus
22:36
have to be taken into account in addition
22:39
to personal feelings.
22:41
If you're lucky others will account for your
22:42
personal feelings
22:44
but when it comes to what's gonna matter
22:47
for everyone
22:48
it's gonna be the facts
22:51
or a mutual consensus. I said that's a
22:53
that's a very enlightenment view. Is that right?
22:55
There are different
22:56
branches of
22:59
which is
23:00
probably beyond the scope of this early episode.
23:03
Consensus reality
23:05
is the view that reality
23:08
is that which we all agree upon Mhmm.
23:11
Is called consensus reality. Mhmm. Emotions
23:14
can distort reality.
23:16
Right? It can distort the way you perceive
23:18
things, it can distort the way that you
23:21
even the taste of things for example.
23:23
How you feel about things can change the
23:25
senses themselves. So that's why to some degree
23:27
you need some kind of consensus because you've
23:29
got to have somebody else say, you know,
23:31
if I point at that and you see
23:33
it and you can touch it and I
23:34
can point at it, see it and touch
23:35
it, we could agree on these same things
23:36
then at least there's 2 people that agree
23:38
that this thing is a real thing. But
23:40
of course, emotions are very internal,
23:43
right? So you don't necessarily have the ability
23:45
to know 100%
23:47
that your emotions are
23:50
correctly interpreting the situation.
23:53
I would say that emotions are just one
23:56
input.
23:57
In addition to how you feel about something
24:00
how you think about the thing is going
24:03
to matter too.
24:04
How other people might
24:07
think or feel about the thing should probably
24:09
be taken into account as we just talked
24:11
about.
24:12
Whether this thing seems to to to fit
24:15
your knowledge of similar situations
24:18
or is it anomalous? Yeah. That
24:21
might be useful information to consider. Is it
24:24
a single event? Is it a pattern? Is
24:26
it a Yeah. Is there is there Yeah.
24:27
There's there's the gathering of evidence that might
24:30
support the emotion. I'm full of metaphors. Okay.
24:33
But this one I think is universally resonant.
24:36
When I was a child, I
24:39
was often kept up by the imagining
24:42
of a monster that would eat my feet
24:45
if they hung out, like outside of the
24:48
blankets. Then I stopped believing
24:50
in or imagining
24:52
monsters in the dark or monsters under the
24:54
bed or monsters in the closet
24:56
and my feet have never been eaten.
24:59
When we reach adulthood
25:01
we might not believe in literal monsters and
25:04
the literal darkness,
25:05
but most of us
25:07
our entire adult lives
25:09
will still
25:11
imagine and believe in threats in the unknown.
25:16
Mhmm. So for example,
25:17
if I see an attractive woman sitting on
25:21
a park bench
25:22
and she's looking bored Mhmm.
25:25
My eyes
25:27
show me that she's sitting on a park
25:29
bench alone looking bored. Mhmm. In my imagination,
25:34
I imagined that if I walked up and
25:36
introduced myself,
25:38
she's gonna stand up point at me and
25:40
says look at this creep
25:43
or she's gonna otherwise
25:45
bite my head off
25:47
not that that's ever happened to me not
25:49
that I've ever seen that in public
25:51
but the human imagination
25:53
is vivid enough
25:55
that we could imagine this
25:57
adult version
25:58
of a monster in the dark
26:01
or a threat in the unknown
26:03
people imagine
26:05
threats on airplanes
26:07
people imagine threats in audiences that gather to
26:09
hear them
26:11
speak your worst fears
26:13
have a very bad track record
26:15
of predicting what actually happens Right. Usually what
26:19
happens is the mundane thing. Mhmm. And too
26:21
often we don't even think about the mundane
26:24
thing Yeah. Because it's so predictable and boring.
26:28
But I'm gonna highlight that word predictable in
26:30
there. If you want to make an accurate
26:33
prediction about what's going to happen when you
26:34
board the airplane,
26:36
when you speak to the group, when you
26:38
say hello to potentially a new friend or
26:40
neighbor or partner,
26:42
when you actually
26:43
do the thing, it's gonna be the boring
26:45
thing that happens over and over again. And
26:48
it's a natural tendency for a human being
26:51
to be susceptible to reasoning
26:54
and superstition
26:56
and revising history based on what makes them
26:59
look good or feel good.
27:01
And we can kind of excuse children who
27:04
do this
27:04
because they don't have enough years of life
27:07
experience to know any better.
27:10
Under the subject of how to be an
27:12
adult,
27:13
I would say that you've been taught enough
27:16
about critical thinking
27:18
and the pursuit of truth that
27:21
you don't have to fall back on just
27:25
emotion or instinct or superstition.
