Latest / How to Be an Adult / Why Live a Principled Life? (Ep. 6)

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Why Live a Principled Life? (Ep. 6) · How to Be an Adult

0:00
All of us as adults are constantly faced
0:02
with decisions like do we tell the white
0:04
lie and not rock the boat? Say that
0:07
angers the person, Well, and so what? The
0:09
chances are that it's all gonna be forgotten
0:11
anyway. You've agreed to something but now you
0:14
resent that the person who you have to
0:16
follow through with. I'm feeling insecure, and I'm
0:19
feeling less than my friend. Welcome to another
0:22
episode of how to be an adult. This
0:25
is a podcast for people just like you
0:27
who've inadvertently
0:28
become adults and don't know what to do
0:32
about it. We're from the Morpheus Clinic for
0:34
hypnosis in Toronto, Canada, and that's where a
0:37
lot of our ideas come from. I'm Luke
0:39
Chao. I'm Pascal Langdell. Almost
0:42
none of us get the instruction that we
0:44
need in order to
0:46
even set foot off properly as an adult
0:49
and let's face it, it's an ongoing process
0:52
of adulting. We've established some basic principles
0:55
and fundamental axioms
0:57
that will help you live better and live
1:00
happier and do adulting better. If this sounds
1:03
good to you then keep on listening. This
1:04
episode is about why we should even follow
1:07
principles to begin with. Mhmm. Because a lot
1:09
of our listeners are probably looking for tips
1:12
for
1:13
tricks Mhmm. Of adulthood.
1:15
And there are plenty of people who have
1:17
written books and who have their own podcast
1:19
about
1:20
tips for managing relationships
1:22
a tricks for your financial life and this
1:24
kind of thing But I don't hear as
1:25
many people talking
1:27
about having principles.
1:29
So why should we even live a principled
1:31
life to begin with? Well, I mean, you
1:32
could start off with something really simple. And
1:34
I I think this is a situation that
1:36
that probably quite a lot of people have
1:37
gotten themselves into, which is you're hanging out
1:40
with people that you don't necessarily know quite
1:42
well and
1:43
somebody says something along the lines of, Oh,
1:46
you know such and such movie?
1:48
And you're in a position where you haven't
1:49
seen the movie. You've heard of it but
1:51
you don't know it. But you go, mhmm.
1:53
Like you know it. But then later on
1:55
there's a callback and you're put on the
1:57
spot and then you have a choice. Do
1:59
I then say, well actually I have heard
2:00
of it but I haven't seen it, and
2:01
you come clean, you show your ignorance and
2:03
you you risk, you know,
2:05
social, social judgment,
2:07
or do you then start to bullshit?
2:10
Having a principle which goes along the lines
2:12
of I must look good and it's okay
2:14
to sort of tell lies
2:16
would not be a principle that would work
2:18
very well. And then of course, you can
2:19
go to the the macro version which would
2:21
be, if I don't have basic principles about
2:25
what my values are, what I think is
2:28
good and important
2:29
and of value to me and the world
2:31
around me. How am I going to relate
2:34
to somebody in an intimate relationship?
2:36
If all that's up for grabs and I
2:38
don't have principles that I can fall back
2:40
on then basically I'm able to be swayed
2:43
by anybody around me
2:45
according to, you know, the moment's whim. And
2:48
that's again, that's not gonna lead to success.
2:50
There's so much life advice out there saying
2:53
to follow your heart.
2:55
To follow your whims,
2:57
not to overthink things.
2:59
But too often when one follows
3:02
one's heart or one follows the crowd,
3:05
one ends up in these precarious situations where
3:09
you then have to kind of explain something
3:10
or commit to something that you didn't actually
3:14
mean when you said it.
3:16
So we hope to prevent our listeners from
3:18
getting themselves into these kinds of situations
3:21
where because you don't have any rules for
3:23
how you'll conduct yourself,
3:25
you end up finding yourself in these situations
3:27
where maybe you've said yes, but you actually
3:30
mean
3:31
no or you've agreed to something but now
3:34
you resent that the person who you have
3:37
to follow through with
3:39
I think most of us you know have
3:41
grown up with rules or principles that might
3:44
have been appropriate for a child in a
3:47
specific household environment,
3:50
but which might not be adaptive in adult
3:53
life.
3:54
So all of us as adults are constantly
3:56
faced with decisions, like do we tell the
3:58
white lie and not rock the boat,
4:00
or do we tell the truth and then
4:02
risk offending someone else?
