a lifelong concern of mine has been
running out of time we're not having
enough time well i guess it was what
would you do
managing this complicated topic of time
the preciousness and shortness of life
it feels like a curse sometimes to want
so much out of life to live as fully as
possible to be so curious about
everything when i was 13 years old i had
an existential crisis uh of course
because that's who i am and i was like
before i know it my life is going
to be over it felt like the entire time
i was a kid i was hearing adults talk
about how as you get older your life
speeds up and this was a terrifying
thought to me i didn't want to think
about it i was in denial about it for
the longest time and i think i'm no
longer in denial about it i've come to
realize that life moves damn quickly and
the conventional answers that are
available on the internet on how to
handle this
i just don't buy them they don't feel
like complete answers that's why i'm
making this
video and yes i am a silhouette in front
of a cityscape because i thought that
would be a cool visual metaphor of the
speed of modern life i don't know i'm
trying to be creative
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there are two main explanations i've
heard for why we feel like time is
accelerating as we get older the first
is that each new year or month or week
of your life represents a smaller
percentage of the life that you've lived
so it's kind of like in the full
database of your life each new moment is
a smaller part of it a smaller
percentage okay and the other
explanation which is sort of related to
the first thing that i already said is
that our brains seem to pay more
attention when there's novelty right
when something
new is happening as in time seems to
slow down when you have new experiences
like your first kiss or the first time
that you traveled abroad and the theory
basically goes that as you start to run
out of these first experiences these new
experiences time speeds up so the clear
and obvious conclusion to this is have
more experiences right go chase new
experiences and time will slow down and
i think that's true to an extent for a
certain period of time and then that
stops working
okay so i'm calling and i'll
tell you why i chase experiences for a
living if you've been following my
channel for any amount of time you've
seen that i'm all over the place i try
to travel as much as possible i try to
throw myself into the unknown as much as
possible i want to live life as fully as
i possibly can and so for a long time i
thought okay if i throw myself into as
many new experiences as i possibly can
life won't feel like it's flying by so
quickly spoiler alert it's still flying
by pretty quickly
i say that because i'm not claiming to
have all the answers but i think i'm on
to something here because i've realized
that constant novelty which is how i've
lived my life for a long time now alone
is not the answer there's another
bigger issue here at play in fact what i
found and this is where i start to go a
little bit out there okay so i hope you
can follow is that anything in life can
be a distraction
including new experiences and there have
definitely been periods of my life where
i have been chasing new experiences as a
way to run for myself run from something
within me that i don't want to face my
demons in fact there had definitely been
times where the passage of time has
accelerated because of my focus on
having no experiences you see there is
no cookie cutter answer to this problem
if there was we would have all already
adopted that answer and this is why
this is such a universal human
experience and i have three propositions
to counter this acceleration of time
that so many of us feel like we're
experiencing i kind of think about these
things that i'm about to share with you
as lifelong practices we're really not
talking about something that is like a
one and done oh i found the solution now
i can move on to something else that
being said i love talking about these
kinds of things i mean this is the kind
of conversation that i'd love to have at
a dinner party so if you'd be so kind as
to give me a few minutes to hear me out
let's dive in
the thing that i've most strongly felt
since as early as i can remember
is this constant feeling of urgency life
feels so
precious there's so many things i want
to do but as i get older i'm realizing
that rushing
is the opposite of what you should be
doing it's the best way to waste time
you're not going to get anywhere by
rushing and this was best put by andre
the shields
got to fix the lav
it's so simple
slowly is the fastest way to get to
where you want to be
oh my god light bulb moment it's just a
very simple wording of a very powerful
idea less is more trying to do it all at
once is not a good idea
so my first answer to this question of
how to not let life slip by
is to stop running and i know that
sounds counterintuitive and that's why i
say that these answers are not easy it
turns out it's infinitely easier to run
from yourself than to face your demons
i'm coming to realize and this is still
a really hard one to say and to own
fully
but my unhappiness is nobody else's
fault my unhappiness
comes from
fighting the way that things are mind
happiness happens when life does not
correspond with how i want things to be
uh and i get stuck on that you know if
anything this is sort of a reminder to
myself because i still get so hung up
sometimes when things do not go the way
that i want i'll be honest with you
here's just a vulnerable example i'm
still affected by the performance of my
videos i know i shouldn't care i know
the numbers don't matter but when i work
so hard on something that i'm super
proud of i've spent a million hours
working on it i want as many people as
possible to see it i can't control
what's going to be interesting to people
i can't control how the algorithms are
going to go but it's still a struggle
for me and i just mentioned that just to
make the point that like i'm not saying
this from the point of view of like a
guru you know i'm trying to figure this
out for myself as well but what i can
tell you with confidence is that
this is definitely a massive time killer
it's like the amount of energy and
effort that i lose when i get hung up is
incomparable wow this is really hard to
do in public i'm trying to do this to
change it up a little bit but i
definitely feel a little bit like an
