if you actually want something you can
have it you have to treat yourself like
you matter because if you don't then you
don't take care of yourself and you
become vengeful and and and cruel and
you you take you take it out on people
around you and you're not a positive
force none of that's good
so you suffer more and so does everyone
around you and there's a malevolence
that enters into it none of that's good
so that's what happens if you don't
treat yourself like you matter the first
thing I would say is well you should be
afraid of taking risks and pursuing
something meaningful one of the main
reasons that people don't get what they
want is because they don't actually
figure out what it is and the
probability that you're going to get
what would be good for you let's say
which would even be better than what you
want right because you know you might be
what wrong about what you want easily
but maybe you could get what would
really be good for you well why don't
you well cuz you don't try
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life is a challenge that in some sense
can't be surmounted so there's no way
out of your problem but there are
certainly proper ways of dealing with
each other
sit on your bed one day and ask yourself
what's what remarkably stupid things am
i doing on a regular basis to absolutely
screw up my life I would say that the
goal in life is to conduct yourself so
that life improves you should be more
afraid of staying where you are if it's
making you miserable clock is ticking
yeah and if you're miserable in your job
now and you change nothing in five years
you'll be much more miserable and you'll
be a lot older people don't get what
they want and they need because they
don't aim at it and it's a hard lesson
for people to learn because they're
cynical to begin with and they presume
that there's no possible way of moving
forward but it's not so unreasonable to
assume that you're not going to hit what
you don't aim at or you're not going to
hit what you aim at and don't shoot at
we're built to contend with the world
we're built to contend with reality you
want a challenge and the best way that
you can take on a challenge because the
challenge fortifies you so you don't
want to be secure you want to be strong
and you get strong by taking on optimal
challenges and so you lay out your
destiny in the world and you take the
slings and arrows of fate and you make
yourself stronger while you're doing so
and you might fail and fortune might do
you in but it's your best bet huge part
of the reason that people fail is
because they don't ever set up the
criteria for success and so since
success is a very narrow line and very
unlikely the probability that you're
going to stumble on it randomly is zero
so you want to set yourself a task
that's difficult but not so difficult
you can't attain it and then what
happens is that you step up improvement
across time incremental and there's also
a certain element of humility to it
right which is don't bite off more than
you can chew right don't set grandiose
goals but incremental improvement will
get you a tremendous distance
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it's a luxury to pursue what makes you
happy it's a moral obligation to pursue
what you find meaningful and that
doesn't mean it's easy it might require
sacrifice if you need to change your job
to let's say you have family and and and
and children and Anna mortgage you have
responsibilities you've already picked
up those responsibilities you don't just
get to walk away scot-free and say well
I don't like my job I quit
that's no strategy but what you might
have to do is you think well this job is
killing my soul all right so what do I
have to do about that well I have to
look for another job well no one wants
to hire me it's like okay maybe you need
to educate yourself more maybe you need
to update your your curriculum vitae
your resume maybe you need to overcome
your fear of being interviewed I think
what you have to do and this is part of
humility is you have to look around you
within your sphere of influence like the
direct sphere of influence and fix the
things that announce themselves as in
need of repair and those are often small
things you know and they can be like
your room put it in order because the
thing is it isn't exactly so important
that your room is in order although it
is what's important is that you learn
how to distinguish between chaos and
order and to be able to act in a manner
that produces order three years from now
you can have what you need you've got to
be careful about it
you can't have everything you can have
what would be good for you but you have
to figure out what it is and then you
have to aim at it and when you're in the
zone you're expanding your skills in a
manner that's intrinsically rewarding
because you're succeeding and so you
want to set if you're good to yourself
you think okay I need to set a goal but
I need to set a goal that someone is
stupid and useless as me could probably
attain if they put some effort into it
now if there are things about your life
that are bothering you or things about
the world that are bothering you then
you want to decompose them into solvable
subproblems you can do something as
simple as just sit on your bed and think
okay there's probably like five things I
could do today so that tomorrow morning
is slightly better than this morning was
at least or at least I'm not falling
behind and those will usually be it's
like having to eat a toad in the morning
right it's like it's not gonna be
something you want to do there'll be
things you're trying to avoid there's
snakes essentially marry yourself to who
you were yesterday not to who someone
else is today I've dealt with hundreds
of people in my clinical and consulting
practice and we set a goal we develop a
vision and work towards it and it things
inevitably get better for people so it's
not a luxury it's it's difficult it's a
moral responsibility and it isn't
happiness it's it's not the pursuit
isn't for happiness
well greatness is what reveals itself
when you when you attempt to formulate
when you attempt to carefully articulate
and live out what you believe to be true
it just happens because there isn't
anything more powerful than truth right
that's the antidote to suffering truth
if you ask yourself instead of telling
yourself you know what is it that I
could do to set things more right today
that I would actually do it's usually
some small thing because you're not that
disciplined you know then you can go do
it lay a disciplinary structure on
yourself get the chaos in in in check
and then you can move towards a state
that's freer well what happens if you
don't treat other people like they
matter
well you lie to them you cheat them you
steal you you you enter into impulsive
relationships with them they can't trust
you that doesn't go anywhere they don't
like you you you end up alone at best
and maybe like incarcerated at worst
like that doesn't work
and so you watch the people around you
who thrive regardless of what they say
they act out the proposition that
everyone matters if you're hungry and
you eat well that's good but it's over
and then you're on to the next thing
right it's not exactly sustaining it's
just necessary that's called consume
Ettore reward by the way this other
reward system is incentive reward and
the incentive reward system works on
dopamine this neurochemical dopamine
which is also the neurochemical tracks
that opiates and cocaine and
amphetamines the drugs that people
really like to abuse alcohol often for
some people activate and so you might
say if you don't have enough meaning in
your life then you're more prone to
addiction and that's definitely the case
even with rats if you take a rat you put
him in a cage by himself and he has
nothing to do and then you give him
access to cocaine he'll get addicted to
the point where he won't do anything but
take cocaine but if you throw the rat
back in with a bunch of other rats and
he gets to do rap things then it's very
hard to get him addicted to cocaine and
so the purposeless rat is prone to
addiction well it's the same with human
beings
kind of have this idea that that you
have a certain delightful wonderful
positive freedom as a child and then
that's given up as you approach
adulthood but the truth of the matter is
is that you have a lot of potential as a
child but none of that is capable of
manifesting itself as freedom before you
become disciplined and discipline is a
matter of the imposition of order and
the order is necessary especially for
people who are hopeless and nihilistic
and lots of people are hopeless and
nihilistic we more people than you think
and part of that is because no one's
ever really encouraged them the
magnitude of the reward you experience
as you're moving towards a goal is
proportionate to the importance of the
goal so that means the more important
the goal you pick the more possibility
there is for the kind of reward let's
say it's really a state of being that is
life-affirming and it is directly
life-affirming in that you know like if
you're in a football game and your band
it's an important football game and
maybe you break a finger and you know
normally that's that's a problem it
hurts and you're gonna stop doing
whatever you're doing but if you're
right in the middle of the game then
you'll be so amped up on this reward
system that its analgesic it stops the
pain it also suppresses anxiety
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people that have extracted unbelievable
successes out of catastrophic failures
and so and I'm not saying that in a
naive way I know perfectly well what
happens to people you know you're doing
fine in life and then you get cancer and
then six months later you're dead and
all the heroism in the world isn't going
to save you at that point
but that's not the point that's not the
point
life is bounded by mortality but that
doesn't mean that you don't get out
there and contend and you develop by
contending and you minimize the net
amount of suffering in the world and
that's something man that's something to
do
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