4:05
And ideally, we're not just trying to make
4:07
decisions on the spot about what we're gonna
4:10
do if we have a very firm grounding
4:13
in a set of life principles will abide
4:16
by,
4:17
then we kind of already know preemptively
4:20
whether we're the type of person who's gonna
4:23
tell the white lie or whether we're the
4:24
type of person who is gonna risk rocking
4:27
the boat, but then develop a reputation as
4:29
being straight forward and truthful. And there's also
4:32
the other aspect of it which is actually
4:34
it feels good to have values that you
4:37
make good on. Say say somebody calls you
4:39
up on a Friday and says look here's
4:41
a project you've got to hand it in.
4:43
If you take it on it's got to
4:44
be done by Monday
4:46
And if you want the job that's what
4:47
you've gotta do. But that weekend, your you've
4:50
got family commitments. One of your values and
4:53
your priorities is to spend more time with
4:55
your kids.
4:56
And the alternative is right now okay I'm
4:58
gonna disappear for the weekend. The kids aren't
5:00
gonna see me. They're gonna get fractious and
5:02
annoyed. And then the the event that we
5:04
planned is not gonna go well and I'm
5:06
gonna be a grumpy
5:08
dad for for 48 hours.
5:10
Is that I have to compare that to
5:12
the value of the work
5:14
that is being offered on the Monday.
5:16
And then the question comes, well,
5:19
are you in a situation to turn that
5:21
down? And that sort of is a big
5:23
question. But that then goes to, well, what
5:25
have you what are the other values in
5:26
your life that work to make that possible?
5:28
To be able to turn down the potential
5:30
for work and be able to spend time
5:31
with your family. And then if you've got
5:34
those in line that means you can turn
5:35
around and say, you know what?
5:37
I won't deliver on Monday, I'm passed on
5:39
this, somebody else can have to handle this,
5:40
it's not it's not gonna be me because
5:42
my value is to be with my family.
5:44
Now say that angers the person, well And
5:47
so what? The chances are that it's all
5:49
gonna be forgotten anyway and, you know, you're
5:51
keeping things in perspective and you're aligned with
5:54
your values. And so that means that
5:56
the frustration
5:57
of maybe not delivering on a professional
6:00
impression of promise
6:02
is balanced against making good on a value
6:05
that means something to you. I think what
6:07
I'm hearing you say is that if your
6:10
values and your priorities and your principles are
6:13
clear to you,
6:15
then you live a life without or at
6:17
least with much less regret. Yeah.
6:20
People often experience regret if they they live
6:22
an unprincipled life. Well, let's talk a little
6:25
bit about how many people conduct themselves
6:29
when they don't have a firm set of
6:32
principles that they abide by. So
6:34
I've mentioned a few already. 1 is to
6:37
follow your heart, to follow whatever makes you
6:40
feel good or whatever
6:41
feels right to you. One of the problems
6:44
with that of course is that feelings change.
6:47
Principles are supposed to be sound principles are
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supposed to stay true
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even when you're in the depths of any
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kind of emotion.
6:56
Something else people do is they follow the
6:58
crowd. So if their friends are doing it,
7:00
then they might do the same thing themselves.
7:04
That's assuming your friends in aggregate make good
7:07
decisions.
7:08
And that's not always gonna be the case.
7:10
So you're at a concert. Right? And you're
7:11
you're at a festival
7:13
and you're not truly secure in your friend
7:16
group and somebody offers you a drug because
7:19
it's fun. And you think, well okay. You
7:21
know what? That's my friend. They wouldn't mean
7:23
me harm
7:24
and yeah, I I could do with relaxing
7:27
and this is going to make me feel
7:29
happy.
7:30
You kinda go, well okay but hold on
7:32
a second.
7:33
Is it is it the drug that is
7:35
gonna make you happy or could we have
7:37
gone a few steps earlier
7:39
and if you had your principles straight, you
7:41
would be happy
7:42
within your friend group without the requirement to
7:45
have drugs? Well, I I would say that
7:48
there are
7:49
sound moral systems
7:50
that allow people to use drugs to feel
7:52
good. Sure. I know you're talking about party
7:55
drugs like fat You know what I mean?
7:56
I I suppose I'm saying that it's easy
7:58
with emotions to mix up a need.
8:01
For instance, I need to feel
8:03
secure and validated.
8:05
And I'm feeling I'm feeling insecure and I'm
8:08
feeling less than my friends who appear to
8:10
be having so much more fun than me.
8:13
And you can mistake that feeling for well
8:15
in which case I need to do something
8:17
about it
8:18
and
8:19
the drug is it. Do you see what
8:21
I mean?
