All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 18, 2021 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
15:25
WHAT WILL BE WRITTEN ON YOUR TOMBSTONE?
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
You are feeling anxious about taking the relationship to the next level.
Okay, I understand that because it might not work out.
But you understand it's already not working out because you're already not getting married and having children if that's what you want.
I assume it's what you want because he wants to be a dad, right?
So already you've burned up three years of fertility circling the drain of this relationship.
So you've already failed.
You've got nothing to lose. You've already failed because you've invested three years and you still don't know whether it's going to work out or not.
So you've already had a massive failure.
And so the idea that things could go wrong if you are close physically to each other, but it might not work out, you can only believe that that's a problem if you overlook the last three years of failure, wherein you have invested Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours and your heart and mind and soul and you've probably not dated other people because of this relationship and you still don't know whether it's going to work out.
That is a catastrophic failure and it's like you're walking away from a car crash worrying you might stub your toe.
So have this fine man come to the vicinity.
Oh, but there's pressure. He might have expectations, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So He's allowed to have expectations.
You're allowed to say no to those expectations, of course.
But first of all, you care about him, which is why you're concerned about whether he'll feel rejected if it doesn't work out or you care about yourself.
That's great. But you've got to get to the answer.
You've got to get to the answer because time marches on whether we make decisions or not.
You have a certain number of days left in your life, left in your existence.
You have a certain number of days.
And... No, I'm talking to her.
You? You've got more days.
Because you're a dude. And the shelf life for balls is way better than eggs, right?
So, yeah, you have a shelf life.
You have a number of days left in your life and you have a number of days left in your fertility window, which are a lot shorter than his, right?
So it's doing more harm to you circling the drain than him, right?
And this is why he's pushing for a resolution and why you're crazy to not.
And I don't mean crazy like that's a bad thing, but it's just I'm trying to give you the perspective that will help you propel the decision, right?
If you care about this man and it sounds like you guys are half in love, if not in love, then be in the same vicinity and figure out whether you like each other.
Now, you don't have to spend all day together every day.
You know, he's going to have things to do.
You have things to do.
But you can hang out and see if you like each other.
That's what people do when it's a long distance relationship and they need to find out whether it works or not if they spend time together.
There's no other way to do it.
There's no other way to do it.
It's this or nothing.
Now, if you choose the nothing, well, are you going to wait for someone better to come along Somebody more in alignment with your values?
Somebody who's employed, good-looking, slender, tall, healthy, philosophical?
Are you going to wait?
How many of these guys are coming along in your life?
I mean, what is your upgrade from this?
This is a really important question to ask in relationships.
What is your upgrade? I remember very clearly being on the hike with my then girlfriend, soon to be fiancé, then to be wife.
I remember being on the hike with her and I felt this great feeling of peace come over me and I was like, I can't upgrade from this.
I cannot upgrade from this.
She's incredibly smart, incredibly funny, very warm, very together, slender, athletic, pretty, Great sense of humor.
Positive spirit. I can get a little Dostoevsky in from time to time.
And she's buoyant in a way that I can only envy.
Like, I can't... What am I waiting for?
I can't do better than this.
I can't. There's no upgrade from here.
Now, if you are in a no-upgrade scenario, and looking back, before I got that feeling, I could see why I hadn't settled down before, because I always felt that there was something better.
And I was right! But with this, I mean, my gosh, I can't upgrade.
And, you know, we've been married 18 years, and I feel even more certain now than I did almost 20 years ago on that hike, watching her climb some slippery rock.
I feel even more certain now.
Than I did almost 20 years ago, that no upgrade was possible.
I can't do better. I think she can't do better either.
I mean, I'm not supplicating.
I think we both, there's no upgrade possible for either of us.
So, if you've got anxiety about it not working out, guess what?
That's life, man. Or rather, lady, that's life.
The more you care about something, the more you care about losing it.
But you're going to lose it anyway.
You get married. You fall in love with someone.
You're going to get old. And most likely one of you is going to die before the other.
You're going to lose everything anyway.
You're going to lose your health. You're going to lose your vitality.
You're going to lose some of your intelligence.
You're going to lose the spring in your step.
You're going to lose the easy ease of a healthful youth.
And you'll be like, oh my gosh, I got them all!
So, you can lose anything anyway.
The idea that we're not going to live because we're going to lose rests on the fantasy that there's a scenario in life where we don't lose.
But we do. We will.
My daughter is here to replace me.
You're going to lose anything and everything anyway.
The only question is, Are you going to have before you lose?
That's the only question. Do you want to be poor your whole life?
Or do you want to have wealth and then lose it?
Well, I think it's better to have wealth and then lose it.
But if you're in this fantasy where there's some way in which you can get through life without losing everything, you're wrong.
You're catastrophically wrong.
And it means that the loss is occurring every day when it doesn't have to.
You're going to lose everything at the end of your life.
Look at Nancy Reagan.