influencer out in the wild and people
are looking at me
look at this shot honestly the tree of
life is behind me i should use this lens
a little bit more it's i love the
wide-angleness okay getting a little bit
distracted back to what i was saying
going in circles is one of the real
culprits for losing life all that
rumination you know getting stuck in
negative cycles and seneca one of the
stoics actually wrote about this he
wrote a book called on the shortness of
life and he actually believed that life
is long we just waste a lot of it and
this is like a prime example of that
my second answer for not letting life
slip by is to be very wary of comfort
and comfort is another one of those
tricky shape-shifters it can look like
many different things it can look like
routine and stability
but it can look like many other things
too it can look like constantly
traveling constantly seeking out
experiences so you don't have to face
your demons as i mentioned before that's
the thing i feel like so many people
misunderstand and that i misunderstood
for a long time because i thought i was
doing everything right by throwing
myself out there going to foreign
countries and whatnot and i don't think
that's bad but i think what matters are
the intentions behind your decisions you
know my search for constant novelty was
my way of running for myself especially
during a few pretty dark periods of my
life so basically
in summary just doing what spikes your
adrenaline is not the full answer it's
not going to fix this problem of life
moving so quickly okay
vlogging in public i had a moment of
clarity recently when i was talking to
somebody who was sharing with me their
experience of vipassana
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for those of you that don't know
vapasana is like this 10-day meditation
retreat where you don't do pretty much
anything other than meditate including
like talking you don't have your phone
you don't have distractions you just
have all day to meditate and this is
remarkably difficult i have quite a few
friends that have done this and not all
of them have made it through the 10 days
and this person was describing it to me
by saying that those 10 days felt like
10 months and i just had a moment of
clarity when he said that because it
made me realize like there's the answer
you know if you really want life to slow
down
go do something like this this is true
discomfort it's not sexy it's real life
which is a great tagline honestly if
there are any vipassana marketers out
there
feel free to hit me up i'm just kidding
vipassana is not for profit
anyway you can actually do vapasana for
free and it's definitely something that
i would like to do at some point it's
ironic isn't it that i continue to use
the excuse that it's hard to find 10
days to block out to do something like
this it's that kind of thinking i feel
like that leads to a life that goes by
so quickly i am ultimately the one that
decides if i have time for something
like that or not i mean it's literally
free anyway this is a warning against
comfort and its many forms
do not fall into the most comfortable
version of yourself
it's not worth it and here comes a
sentence that might not make a ton of
sense when you first hear it but
constant discomfort can be a form of
comfort and that's like the point i'm
trying to make here okay just for a
little bit of context on where i am for
those of you that are curious this spot
is called fuente de civeles in mexico
city really a very cool spot
so my final point is just a little
reminder on the power of mindfulness i'm
not a zen master i'm not a guru but i
find it helpful to receive reminders
from my own community other people that
i know to stick with meditation to stick
with slowing down and being mindful and
i think a really great layman definition
of mindfulness
is just doing things one at a time we're
not made to be multitaskers and we live
in a world that likes to pretend that we
can this constant attention shifting
constant information bombardment i think
we all have to make a conscious decision
to fight against that or it risks taking
over your life and the wonderful thing
is that just like how i said pretty much
anything in life can be a distraction i
think there are many things that can be
a meditation
once again it depends on the energy that
you bring to each task the energy and
attention that you bring to each moment
so i hope that you found that helpful i
think i'm going to do more videos on
time in the future it's just one of my
favorite topics
okay so i came back to this tree of life
spot because i i just love this plot so
much i love this tree while i have your
attention i did want to mention that i
just recently released merch for the
very first time in my life
and it's only available for a week we
are two days into that week already but
if you're interested it's still
available if you're seeing this within
that week amor fati is a phrase that has
been just extremely personally
meaningful to me it's a love of one's
fate that's a loose translation i take
it to mean making a conscious decision
in every moment to be as open as
possible i don't feel like philosophy
has to be
stuck in thousands of years ago you know
i feel like these are very relevant
ideas to the world that we live in today
so yeah there's a hoodie there's a few
different shirts maybe you saw this
earlier in the video i'll leave a link
to it down in the description below if
you're interested in checking it out
this is a huge way to support me and my
work if this drop does well i will do
more in the future and i have tons of
ideas this clothing is sustainably made
it's in collaboration with seek
discomfort which was created by the yes
theory guys and they've made a huge
effort to make things carbon neutral to
use recycled and organic materials and i
just recently released on this channel a
short little video explaining a little
bit more on what this phrase means to me
oh no this is falling so yeah i just
want to share my gratitude to all of you
for all of your support and i'd love to
hear from you on if you have any other
ideas or contributions to this
conversation about not letting life slip
by i think it's something that we should
all talk about more if you want to help
me out in the algorithms consider giving
this video a like and i'll see all of
you very soon
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you