8:22
The idea that your emotion, the need for
8:24
a drug is necessarily
8:26
the right thing. And if your principle is
8:28
well I trust my emotions and my gut
8:30
feeling in every circumstance,
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it's not gonna work if
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it's left unexamined. It's not gonna work if
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it's just taken as being fundamental truth. Because
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your emotions can, they're a sign of something,
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but the correlating action is not necessarily
8:45
correct. Well, there is such a thing as
8:46
emotional reasoning where people kind of build their
8:50
reasoning or excuses
8:52
around what they're feeling in in the moment.
8:55
And that's not really reasoning. Something else that
8:57
people do when when they don't really abide
9:00
by a personal moral code or their own
9:03
principles
9:04
is they follow the outwardly
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approved of
9:09
markers of success.
9:12
So they'll do what makes money. They'll do
9:15
what gives them prestige
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even when they don't feel like it. Now
9:19
that's kind of a value system. System if
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you value money if you value prestige if
9:22
you value let's say power there could be
9:25
a reasonable argument constructed
9:27
that could potentially lead to a bad life
9:29
sure Oh, sorry. No. Good life. A good
9:31
life. You're in you're in line with your
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values in that case. Yes.
9:35
But here's what I see to be the
9:36
problem
9:38
with
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following the outward signs of success.
9:43
It means that your feelings of security and
9:46
happiness
9:48
are out of your control.
9:50
So if there is a recession and your
9:53
stock portfolio goes down 30%,
9:56
then your happiness
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just got a severe impact.
10:00
If you lose your position of power,
10:03
then you could potentially feel a deep shame
10:06
or even worthlessness
10:08
that you would not feel if you saw
10:10
yourself as constantly and inviolably
10:13
Mhmm. A worthy human being for for those
10:15
reasons that that you're a human being. It's
10:17
from love because you're reminding me of a
10:19
of a multi wise billionaire, I think,
10:22
I had a I had a chat to.
10:24
And,
10:25
he said it was extraordinary because they have
10:27
self help groups amongst millionaires and and billionaires.
10:31
And and they will air their biggest concerns.
10:34
And the 2 biggest concerns that came up
10:36
most often was the fear that somebody would
10:39
steal their family in a hostage situation or,
10:42
and this is and I kid you not,
10:43
he said, people grieved over the fact that
10:45
their yachts weren't as big as somebody else's
10:47
that they knew. And this is it goes
10:49
back to the idea that you you that
10:51
just because somebody is successful and rich and
10:53
appears so,
10:55
it doesn't necessarily mean that they're any happier
10:57
than you are. The architecture of their misery
10:59
is going to be somewhat different. But but
11:02
they can still be perfectly miserable. They're going
11:04
to have problems. They're just a different set
11:07
of problems than what you or I might
11:09
have. Or or even similar in the sense
11:11
that they've pursued successfully pursued the accrual of
11:15
money in order to fill
11:17
some kind of insecurity,
11:18
but the insecurity remains.
11:20
One problem that the wealthy have that
11:24
I guess you or I don't have or
11:25
at least not as much
11:27
is
11:28
that Billionaires let's say billionaires
11:31
will attract a lot of envy a lot
11:34
of resentment They can't just make friends with
11:36
anybody
11:37
I think part of the reason they have
11:39
these self help mastermind groups
11:41
among other millionaires or billionaires
11:43
is that they're not gonna be shamed for
11:46
having wealth. Yep. They're not going to be
11:49
criticized
11:49
for Having yacht envy. All the money or
11:52
having a yacht. Yep. Or having yacht envy
11:53
is Or having yacht envy. People just gonna
11:55
go, yeah, I know how that feels. Yeah.
11:56
Exactly.
11:57
So like I said,
11:59
different problems,
12:00
but still a whole host of problems. Mhmm.
12:04
This is kind of one of the core
12:05
insights of of the Buddha,
12:08
which is that suffering is part of life.
12:10
It's an inescapable
12:12
part of life.
12:13
So, yes, money, power, prestige,
12:16
etc. Doesn't buy you an out
12:19
and having principles to abide by that will
12:23
center you when you're going through the inevitable
12:26
challenges and trials and tribulations of life. This
12:29
will help you at least keep more of
12:30
an even keel in a way that even
12:32
money power and prestige
12:34
Cannot give you so now that we've told
12:36
people what not to do, we're gonna talk
12:39
about why people should live a principled life
12:43
to begin with.
12:44
Well, one reason that I've kind of ascertained
12:47
is
12:49
that principles
12:50
transcend
12:51
individuals
12:53
If something can be called a principle, then
12:55
it's not just for me as Luke or
12:57
you as Pascal
12:59
it's for me Luke
13:00
and for you as Pascal
13:02
and for anyone else who might be in
13:04
the building and potentially for other people across
13:07
cultures and across times.
