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May 21, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:15:54

5182 ESSENTIAL CALL IN: Your Life and its Enemies!

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux takes young man through the most essential call-in topics in history of Freedomain. Family, ambition, career, love, morality, self-defense – and some of the most glorious and powerful analogies known to man!

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	Yeah, so what's on your mind?
	How can I help?
	So as I always said to you when I started writing you a message a few days ago, it was it was only with the attention of thanking you for the amazing work that you've been doing.
	But in the process of writing it, I realized that this may be my only opportunity to ask you for a call.
	And I've been thinking about it for some time, but I never managed to to write my thoughts into into words.
	So maybe I can say something a little bit for introduction and we can see how how we can.
	Where we can go from there.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	OK, so so the gist of what I would like to talk to you about is the fact that I'm quite happy with my with the way that my life is progressing in terms of where I'm living, my job, the relationship with my family lately and also my friends as hobbies.
	But I'm still not not even close to my biggest wish and dream, which is which is to be a father and have a
	Big and happy family and with big help from your show I have been able to transform my life in a very positive way in the last seven or eight years since I started to listen to your show and I feel like I've been doing everything I can to ensure that I can be a good father and provider to my future kids like going to a good college, keeping a solid job, learning about moral philosophy and peaceful parenting, staying healthy, staying fit, saving money but
	I have neglected the crucial element of finding the right woman for me.
	And as a guy in my late 20s, I'm starting to feel slight panicky, which I know you would say that's a good thing.
	And also when I hear you and Izzy talk, I'm very happy for you and the kind of relationship that you have.
	But at the same time, it pains me deeply to even think about the possibility of me not having that kind of relationship or even not having future kids.
	Realistically speaking I still have time but I'm in my late 20s and I know that it's just going to get harder and day after day I keep doing my best at everything I do except trying to find somebody that I can also share my
	We're good to go.
	We can decide in which direction we can go.
	I did some notes about my childhood, my teenage years.
	You always say we should start at the beginning, so maybe this would also be a good way to start.
	What do you think so far?
	Sure, yeah, no, I mean, it's funny because I can always tell the people who aren't parents yet, because they say I sleep like a baby, like babies sleep well.
	You know, like if you're sleeping like a baby, generally you are waking up every three hours screaming, so... Right, I did not think about that at all, so it's like a...
	I don't know.
	It's the way it's said, but you're quite right.
	You're quite right.
	Uh, okay.
	So, and if I could just ask you to try and make sure you don't breathe directly on the microphone, cause then you get this sound.
	So, um, yeah, if you want to, you want to start with the childhood, I'm all ears.
	OK, so for the beginning, I lived most of my life in our family house in a small town, a village to be more precise, with my mom, my dad, my older brother and my late grandmother.
	So, I need to mention that my mother went to work shortly after I was born, maybe a month or so, so we had to click quickly.
	My grand-grandma and sometimes my grandparents from my mother's side took care of me during the day, but I always hear stories about how I cried so much as a baby and as a toddler and that I was a very weak, very sickly and very needy child.
	It didn't make sense to me earlier, but after I found out that my mother went to work only a month after I was born, so it made a lot more sense.
	Sorry, hang on a sec, hang on.
	So, the phrase, like the words, weak, sickly and needy, that's what you said, right?
	Yes.
	Now, were these words that were applied about you and to you as a baby?
	Not the word weak, but the word sickly, yes.
	My parents and also my grandparents said that I was sick very often.
	As you can tell English is not my native language so maybe a bit is lost in translation but sickly would be a good word to say and needy also would be a good word to say because when my mother came home I was comforted by her and when she held me I did not cry so much but the instant when my parents put me in my bed or I was with someone else I kept crying and I did not stop crying
	until they they took me and that's that's a lot of the stories I hear about in yeah because I mean to call a baby weak and needy it's like that would be kind of weird it's like it's like blaming a dog for being hairy I mean that's that's what babies are if you can't call a baby weak that damn baby can't even lift 50 pounds yeah yeah I understand that that I
	Multiple times I confronted my parents about it after I listened to a show for a number of years and I started to think about it a lot and I tried to talk to my parents a lot but it did not change the fact that they still look at it that way because I'm the younger brother and my brother was much different than me so I think they compared me to him.
	It's not good to say a better child but he was easier to deal with when he was a baby so the comparison was not so favorable to my side and it ended up being like I was weak and needed.
	And did your mother stay home with your brother at all, or were there some other circumstances?
	I mean, obviously personality has a lot to do with just how you are, but were there any other circumstances that you think might have contributed?
	She did stay at home, but also not a lot.
	I gotta mention that I was born at the time when there was war in my country, so my parents told me that it was mostly a financial decision.
	I want to say I have a strong urge to rationalize this and also excuse my parents for it, but I will refrain for now.
	They're not responsible for the war, right?
	I mean, so your parents, it seems to me, a little bit, and I want to be sympathetic to the fact that I can't imagine raising a child in wartime, must be really, really hell.
	But your parents, your brother was born in a time of peace when your mother was much more available, and you were born in a time of war when your mother was gone.
	And also, it's not just that your mother is gone.
	Parental stress, and wartime is one of the ultimate stressors, right?
	Parental stress infects the baby.
	If the parents are anxious, the baby's going to be anxious.
	And also, I mean, with regards to illness, I'm sure you know that anxiety, stress, it's really bad for your immune system.
	And so the vast majority of ailments, I'm not saying they're directly caused by stress, but they're certainly stress-related.
	And so that's just something to remember.
	And
	Since I have earliest memories, I can remember a lot of times being anxious about a lot of things.
	Sorry, can you still hear the breathing or is it better?
	No, it's fine.
	Thank you.
	I appreciate it.
	It's perfect.
	Okay.
	So, I mean, are your parents... I mean, do they say, well, you know, gosh, it was a hugely stressful time and therefore, you know, we were stressed, you were stressed, it was an unhappy time for the family, you know, or do they basically say, well, you were just this mysteriously anxious and needy and whatever, baby?
	We did not talk about the...
	It's the second thing.
	When we talk about it, the war stuff is not mentioned a lot.
	So there was war in my country, but to be frank, the war was not directly in our country.
	We did not see any gunshots or something like that.
	There were alarms and we had to go to the
	To our attics or how do you say it's not attic then it's a basement it's under basement right basement but I know it had a lot of impact but it wasn't like we were living in the middle of a war zone and and to correct a bit about my brother it there was 13 months of difference between us so when he was born it still was peacetime but there was strong indications that war would
	We're good to go!
	Very quickly after me and I remembered something there was a they said that there was a financial decision but I also remember my mother saying that if she didn't go to work so quickly the position that she that she got would be would be taken by by someone else because she was she was quite young not not too young she was 23 or 24 years old and she just started working at some position so she didn't want to
	Yeah, it's a funny thing that women, I guess men sometimes too, but women will say, well, I'm easily replaced at work.
	So that's where I'm going to spend my time.
	And it's like, hey, you know where you can't be replaced?
	At home with your babies.
	So they leave a place where they are absolutely irreplaceable and go to where they're completely interchangeable with other people.
	It's just kind of an odd thing.
	Yeah.
	And realistically speaking, I got to say that there's no way, there's no way she would, she would lose the job.
	There's no way.
	I just, I just, I just can't believe it.
	She, she works in education and the job was in our hometown and there's no way she would, uh, she would get fired because she stayed home a little bit more with, with her kids.
	I just, I just, I just can't believe that.
	So, but I did not praise the, praise the issue more.
	I, um, I took it from Gret and like she said, and so I'm,
	I'm just repeating what she said to me.
	Yeah, of course, you can't remember, but do you get the sense that your mother enjoyed parenting or enjoyed being a mother?
	I think she enjoyed the parenting at the start.
	As she said it, when she was 22 or a little bit younger, 20 years old, she had an
	Undescribable, very intense need to have kids and I think she reached her goal when she had two kids and she was happy for a little bit and she still is happy for us.
	She loves us very much.
	I know that she sacrificed a lot for us, for me and my brother, but since I can remember there's been an aura of depression around my mother.
	She's always been
	I don't know.
	The daily aspect of parenting, interacting with her children, playing, teaching, learning, all of that sort of stuff.
	Showing them the world.
	I think she enjoyed it much more when we were little kids and when we did not have the ability to speak back.
	But she was gone when you were little kids!
	What do you mean she enjoyed it more when you were little kids?
	She was gone!
	Well, she was gone.
	She was gone most of the day, but I can't say she was gone
	I can't say she was gone all the time.
	Oh, no, I know she was back at night, but it's, you know, she's gone most of the day.
	And, you know, when you come back at six o'clock at night and your kids go to bed at eight and you've got to bathe them and you've got to feed them, there's really no time for play, right?
	Well, yes, yes, yes, you are right, yeah.
	I can't say anything under in defense about this.
	No, I'm not attacking her, I'm just trying to get the facts, right?
	Now, let me ask you this.
	You mentioned that your mother made a lot of sacrifices for you.
	Right.
	What does that mean?
	It means in terms of
	Of sacrificing... So I know it's not gonna sound too good.
	I just wanted to say... Okay, do me a favor.
	Listen, you're a very smart guy, and I appreciate that.
	Try not to think about the conversation.
	Like, what effect it has, and what the ramifications are, and what ripple effects and domino effects there are going to be.
	Right, right.
	Let's just ask an answer, because otherwise, well, I know this is gonna sound bad, or, well, I've got concern about this.
	Well, I, you know, just...
	I listened to you so much, so I'm already trying to anticipate your response and I know
	As soon as you ask me, it's not going to go too well.
	What I meant was she really tried to be a good mother.
	My mother and my father, they did everything they could to ensure my brother and me had a stable childhood and have a good education.
	At this moment I'm putting all the bad stuff at the side.
	Hang on, sorry, so you said they did everything possible to make sure that you and your brother had a stable childhood?
	Right.
	But your mother went back to work very shortly after you were born?
	I thought when I speak with you it's...
	I imagined that I would not fall for the same trap as all the other fallings before.
	Listen, brother, if it's any consolation, I still fall for these traps when I think and talk about my family, too.
	So don't feel bad.
	Everybody does this.
	It's just amazing.
	It's so unconscious.
	I did not really think about it.
	I just started to.
	And listen, since you're a guy who likes to think about the conversation, I'll tell you straight up front why I'm asking these questions.
	Because the central problem that you brought to me is you're not a parent yet.
	You want to be a parent, but you're not a dad yet, right?
	That's the major issue.
	I know that there's others which we can talk about, but that's the major one, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, I don't know if you've ever gone for a massage.
	I used to, I guess pre-COVID, go for massages occasionally if I had some sort of sports injury or whatever, right?
	But, you know, you go to a massage and what's the first thing the masseuse asks you?
	It says, well, where are you most tense, right?
	And you say, oh, it's this left shoulder blade or whatever, right?
	And that's what they work on, right?
	Doesn't mean that's the only thing they'll work on, but they want to work on that first.
	So, if you
	view, or if you've inherited the view of parenthood as sacrifice, that's something I need to challenge.
	Because sacrifice is something that I don't understand.
	I genuinely do not understand the concept of sacrifice.
	Which is, you know, if I were to ask my daughter, what have I, as a father, as a human being, as a man, what have I sacrificed to become a father?
	She'd say, well, I don't know.
	I mean, you seem to enjoy being a dad, so you seem to enjoy my company.
	I don't like to think of myself as some kind of big sacrifice.
	Or if I'm, you know, my 20th wedding anniversary was recently, and if I'd, you know, given a speech in front of friends and family and all that and said,
	Well, I nobly took a lot of sacrifices.
	I sacrificed a lot, a huge amount, in order to be the husband to my wife.
	Do you think she would take that as a positive or a negative?
	Well, she would definitely take it as a negative.
	When it comes to the sacrifice, I did not want to mean it as a pejorative.
	It's just like
	It's just a logistics issue.
	When you have kids, there's less time for every other aspect of your life, and by default you are sacrificing the other aspects of your life, even though it doesn't sound too nice.
	No, you're not!
	No, no, no, absolutely not.
	Okay, so what am I sacrificing by having this call with you?
	To be quite honest, I don't know what to say.
	Well, do you believe that I am sacrificing something in order to have this call with you?
	Maybe you are sacrificing quality time with your family to be talking to a guy that you don't really know.
	Well, look, for sure.
	I mean, it's sort of saying everything I choose to do is everything else I'm not choosing to do.
	There's no question, right?
	If I choose to have this conversation with you, that's my highest priority.
	So I'm not sacrificing anything in order to speak with you.
	That's my choice.
	Like if I go to the gym, or if I have a gym in the house, right?
	A little sort of machine thing, a couple of weights, right?
	So if I go to work out,
	I'm not doing a livestream, right?
	Now, am I... If I do a livestream, do I get to say to everyone, well, think of all of the great things I'm sacrificing just to spend time with you.
	Right, I agree with you completely and that's something that I have to internalize in my mind.
	I did not think about it from this perspective and I have to say you're quite right.
	And here's the thing too, it's true that I'm not spending quality time with my family when I'm talking to you, right?
