"Can You Outrun Your Problems by Working?"

0:00What would you say running from problems and traumas by working is it maintainable long term? All right, I'm probably going to end on this one cuz I think this is juicy. Okay. The reason I I actually really like this is because we use imprecise language and then have imprecise outcomes in our life and don't know what's going on. So, running from problems and traumas. So, I'm going to just unpack this for a moment. You're not actually running from anything physically. And when we're talking about things that are amorphous, I prefer to use precise language so that everyone can get on the same page. So, you cannot run from a problem. You literally can't.

0:37Like your problem maybe you're you know, I mean I guess if your wife's angry and you run away from her, I guess you could physically do that. But the problem would still exist, right? Um and so most problems you cannot physically run away from. So, we need to use more precise language, which means that uh avoiding is probably what we're talking about here. And then when we say problems and traumas, let's define what these are. So, problems I would say things that are that are against our preferences, things that happen that would that are that are not going the way we want them to go. And then traumas, the reason this is important to define is cuz like otherwise you have all these, you know, internet whatevers who are like, "Oh, trauma's stored in your body and your body, you know, it's it's it's as though the the body's a computer." I'm like, "Where is it stored? Is it stored in my liver? Is there a storage place there?" It's I've got I've got Julieta who's pre-med. I don't know, was there storage in your bones for these things? I don't know. I don't know if your trauma gets stored there. Now, if you get a cracked rib, sure. You know, you're going to have the scar of a cracked rib. But if your dad's mean to you just with his words, I don't think it's held in your I don't think it's held in your bones, you know? So, I'll go out there because I think people make these they try to anthropomorphize issues into giving them this animation that's not real. Um and so we can confuse people very well with analogies.

1:48And so I try to not use analogies when I'm trying to explain something rather than to uh motivate. So, trauma means you learn something from a bad thing. All right? So, it is accelerated learning from an aversive stimulus. If I'm a child and I burn my hand touching a stove, I probably will learn not to touch the stove again.

2:14Was the stove burning my hand a bad thing? Yes. Did I learn a permanent lesson from that? Yes. Was it trauma? By my definition, yes, it was trauma. But then the question is, is it bad that my child learns to not touch the stove? No. So, is it possible that a good thing can come from a bad experience? Yes. So, does that mean all trauma is bad? No. And so, when we unpack this, we stop having this emotional charge even around the word or bad things happening to us because it means that we can truly make lemonades lemonade out of lemons. You can have a bad thing happen and have good things happen as a result. And so, it's a permanent change of behavior, permanent learning from a aversive stimulus. It's a bad thing. Permanent lesson. One-time bad thing.

2:58So, or repeated bad thing. So, you could be like, "My dad traumatized me because he didn't hug me enough." Okay. What behavior did you permanently learn as a result? And so, whether the trauma was good or bad depends on whether the behavior you learned helps you or hurts you achieve your goals. You learn something consciously or unconsciously at some point from bad stuff in your life. And so, then we have to ask, "Does this help me or hurt me?" If it hurts you, then we have to figure out Here's the big Here's the big magic magic sentence here. What do I do instead?

3:29When this happens, what do I do next time? What do I do instead? What do I do that is more aligned with my goals? If that's true, then what we have to do is basically create some sort of reward loop or cycle around trying to take this first action. And then once we get that reward cycle going, then that new behavior gets reinforced under this condition. And then we have reversed our trauma. Or we just learned something.

3:55And so the reason I'm so specific about this stuff is that like I like I used to get buried by this [ __ ] And so I I I I explain this this way because this is what got me out of it. And so I used to be in my head all day long. I'd stay in my apartment for months on end, not leaving cuz I didn't know what to do. I was analysis paralysis. I thought my trauma defined me. Right? Because I used these amorphous terms that I heard on the internet. I read in these self-help books that no one defined. And so they became these big boogeymen that I was trying to avoid cuz I didn't know what the [ __ ] was going on cuz I never defined anything. And so if you don't have what you want, you have an inaccurate view of reality. Your model for predicting what is going to happen in the world is flawed. You do not have all the variables. You do not see it clearly. The people who are able to get what they want see reality more clearly than you.

4:42And part of you can take that as an ego hit. Don't really give a [ __ ] You can do whatever you want. If your If your model of the world's working for you, go for it. I don't care. But if it's not working for you, then I would suggest or might I offer an alternative viewpoint, which is just to find what the [ __ ] you're talking about. So when you're running from your problems and your traumas by working, we have to say, "Okay, you're avoiding things that you don't like and using behaviors that you learned in bad experiences by working." The sentence really stops making sense, which is why so many people are confused to begin with. They say words they don't understand and then somehow hope someone's going to say something back to them that they do understand.

5:27And so is this maintainable long term? So let me rephrase the question as I think it was intended, which is can I use work as a way to not work on my problems? And I think the answer is, is it maintainable long term? I mean, it's as maintainable as long as it maintains. Like, basically, if you're able to do it in the short-term, what prevents you from doing in the long-term?

5:54Real question. I don't know the answer. If there is something that accumulates, then we would have to deal with it. And when the the punishment of not dealing with it supersedes the reward you get from working and avoiding it, you will change. And so, I think a lot of a lot of the a lot of people get get weighed down by the shoulds of their life. I should do this. Like, is it maintainable long-term? I don't know. Have you done it long-term?

6:23Cuz you can always do it long-term, and then the day that it's not, you can change. I mean, when I was like when I like I worked a lot in my 20s, and I worked a lot in my early 30s. I work a little less now than I did then. And along the way, people would be like, "He's going to wake up one day, and he's going to realize he did it all wrong." You know what's great about that? Is that the day that I wake up, I'll [ __ ] change.

6:48It's like, in what world did we stop getting permission to change our minds? In what world did our priorities become fixed in stone? Why must we do everything as we always have done it in order to be consistent with ourselves? Is that under the assumption that no information is ever changed? That no one has learned anything in their lives? Is there Is there okay to have something that's okay for a season and not forever?

7:12Of course. And so, I by and large reject these shoulds because they don't serve you. They certainly don't serve me. And so, when people say the these these these big truisms, these like, "Hey, man, like You know the amount of people who told me how I should mourn my mother's death? That how I did it, I should do it differently? Like, they have permission, like they have some sort of authority over my life, like their opinion on my suffering I should somehow weigh?

7:45Like what is the appropriate amount to mourn? What is the correct way to do it? What is the correct way? Is there a book that says this is the correct way? According to whom? Based on what? And so people will put they will thrust their [ __ ] on you. They will put these expectations they will put these labels on you and then you will confine yourself by these words that you never defined and neither did they and you will make real choices in your life that have real consequences based on words that do not matter. Based on opinions of people who never even thought about what they were saying.

8:22And so my simple ask to you is just ask what does that mean? How do you know that? So what? Whenever you're confronted with these things. What does maintainable mean? How do you know that? Okay. And so what? Maybe it's not maintainable. Okay. And then when I don't maintain it I'll stop maintaining it.

8:48Do I die? No. Is there a mariachi band that comes out and sings me a song when I maintain it long enough? No. We're all going to die. We don't know when. And so focus on the work that's in front of you. Whether it's work with your family, work with your career, work on your health, whatever it is. My my grandfather said this to me. This is one of my favorite things. So he was he and I were super close and he died um 10 years ago. And he said you only have two hands and one brain, use them.

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