13:10
And to be an adult,
13:11
we have to overcome the egocentricity
13:14
that toddlers have. We do have to kind
13:17
of care about other people and their needs
13:18
if we're gonna play well with other not
13:20
even in adulthood and childhood. We have to
13:22
play well with others.
13:24
And one of the ways to kind of
13:26
transcend your ego gratification
13:29
is to remember the principles that are held
13:31
by you and
13:33
the other people around you so that you
13:35
have, like, common ground rules for living life
13:38
by. In many cases,
13:40
even a baseline
13:41
of
13:42
a shared principle
13:44
can actually mean that
13:46
you connect and you can get on with
13:48
a greater range of people. Let's say a
13:50
general principle which is it is wrong to
13:52
use aggression to get what you want, let's
13:55
say. And if you people know that, well
13:56
the way they interact with each other will
13:59
be affected.
14:00
And
14:01
even if that's a common ground then
14:03
you that's a basic principle with anybody that
14:05
you talk to. Is that I'm not going
14:07
to use aggression to get my oil changed.
14:09
I'm not going to use aggression to get
14:11
my groceries packed or whatever it is.
14:14
If you have these principles that are broadly
14:16
shared by all humans, it means that you
14:18
can interact with all humans pretty well. And
14:22
even if they disagree with you on the
14:23
detail or the how,
14:25
that's of less importance because
14:27
you're essentially operating on a on a shared
14:30
humanity. And it's easy therefore to honor them
14:33
and respect them, even if you've disagreed with
14:35
them and vice versa.
14:37
And you'll get a great benefit from that
14:39
because
14:40
what if you were just simply to live
14:41
in your own head and agree with yourself,
14:44
what kind of hell is that for a
14:45
start? And secondly, how would you learn anything?
14:47
So what I'm taking from what you've said
14:49
is that you're not just arguing against solipsism.
14:52
You're also arguing against
14:55
cultural relativism. Yes. You're basically saying that if
14:58
you're dropped off in a different country
15:01
halfway around the world, there are principles that
15:04
apply in Canada,
15:06
for how to be a decent, likable,
15:08
prosocial human being how to be a guest
15:10
in someone's home,
15:11
even though you've never been to the culture
15:14
before.
15:15
And this in
15:17
the 21st century is is not a universally
15:20
shared upon
15:22
view so we can kind of imagine like
15:24
the xenophobic person from backwater town being transported
15:27
to a foreign and they kind of treat
15:30
everyone as significantly different from them But then
15:33
you have like the world traveler who's been
15:34
in many different countries, and they realize okay?
15:36
There's a lot of common ground people from
15:38
different countries.
15:39
And then they can can kind of generalize
15:42
principles for humanity
15:44
that transcend cultures. To me, if a principle
15:47
transcends cultures
15:48
and limited time span, that's definitely
15:52
a principle worth abiding by. And so and
15:55
so thinking of it in those terms,
15:58
it means that even throughout the different phases
16:01
in your own life so for instance, there's
16:03
childhood is 1 but there might be twenties,
16:05
might be another, maybe midlife might be another,
16:07
you know, there's different phases in the human
16:09
life
16:10
and if we were to say, well, we've
16:12
just got to find rules that suit that
16:14
particular day of the week or that month
16:16
or that particular year,
16:18
then it wouldn't be a good guiding principle
16:20
in each of those phases. You have to
16:21
reinvent the wheel every single time. And to
16:24
be honest, you wouldn't necessarily know if they
16:25
were good principles or not. But instead if
16:28
you're saying it sort of transcends time, you're
16:30
saying well the principle of
16:32
self care for example,
16:34
that's going to change the way that you
16:36
self care over time will change but the
16:38
principle will remain. So the way you take
16:40
care of yourself when you're 80 years old
16:42
is gonna be different from when you're in
16:44
your early twenties. Well, yeah. I mean, this
16:46
is how you would care for even, let's
16:48
say, a dog in the different phases of
16:51
a dog's life. Where you've got, like, the
16:53
puppy food that you feed them when they're
16:55
a puppy and then you've got the adult
16:57
dog food that you feed them when they're
16:58
a dog dog. You've got the senior dog
17:00
food that you feed them when they're senior
17:02
dog. And you might not make the senior
17:04
dog run around as much as the puppy,
17:06
but you're going to tire out the puppy
17:08
by making them run around a lot. So
17:10
that the principle I think is is to
17:12
in the self care context to treat yourself
17:15
as you are not as you've been. Mhmm.