	Of course, there's no question of that, right?
	However, if I didn't do any call-in shows and I didn't do any shows, I'm pretty sure that people wouldn't donate any money to me and then I'd have to get a job or whatever, right?
	Which would mean I'd spend even less time with my family.
	So this is a way to maximize the time I spend with my family by having these kinds of calls rather than
	Doing a job, because I mean, I've had a job in the outside world, man.
	It's a lot, a lot of hours a week.
	Now I do work pretty hard on this show, but I have a lot of flexibility.
	I could work out of the home and these kinds of things.
	Right?
	So it's not, I'm not sacrificing quality time with my family by having this conversation with you.
	That helps.
	This conversation helps serve quality time with my family.
	There's not a contradiction.
	Does that make sense?
	It's like saying, well, I'm really sacrificing
	quality time doing my show if I go to the dentist, right?
	But I'm not sacrificing anything by going to the dentist.
	I go to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned, to whatever, right?
	To get whatever's put on and so on, right?
	And to get my mouth checked for any weird things.
	So it's not a sacrifice for me to go to the dentist.
	It's like, well, can I do a show and go to the dentist at the same time?
	Well, no!
	Of course not!
	But it's not a sacrifice!
	I mean, I sacrifice quality time with my family when I work out.
	Now, sometimes, you know, we'll play a game of Catan online while I'm working out, and we still sort of chat and all of that, although my chatting is rather gaspy.
	But, no, I don't sacrifice quality time with my family by working out, because part of the goal of working out is I get to live a lot longer, which is going to be quality time with my grandchildren, hopefully, right?
	It's not a sacrifice for me to work out, or go to the dentist, or go and get a check-up at the doctor's.
	Every night I stretch before I go to bed, because I have really tight hamstrings, so I need to stretch them out so I don't get jimmy legs.
	Now, the ten minutes or whatever that I spend stretching before I go to bed, that's not sacrificing sleep.
	I'm gaining sleep by doing that.
	So, I have a tough time
	With the word sacri- I'm just straight up, like, I could be wrong, I just, I have a tough time with the word sacrifice.
	Because sacrifice almost always seems to be used as a guilt mechanism for getting resources from other people.
	A guilt mechanism.
	I sacrificed so much for you, therefore you owe me a lot.
	You owe me.
	And, you know, I mean, if I say to my wife, oh, I'd like a back rub, and she says, oh, I'm kind of tired, and I say, hey, man, think of all the sacrifices I've made to be married to you, all of the yachts with supermodels I didn't get on.
	All of the entire lineups of cheerleaders that I didn't take out to Hooters or whatever, right?
	So you owe me a back rub.
	I mean, that would be a horrible, horrible thing, wouldn't it?
	I mean, help me understand this concept of sacrifice.
	Like, you choose to have kids, you choose to keep the kids in your house.
	That doesn't create any obligation on the part of the children.
	I mean, my daughter's not obligated.
	She can leave home at 18.
	She never has to call me again.
	She doesn't owe me any money.
	She doesn't owe me any time.
	Because it was my absolute pleasure to be her father and to raise her, I sacrificed nothing.
	In fact, if you could rewind and say, hey, Steph, here's all these great things that you could have done if you weren't a parent.
	All these extra books you could have written, more speeches, more shows, more interviews.
	You could have gone to more trips with your wife and so on.
	I would be like, well, I don't want that stuff.
	I mean, of course I don't want to, that's why I chose to have a child.
	I'd rather have a child than all of that stuff.
	And if you'd rather have something than the alternative, how is it a sacrifice?
	I'd rather have healthy teeth and sacrifice an hour at the dentist.
	Well, it's not a sacrifice then, because I want the healthy teeth and that's how you get them, you know, you take care of them.
	I mean, am I sacrificing time by brushing my teeth every night and flossing as I do every day?
	No, I'm not sacrificing anything.
	Oh, but it costs time!
	It's like, no, no, no, it saves me time, because then I don't get toothaches and surgery and all this kinds of gross stuff, right?
	I mean, I've got friends who...
	Didn't brush their teeth very well, they didn't floss, and they had to have gum removed from the top of their mouth and put on their low gum line, which was very painful for them and expensive and time-consuming.
	And it's like, so you didn't save any time or money by not flossing and brushing well and going to the dentist and getting your checkups.
	It cost you time and money.
	So, I'm sorry for the long speech, but help me understand what you mean when you say your parents sacrificed for you.
	That's OK.
	I agree with you completely, as usual.
	And thank you for pointing it out, for calling me out, because I think it's a really important point to spend some time with.
	But honestly, I don't know what other words I would use in that situation.
	No, no, let's look at what situation.
	What is the situation
	And it is a real situation, and I'm not trying to, you know, corner you and shake you by the neck, but what situation are you talking about?
	Are you talking about the fact that your parents spend time with children?
	Are you talking about the fact that parents have to spend money?
	On children?
	Help me understand, what situation do you mean?
	I was talking about in general.
	Also spending time with children, spending money on children, doing everything they can that the children have happy lives.
	I was just, I was talking in general.
	Sacrifice was the word I used, but I agree it was not the best in that context.
	No, no, so let's talk about those, right?
	So spending time with your children, to me that's a great pleasure.
	As it should be.
	So, it's not a sacrifice.
	Now, spending money on my children, or my child, spending money on my child, help me understand how that's a sacrifice.
	It's sort of like saying, well, if I have a dog, I have to give that dog food, right?
	And is that a sacrifice?
	I don't, again, I'm trying to sort of understand what you mean.
	I mean, if I didn't have a child, would I have more money?
	Well, certainly that's debatable, right?
	I think one of the things that people appreciate about me being a parent is I have all these theories about parenthood, which I've applied in my life, and I think people can recognize that my daughter and I get along very well, and enjoy each other's company, and we make jokes together, and we enjoy, you know, it's a lot of fun.
	So, arguably for me, it's like, okay, well if I spend, if I give up income opportunities in order to raise a happy child, then for me, at least, it's been
	You could argue that it's been financially beneficial, right?
	Like, I've spent money on my daughter, but I think people have appreciated the fact that I've put the peaceful parenting theory into practice, and they can see the results, so maybe that's financially... I've never really thought of this before, but, you know, maybe that's sort of financially beneficial.
	But the other thing, too, of course, is that spending money on your children is
	Legally necessary.
	I mean, you can't starve your children, so all of that.
	So I don't view that as a sacrifice.
	And, you know, arguably if you... It's not a permanent obligation or something they have to do, but if your kids, you know, if you love your kids and you enjoy their company and so on, then when you get old, like seriously old, like 70s, late 70s, 80s or whatever, well, your friends, a lot of your friends have died off.
	Your parents, obviously, are long gone.
	Your siblings may be dead.
	They also may be incapacitated.
	Maybe they've got some sort of brain issue, like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
	It could be any number of things, right?
	You are also investing in quality company for when you get old.
	Also, your spouse is going to die most likely before you, especially if you're a woman.
	The men die earlier.
	So you can say, well, you know, I've spent money on my child.
	And again, assuming it's not just because of the spending money, but assuming that you have a good relationship with your child, your child loves you into adulthood and all of that, and wants to spend time with you and enjoys your company, then you also get a great old age, right?
	I mean, as great as it can be, right?
	You've got grandchildren, you've got people to come to your birthday party, you know, you've got a community.
	And as we know, a community is a foundational driver of human happiness.
	And people without communities are miserable.
	And the idea that you'd spend the last ten years of your life or whatever
	Alone and isolated and with your brain decaying, because in order to maintain mental fitness, a community is very important.
	Conversation is very important.
	So let's say you spend a quarter million dollars on your child.
	And in return, you get a rich community for the last 10 years of your life.
	Well, that's $25,000 a year, which is probably much less than you're getting in your pension and so on.
	And also, you can't pay other people to be your family.
	I mean, you could pay to have people come over and talk to you.
	You can pay to have nurses.
	You can pay to have caregivers.
	But they're not family.
	They don't love you.
	And so, let's say you spend a quarter million dollars on your child.
	Okay, well, but for the last ten years of your life, all of that comes back, and wouldn't you spend... If you could invest a quarter million dollars and be insured of happiness for the last ten years of your life, rather than grinding misery, I think we would all do that, wouldn't we?
	So, again, I mean, even if you say, spending money on... And again,
	Maybe your child gets hit by a bus, and there's no guarantee.
	But there's no guarantee in anything, right?
	I mean, if you have a retirement plan, and you put a bunch of money aside for your retirement, and then you get hit by a bus, or some horrible illness takes you off, or you crash in a plane or whatever, then... So, there's no guarantee.
	But, you know, we do kind of work the odds, and I think it's fair to say that investing in your children, not just the money, of course, but having a great relationship with them and all of that, gives you a pretty wonderful
	Old age compared to the alternative.
	So even if we look at children cost money and it's like well, yes, but being alone
	When you're old, it's really horrible for people.
	And, you know, loneliness kills, and loneliness is miserable.
	And, you know, the old age homes are full of people.
	They're full of people who nobody comes to visit.
	And so, again, I'm trying to sort of figure out the sacrifice aspect.
	Sorry for all of these long lectures, but it's a big question.
	And if you view parenthood as sacrifice, you're going to avoid it.
	Guaranteed.
	If it's a net negative, if it's like you have to give up stuff to be a parent, you're going to avoid it.
	So if you say, well, why am I not a parent?
	Because your parents or someone has defined parenthood as sacrifice.
	Now, who wants to voluntarily sacrifice themselves?
	I don't.
	Do you?
	I mean, so this is why I'm spending a lot of time on this, is that
	If parenthood is sacrifice, you will avoid it.
	Things that I said were sacrifices, but after listening to you, I gotta say that I think I changed my mind completely as far as this goes, and I no longer think that it was sacrifice.
	And I also gotta say that the point about avoiding parenthood because you think about it as sacrifice does ring true for me because in the last few years, I thought about parenthood a lot, how I want to be a father, but I did in my mind
	It's
	The sacrifice word was always in the back of my mind, and I wanted to be as prepared as possible, so when I do start being a parent, I don't have to sacrifice so much.
	I don't know if I'm expressing myself correctly or if it makes sense.
	No, it makes perfect sense.
	Yeah, if you have a time where you know you're going to stop working, then you need to make as much money beforehand.
	Because you're adding something, and now you've got something that's going to be taking away, which is your living expenses when you're old, and you can't add anything more to your income because you're stopping working, right?
	So, if you view, well, you know, parenthood is going to start taking stuff away from me, then, well, you have to get everything done before.
	Like, every important thing that you want to do, you have to get done before, because then parenthood is going to take that away, right?
	Yes.
	And because I don't want to send my children to kindergarten, I want my wife to stay at home at least for some years when my child is born.
	I want to have saved as much money as possible.
	And I always think in my mind, it's not enough.
	I need more.
	I'm going to need more.
	And I need some additional time to prepare.
	So the whole thing about parenthood just
	Keeps getting delayed, even though I think about it a lot, I want to do it, and it just keeps getting delayed.
	Right.
	So I will tell you two things, and hopefully they'll make sense and hopefully they're correct.
	One I know is correct, and the other is not.
	The first thing I'll say is that children
	Do not cost money.
	This is a big misconception.
	Children do not cost money.
	Children make money.
	And there's something fundamental that kicks into a man when he becomes a parent, when he becomes a father.
	And what fundamentally kicks in for man is, I really need to be a resource provider, I can't afford to waste time, I really need to be focused, I really need to be energetic, and I really need to be productive at work.
	Now that doesn't mean working more hours, but your ambition kicks into overdrive.
	Which is one of the reasons why society doesn't want men to become fathers, because they don't want to hit that overdrive.
	So a man's income has two significant increases, which is number one when he gets married, and number two when he becomes a father.
	There's something that happens to your brain where you just become much more dedicated to producing value.
	And you know, like you think of a lion, right?
	Like a lion
	When he's just a single male lion, he can hunt, I don't know, once every week or two or whatever, right?
	But then when he's got a family, he has to go hunting more, right?
	So if the lion says, well, you know, I only bring down one zebra every two weeks.
	Now, I don't know how often lions eat, but you know, something like this, right?
	I only bring down one zebra every two weeks.
	I can't possibly
	I can't possibly have a family because there's no way I can feed me, a lioness, and three cubs on one zebra every two weeks.
	Right.
	A similar situation I think would be from my perspective and in my life is when I started living in my apartment alone.
	I mean, I did not buy an apartment, I rented an apartment.
	So I lived with my parents a few years after college when I found a job.
	It was close to my hometown and I
	When I went to college, I did not live in my hometown.
	It was in another city.
	I finished college.
	I went back home and I stayed for a couple of years with my parents after college.
	And as soon as I went away and went to a new apartment, I started to work much to
	How do you say, be a lot more proactive at work and try to find ways to earn more money and I do agree that if I become a father that probably the promotions that I already got at work would be much quicker when I have additional motivation as a father.
	Oh yeah, your level of assertiveness, if not downright aggression, goes up, your testosterone levels, at least I think, they sort of, something happens that you become, like, because people say, well I'm saving money by living at home, and I'm like, no you're not.