Ronald Reagan, she called it the long goodbye.
I think he had Alzheimer's or dementia or something like that.
It took him forever to die.
And for years and years and years before he died, he just wasn't there progressively.
Now, would it have been better for her To never have loved him, never have had children?
You're going to say goodbye anyway.
Just don't say goodbye in the here and now, based upon the fantasy that if you never have, you won't lose.
But you will lose.
You will lose. And the only way you don't lose is to have and create, whether you create artistically, whether you create philosophically, whether you create from a business standpoint, whether you create children.
It's the only way.
It's the only way we don't lose is to leave something of importance behind.
Don't let your gravestone be meh.
Don't let your gravestone be She's gone?
Was she here? Don't let your gravestone be that six months after your funeral is the last time anybody ever speaks your name.
You can be alive in the future even if you're invisible to the future, if you have children.
I mean, I have many ancestors, of course, who wrote down nothing and nobody remembers now.
But I'm here, so their lives had impact that way.
Don't be cremated in the here and now because you fear death later.
Don't let all of your desires turn to ashes because the worms will eat you when you're done.
Oh, but if it doesn't work out, it's not going to work out.
Life doesn't work out. You get old, you get sick and you fucking die.
Life doesn't work out.
We lose everything.
Everything decays.
We fall apart. I am now afraid of sprinting.
I could sprint a couple of years ago.
I'm now nervous to sprint.
I'm in my mid-50s.
It could hurt. It has.
Everything decays.
Everything falls apart. You're going to lose everything anyway.
The house, being death, always wins.
So bet big. If you play the slot machines, if you play roulette, if you play blackjack, or you don't play, the house wins either way.
The house takes everything you have anyway.
So why not bet big?
Why not?
You have nothing to lose because everything is going to be lost anyway.
My friend here, Manuel, is already in a state of losing, so he's got nothing to lose because he's already in a state of catastrophic loss, which is isolation.
It's the same thing with you, except you have a shorter time frame because of fertility.
Oh, I could come out here with expectations, and I don't know if I can fulfill those expectations, and it might not work.
You're going to die. You're going to die.
It should be everyone's morning mantra.
Look in the mirror and say, I'm going to die.
I'm gonna die. And it'll probably be a long goodbye.
A long goodbye. But don't give death a single fucking ounce before you have to.
Don't let fear of loss, which is inevitable, because we're going to lose everything anyway, don't let that fear of loss mean that you won't have.
Everyone gets old.
Everyone gets sick and everyone dies.
You know it. I know it.
And in the flourishing of the vitality of youth and middle age, and you know, I'm still a pretty vital and energetic guy in my 50s.
I can play a good 90 minutes of pretty hard tennis.
I have no back or joint problems.
I work out. I'm a reasonable weight.
But that's just for now. I'm on the downward arc.
And listen, after our 20s, we're all on a downward arc.
We're all on a downward arc.
It's like we're on one of those log rides, you know, they go down and they hit the water.
We're going to hit the water. Grab some candy on the way, man, because you're going to hit the water either way.
Bet big because the house always wins.
Live richly. Because you won't be able to live in time.
Love deeply because you will be consumed by plants and insects and worms.
And don't be the only thing that you leave behind is, well, he guarded well against loss.
He didn't have his heart broken.
Well, death is going to break your heart, literally, into its component atoms.
Don't let your tombstone be food for worms.
Don't let your legacy be the grass grows a little greener over the decomposing carbon of my lost life.
Don't let death win before you have to.
Don't let fear of loss win before you have to.
Death will pry everything you love from your hands and smash it to the emptiness of eternity.
And that's the best case scenario.
The worst case scenario is your absence then leaves a heartbroken society, family, friendship, or world behind.
But you're going to get broken up and scattered to the winds of time no matter what you do.
And in fact, in fact I believe that death comes sooner for those who don't love because of the isolation, the depression, the anxiety, the stress.
And we can imagine of course that the tribes wherein those who did not contribute the next generation or anything of significant value but were in a sense useless eaters as the harsh Marxist phrase goes That those societies wherein the isolated and unproductive lived forever, well, they'd have fewer resources for their children and probably wouldn't survive as well.
So there are evolutionary pressures on a life of lonely loss being shorter than a life of rich bliss.
If you don't, if you pay death, death comes sooner.
It's like a blackmailer, right? If you pay the blackmailer, it'll come back for more.
If you live for fear of loss, I believe it moves the loss of life closer to you every year, every year, every year.
Oh, you're not living? Okay, we'll move that grave up one year.
Oh, still not living? Going to move up.
Oh, you're still letting fears overwhelm you?
We'll move that grave up one year.
Fuck that. Live, take risks, impose.
Don't violate the non-aggression principle.
Keep your promises. But never be afraid to ask.
Never be afraid to demand.
Never be afraid to hear a no and walk away.
We've got a short time.
Aim to have a short life, right?
Because time flies when you're having fun.
▲
Export Selection