17:17
Not as you're going to be in the
17:20
distant future but instead to recognize
17:23
how you are
17:24
each ongoing phase of your life and to
17:27
treat yourself and care for yourself
17:29
accordingly.
17:30
So it's it's not just that these principles
17:33
go across
17:34
short timescales relatively as far as human life
17:36
is concerned,
17:37
but some of these principles are 1000 of
17:39
years old. And they've survived
17:42
the rise and the fall of the Roman
17:44
Empire. They've survived
17:46
communism and fascism.
17:48
And they persist because
17:50
the externals, if you like, of whatever is
17:53
going on in the world or in your
17:54
life will change. It's the very nature
17:57
of humanity is that the change is the
18:00
only thing you can guarantee.
18:02
And so therefore,
18:03
your principles
18:05
that can withstand that, those are gonna be
18:06
the bedrock of your behaviour. Most
18:09
likely, some of the people listening to this
18:11
podcast
18:12
are actually gonna reach
18:14
the age of a 100,
18:15
which means they're going to possibly be living
18:18
in the 22nd
18:20
century.
18:21
The technology is going to be different. The
18:23
music's going to be different. There are going
18:24
to be social norms and social mores they're
18:27
going to have in that distant future that
18:28
we can't even predict today.
18:31
But there are gonna be some principles that
18:33
were true in the time of, let's say,
18:35
the stoics
18:36
that are still true today and that are
18:38
gonna be truthful in the next century
18:41
simply because while culture changes
18:44
and there are fads that might last only
18:46
like weeks not even years,
18:49
human beings as the human organism,
18:53
we are
18:54
genetically basically the same as we were 50,000
18:57
years ago
18:59
and we're probably gonna be I mean
19:01
say
19:02
gene engineering and all that technology we're probably
19:05
gonna be basically the same species
19:08
thousands
19:09
of years in the future so any principle
19:11
that seems to transcend time and culture and
19:14
space
19:15
probably
19:16
is describing
19:18
human nature. Well, I hope all of this
19:20
is leading to actually specific principles that we're
19:22
gonna share with our
19:24
listeners in subsequent episodes. Actually, I'm excited about
19:28
the episode about work and money. Yeah.
19:32
Because it's such a big part of people's
19:34
lives.
19:35
And so many people live
19:37
like they're that donkey with the carrot in
19:39
front of them and then the stick behind
19:41
them and they're motivated by these extrinsic factors.
19:45
And to some degree, we all are motivated
19:49
by external factors. But when we're only motivated
19:52
by external factors,
19:53
regardless of our internal principles that we try
19:56
to abide by, then we're so much at
19:58
the whim
20:00
of our employer.
20:01
We're so much at the whim of the
20:03
economy. We're so much at the whim of
20:05
our landlord. We're so much at the whim
20:07
of the Bank of Canada or the the
20:09
Fed down in the US
20:11
that we can't possibly feel stable and secure.
20:14
We'll save that whole conversation for when we
20:17
sit down for the money episode
20:19
which is it's gonna be a great episode
20:21
just because money is often where people abandon
20:24
their principles unfortunately.
20:25
So Pascal,
20:26
we're talking about living a principled life where
20:30
we abide by
20:32
a set of rules
20:34
that other people will know about,
20:37
doesn't this make a person who's principled
20:41
predictable?
20:42
Doesn't it mean that others might take advantage
20:45
of them because it's gonna be obvious what
20:48
they will and will not do?
20:50
I think there's 2 response I can make
20:52
to this. Well, one is that if you
20:54
think of your personality trait and say, well,
20:57
I think the best of the people that
20:59
I meet. I start off
21:01
by assuming the best of people.
21:04
On the other side, you could say, well,
21:05
that makes me gullible or I'm I'm open
21:08
to a scam.
21:09
Right? I'm easily duple.
21:11
And the thing that then you've got to
21:12
ask the you've got a a a valid
21:14
question which is, well, do I train myself
21:17
out of being so easily duple and in
21:19
the process lose
21:21
the benefits that I gain
21:23
from
21:24
starting off from a position of trust in
21:27
people.
21:28
And that again will go back to a
21:30
certain value. So it's not necessarily the case
21:34
that that if you have a principle it
21:36
automatically makes you gullible.
21:38
It's more a question of, well, are you
21:39
choosing
21:41
to behave in a certain way based on
21:43
a value that on the whole works better
21:45
for you?
21:46
And then
21:48
can you educate yourself to be aware of
21:50
the sharks that are in the water,
21:52
of the hustles and the things that do
21:53
occur so that at least you're not ignorant?