	Because every dollar you save is just one dollar less of ambition that you have.
	You're not saving any money by living at home, it's costing you money.
	Yes, I have to say I stayed for two years at home after college and I saved a lot but it was not worth it.
	It was not worth it at all because it drained my motivation.
	It was much harder to date and everything was much harder.
	The only thing I got out of it is a little bit more
	Money in the bank, but it was not worth it at all.
	Well, no, no, you didn't get more money in the bank because if you had not been living at home, you would have worked harder.
	And that doesn't mean more hours.
	It just means working smarter.
	You would have been more ambitious.
	You would have been more assertive.
	And I, I guarantee you, I can't prove it of course, because it's an alternate reality hypothesis, but based upon a considerable amount of experience in life and in business and so on,
	I guarantee you that you would have ended up with more money, not just in the short run, but in the long run.
	Because if you think about the arc of productivity that you have in your life, it matters very much at the beginning.
	And you can make up for it later, but it matters very much at the beginning.
	And so, if you had had those two years where you had been living away from home,
	You would have been two years further along in terms of productivity, in terms of your career, in terms of contacts you were making.
	Necessity is the mother of invention, and necessity is the mother of productivity.
	People generally work as hard as they need to.
	And so if your parents are subsidizing you $1,000 a month, that just means you work $1,000 a month less, in whatever way.
	And it could be in the short run, but in particular in the long run.
	Like the people who
	go out and really hustle and bust their nuts for those two years, they're way ahead of the people even five years later.
	Because you've trained yourself into not working that hard, you've trained yourself into not being that ambitious, you've trained yourself into not being that assertive.
	I mean, I know this in my own life, that my career only really began when, for the first time in my life, I absolutely ran out of money.
	I'd always been able to borrow a little or float a little or some check was coming in or something.
	And my career in the software industry, it began when I ran out of money.
	And necessity is fantastic.
	So the lion, who says, well, I only eat one zebra every two weeks, there's just no way I can have a family, is fundamentally mistaken.
	Because when he has a family, he will eat better, because he will kill, he won't be so lazy.
	I mean, not lazy, but you know, he will go out and hunt every week instead of every two weeks.
	And he'll get better at hunting.
	And so because he gets, because he's doing twice or three times the practice, right?
	So because he gets better at hunting, he ends up with better food, better nutrition.
	He also exercises more because he's stalking and chasing.
	So he becomes a better, stronger, faster hunter.
	Now he has to expend far fewer calories.
	We're good to go!
	And so he can't judge, because he's like, oh man, it's so much work.
	You know, half the time I miss the zebra and, you know, I almost got clipped in the head by the zebra hoof.
	Like, I can't possibly do that, what I do once every two weeks.
	I can't possibly do that twice a week.
	It's way too dangerous.
	It's like, no, no, no.
	But if you go from doing something once every two weeks to twice a week, you get better four times faster.
	And so, he can't judge his hunting before he becomes a father, because after he becomes a father, his hunting is like four times better.
	Agreed.
	And also, when we are at the point of staying at home, it was also not good for me to again be witness to a not so great husband and wife relationship with
	Between my mom and my dad, and it also dug up painful childhood memories that I still have.
	So maybe that's also a point that we could talk about.
	Oh, we will get to that.
	And I know we completely bypassed the childhood stuff, and I don't want to forget that.
	But the last point I'll make as well is that living with mom and living with dad is a girl repellent.
	I mean, quality women don't want to date guys who are living at home.
	In general, I mean, you could imagine some exceptions and so on, but in general they don't want that.
	Because you have not shown your hunting ability if you're still living at home.
	They can't judge you by that.
	But they do know that you have this
	Mysterious delusion that living at home is saving you money.
	It's like, nope, it's costing you money, costing you ambition, costing you progress, and it's also costing you dating quality women.
	And so they look at you and say, wait, he's going to give up all of that for a measly thousand dollars a month that is actually less than he could make otherwise?
	Like, this is just not a smart thing.
	He's overly attached to his parents.
	He's doing what his parents want, which means in a conflict.
	Like, all women, all women, when they look at dating a man, they look at who's going to win in a fight between me and his mother.
	All women, without exception.
	All women, if they want to date you, then they're thinking of marriage, which, you know, most quality women are thinking of marriage and kids.
	They're looking at you and they're saying, okay,
	There's going to be a conflict between me and his mom.
	And maybe his dad too, but for women, it's generally the mom.
	So there's going to be a conflict.
	His mom and I will be wrestling over his loyalties, because he's got 25 years of loyalties to his mother.
	I'm coming in new, and I want his loyalties to switch to me and his children.
	So if I am going to go up against his mother-in-law, sorry, my mother-in-law, if I'm going to go up against his mother,
	Whose loyalties will he follow?
	Who will win in having his loyalty?
	Now, if you're living at home, what does your mom think about her chances of winning against your mother?
	Not quite a lot of chance.
	Well, she's going to lose.
	And no woman of quality is going to want to date a mama's boy.
	Look, I'm not calling you a mama's boy.
	What I am saying, though, is that if you want to get a quality woman, you need to have
	A relationship with your mother that is about serving your needs in the future.
	Now, a good quality mother will say to you, hey, if you like this girl, she's the one in charge of your heart and you're the one in charge of her heart.
	But she will not provoke a fight between you and between your girlfriend or your wife and you.
	She will defer because the loyalty has to switch from the parents
	To the spouse.
	And good parents facilitate that, and so then, when a quality person comes along... And look, if you've been a boyfriend, you know that there sometimes can be this weird tension between you and your girlfriend's father.
	I mean, for better or worse, right?
	So a quality parent will make sure to remind you that the purpose of, I mean, I'll always be your dad, I'll always be your mom, but the purpose of growing up is to absolutely ensure that the bond, I mean, the bond with us will always be there for sure, but your primary loyalty is with your spouse.
	Now, low quality people, the moms will say, oh yeah, you can marry him, but I'm still in charge.
	Oh yeah, you can marry him, but I still hold his loyalties.
	And don't worry, honey, if there's any conflict, I know exactly which buttons to push.
	I installed those buttons, I've been working them for 25 years, you're like some new keyboardist, you don't even know where these buttons are, and you certainly, you know, my hand will always be there first.
	So I will retain control over him, and you'll get the leftovers.
	And quality women just don't want leftovers.
	Sorry if that makes sense, but that's the first thing I wanted to mention.
	Yes it does and Stefan thank you because the decision to move was mostly from listening to your show and there were a few call-ins last year that were focused on that aspect and they really changed my mind because
	And nobody from my friend group or my parents, nobody said that it would be better to move away and live apart from my parents because still in my country, it's not like in the... I'm from Eastern Europe.
	It's not like in the West.
	It's pretty normal to stay at home until 35 or 40 or even have a family with your parents in the family home.
	So it was quite weird for me.
	When other people commented, it was quite weird for me to move away from home just 30 miles away and live alone in an apartment when I could stay at home, save money, be with my parents and my brother.
	So people still comment that it was quite weird for me to even move away.
	Well, and listen, I mean, I understand that, and I will say this.
	I want to be clear on this.
	I'm not saying that everyone has to move away from their parents.
	I'm not saying that at all.
	But if you want a marriage different from what your parents have, that's the key.
	It sounds like it will get into your childhood and your parents' marriage, but you want something very different.
	Now, if you want something very different,
	That's when you have to have those boundaries, so to speak.
	I can't remember the second thing, I'm sure it will come back to me, but let's get back to your childhood.
	I know we sort of left it like 20 minutes in the review, but if we can get back to your childhood and what it was like for you when you were little.
	Right, it's okay.
	So, we stopped talking about my childhood at the point when I went to kindergarten.
	So, me and my brother both went to kindergarten from ages 4 and 7, and as you can already probably guess, it was a nightmare, at least for me.
	I have very few
	Very good.
	Apart from the time when I had a crush on a girl and I remember us sitting together, kissing her on the cheek, hugging her.
	That was quite a fond memory for me.
	But apart from that, it was just a jungle where the most wild kids dominated and I was pretty sensitive.
	Sensitive kid that did not deal too well with that environment in kindergarten so I'm 100% sure that no child of mine is gonna go to kindergarten.
	That's something that I'm
	That's one of my core beliefs and I try to talk with people about kindergarten but not a lot of people share my opinions.
	The arguments are the classic ones of you need to socialize your kids.
	That's the argument that 95% of people use.
	No matter what I say, it just goes over their head.
	They're right in a way, but what they mean is they want to make your kids have to be socialists.
	You can turn them into socialists.
	That's generally what people mean by that.
	Unconsciously or whatever, right?
	Sorry, please go on.
	So after kindergarten, I started grade school.
	It was from ages seven onwards and grade school was extremely boring for me and with tedious homework that did not teach me anything and just wasted my time.
	I learned to read on my own when I was five years old and when I went to school at seven years old, it was just so trivial.
	I think so.
	Kids that knew a little bit more than the others.
	So the first few years from grade school, I barely remember.
	I just remember that it was very boring for me and not a whole lot of positive stuff.
	And the teacher was also a little bit sadistic to the kids.
	She just wanted to punish us with, not physically, but she kept giving us
	Homework like it was.
	How do you say it?
	Punishment homework, additional homework.
	If somebody was not listening to her in class, she would give us additional homework so I would.
	I would go to school and I will go home and still have to spend two three more hours doing homework.
	Even though I knew all that stuff, but I had to spend a lot of time for stuff that I. I knew.
	So most of the grade school was like that, just a giant waste of time.
	Well, less than a waste of time.
	It's actual torture.
	I mean, homework in particular is just mental torture.
	Right.
	And in school, I've always been a bit of a shy kid with new people and naturally introverted.
	So it took a bit to have real friends.
	But I got to say, once I get to know someone with whom I share some interest and values, I do tend to have long and quality friendships.
	But the first couple of years in grade school, it was not so easy for me.
	And also that was the time when I discovered the computer and video games, and I was hooked from the start.
	Even though I played outside a lot, I live in a village, I had lots of neighborhood kids, we played outside, we roamed outside, so that was all great, but whenever I was at home, my
	First instinct was to go to the computer and play video games.
	There isn't any other word to describe it other than safe space where I knew I would have fun and I would have total control.
	And also in early grade school I have to mention that I gained a bunch of weight.
	Before grade school I was very skinny and had trouble eating and was very picky with food and I don't know what happened at that time but as a kid in grade school I gained a bunch of weight that I lost afterwards.
	It's always been a struggle.
	I've never been fat per se but a lot of my life I was a good 10 to 15 pounds overweight and it took and it also still takes a lot of willpower and work to keep my weight in check.
	These days I work out, ride my bike a lot, walk a lot so I'm in better shape now than I was but it's a constant struggle.
	You also talk a lot about your appetite often and I can relate.
	I could eat enormous amounts of food without being too full
	Because I probably would be a whale in six months if I ate what I wanted.
	Yeah, I mean, eating too much is a sign of lack of faith in the future.
	I mean, part of my eating habits emerged from the fact that I was sometimes left without food, without food and without money.
	And I'd get really hungry and then a friend would, you know, I'd be over at a friend's place and the mom would say, hey, do you want to stay for dinner?
	I'm like, I do.
	And I would just eat like crazy because my next meal would not be a guarantee.
	And so, yeah, there's this habit of like, you know, you go to a buffet.
	I remember the first time I went to a buffet at a place called Ponderosa.
	And I was like, I literally can eat all I want.
	And when your meals are uncertain, you gorge, right?
	I mean, when your meals are regular and predictable, you don't gorge.
	And so the habit of overeating usually comes from food insecurity as a kid.
	And, you know, then if you get older, of course, you can afford your food.
	It's a problem.
	Yeah, and I do manage to keep my weight in check, but as far as my brother goes, he was a fat kid as long as I remember, and he still is.
	He still is.
	He never managed to lose all of the weight.
	I mean, he was even more fat than now, but still, it's a constant struggle for him.
	And I talked with my parents a lot about that, and most
	My mother always says that when my brother was hungry, she would feel bad if she didn't give him food.
	So every time he wanted food, he would get food.
	Oh, sorry, that was my second point that I forgot earlier, so I just want to touch on it briefly.
	Even if sacrifice was a thing, I honestly can't see how your parents sacrificed.
	Your mom wanted the job, she took the job.
	Your parents wanted more money, they took more money.
	And this is a case of that.
	Your mother didn't want to feel uncomfortable, she didn't want to feel bad, so she just appeased your brother by giving him food, which has destroyed his health and probably his life as a whole.
	Yes, I have to agree.
	The weight thing has been a giant issue in his life, as you can probably tell.
	As far as general health goes and dating-wise and self-confidence-wise, it's just a giant mess.
	Oh, it's a lot of upfront jolliness and secret misery.
	Yes.
	He's always been kind of a jolly fat guy when we're with friends, but behind the surface, he's pretty depressive.
	A little bit like my mother with her depressive episodes.
	Right.
	So, I mean, even if there was such a thing as sacrifice, you know, if your mother was like, well, you know, I could have been an opera singer, but I stayed home with you kids and I was a good mother and just said, okay, we could make some case for, you know, she gave up a big thing or whatever.