27:28
You can implement
27:30
what you've learned through school
27:33
to
27:34
value truth more highly, to value also the
27:37
methods through
27:38
which we ascertain truth. But I would also
27:42
suggest that maybe even if you don't learn
27:44
these things, life itself will
27:46
keep on reminding
27:48
you. Because if you trade your integrity, your
27:51
interpersonal relationships, your
27:53
work environment and your goals and you say
27:56
I will only
27:57
use my feelings
27:59
to define the reality in all those contexts.
28:02
Mhmm. Life is gonna turn and say, no.
28:05
And you'll be set to go, well, hang
28:07
on. This is how I feel. Yep. I
28:09
mean other people will turn around and say,
28:11
well, no. You know, it's not just you
28:13
who matters. Yes. Yes, exactly.
28:15
The next anti principle
28:18
is that you are being quote
28:21
lazy
28:22
when you are
28:24
doing nothing at all and
28:27
school as well as even very well meaning
28:29
parents instill this idea that
28:32
you are of value
28:34
when you have been productive. You are of
28:36
value when you have done something or achieved
28:40
something or have been in service to another.
28:44
So the principle I then have to instill
28:46
is that there is such a thing as
28:49
the purest pleasure of existence,
28:52
of being without doing
28:55
kind of like we imagine the tiger basking
28:58
in a sunbeam or the wolf sleeping in
29:00
his or her den
29:02
where they know that existence
29:05
life itself
29:07
is all the reason one needs
29:11
to relax and to be happy and
29:15
and one other thing I've been saying to
29:16
my clients who are you know typically very
29:19
overstressed.
29:20
It's not just that you have the purest
29:22
pleasure of existence
29:24
It's also that everything
29:26
like that that you would pursue
29:28
with no outside incentive Mhmm. Has intrinsic
29:33
Whereas everything that you only pursue with an
29:37
outside incentive doesn't have that much intrinsic value,
29:40
hence the incentive. Yeah. So so you would
29:43
say things like, I don't know, if you
29:45
have no outside incentive, you can read a
29:46
book that's got nothing to do with your
29:48
work.
29:49
You can sing a song in the shower
29:51
badly
29:52
and spend an extra 5 minutes doing it.
29:54
Yep.
29:56
You can write a poem that maybe nobody
29:58
will read. Yep. You can spend 2 hours
30:01
hanging out with friends, talking about absolute nonsense.
30:03
Yep. And you're not these are not friends
30:05
that you can get anything out of professionally.
30:07
Yes.
30:08
These are the things that you're gonna look
30:10
back on and that make up
30:12
the experience of your life really. These are
30:14
extremely
30:15
adult things to do. Right. So sometimes new
30:18
adults have the false idea
30:21
that you don't do these things any longer.
30:23
Once you enter the working world and nothing
30:26
could be further from the truth because even
30:28
when you've joined the working world, you've sold
30:30
maybe
30:31
40 hours out of your week
30:33
and there are
30:35
168
30:36
hours in a week.
30:37
So you'll want to sleep very deeply during
30:40
those hours you've allocated for sleep. You'll want
30:42
to enjoy your meals when you've
30:45
set aside time to eat a meal you
30:46
will want to just shoot the breeze with
30:49
your friends during those couple hours This is
30:51
an extremely
30:53
adult way to live your life
30:56
because then you're caring for
30:58
yourself as a human being, a living human
31:01
being who's under your care and who you
31:03
want to be happy. But within that, I
31:05
can I can also accept that there are
31:06
periods of time when you are
31:08
definitely, you know, leaning into the working more?
31:11
You know, there's room for,
31:14
experiencing your
31:15
the joy of simply living. There's room for,
31:19
the joy of curious
31:21
exploration.
31:22
Mhmm. And then, and that might take up
31:24
a fair amount of your time. And then
31:26
there's another section which would be the the
31:29
joy of implementation
31:30
or fruition.
31:31
And that also might take up some time
31:33
too. But the one the one thing that
31:35
mustn't be dismissed or forgotten
31:38
is the ability to sit there and do
31:41
nothing
31:42
and enjoy the very act of living,
31:44
or do things that do not have that.
31:46
The goal defined value.
31:48
When one sees themselves
31:50
through the lens of having
31:53
value only insofar as they're making money, let's
31:56
say,
31:57
they actually feel worthless.
32:00
They actually feel like they have no value
32:04
if they're
32:05
sitting on their porch on a warm summer
32:08
day looking at the birds and the trees
32:11
So this message is for them. You're not
32:14
worthless
32:15
When you're enjoying the purest pleasure of existence
32:18
there is separately
32:20
the pleasure of achievement
32:22
and there is separately from that the pleasure
32:24
of being in service to other people
32:28
but
32:29
the baseline
32:30
is that as long as you can raise
32:32
the question you're still a living
32:35
human being and
32:37
It's
32:38
not just the tigers.