21:55
Because that's just ignorance, that's not gullibility.
21:58
Well one interesting thing about people who are
22:01
easily caught
22:02
it's not the honest people
22:04
right it's dishonest people
22:06
who are easily caught
22:08
Part of the reason I think is that
22:10
if you do have a sound set of
22:12
principles
22:14
then
22:15
you can easily identify
22:17
those who say things or do things that
22:21
are not in line with what people say
22:23
and do when they have a similar set
22:25
of principles.
22:27
On the other hand, if you're dishonest
22:29
and then you meet a dishonest person, it
22:31
doesn't even register to you that anything's
22:34
gone amiss.
22:36
I actually think that having a set of
22:38
principles
22:38
that generalizes
22:41
means that,
22:43
you'll vibe with people who are principled
22:46
and it's not gonna feel right inside
22:49
if you meet someone who's unprincipled.
22:52
That also makes sense as to why I
22:54
think it was Marcus Aurelius, there was a
22:56
sort of a coup against him.
22:58
And he that, you know, he's emperor of
23:00
Rome and,
23:01
Hugely powerful and we assumed
23:04
that emperors of Rome would just
23:06
throw people to
23:07
the lions in that case.
23:10
And he didn't.
23:11
He basically rounded them all up and said
23:13
Don't do that.
23:14
Basically.
23:15
And other people were saying You've got to
23:17
destroy these families and take all their their
23:19
wealth and you've got to make an example
23:21
of them. But it went against his principles
23:24
and he was
23:27
possibly the most successful emperor
23:30
of the
23:31
Roman Empire at the time.
23:33
He wasn't gullible. You know, he knew what
23:35
was going on, but the way that he
23:37
conducted himself thereafter
23:39
aligned with his principles. And you can't be
23:41
an emperor of Rome
23:42
by being gullible and easily duped, you know.
23:45
Well, it's kind of like the sport of,
23:47
let's say, boxing or any sport.
23:50
Are you being
23:52
gullible
23:53
if you abide by the rules?
23:56
Yeah.
23:57
Well, no. The sport of boxing remains civilized
24:01
if there is no hitting below the belt,
24:04
if there is no eye gouging.
24:06
Right? If you're the first
24:09
to hit below the belt it's no longer
24:11
really the sport of boxing that that that
24:13
we know and that you've changed the rules
24:16
of the game which makes you susceptible to
24:18
someone else you know doing something nasty to
24:21
you. Then there's a question which is what
24:23
if somebody else is changing the rules of
24:24
the game? You always have the option of
24:26
not playing the game. Game. Right? Right. So
24:29
most of the things we do even if
24:31
we tell ourselves that we have no other
24:32
choice
24:33
usually we do have a choice but the
24:35
alternatives we find
24:38
palatable
24:39
so it might not feel good to exit
24:42
the ring
24:44
But exiting the ring I would suggest it
24:46
is always an option. I mean, obviously, if
24:48
someone's actually, like, confined to a prison, for
24:50
example, then there are many freedoms. They're not
24:53
getting different roles and freedoms that they don't
24:56
have. But for all of us in the
24:58
free
25:00
world, the analogy I'll use is that the
25:02
person
25:04
who's choosing
25:05
to run a marathon or the person who's
25:07
choosing to step into the ring for the
25:09
sport of boxing
25:10
is gonna feel very different
25:13
from the person who's running away from wolves
25:16
or who has to defend themselves in a
25:18
straight fight.
25:20
Fight. If the game is voluntary,
25:23
then you can step out
25:25
if you choose to, but you stay in
25:27
the game because you'd rather have the the
25:29
the the glory and the pride
25:32
and the sense of achievement for for doing
25:34
well.
25:35
Whereas the person being chased by wolves actually
25:37
has no choice.
25:38
Often, we kind of feel
25:40
this fight or flight, life or death feeling
25:42
when we actually have choice
25:45
and we're actually
25:46
in the sport of boxing, not in a
25:48
street fight. We're actually in a marathon. We're
25:51
not being chased by wolves.
25:53
Does this
25:55
explain
25:56
or give you a sort of
25:58
a more objective view
26:00
of examples where somebody has changed the rules
26:03
and it is life or death? So the
26:05
example being the Nazis knocking on your door
26:07
and saying,
26:09
Who do you have in there? That's another
26:10
occasion where your values can go, Okay, I
26:13
value
26:14
equality,
26:15
liberal, freedom, democracy.