	Right.
	But I don't, I don't even see how your parents did sacrifice.
	So this sort of thing about sacrifice is generally claimed by the people who sacrifice the least.
	So I just sort of wanted to sort of point that out, but I don't even see where your parents have sacrificed.
	Yeah, that's, that's a good point.
	But anyway, I don't want to get distracted back to your parents, so yeah, let's go more with your childhood.
	Okay, so from age 10 onwards, I have a lot more memories.
	So a lot of the stuff that I talked about now, they were not directly my memories, so it was more like I heard it from others.
	I don't know why, but I miss a lot of those early memories.
	So from age 10 onwards, I have more of them, so maybe it would be a good time to start talking about our family life and how the relationships were.
	Sure, but I just wanted to mention that
	Unhappiness plus repetition tends to scrub memories, in my experience.
	Like, if you're unhappy and it's really repetitive, then your brain tends not to store stuff.
	Yes, yes.
	And when I was writing my notes about my childhood and my feelings, the major point was, I feel like I was much less happy as a kid than I was now.
	I started to be a lot more jolly, a lot more happy after puberty, and when I had
	I had more agency with my life.
	I feel like the time when I had no real agency with my life, it was much more unhappy than it was later.
	And now in my late 20s, I have to say, I feel better than ever.
	Except the parenting stuff, I want to be a father, but generally speaking, I'm very happy with my life and how I progressed.
	That's good to hear.
	Alright, so, move on?
	So, from age 10 onwards, there are a lot more memories and I can say that my mom is the typical overbearing mother.
	I know of the term devouring mother, but I'm not sure if it was that extreme and if it applies, but she definitely has always been very overbearing, very controlling.
	Which slapped her in the face when my brother and I hit puberty.
	I'm so sorry, but the adjectives don't hugely help me so What was the behavior that gave you this conclusion?
	I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion I just want to know what behavior it was that has you called her overbearing and so on Overbearing and she
	She wanted to control, always wanted to control every little aspect of our lives and if there was any time and any place that she didn't know exactly what was going on, what we were doing and how we were doing it, she always wanted to be the one who
	Who says exactly what we would do?
	I know it doesn't sound too precise, but overbearing is a term in English.
	It would be much easier for me to explain in my native language.
	So it was just a general adjective that I wanted to say.
	But my mother, maybe controlling is the better adjective than overbearing.
	But I feel that both of them fit very much.
	But if she's overbearing and controlling, then why did she go to work?
	I mean, if she wants to control...
	Her children and her children's lives, then why would she not raise them herself?
	I'm a little confused about that.
	Well, I feel like she still had total control because she always was the dominant one in our house.
	And even though when she was not at home, every major decision that ever happened in our house was my mother's decision, I have to say.
	Because my dad, on the other hand, is the
	Typical beta male supplicating to his wife and with not a lot of assertiveness and not a lot of authority and also in this dynamic you could always feel the resentment that my mom has for my dad and I think she always secretly hoped that he would
	Show his teeth sometimes to her, but that that never happened.
	And as a result, there was a there was a lot of verbal conflict between them, which usually ended up in him bowing down.
	And I have a lot of a lot of memories as early as I can remember of them yelling at each other, mostly my mother denigrating my dad.
	And no matter what he did, no matter what he said,
	It was never enough.
	He could do no good.
	Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit.
	Oh no, I don't doubt that.
	Sorry, can we just go back to the controlling thing for just a second?
	And this is probably just me gathering more information, but I don't understand.
	If your mother is overbearing and controlling,
	And your brother is overeating, wouldn't she say, no, of course you can't have any more food, you're fat, or, you know, this is not good for you, or you've eaten enough, or go run around, or, like, if she's overbearing and controlling, why would she appease
	Your brother's appetite.
	I'm trying to put these two things together and I'm just probably lacking some information but I can't figure it out.
	Yeah, I talked to her about that.
	She let it happen.
	She let him be fat and stay fat because she did not see that it was such a big problem and she said that she thought it was
	It was genetic that he was so fat, so she said that she wanted to work more with my brother on his self-confidence than keep the weight in check, and I think you can guess that that backfired a lot.
	I'm sorry, so she thought that your brother's overeating was genetic?
	Like he had a genetically huge appetite?
	Is that the idea?
	Yes, yes, and it's still the idea.
	I talk about this topic a lot with them, but it's still the idea that it's mostly genetic.
	It's mostly genetic.
	Right.
	Okay, so then, in what other areas did this genetic excuse manifest?
	I mean, so for instance, if you were genetically more anxious, did she never have any criticisms of you?
	Or if your father is genetically more submissive, did she never complain about that?
	Or like, where else did this genetic excuse for behavior show up?
	If you have this belief that what most people would consider a flaw, i.e.
	being greedy and overeating, if she has this belief that
	Negative behavior on the part of people can't be criticized and has to be appeased.
	Because genetics then, I mean, that's really foundational to a person's belief system, right?
	And so let's say that you weren't particularly good at math or something like that, then she wouldn't criticize you because that would be genetic.
	Help me understand how this view of negative behavior as a result of genetics, and therefore you can't criticize it, you have to appease or facilitate it, how did that show up elsewhere in her life?
	The genetic excuse was mostly used when it suited her.
	So, my brother is genetically fat, it was not my fault, and I'm genetically like that, I've got a temper, so I can't help but yell sometimes, and mostly in situations that suited her.
	But in other situations, when I used the genetic argument in my favor, or in my brother's favor, then it would
	The discussion would not go so well.
	So, for instance, you mentioned that tensions with your mother rose quite a bit when you became a teenager or when you hit puberty.
	So, puberty is a genetic phenomenon, right?
	And so, your increased size, your increased aggression, your increased impatience, your increased criticism of your parents, all of that is a factor of genetics.
	Like, no question about that, right?
	I mean, it's not like you get taller because you eat more, right?
	You get taller because of genetics.
	So when you became more aggressive as a teenager, I guess the genetic argument went out the window, right?
	Yeah, it went out of the window completely, I gotta be honest.
	Okay, so she doesn't have a genetic explanation for anything, she's just a rank hypocrite.
	Yes.
	Okay, I just wanted to check on that, because that's really repulsive.
	It's also really repulsive to use the genetic argument with regards to your brother, because then he is not going to attempt to restrain his appetite.
	I mean, I don't sit there every morning and say, gee, you know, I really want to have different color eyes.
	And I'm really going to work on that.
	I accept the color of my eyes because that's genetic, right?
	And so if you say to your child, well, you're overeating, you're weight gain, that's just genetics, then there's no point fighting it any more than there's trying to change your height by working out, right?
	So she's really crippled your brother, not just by giving him too much food, but by telling him that there's absolutely nothing he can do about it.
	Yeah, I completely agree.
	And my brother still lives at home with them, so this kind of dynamic persists, unfortunately.
	Okay, so why was she doing that?
	What was really going on?
	It's nothing to do with genetics or anything like that.
	Why was she stuffing him like the Hansel and Gretel witch?
	Uh, the only thing I can say about that, it was, uh, she said that, uh, he was hungry very often and she felt bad.
	So she kept feeding him.
	But, uh, after when he was older, when he could eat alone, he didn't need his mother to eat.
	He just kept eating, he was always fat, and she never seriously sat him down and said, this is unhealthy, we need to change something.
	That was never in the discussion when we were kids.
	Sorry, is she herself overweight?
	She was when she was a kid, and she lost the weight.
	Oh, so she lost the weight, so it wasn't genetic for her.
	So that's even worse, right?
	Yeah, agreed.
	Okay, so why did she stuff him full of food?
	That's a great question.
	I don't know where to start with this.
	It does not make any sense to me because she did nothing good with that.
	She only exacerbated the worst stuff that you could do to your child.
	It never did any good.
	So I fail to see what benefit it brought to him or to our family.
	That's a good question that, unfortunately, I don't know how to answer.
	Well, there's one possibility.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I'm saying if you have thoughts, please do tell to me, because I've been thinking about it a lot, but... Yeah, no, it's horribly abusive to overfeed children.
	The other thing, too, is that if you allow children to overeat, I mean, you know all of this stuff, right?
	But if you allow children to overeat, their stomach gets stretched out, and then it's harder for them to feel full.
	I mean, your stomach is about the size of a closed fist, so anything you put in there that's much bigger than that is going to stretch your stomach out, and then it's going to be hard for you to feel full.
	So the more you eat, the more hungry you get.
	It's these things.
	Yes, and you can confirm that basically when you go on a diet and when you're a couple of months
	With the diet and you stick with it, you can eat much less than you could eat before the diet.
	So the stomach does stretch.
	And probably when you're a kid, when you eat a lot for years, it's just something that's not really reversible completely.
	It's pretty hard, right?
	Yeah, because I guess then, like your skin, it just gets stretched out permanently.
	Yes.
	So the most likely possibility, in my view,
	Is that, and you know, you've listened to the show for a long time, so I don't need to go through this step by step.
	We can just put out the whole hypothesis and see if it makes any sense.
	The most likely explanation as to why a mother cripples the romantic possibilities of a child, in particular a son.
	The reason why mothers cripple a son is so that if she's afraid that the husband will leave her, she will always have a companion.
	Well, it does make sense.
	In this case, I think she was never afraid of my father leaving, but maybe it was a subconscious thing.
	Or she's going to leave her husband.
	If the marriage with the husband isn't going to work out, then she's afraid that she's going to be alone, so she might select one child to stay with her forever, and the best way to do that is to cripple his reproductive possibilities by keeping him unattractive.
	Yes, and I always believed that my mother and father stayed together because of the kids.
	I think if it weren't for us, there's no way that marriage would last a year.
	Oh, wait, so this is the real sacrifice thing?
	What do you mean?
	Well, if they stayed in an unhappy marriage for the sake of the children, isn't that the sacrifice thing that we were talking about earlier?
	Like the real sacrifice thing?
	Like I put up with decades of misery just so that you guys could have a better home?
	It could be, because from my perspective, it's definitely, definitely an unhappy marriage.
	But mostly from my mother's side.
	When I talk with my father,
	He never said, not once in my life has my father said one bad thing about my mother behind her back.
	But when I talk with my mother, she denigrates my dad constantly.
	It has never been a problem for her to say that.
	He's this and that.
	He did something bad.
	I don't know anything that you could think of.
	My dad never said anything bad like that about my mom.
	Sorry, I'm a little confused.
	So as an adult, you're in your mid-20s, right?
	Late 20s.
	Late 20s.
	Sorry, late 20s.
	I'm sorry to be so crude, and I'm not saying you would put it this way, but if your mother is denigrating your father, I mean, have you told her to shut the hell up?
	Yes, a lot of the time.
	Stefano, I had so many talks with her.
	The arguments that I'm laying to you now, I said everything to her like that.
	And it just never went to her head completely.
	Okay, so sorry, sorry.
	So you think that the purpose of having standards, like don't denigrate my father, which is a perfectly reasonable standard, right?
	Don't denigrate my father.
	And of course, that doesn't mean never have any complaints about anything, but you know, don't denigrate.
	My father, because by denigrating my father, I'm half my father genetically, right?
	So don't denigrate my father.
	So for you, okay, so let me try and understand this.
	So for you, the purpose of standards is to lecture people and cross your fingers?
	Honestly, I don't know how I could change what she does.
	No, no, that's not the point!
	That's not the point of having standards.
	The point of having standards isn't to tell people these are my standards or I don't want you to do this and then just hope that they obey or hope they agree.
	That's not having standards.
	That's making noise, but that's not having standards.
	Okay, but this is probably at the core of why you'd be frightened to get married, right?
	Okay, so, let's get to having standards.
	This could be very quick.
	This is very quick.
	All right.
	Having standards is this.
	I require X. If you don't provide X, we don't have a relationship.
	That's what it means to have standards.
	Because you're right, you can't control the other person.
	You can't make your mother do anything.
	You can't make your mother change.
	You can't make your mother agree with you.
	You can't make your mother stop insulting your father.
	Of course you can't do any of that, right?
	I mean, I assume you've had some experience in the business world or in buying and selling things as a whole, right?
	If you have something to sell, and the minimum price you can accept is $100,
	And you lecture someone about how valuable the thing is and how it totally is worth $100 and they then say, I don't want it, I don't need it, I can't afford it, I'm never going to buy it.
	Do you just keep telling them that it's really worth $100 if they don't want it or can't afford it?
	No.
	What do you do?
	You say, hey, well, you know, I appreciate that.
	I'm sorry that you can't afford it or you don't see the value.
	I mean, that's fine.
	So you move on to someone else, right?
	Right.
	So maybe you missed that show where having standards is saying, for instance, I really feel uncomfortable, I really don't like it, and it's pretty horrible for me when you denigrate Dad.
	So I want you to not do that, right?
	Now, that's having a standard.
	It's not an unreasonable standard.
	In fact, it's a very reasonable standard.
	Don't insult my father.
	To me, his son.
	That is a completely reasonable standard, right?
	Now then, she'll just assume, because you've trained her, that you just make a bunch of noise, and then she does whatever the hell she wants, right?