32:40
It's people like you who
32:42
get to enjoy Yeah. The purest pleasure of
32:46
existence. And the last anti principle
32:49
is that you can achieve
32:52
a 100%
32:54
perfection
32:55
in your
32:56
adult
32:57
endeavors. You're laughing at the idea. Well, no
33:00
because
33:02
I know a lot of people that believe
33:04
that and aspire to a 100%
33:07
perfection
33:08
and it is, that's a that's something that's
33:11
a burden to bear. I would say that
33:14
being an actor
33:15
and a writer
33:16
and all the creative things,
33:18
Failure and not being perfect is hard baked
33:21
into that, otherwise you would never produce anything.
33:24
But is there is there such a thing
33:26
as perfection?
33:27
No, that's what. Well no, there are no,
33:29
I wouldn't say there is at all. There's
33:31
as close as you can get and that's
33:32
all you can ever aspire to. But you'll
33:34
never actually be somebody else.
33:37
So so so in a way, it's cruel
33:41
Yeah. To expect perfection of an
33:44
actor because they are literally never going to
33:46
achieve it. Never gonna achieve it. And I
33:48
would say it's cruel to expect perfection out
33:50
of yourself as well. Because you can only
33:53
ever fall short and it can define so
33:56
much of your approach to life because that
33:59
damages your self esteem, right? It, it can
34:02
cut you off from opportunity.
34:04
It can make you procrastinate. It can it's
34:07
got so many multi variant tendrils this one.
34:10
Maybe
34:12
playing
34:12
chess against toddlers.
34:14
You might actually be able to get a
34:17
100%
34:17
win rate
34:19
if your standards for entertainment are so low
34:21
that you would play chess against toddlers.
34:25
You might actually get that perfect and like
34:27
in the material universe with atoms and molecules.
34:30
But for something like acting, for something like
34:33
hypnotherapy,
34:34
for
34:36
medicine law Communication. Communication,
34:39
business entrepreneurship,
34:41
relationships
34:42
for any
34:43
complex
34:45
enough endeavor. In other words, endeavors worth pursuing
34:48
as an adult. In other words, not playing
34:49
chess against toddlers.
34:51
You are gonna fall short of perfect and
34:55
that's supposed to happen as an indication the
34:58
challenge you've taken on is challenging enough.
35:02
For any complex or difficult enough endeavor we
35:05
should accept that a less than perfect
35:09
success
35:10
rate, it just comes with the territory. So
35:12
if we look at your favorite movie,
35:15
your favorite band,
35:17
your favorite book
35:19
on your favorite internet review site
35:23
unless they're buying reviews.
35:25
They're not gonna have 10 to 10 on
35:28
INTP
35:29
or like 5 stars average on on Amazon
35:33
because you're not gonna satisfy everybody. But but
35:36
here's here's the thing, but I I know
35:37
maybe else. I think this is probably occurring
35:39
more and more. When I look at like
35:41
Google reviews or Amazon reviews, I actually don't
35:44
trust those that are like across the board
35:47
5.
35:48
And if I see a business that's got
35:49
a low,
35:50
Google review,
35:51
and I see the business respond in a
35:53
kind and rational manner,
35:55
I think that's the person that I'm gonna
35:57
go to. Because if I have a problem,
35:58
I can talk to these people and they'll
36:00
treat me as an adult.
36:02
Thank you for listening. This has been another
36:03
episode of how to be an adult.
36:07
We covered in this episode
36:10
some anti principles that you
36:13
should abandon
36:14
now that you're past the age of 18.
36:17
And once you become an adult, you are
36:20
an adult
36:21
for the rest of your days.
36:24
So the childhood
36:25
principles to abandon,
36:27
you can safely abandon
36:29
for the rest of your life.
36:31
Luke and I are available for hire through
36:34
the Morpheus Clinic for hypnosis. We're based in
36:37
Canada, but we see people from all over
36:38
the world.
36:39
Hypnosis is about giving
36:42
people better ideas and perspectives
36:44
that work for them, that help them
36:46
be the adult they are meant to be.
36:48
If you're interested, please get in touch. You
36:50
can go through the website and any questions
36:52
and worries will be answered through consultation.
36:55
For more of our thoughts on how to
36:58
be an adult,
36:59
you can follow us on YouTube at Morpheus
37:02
Hypnosis,
37:02
where you get the audio and the video,
37:06
or you can subscribe to us on Spotify,
37:09
Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your
37:11
podcasts
37:12
by searching for how to be an adult.
37:15
We're looking forward to giving you more helpful
37:17
guidance for how to make the most out
37:19
of the adulthood that you just inadvertently found
37:21
yourself
37:22
in. Now that we've covered
37:24
the childhood principles
37:27
to abandon
37:28
in adult life.
37:30
We're gonna be talking in the next episode
37:33
about why you must
37:35
exceed your parents. So I'm looking forward to
37:38
having that talk. And until then, stay tuned.