26:17
These rules that these the people are asking
26:19
me to play by
26:21
are life or
26:22
death. But for the greater life and for
26:24
the greater,
26:26
purpose that I may survive and then do
26:28
more good,
26:29
I can lie. I think that in these
26:32
very complicated situations,
26:34
you kind of have to trust your own
26:36
judgement in these situations.
26:38
So I know I'm going to lie
26:41
to safe and frank. Mhmm. Even at, you
26:44
know, the risk of myself
26:46
being imprisoned or killed,
26:48
mainly because I don't want to live in
26:50
a world where I'm kind of participating
26:52
in the pogroms.
26:54
Patrick Henry down in the U. S. Said
26:56
give me liberty or give me death. He
26:58
would rather
26:59
die free
27:01
than to live under tyranny.
27:04
And there are many people who would rather
27:07
die free than to live under tyranny and
27:09
we do consider this to be principled.
27:11
If anything we consider it somewhat cowardly
27:14
if we're giving Anne Frank to the Nazis.
27:17
So I think that in these situations,
27:20
you do have to kind of play it
27:21
by ear. But I know for myself,
27:23
I'm giving up my principle to always tell
27:26
the truth
27:28
in order to preserve
27:30
greater principles.
27:31
And I suppose,
27:33
the idea that you're also saying is that
27:35
if you have principles
27:36
and that you make a choice, you're not
27:38
being chased by balls in
27:40
this case. I'm sure that Schindler
27:42
is an example of somebody that turned being
27:44
chased by walls into making a proactive choice
27:47
and for years was considered a a collaborator.
27:50
And my French grandfather,
27:53
was in the Maquis, which was the the
27:54
conservative resistance.
27:56
He did not talk about anything that had
27:58
happened. At least very rarely, little snippets of
28:01
information. It turned out that he was a
28:03
radio operator, which is one of the most
28:04
dangerous jobs.
28:06
But he'd made this
28:07
decision
28:08
to be a radio operator
28:10
in Nazi France
28:12
with a wife and I think his first
28:16
child as well. That's no small thing. And
28:19
then the reason he didn't talk about it
28:20
was because
28:22
anybody that knew who he was
28:25
faced being tortured, and they were. And people
28:28
who died not saying and not revealing who
28:30
he was.
28:31
But I look at those decisions that my
28:33
grandparents
28:34
made and I'm sort of in awe. I
28:36
mean, I've never been tested. My principal's never
28:38
been tested to that degree. And I can
28:40
only hope
28:41
that I would
28:43
come out with a sort of proactive approach
28:45
that aligns with my values
28:47
in some way. And I hope I never
28:49
get tested in that way to some degree,
28:51
but I mean, man, mean, just imagine that.
28:53
I think extraordinary.
28:54
That shows you the power of having principles
28:58
where even the
29:00
prospect of torture or death
29:02
is not enough to cause you to deviate
29:06
from being on the side of the good
29:07
guys
29:08
and then defending freedom.
29:11
We are in awe of such people because
29:13
they are very much admirable
29:16
people
29:16
as much as I can in my life.
29:18
I like you hope I am never actually
29:21
going to be in a situation where I'm
29:22
being metaphorically chased by wolves. And this is
29:24
put to the test.
29:26
But I know I would have a hard
29:28
time sleeping
29:33
route. I think that with that example,
29:36
you've summarized
29:37
the power of having principles and also
29:41
how admirable it is when a person has
29:44
principles and sticks with them. Taking away from
29:46
extreme global conflict,
29:48
Obviously we don't want to be posed with
29:49
that degree
29:51
of choice and yet in everyday life we're
29:55
still faced with similar choices. They're in the
29:58
same family.
29:59
So for instance, if
30:01
I'm in a situation where if I say
30:03
something it's going to
30:06
potentially endanger a relationship. But if I don't
30:08
say something, the problem will persist and grow.
30:10
And it might feel like life or death
30:12
because it might be a very important relationship.
30:15
But if you if you don't live by
30:18
your principle
30:19
of telling uncomfortable truths with the faith that
30:22
ultimately it's going to be better than keeping
30:25
a lie,
30:26
you know.
30:27
Then that's still a
30:30
huge step for somebody to do. I mean,
30:31
there's such a lot of fear involved
30:33
with telling uncomfortable truths.