	Right, and that's mostly what happens.
	And as I said, I had a lot of talk with her, and mostly it was just making noise, but I never said those words, that if she doesn't stop, I will not.
	Okay, so let's say that you say,
	I don't like it when you've done a great dad, I don't want you to do it with me.
	I don't want you to do it at all, but not with me, right?
	So, what is a standard without a consequence?
	It's nothing.
	It means nothing.
	Well, it's worse than nothing, because it's quicksand.
	Because you think you're achieving something, but you're not.
	You think you have standards, but you don't.
	And you are wasting time.
	You're discrediting yourself.
	You're discrediting your own belief in your own standards.
	And listen, I was older than you before I began having actual standards with consequences.
	So this is nothing insulting.
	You're way ahead of where I was at your age.
	So I just really want to be clear on that.
	But standards without consequences is nonsense.
	Like I remember back in the day when I was doing well in business, I'd say, you're the team leader.
	And I'd say, oh, does that come with more money?
	Well, not yet, but you could get promoted over time.
	It's like, OK, does that come with more responsibility?
	Oh, yes.
	Well, you have to make sure the project completes its team.
	You have to make sure the team completes its project.
	And then you say, OK, well, can I fire people who aren't performing?
	No.
	It's like, OK, well, then I'm not in charge.
	If I don't get more money, but I get more responsibility, but I can't fire anyone or hire anyone, I don't have control of any budget, then I don't want to be team lead.
	Because it's like a fake promotion that's just more responsibility without any control, right?
	So, I mean, if you're in a job where you can't get fired, and you're always going to get promoted, do you care what your boss says?
	He can't threaten to fire you.
	There's no consequences, right?
	So, if you say, look, I don't want you to insult Dad, and I'll give you a week or two to get used to it.
	But if you insult Dad, again, I'm getting up and I'm walking out.
	If you insult Dad, I'm hanging up the phone.
	See, if you don't have any consequences, you don't have any standards.
	And again, I say this with all deep humility that I was older than you before I began actually having standards.
	It's just a bunch of noise.
	It's begging, it's pleading.
	And people who don't have themselves any particular standards,
	What they'll do is they'll say, OK, are there going to be any actual consequences for this guy having standards?
	No?
	OK, well, then I can just nod and I don't have to change anything.
	Because they don't have any internal standards.
	So the only thing they can guide themselves by is consequences.
	So with your mother, and this would be true of, you know, I think people in your life as a whole, you say, OK, here are my standards.
	And if you don't meet those standards, I'll remind you of them and it gives you some time to adjust, but not forever, not too long.
	You know, like with my mother, it's like, you know, I have a standard called, I want to get a word in edgewise.
	I don't want you to just verbal diarrhea dump on me all of your stupid stuff that's going on in the world in your mind and all of that.
	I want to actually have
	some input.
	I want to actually bring some topics to the relationship as well.
	I don't want it to be just me being your emotional dump receptacle or whatever.
	I didn't put it in that way, but I said, I said to her, I said, listen, I feel like every time we get together, we talk a lot about what's going on for you legally and, and, you know, what's going on with, with your health.
	And, and I'm, you know, I'm interested in that stuff, but I just feel like it's become, these are the only things we talk about.
	I'd just like it if we could talk about some other things, maybe some stuff that's going on for me and all of that, right?
	Now, honestly, I'm not kidding.
	I know everyone says, well, I was just perfect in this interaction.
	That is exactly my tone, and that's almost exactly word-to-word what I said.
	So I had a standard, which is I really don't want to be exploited in this relationship anymore.
	I actually wanted to be a relationship rather than be just sitting there while you pour out all of your thoughts, fears, hopes, aspirations, dreams, and insane thoughts, right?
	I just, I needed to be a relationship.
	And my mother, um, I mean, this, this is like escalated to the point where she's screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing, she's throwing couch cushions across the room.
	Like it's just really got nuts.
	Right.
	And I was like, okay, so I don't want to talk to you.
	I had a preference.
	It's a very reasonable preference.
	And you responded with hysterical levels of verbal abuse and aggression.
	And so that was the last time that I saw my mother.
	And again, it would be a lot, but let's say that she, you know, next day woke up and she's like, Oh my gosh, did I ever behave very badly yesterday?
	I really need to apologize.
	Blah, blah, blah.
	There was no apology.
	My father had a preference to pretend everything was great, and I said, no, you left me with a very violent woman, things weren't great, and he didn't want to hear any of that.
	It's like, OK, well, I'm not going to lecture him that he has to listen to me at all.
	I'm not going to lecture him on that.
	But I'm not going to be in a relationship where somebody denies the suffering they inflicted on me.
	Of course not, right?
	I mean, would you go back to a dentist who accidentally pulled out a tooth and put you in agony and then wanted to charge you for a tooth replacement?
	Of course not, right?
	And denied that he actually denied that the tooth was even missing?
	I mean, that would be an insane person, right?
	So, with regards to your mother, and if you feel that having standards is just begging people without consequences, then having standards makes you a weak person.
	Because standards without enforcement is paralysis.
	It's weakness.
	It's helplessness.
	And this is replaying when you were a kid.
	You wanted your parents to do things differently.
	But when you were a kid, you didn't have the choice to not spend time with your parents.
	You didn't have the choice to not live under their roof.
	You didn't have the choice to not interact with them.
	As an adult, you do.
	And therefore, you can have standards with your parents as an adult that you never could have as a kid.
	But if standards is begging, and begging is ignored, then virtue is weakness.
	And blindness is strength.
	And I agree, and it's very interesting because I do have much better standards as far as my friends go and my previous relationships go.
	People used to say that I'm unflexible, I'm too harsh, because I do not allow people to be my friends if they do not
	I think so.
	Rarely did I enforce the standards that I should have enforced.
	It was mostly talking, maybe there were... Sorry, rarely, rarely, hang on, hang on, which I'm happy to hear the case to the exception, but can you think of an example where you did enforce the consequences?
	Yeah, there were a couple of cases.
	One was last year when I also had a talk with my mother about denigrating my dad, their relationship and
	I just said I will not speak to you anymore until this stuff is fixed, and that lasted for one week, and I'm sad to say that I relented after numerous calls and apologies and saying that things will be different.
	Oh, so your mother called and apologized, and then she just went back to putting your dad down?
	Yes.
	Not instantly, but gradually.
	Okay.
	Right.
	And again, look, it's very tough to have objective boundaries with parents who aren't sensitive, who aren't thoughtful, who aren't good in that way, right?
	So it's very, very tough because they'll just keep... all they do is manipulate.
	Oh, he's complaining.
	Okay, I'll change my behavior and then I'll just change it back.
	And then he won't do it twice, right?
	It's very hard and I do not see any other solution as
	Like the one you said.
	I'm sorry, what do you mean?
	I mean, you've been listening for a long time, right?
	And, you know, it's a very, very pleasant and positive and nice email that I got from you, and I appreciate that, of course, the very kind words.
	But you can't claim to not know what the option is if people aren't respecting reasonable requests in a relationship.
	You know exactly what the consequences are.
	Yes, I said I know only of one option that would be acceptable in this situation, but so far I have not done it.
	Oh, you mean like not seeing your parents, is that right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, yeah.
	I mean, so yeah, I'm sorry if I misheard that.
	I apologize, but I just wanted to point out.
	Maybe I misspoke.
	No, no, I'm sure I got it wrong.
	Okay, so do you still see your father as a victim in all of this?
	No, no, I do not.
	So I did not speak about the relationship with my father so far.
	So our relationship has always been very, very surface level, which was fine when we were little kids because there weren't any serious topics to discuss.
	But as I got older, his role in my life just faded away.
	He was always there at home and physically present.
	He always knew what was going on, but he wasn't neglecting me.
	We're good to go!
	I think so.
	We're good to go.
	Stuff that I I think is important.
	It's it's very interesting and I want to share that with my parents, but the most my father can ask me is how is it at work and then wait for me to say something.
	And as soon as I start talking about something that has a bit more substance and requires you to be engaged in the conversation, he he practically checks out.
	I I can feel it in his blank stare and and nodding so I.
	It's just the fact that our relationship is very surface level.
	It's always something that's been bothering me very much and I could never rationalize it to me how
	How he could be like that.
	And if I told him what I'm telling you now, it would probably crush him because he tells me a lot that he's very proud of me, that he loves me, that he wants the best for me.
	But as far as our relationship between me and my father, it's always been very, very, very shallow.
	Right.
	I'm very sorry to hear that.
	And to me, this does fall into the category of neglect.
	You know, if you say that you love someone, then you should have some idea of what they want, prefer, and need in a relationship.
	You know, like, if I say to my daughter, oh, you know, I love you, it's great spending time together, and she says, you know, I really love going to the park, and I say, I will never go to the park with you.
	Yeah, and I did confront him a number of times about this topic, but with a much nicer approach than what I'm saying now.
	And it backfired completely, and it always ends with him bouting and refusing to discuss, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
	Not accepting any kind of responsibility about it.
	He's a notorious pouter.
	Don't know how other I could express it.
	I just wanted to say, when we talk about something that it's not to his liking, he will get
	Not angry, he will get pouty and just refuse to engage.
	Refuse to engage and oftentimes just leave the conversation.
	When we're in a room and he doesn't like what we're talking about, he will just, he will go outside.
	He will go outside and do something that's just, he will do something practical that sounds like mowing the lawn and anything else other than talking about a very important topic.
	with me or anyone else.
	So he doesn't even sacrifice.
	You talk about your parents' sacrifice.
	He won't even sacrifice immediate comfort to do something good for his son.
	When I think about it, yeah, you could say that.
	I'm still looking for all of this heroic, noble sacrifice stuff that we were discussing earlier.
	I mean, if your son wants to talk about something and it's uncomfortable for you, well, clearly you'd listen to your son, right?
	That's what a friend, a father, anyone.
	I mean, you can't just sit there and say, well, what you want to talk about is uncomfortable for me, so to hell with you, I'm going outside.
	I'm going to punish you with distance and train you out of being honest with me.
	Like, that's just wretched, right?
	So again, I'm still trying to find all of this.
	And it's sort of from this appeasement, right?
	Like this appeasement of his own preferences.
	Like your mom, right?
	She wants to not have any discomfort coming out of your brother so she just stuffs his face with goulash or whatever, right?
	So, yeah, I'm still trying to find all of this sacrifice that was mentioned earlier.
	Now that I think about it, I'm also trying to find it.
	I honestly don't know why I said it in the beginning.
	Well, no, I know why you said it.
	You said it because your parents have convinced you of this so that they appear to have value where they haven't provided value.
	If I'm not providing any value to someone, but I can convince them that I made some ill-defined sacrifice for them, then they're gonna feel guilty and obligated.
	It's a way of creating obligation without providing value.
	Yes, and I do feel obligated to my parents.
	I always did.
	Sure, well, no.
	You've been programmed with obligation, because they've talked about all their sacrifices.
	And you owe us, you know?
	Like, hey, you don't have to give me a thousand dollars, but if I lent you a thousand dollars,
	You should give it back, right?
	You owe me $1,000 if I already gave you value.
	So if they gave you this big, blobby, foggy thing called sacrifice, then you owe them forever!
	And it's just a cheap way of getting resources from people without actually having to provide value ahead of time.
	Right, and now that I live alone, I still go to my parents' house once per week for lunch.
	And honestly, if I missed one week, I would feel guilty.
	I would feel very guilty.
	Even though, rationally speaking, I know I should not feel guilty, I still would feel guilty because they're very good at
	It's making me feel guilty.
	Why?
	Well, no, no.
	No, come on, dude.
	I mean, that's giving your emotional apparatus over to your parents and not taking any responsibility.
	Which, you know, I can get if you're 15, 17, 20 maybe, but not pushing 30.
	So, no, this is up to you.
	I mean, it's up to you.
	Of course people will try to manipulate you in life, and the best way to be manipulated is to give resources in return.
	So if they guilt you and then you go over every week, of course they're going to guilt you, because it works.
	They don't have any particular moral standards.
	It sounds like, well, we shouldn't manipulate our children because we have so much power over them.
	They don't have that, I don't think.
	But if they push your buttons and you give resources, they'll just keep pushing those buttons.
	You've trained them.
	And again, they trained you first, but you're training them now as an adult.
	Uh, if they push these buttons, they get resources.
	So yeah, I mean, they'll just push buttons.
	Like most people are just resource acquirers and whatever buttons they have to push to get resources, they'll just push those buttons.
	You're right.
	I thought I was good about detecting the family dynamics, but when it comes to myself, I miss a lot of stuff.
	This is why we need conversation.
	Everybody sucks at doing it for themselves.
	I suck at it with my family, you suck at it with your family, and as you say, everybody who's called in, seeing things that everybody from the sidelines is like, well, this is blindingly obvious, but you can't see it from the inside.
	That's why we need conversation.
	Let's go back to what you said about your father when you tried to talk to him about what you need or what you want or what you prefer.
	You said something very interesting.
	It's all interesting, but this one in particular I noticed.
	You said that it totally backfired because he would just get up or leave the room or refuse to talk about it or something like that, right?