30:35
It's not just
30:37
moralistically,
30:38
hypothetically, it's the right thing to do. I
30:40
mean, in the situation you described, the relationships
30:43
got in rocky to begin with. Mhmm. And
30:46
I would suggest that just purely pragmatically,
30:49
just practically
30:51
handling
30:52
the problem, bringing it out into the open,
30:55
putting light upon it,
30:57
just purely pragmatically
30:58
devoid of any more morality at all,
31:01
it's a sound principle
31:04
to do it because it's going to objectively
31:07
lead to a better future for you and
31:10
for the other person. In either direction as
31:11
well. You may not know what that future
31:13
is and yet you can say well this
31:15
principle
31:15
is not even it's not even necessary as
31:17
you say, the best principles are not particularly
31:19
moral,
31:20
but they are practical
31:22
and the outcomes
31:24
of living by them are practically better. Right.
31:27
So you pick another one, we can test
31:29
it. I gotta pick it up. Okay.
31:31
Let's use the example of you found a
31:33
wallet on the street. Mhmm. Right? And there's
31:35
cash inside, plus credit cards and ID and
31:38
everything. Do you keep the cash as a
31:40
finder's fee?
31:41
Right.
31:42
Because a lot of people would
31:45
keep the cash
31:47
and then a lot of people wouldn't. So
31:49
people who do keep the cash, they might
31:51
rationalize that someone's gonna steal it anyway. The
31:53
postman's gonna steal it anyway.
31:55
They might rationalize
31:56
that, well, their kid needs a new pair
31:58
of shoes. This is not a life or
32:00
death situation,
32:01
yet the consequences
32:04
of either keeping the money
32:06
or returning the money
32:08
are gonna stick with you.
32:10
If you keep the money, what sticks with
32:12
you is some money. And if you have
32:14
a conscience at all, some degree of guilt,
32:18
some degree of just this inescapable knowledge that
32:21
you have stolen money and then if you
32:23
bought something with that stolen money then you
32:25
have basically a stolen thing
32:28
that you don't deserve
32:30
Whereas if you return the wallet, then you're
32:34
not keeping the money. So, you know, you're
32:36
a little bit poorer.
32:38
Right?
32:39
But then you have for maybe the rest
32:41
of your life knowledge
32:43
that you're an honest person
32:45
who returns everything inside the wallet, including the
32:48
cash that you could have very easily
32:51
extracted
32:53
before dropping the wallet in the postbox. So
32:55
you could say one of the principles is
32:57
to
32:58
behave in a pro social manner. And you
33:00
could say, well,
33:02
morally, you could say, well, it's because,
33:05
it's right to do so because it is
33:07
so. But if you think from a very
33:09
pragmatic point of view, if everybody behaves in
33:12
a way which is pro social,
33:14
things are better for more people. So it's
33:17
like a it's a pragmatic,
33:20
axiom. Yeah. Well, I use this so I
33:22
mean, it does kinda create more of a
33:24
high trust society in a small way if
33:27
everyone's doing it
33:29
but each person dropping off the whole wallet
33:31
is just like a drop in the bucket
33:33
I'm thinking more
33:35
intra personally as opposed to interpersonally.
33:38
Right. Where intra personally
33:40
at some point you're going to, you know,
33:42
hit your pillow at bedtime,
33:44
and you're gonna remember
33:46
things you did that day. Was it was
33:48
it a French French writer, philosopher
33:50
said,
33:52
the softest pillow is an easy conscience. That's
33:54
right. Softest pillow is an easy conscience. We
33:56
might have talked about this in prior episodes.
33:59
The argument I'm making
34:01
for following principles like do not steal
34:04
is that it leads to you being not
34:07
just any adult. Right. It leads you to
34:10
being a happy adult, which is the whole
34:12
point of this podcast.
34:14
Being a decent honest person
34:17
and you know then being able
34:19
to see yourself like that. Yeah. As you
34:22
noted helps you literally sleep better at night,
34:25
and it helps you metaphorically
34:27
sleep better at night because even if no
34:29
one else knows the good thing you did
34:32
you will know the good thing you did
34:34
and then if no one finds out about
34:36
the bad thing you did
34:37
you will still know for the rest of
34:39
your life
34:41
the bad thing you did.
34:43
I think that's a good note to end
34:45
on. Yeah. Yeah. So if you like these
34:46
ideas and you like the principles we're talking
34:48
about, Luke and I are available for hire
34:50
through the Morpheus Clinic for hypnosis.
34:53
And we're based in Toronto, but we also
34:55
treat people online worldwide.
34:57
If you wanna hear more of the kinds
34:59
of things we say, please subscribe to us
35:00
on YouTube at Morpheus Hypnosis where you can
35:03
watch the video version of the podcast,
35:05
or you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
35:07
and other major platforms
35:09
to hear the audio
35:10
version.
35:11
And look out for our next episode where
35:13
we're going to give you some concrete principles
35:15
for how to take care of your mind
35:17
and your emotions.