	Yeah, I did say that.
	Tell me what you mean by backfired in this context.
	I thought that the result of the talk could be positive, but it
	It never is.
	That's what I meant by backfired.
	My intentions were to take our relationship to the next level, to maybe evolve, but at the end it just goes back to the beginning and even worse.
	That's what I meant by backfired.
	My intentions never got through like I wanted them to, if that makes sense.
	No, I get that, and I sort of understand the meaning, but backfired is to say that the success of the conversation is only defined by your father listening to you, agreeing with you, and changing in a permanent way.
	That that's the only possibility of success in the conversation.
	That that's what it means for it to not backfire.
	He listens to you, he agrees with you, he accepts what you're saying, and he changes in some permanent way going forward.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, and that's what I thought about it, yeah.
	I can see your point.
	I can see the direction that we're taking this, but I thought and I still think that, honestly.
	I still think that when I start a conversation with a particular goal in mind, and that goal is not even close to accomplishment, that the conversation backfired in a way.
	Right.
	Are you ready for a giant life tip?
	I am.
	All right.
	Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have a standard of success that is beyond your control.
	Never have a standard of success that is beyond your control.
	So if I have a friend and I want that friend to lose weight, is my standard of success whether he loses weight?
	No.
	Absolutely not.
	Because I don't have any control over what he puts in his mouth.
	I don't have any control!
	Over what he exercises, whether he exercises or not.
	I do not have ever in my life a standard of success, which I do not control.
	Because that is a sure route to paralysis and helplessness.
	So if I have a friend, I want him to lose weight.
	What is my standard of success?
	Is to honestly engage with my friend and from my side do everything I can to help him, maybe.
	Well, I don't know what everything I can means.
	I mean, I could move into the guy's house and hold a rubber band over his head and threaten to snap his ear if he eats.
	I mean, I don't know what everything I can... I don't know what that means.
	Right, so... No, have I reasonably put forward the case to my friend?
	You know, A, you're gaining weight, here's the science, it's unhealthy for you, it's going to be bad for your joints, it's going to be bad for your dating prospects, particularly as you age, it gets increasingly harder to lose the weight, and you have to buy a whole new wardrobe, but you can't pick up sports, you know, all of these things, right?
	Your old age, if you even make it, it's going to be miserable.
	So, the only degree of success I have in trying to get a friend to lose weight is making the case.
	Never ever have a standard of success that you cannot control.
	So you said it backfired and that's why I was confused.
	Because you made the case to your father.
	I need to write this down because this seems like a tip that often happened in my life and I did not realize it.
	Yes, and this is pretty advanced stuff, right?
	Like people wrote to me and said, I mean, you totally blew it.
	You got de-platformed.
	I'm like, no, no, no, no.
	I don't have any control over who allows me or doesn't allow me on social media.
	Maybe I could have some influence here and there, but I don't have any control over that.
	What I do have control in is whether I make the case reasonably and positively for what I know to be true.
	That I can control.
	I can't control how people react to it.
	So never have a standard of success in your life that you can't control.
	All it will do is put you under someone else's thumb.
	Because somebody, let's say you go to your friend and he's gained 50 pounds and you're begging him to lose weight, right?
	Particularly if he's a father, right?
	Because it's like, you can't be a fat dad because you can't run around with your kids.
	You can't, it's not, you're not modeling good things for them.
	Like all kinds of bad things are going to happen, right?
	So, your friend is obviously out of control of his eating, and he's out of control of his exercise habits, and he's just out of control as a whole.
	Now, if someone in your life is out of control, and you have a desperate need for them to do X, Y, or Z, they will try to control you by not doing it.
	In general.
	Again, it's unconscious or whatever, right?
	So, if you have a friend who feels out of control in his life, and you're desperate for him to lose weight, he will generally feel power over you by denying you what you want.
	He can't deny himself what he wants, which is another slice of cheesecake, so he will deny you what you want, which is for him to lose weight.
	So, the more invested you get into someone trying to lose weight, the less they are likely to lose weight, because they'll gain power over you by not losing the weight.
	We all seek power, right?
	So, if you have a need, right?
	If you have a standard of success that's not under your control, you will feel helpless and you will be manipulated forever and ever and ever.
	Amen.
	With your father, if you tell him what you want and what you prefer and what you need and what you like and you listen to his side and if he's going to make it and you have a reasonable discussion and your demands are reasonable, right?
	You're not asking him to be immune to the effects of gravity, right?
	The only success that you can have in that relationship is the case that you make.
	What happens after that?
	You said, oh, it backfired!
	And I was like, wait, what?
	What do you mean it backfired?
	Did you make your case reasonably and honestly and directly?
	This is a real question, by the way.
	Did you?
	I did, but there were a couple of confrontations.
	A few times I did, but I have to say one time I just completely erupted.
	There was a situation where we had a verbal conflict and the feelings were welling up in me and I just started yelling at him.
	That we never talk about something important.
	He never taught me anything.
	All of the stuff just erupted and it was not reasonable from my side at that instance.
	I'm sorry, did you call him like a...
	As far as I can remember, I did not use any particular swear words at him directly.
	I just verbalized all of the stuff that I talked about here.
	As far as I can remember, I think I did not call him anything like that.
	Okay, so raising your voice if somebody is not listening is not the end of the world, and it's certainly not terrible and abusive or anything like that.
	But it's inevitable.
	If you feel that you can only be successful if other people do what you want, if you feel that, then you will get increasingly aggressive and frustrated with them, usually, for not giving you something which you can call success.
	But again, the moment that success is dependent
	Upon someone else's actions, the moment your success is dependent upon someone else's actions, you can never succeed.
	Because people will thwart you, you're giving away your power, and even if other people do what you want in the moment, or even for a long period of time, all that will do is reinforce that your definition of success has to include things completely beyond your control.
	So let's say you do say to your friend, oh, I'm desperate for you to lose weight, and he does lose weight.
	And you say, well, I'm successful because my friend lost weight.
	Well, all you're doing is reinforcing that your success depends upon other people agreeing with you.
	But other people agreeing with you is outside your control.
	So it's saying, I only have success, I can only define things as successful in my life if other people have no free will.
	But the fact that other people do have free will and can choose to reject everything that you're saying means that you can't base your feelings of success on other people because they have free will.
	And that means to say that your definition of success is dependent upon the whims and maturity of others.
	Which means that the least
	Mature people will run your entire emotional life.
	And that's, I mean, that's a mess, right?
	Right.
	I agree with you at that point, but I also think that I think nobody in my life has those kinds of standards.
	The stuff that you talk about now.
	I think I don't know anybody that implements that, and it's not to say that's not right.
	It's just an observation that I don't think I know anybody that's.
	That has standards like that, so it's it's sorry standards like what?
	What do we mean?
	Has the way of thinking like you just said he can.
	How to explain this?
	I don't know anybody who.
	Who lives their life in a way like you just explained to me.
	As far as... I'm sorry, do you mean like where the definition of success is things beyond their control?
	Yes, yes, yes, yes.
	Right, yes.
	I'm sorry, you just told me that you failed with your father.
	It backfired because he didn't listen to you.
	Maybe I misunderstood what you said, but...
	Do you feel that your conversation with your father failed because he didn't listen to you, he went outside, you ended up yelling at him?
	Do you feel that you failed in your communication with your father?
	Well, I do, yeah.
	So you would be the person that you just said doesn't exist, unless I misunderstood something.
	Well, it does also include me, but it also includes my friends, my acquaintances.
	I just wanted to say that I don't know anybody that has that kind of thinking and ability to set standards.
	Oh, I see what you mean.
	Sorry, you meant the opposite.
	I'm sorry.
	What you're saying is that everyone around you assumes that success means other people do what they say.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	I got it.
	I got it.
	My apologies.
	Okay.
	No problem.
	So, um, sometimes it feels like English is not my native language either because, you know, it's a struggle to sort of pass through all of these things, but we'll, we'll do our best and carry on.
	So.
	I know someone who I think is going into a relationship that is not going to be good.
	It's not somebody I'm close to, but, you know, I know the person, and I spent an hour and a half talking to this person about why I thought it was not a good idea.
	Now, I don't even want to say how this plays out, because it doesn't matter how it plays out, in a way.
	As far as my conscience goes, it doesn't matter, because I can't control that.
	So whether he stays with the person, whether he doesn't stay with the person,
	It's not my standard of success or failure, because he's got free will.
	Now, I think if I felt, I did feel an obligation to the person, so I had a long conversation.
	And after that, I have no investment in the outcome.
	I mean, would I prefer it if he either found a way to elevate the relationship or was not in the relationship?
	Yeah, I would prefer that.
	But that's not my definition of success.
	If you try and tell your friend to lose weight, are you happy if he loses weight?
	Sure.
	But it's not your definition of success.
	Your definition of success, and this is what has kind of messed people up with my novel, right?
	The novel that I just finished writing a couple of months ago.
	It was great.
	I read it.
	It was great.
	Oh, thank you.
	Sorry, I'm a bit ambivalent about the ending.
	I know, I get that.
	I get that because everybody wants to know, did she succeed or not?
	Yes, honestly, I was reading it and I did not believe it was the last chapter.
	I know!
	You turn it over and you're like, wait, did this jerk not even publish the last chapter where we find out whether she succeeds or not?
	Sorry, spoiler.
	No, no, but that's the whole, for me, that's the point.
	And she says that very clearly.
	She says it doesn't matter whether I succeed or not.
	It matters how well I try.
	It matters how much I try.
	Because she can't control success.
	She can only control effort and clarity.
	Can't control success.
	You can't control any success that's not under your... I'm sorry, this is all getting very repetitive, so I won't even bother, but I think we get the idea.
	Rachel can determine how much effort she puts into her goal, and that's what matters.
	Whether she gets what she wants afterwards or not.
	If I wrote that, then people would say, Oh, the effort is worth it because she succeeded.
	But that's not the case.
	The effort is worth it, independent of success.
	Because if you define success as the achievement of a goal, that's not under your control, you've given away all of your power in life.
	Now your definition of success.
	It's dependent upon other people agreeing with you, which you can't control.
	And it's giving way too much power to other people.
	It will corrupt them with that power.
	So your conversation, this is why when you said it totally
	Backfired, you know, it went really badly and so on.
	It's like, no, no, no, no.
	It can't go really badly if you're honest and direct with what you say.
	And even if you are manipulative and you just try again or whatever, you just work to improve.
	But if you have an honest conversation with someone, I'm telling you, it can't go badly.
	Now let's say the other person, like with my mother, right?
	Did my conversation with my mother, when I told her I didn't want this to be an entirely one-sided conversation.
	When I had the conversation with my mother, and she's screaming at me and throwing couch cushions around and stuff, right?
	Did that conversation go badly?
	Did that conversation fail?
	No.
	Absolutely not.
	It was one of the most successful conversations I've ever had in my life.
	Do you see what I mean?
	Yeah, that's something I have to be very cognizant about in the future.
	It's definitely something to keep in mind because I obviously did not think about it in that way at all so far.
	Okay, so tell me, if you wouldn't mind, tell me why my conversation, my last conversation with my mother, tell me why it was one of the most successful conversations I've ever had.
	Because you managed to... I'm having trouble finding the right words.
	Because after that conversation you managed to know and find out everything you need to find out and how the rest of your relationship is going to look like.
	But I asked what I wanted and she just got mad at me and screamed at me and threw cushions around and stuff, right?
	So surely that's the biggest failure that can be imagined.
	I mean, that conversation totally blew up and I never got what I wanted.
	Right.
	But that was an indicator of the relationship as it will be in the future and how your conversations will look like in the future.
	So based on that, you could make a rational decision that
	You could make a rational decision that it would be better to hold your standards more strongly, based on your mother's reaction.
	I mean, I say, this is what I want.
	My mother very clearly replied, you will never get what you want.
	I will never accommodate what you want.
	I will never listen.
	It will always be about me forever and ever.
	Amen.
	It will never be about you.
	And I'm going to punish you as brutally as I know how given that I can't beat you up anymore because you're twice my size.
	I'm going to punish you as brutally as I know how for even daring to demand any slice of equality in our relationship.
	One of the most successful conversations.
	In terms of life-changing, the most successful conversation I've ever had in my life.
	And the success was not in what my mother did.
	The success is what I did.
	Because I can control what I did.
	I can control having that conversation, even though it was a scary conversation to have.
	I can control that.
	I cannot control how my mother reacts.
	So that was, yeah, people would say, well that went about as badly as it could possibly go.
	It totally backfired.
	You didn't get anything you wanted and you got traumatized in the process.
	That conversation was a total failure.
	And I would say the exact opposite.
	That conversation was an immeasurable success.
	Your conversation with your father did not backfire.
	Your conversation with your father, if you want it, if you let it be, is an immeasurable success.
	For the same reasons, right?
	You said to your father, you basically didn't really parent me.
	You never taught me anything of value.
	We never have any conversations about things that are meaningful for me.
	You don't care about my job.
	You don't seem to care about me or my preferences.
	And I would like for that to happen.
	I would like for you to spend some more time and attention focusing on me and I would like for us to have
	A deeper relationship.
	And you have to deepen your relationship with your parents as you get older, because you don't need someone to wipe your butt anymore.
	You don't need someone to clean the applesauce off your face.
	You need someone to help you navigate life's challenges.
	So conversations and relationships with parents, they do need to get better and deeper.
	You know, the stuff that my daughter is focusing on now is a lot deeper than the imaginary games with kitty cats we played when she was five.
	The relationship has to get deeper.
	Otherwise, what is it?
	So you said to your father, this is what I need.
	And your father, very clearly, to me at least, said, no, never going to give you what you need.
	Never going to happen.
	Now, you could say, well, he's incapable, blah, blah, blah.
	But he's not even trying.
	He's not even struggling.
	Like if I said... He never tried.
	Never.
	Yeah, never tried.
	So if you say, well, maybe he's incapable, it's like, I don't even know what that means.
	He said he's incapable.
	He said he's incapable of having that kind of relationship and those kinds of talks with me because he says I'm smarter than him and that he cannot have that kind of relationship with me.
	Those are the exact words that he said.
	That he cannot do it.
	Okay.
	So he has freed you of yearning, right?
	He's freed you from yearning.
	I could have continued my relationship with my mother, obviously.
	I mean, not that it was a relationship, but I could have continued to see my mother, right?
	But I would do so with the full knowledge.
	I still yearn for that connection, honestly.
	No, no.
	But your father has very clearly told you, both in words and in deeds, he will never give that to you.
	So if you choose not to listen to him, that's your fault.
	That's on you.
	He's very... I mean, from what you said, he's very clearly said, I will never give you what you want and I won't even try.
	I'm not even going to try.
	If for some reason my daughter required me to learn Japanese,
	And I said, I'm never going to learn Japanese.
	I'm not even going to try.
	I'm not going to sign up for a one-hour course on how to say hello in Japanese.
	Like, I'm never going to do it.
	Never in a million years will I learn Japanese.
	And then she keeps coming back to me every week saying, no, but dad, I really need you to learn Japanese.
	It's really important for me.
	No, I'm not going to learn Japanese.
	I don't want to.
	I have no interest and no time.
	I mean, would it be at some point, does she have to accept that I'm not going to learn Japanese?
	I mean, isn't that sort of the same thing to do?
	Yeah, I don't know why I still have hope.
	I don't know why, but I cannot.
	So far, I was not able to let this go.
	No, but you know why you have hope.
	You know why you can't.
	I mean, you know why.
	You've been listening to the show for a while.
	You know why you have hope.
	And the way that you know why, you have a particular emotion.
	Is you say to yourself, okay, what happens if I give up hope, right?
	So tell me what happens if you give up hope on your parents changing at all.
	This is who they're going to be, how they're going to relate to you, everything that's there is all that they're ever going to be for the rest of your life, for the next 50 years or however long they live, right?
	This is how it's going to be.
	There's going to be no change, no growth, no progress.
	They're never going to listen to what you want.
	They're never going to provide you what you need.
	What happens if you give up the hope that that isn't the case?
	What happens if you just accept that?
	If I accept that, either I won't have any relationship with them at all, or the relationship we will have will be very toxic and not good for me and in any way beneficial for me.
	Those are the only two options that I see.
	None of them good.
	Okay, so whose needs are you serving when you continue to have hope, where there's no hope?
	Whose needs are you serving?
	Are you serving your needs and preferences and your future and your life, or not?
	Yeah, my parents, obviously.
	Right, so your parents need you to have hope.
	And obviously when you were a little kid, you needed to have hope that things were going to change, otherwise you might have been too depressed to function, right?
	Or you might have turned into your brother, who seems to have given up hope, right?
	You don't have hope.
	Your parents need you to have hope.
	Okay, let me give you an analogy here, right?
	So let's say I have a friend named Bob, and Bob owes me a thousand dollars.
	Now the only reason I see Bob is to try and get my money back, and Bob really wants me to come and see him because he's lonely or whatever, right?
	If the only reason I see Bob is to get my $1,000 back, and if I get my $1,000 back, because it's taken him a year to repay me or whatever, right?
	If the only reason I see Bob is to get my $1,000 back, and Bob really wants to keep seeing me, what's Bob's best strategy regarding this money?
	How is he going to approach it with me?
	That's a great analogy.
	You're never going to see the money.
	Never.
	In this situation.
	I mean, he's clearly not going to pay me back, because then he'll never see me again, right?
	Right.
	I see what you mean.
	What will he do?
	He will try anything to not give you the money and to make you come to him and have hope that he will give you the money back someday.
	Hi!
	Hey!
	Sorry about that.
	I don't know why my speakers went to zero for some ill-defined reason.
	I heard you all the time, but something, I don't know if it was from my side or your side.
	No, it was something on my side.
	Yes, somehow Skype set my speaker settings to zero, so that's fine, no biggie.
	All right, so did you hear the analogy with Bob and the thousand dollars?
	Yeah, the Bob and the thousand dollars and what he would do.
	And I started saying that you will never get the money back and Bob will do anything in his power to
	How do you say?
	His loneliness will not be so expressed.
	It won't be so bad.
	It won't be so bad, so you will keep visiting him and he will not give the money back.
	Right.
	So, if Bob doesn't have the thousand dollars, the only value he has to offer you is the hope of a thousand dollars.
	So what value does your father and your mother and your brother, what value do they offer you in the absence of hope?
	If you simply take a deep breath and say, they are who they are, they're never going to change.
	What value do they provide to you without hope?
	I mean, they provide value in the sense that they are my family and still it's not like every interaction with them is negative.
	I have to mention that.
	It's not like every interaction is negative.
	In that sense, they do provide some value, but in the most core things, core principles, I fear that things will never change to my liking.
	Because here's the funny thing, and it is darkly funny, right?
	And so it's not like Eastern Europeans don't know something about dark comedy, right?
	So it is darkly funny that you complain that your parents don't listen to you, right?
	Yeah.
	My father won't give me what I want, my mother keeps putting down my dad, like they just don't listen, right?
	Yeah, I don't listen to them.
	Right.
	And they told you, it's not going to change.
	I am who I am, it's not going to change.
	And you won't listen to them.
	So you've two people complaining that the other person is not listening, right?
	Yeah, that's very funny actually.
	But you feel morally superior and you're not listening, right?
	Yeah.
	So yeah, hope is almost always a trap.
	And hope is almost always generated by other people to provide value that they don't have to lift a finger to actually do.
	I hope this woman will go out with me so I'll keep taking her out for coffee and I'll keep doing this and I'll keep doing that.
	I hope she'll go out with me.
	So she doesn't have to provide any other value than hope.
	And she gets your resources.
	Hope is the ultimate four-letter word.
	And now that I think about it, the hope stuff is something that I also do with women a lot.
	It's not in the same context, but I do that a lot.
	Because oftentimes I'm not very assertive.
	I think I got that from my father.
	So there were times where I just hoped that the girl would show any kind of interest so I could bounce on it.
	A lot of times that did not materialize and just left me disappointed.
	A lot of the times I'm also not so direct as I should be.
	You are unconsciously pushing all my buttons.
	It's not a bad thing.
	I'm just pointing it out.
	So, you have great criticisms of your father, right?
	Which I understand and I appreciate and I would probably share those if I had all the details.
	And so on, right?
	So you just also said something.
	I don't know if you remember what you said.
	You said that I'm not very assertive with women.
	And then what did you say?
	Where did you get that from in your mind?
	I said I got it from my father.
	You did not get it from your father!
	Absolutely not!
	Absolutely not.
	Okay, right.
	I'm completely responsible.
	I see what you mean.
	Now, in fact, you're all the more responsible because you saw what a disaster it is for your father to not be assertive!
	Right.
	My father never exercised, ate like a pig, and died at the age of 40.
	It broke my family in two.
	It broke my heart.
	It wrecked my childhood.
	So clearly, I'm not going to exercise and I'm going to eat like a pig.
	And it's like, no, no, no, no, no.
	You don't get that.
	Right.
	It's just an excuse that I...
	That I use often, honestly.
	Okay, and I understand why.
	I understand why.
	But that's the great temptation is to say, well, I saw really screwed up behavior, and that's why I do it.
	And it's like, no, no, no, no, come on.
	I mean, most people have seen these fail videos, right?
	Like guys just doing retarded things and getting really badly hurt.
	Right, so, I saw this guy, didn't know really how to skateboard, tried to skateboard down a set of stairs, and ended up breaking a tooth, right?
	And you say, well, I saw that, and clearly, I have to go out without knowing anything about how to skateboard and try and ride down some stairs, right?
	It's like, no, no, no, you saw what a disaster it is, you saw what a mess this is, so you have all the more responsibility to not do it.
	Probably what you got from your father
	Was not the lack of assertiveness, the bad habit you got from your father, was not the lack of assertiveness, it was what?
	What was the bad habit you got from your father?
	I'm thinking about... Maybe something obvious is just... Well, you just did it!
	You said I have a bad habit and you made an excuse.
	So what you got from your father was not the bad habit, but it was the making of excuses!
	Because you said to your father, I need more from you.
	And he said, I'm not as smart as you.
	I'm incapable.
	I, I can't do it.
	He just made excuses, right?
	And then you say, well, I'm not as assertive with women, but I got that from my father.
	So you made an, the, the, the bad, it's not the habit.
	It's the excuse for the habit.
	That's the, that's the dangerous thing you got from your father was the making of excuses.
	Like your mother, too!
	Well, why is your brother fat?
	Well, it's genetics!
	It wasn't anything I did.
	I wasn't responsible for it.
	I was just trying to facilitate his bizarre bloated whale genetics.
	Excuses, excuses, excuses.
	That's the bad habit.
	Not the content of the behavior, but the excuses for it.
	That's what... because excuses... excuses go everywhere in life.
	Excuses go everywhere in life.
	Anytime you do something that is, quote, bad or wrong or negative or whatever, it's like, oh, I've got an excuse!
	Because they go everywhere.
	A specific behavior, like not being assertive, okay, maybe you can deal with that.
	But excuses go everywhere.
	The habit of excuse is like a toxic gas.
	It's not a particular landmine.
	Why don't you have a fiance?
	Because every girl I've been with, um, I made, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I made excuses that she was not good enough for me in the end.
	And I made a lot of rationalizations that in the end led to the relationship not working.
	And oftentimes, even before starting a relationship with the women, I like them initially and they like me too.
	I never had a problem attracting girls and getting them to like me, but I have a problem with sometimes with escalating and sometimes with keeping the relationship afloat and not doing those stupid rationalizations like she's not gonna be a good mother or wife because X. That's most of the times that's something I did.
	Okay, and I appreciate that.
	So, can you give me some specifics?
	Again, I'm the empirical guy who needs examples.
	Right.
	Last year I dated a girl for three or four months.
	I liked her, she liked me.
	She's from a good family, she has good values, but she was a bit too boring for me.
	And that's all it took for me to end the relationship.
	Just her being not entertaining enough for me.
	But I disregarded all the other good stuff that she had.
	And when I think about it, she would be a very good fiancée, a very good mother.
	And the stuff that I had a problem with could be...
	Could be dealt with, but I had no patience.
	It was easier for me to just end the relationship than try to keep it going.
	So with your parents you have nothing but hope and with your girlfriends you have nothing but criticisms.
	Yes, I do have a lot of criticisms.
	You'll forgive everything of your parents and nothing of your girlfriends, right?
	You see how that works, right?
	Man, it's pretty hard to listen to.
	Okay, what's another reason?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	As far as this girl goes, I should have continued the relationship, yeah.
	Well, how long into the relationship did you notice she was boring?
	Well, since we started, she was a bit on the
	On the boring side, it's more like she was very quiet.
	It's not like she was a boring person per se.
	She's smart, she reads a lot.
	It's just that she wasn't pushing my buttons as intensely as I would have liked to.
	What?
	She wasn't pushing your buttons?
	I'm sorry, is that a good thing?
	No, I did not mean it in a bad way.
	I just wanted to say she wasn't as stimulating to me as I would have liked to, in the sense of being boring.
	Was she not a good conversationalist?
	She didn't think or reason or she wasn't curious or learn new things or engaging in... I mean, did she have any deep conversations with you or was it more like when you were chatting with your dad?
	She did, but every time, every conversation I had to engage, she rarely engaged in those conversations.
	When I started them, it was great, but I just needed her to be the one to initiate stuff like that more.
	Right, okay.
	No, I understand that.
	I mean, if it's your thing, you just might need to initiate it more, right?
	Yeah.
	And how long did you go out for?
	Three or four months, not a whole lot.
	And before that?
	Before that, I was in a relationship for three years.
	That was still in college.
	Since I finished college, I was in a couple of relationships that were not so...
	So meaningful like this on three or four months but I dated a girl in college for three years and that was a whole other story.
	I don't know how detailed I should get as far as that relationship goes.
	Who broke it off and why?
	I broke it off in the end because there was some suspicion of infidelity.
	I got some messages from my friend that she was messaging some other guy and I was not, at this point I was not even sure if she was cheating on me or if she wasn't, if she was just talking with me, with him, if she just wanted to meet with him, but I broke it off immediately at that point.
	Were you on a path to get married?
	Well, we talked about it.
	We talked about it that we wanted to get married, that we wanted to have kids, but we were still in college and it's not like it was imminent.
	But you've been together for three years?
	Yeah.
	Is it illegal in your country to get married in college?
	It's not, but it's very, very rare.
	So?
	Did you say, well, you know, the vast majority of the population never has a call in with Steph, so it's impossible for me, because it's super rare.
	You're right.
	Look, obviously, I don't know, and neither do you, it sounds like, whether she was cheating or not, but if a woman doesn't have a commitment after three years, her eyes are going to wander, because she's on a shorter time frame than you.
	She's got eggs, you've got sperm.
	Your sperm lasts into your 70s, her eggs last until she's 40, give or take, right?
	So if you don't make a woman your wife or some massive solid commitment or an engagement after three years, yeah, I mean, her ex is going to be like, well, I don't know what's happening here, so we maybe got to find a guy who does commit.
	Right.
	And she was the one that was honestly talking more about marriage and kind of teasing about how we're going to get kids, how we're going to marry and stuff like that.
	And I mean, I thought about it, but I was not
	I did not talk about it as much as I should have and engaged that conversation more.
	And why not?
	Because I also had other excuses why she would not be a good wife to me.
	Oh, so she's good enough to be a multi-year girlfriend, but you didn't want her as a wife?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's kind of mean, right?
	That's kind of cruel.
	Alright.
	And, um... So, yeah, as a whole, you date women, you find flaws, and the relationship ends, is that right?
	That's mostly what's happened so far, yeah.
	And what have your girlfriends thought of your parents and your brother?
	The girl that I dated with three years, the one that I talked about now, she had a very negative opinion about my parents because of all of the stuff that I talked about.
	So she agreed with me with a lot of stuff.
	As far as my brother goes, she never went there to criticize him a lot, but as far as my parents go, she wasn't...
	She was on my side.
	OK.
	And?
	Because she also had her own problems with her parents that were not so much different as mine.
	I mean, it's funny because for me, when I was looking back, looking back on my dating in my teens and my twenties, I think deep down I was just waiting for some woman to come along and say, OK, your mom is like really toxic and dangerous, like this is not healthy.
	And, I mean, your girlfriend, your college girlfriend, maybe she didn't go that far, but she certainly seemed to see the flaws or dysfunctions that were going on, right?
	Yeah, she did not appreciate the way that our relationship, my relationship with my parents worked.
	You could say that.
	And what did your parents think of her?
	They loved her.
	They loved her because she was smart, she was beautiful, she was very talented at a lot of stuff and there wasn't any... there was not a lot of stuff that they could say negatively about her.
	Which of your girlfriends have your parents had the most negative view of, if any?
	So as far as the other girlfriends go,
	I cannot even say that because all of the other relationships I had were not so long-term to even say something like that.
	The three-year relationship was by far the longest one I had.
	All of the other ones never made it past five months.
	Hang on, so if your college girlfriend, let's call her Svetlana, is that right?
	So, if Svetlana didn't like your parents, but your parents liked her, then what did your parents like about her?
	Was it just status stuff, like she's pretty and smart and all?
	Well, mostly, yeah, but the stuff that she talked to me about not liking my mother, my parents, she did not express that to them directly.
	So the relationship was... Oh, no, I'd be shocked if she did.
	I genuinely would be shocked if she did.
	So your parents did not detect her dislike of them, right?
	No, not at all.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So they liked her not because of any of her values, but because of the sort of shallow status stuff, right?
	Well, mostly, yeah, because she was very beautiful, like nine and a half.
	Nine and a half, and very smart, very talented.
	You can't hear the collective screaming of Free Domain listeners at the moment.
	I can.
	Because I can hear into the future.
	But I'm just telling you that when people hear this, the screaming of, oh yeah, she was smart, she was a nine and a half, she was funny, she was engaging, she was warm, she wanted to marry me.
	And I dumped her.
	There was also one additional thing.
	Yes, she was a man.
	No, sorry, go ahead.
	She had a pretty bad temper that sometimes reminded me of my mom.
	But you do too, right?
	You mean having a temper?
	Yeah, I mean, weren't you yelling at your dad?
	Well, yeah, sometimes.
	I'm not saying that you're the same, but I mean, it's not a flaw that's completely unknown to you, right?
	Yeah.
	Right, okay.
	Okay, so she had a temper, which you also had, and then... But you dumped her on something very... very sketchy, right?
	It wasn't like you had any proof or evidence or whatever, right?
	It was just like, you were kind of looking to get out, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So why were you looking to get out?
	Why wouldn't you stay and work on it?
	And listen, I have no idea whether it would be the right or wrong thing to do.
	So I'm just, I'm not saying this from like you should have or whatever.
	I'm just curious, right?
	Why did you dump her?
	Because when you say, my biggest regret is I'm not a father, and you had a woman who wanted to marry you and have kids with you, and you dumped her for some sketchy reasons, I'm not saying the relationship was perfect, obviously, but in terms of why dump her, it's like, you didn't really have all the information, it was kind of uncertain, so if you're saying, well, my biggest regret is not being a father, and five years ago you had a woman who was desperate to marry you and have kids with you, then the biggest question, I think, is why did you dump her?
	Honestly, Stefan, about that relationship, I still think, what if, what if?
	That's still something that goes through my head.
	So it's very hard to maybe find out the subconscious reasons.
	All of the ones that I thought about, I already told you.
	And if there's anything additional, it's very hard for me to say it.
	Okay, that's fine.
	I wouldn't expect the answer to be at the tip of your tongue, because we're deep in the caves now, right?
	We're feeling our way along, so we are spelunking to the max.
	Okay, so do you feel that it was a benefit to you
	And now, whether the relationship worked or not, I assume you didn't have deep conversations about trust and marriage and you didn't open your hearts to each other and so on.
	And she says, well, you know, I really feel like I need a commitment.
	And you're like, well, you know, but you have this temper and I have this uncertainty about this guy.
	Like you didn't have those conversations where you really open your hearts.
	Is that right?
	Well, we had conversations in the sense of we're still at college and we have time to talk about those things.
	No, no, but in terms of the things that might have been precious building up for the breakup.
	I mean, did you say to her, did you say to her, my friend has this suspicion and I've heard that there are some messages and I just really want to have a direct conversation about this stuff?
	No, the message was the breaking point.
	As soon as I got that message, that's when I broke up.
	I'm sorry, was the message from your friend that she might be cheating?
	Because I don't think you got confirmation, if I understand it correctly.
	Yeah, I never got confirmation.
	The message was, she was
	Messaging some other guy that she wanted to meet him and It was never The guy the guy said that he had sex with her.
	She never admitted it but After that when I contacted that guy he said that he never had sex with her so he bragged and
	Wait, what?
	No, no, break this down.
	Sorry.
	The guy said he did and then didn't have sex with her?
	That guy, first of all, he, he bragged to my other friends that he had sex with my girlfriend.
	And afterwards, when I asked him and some other people asked him, then he changed the story and said that he never had sex with her.
	But the message that I got was how she wanted to meet with him one day.
	Oh, okay.
	So, hang on.
	So, you know why he said that he had sex with her, right?
	I mean, I don't know why he said it because I don't know... Oh, I know why!
	No, I know why he said that.
	Yeah, I know.
	You've got to... All's fair in love and war.
	And I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but he said that he had sex with her because he was interested in her, but you were the boyfriend and he wanted to break you up.
	That's why he said he had sex with her.
	So that you would break up with her and he would get a chance.
	Well, I mean, that's so obvious, but I... No, I mean, yeah, it's obvious from the outside, and there's, you know, that's absolutely the answer.
	No, because why would he change his story then, right?
	So yeah, you fell into his trap of breaking up with her so that he'd get a shot, and I don't know, maybe even your friend wanted a shot, I don't know, right, but your friend group was not exactly focused on keeping you guys together, so... I mean, everybody wanted a shot because she was smart and beautiful and intelligent, everybody wanted a shot, she was a model, so...
	And you weren't marrying her.
	I mean, the bro code as a whole is, look, I'll tell you this straight up, when I was your age, right?
	If I had a friend who had a girlfriend that I was attracted to, I would not even think about it.
	However, however, if he didn't commit to her after a certain amount of time, and if she wanted that commitment, hey man, bets are off.
	Bets are off.
	It's sort of like, if I have a friend, I had a friend when I was a teenager, we both liked the same girl.
	And he was the one who said, I really want to ask her out.
	And I said, OK, well, I mean, then go for it, right?
	You've got a week.
	Why did I say that?
	Because you were interested in her.
	And obviously, if he didn't make a move,
	Yeah, I'll bro code you, man.
	I'll give you the bro code for sure.
	You can have the first shot.
	If you don't take that shot, I'm gonna ask her out.
	Of course, right?
	Now, I would never do something like say, oh, I slept with this girl to break her up with her boyfriend.
	That's really cold.
	And I wouldn't do that.
	That, to me, is way beyond the pale.
	But there's a lot of things that are fair in love and war, because what matters is you get married to someone you care about, and you continue your line, and you become a father, right?
	That's the point of all of this, right?
	So, oh no, I would never poach another man's girlfriend, but
	If she kept complaining about the relationship and he kept complaining about the relationship, I wouldn't be at all adverse to saying, well, why on earth are you in this relationship then?
	Stop complaining about it.
	Like, fix it or break up.
	Now, I mean, if she broke up with the... I don't tend to... I don't do rebound dating like I never did.
	So if some woman broke up with a boyfriend of two years, I wouldn't date her.
	I mean, I might go out with her, like, comfort her and, you know, whatever, help her with some loneliness, but I wouldn't date her because people are just a mess after they break up, right?
	Particularly women.
	Yeah, she was a mess for a while after we broke up, and I was also a mess.
	It was pretty gnarly.
	I mean, I gotta say, we loved each other very much, so it was not easy at all.
	It took me years to even think about other girls after that relationship.
	Biologically, you were married.
	I mean, whether you get married or not, our biology expects us to live to about 40.
	And it expects the first woman we have sex with to be our pair-bonded partner.
	That's what our biology does, particularly us Europeans.
	And it still hurts to talk about it, honestly.
	It still hurts.
	But this was your father's fault, in particular.
	What do you mean?
	Well, the breakup.
	I would put the blame, to some degree, on you, obviously.
	But I'd put 60-40 on your father.
	Because who should you go to when you have girl problems?
	Yeah, you should go to your dad.
	I never had one productive conversation about girls with my father.
	Mostly, some conversations were with my mother, which obviously did not do very well.
	I had lots of conversations with my friends, but with my father, no.
	None at all.
	No, you don't go to moms for dating advice in general.
	Yeah.
	I learned that at the hospital.
	If you're a man.
	Yeah, yeah.
	No, because your father should have been like, you should have gone and said, listen, I really heard this terrible stuff about my girlfriend and blah, blah, blah.
	And your dad would have been like, oh yeah, this guy just wants to break you up.
	Because he wants a shot.
	And then you would have talked about it, right?
	It's not something that even... I thought about it, talking to my father about this.
	It was not even in the equation.
	Right.
	And that's terrible.
	That's a terrible relationship, in my opinion.
	It's not even a relationship, I don't know, I mean, what's the point of any of that?
	If you can't give you guidance and keep you safe and protected, right?
	If he can't help you out in the most important stuff in your life, if you don't even think about bringing it up with him, what's the point?
	What's the whole point of any of it?
	It's just a bunch of goulash around a table.
	I mean, it's not a relationship.
	Yeah, a lot of the conversations are about food.
	What are we going to eat this weekend, this day?
	What I cooked, what I did today, what I did yesterday.
	I did this and that, and it's so shallow.
	Just thinking about it, it makes my
	Why did you break up with Svetlana?
	I mean, it's still hard to get to the core.
	Well, did you tell your parents you were going to break up with her, or did you tell them afterwards?
	Afterwards.
	Right.
	And what was their reaction?
	Well, they were pretty sad about it.
	They asked some stuff, I did not even want to talk about it a lot, so it was... I mean, it happened, we talked a bit about it and afterwards we kind of stopped talking about her.
	It was like a taboo topic.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I just wanted to say it was a taboo topic afterwards, about my breakup.
	Because everybody knew I was crushed about it, so they did not even...
	Try too much.
	Now, how long after you broke up did you tell him?
	It was like a week or so after.
	So it was still fixable, probably.
	It was.
	So why didn't they call her over, sit you both down and say, look, I don't know if you guys should be together forever, but you've put three years of your young lives into this.
	That's a huge investment.
	We need to find out.
	We need to find out what's going on, because this is pretty heartbreaking.
	We're very sad.
	We like you a lot, and we don't like to see three years of our son's life go up in flames.
	We don't like to see three years of your life, Svetlana, go up in flames.
	Let's see if we can get to the bottom of things, and maybe it's fixable, maybe it's not, but I don't think it should just vanish like this.
	No, they did not do that, but on the other side, Svetlana's mom did contact me, and
	She tried very hard to rekindle their relationship, but unfortunately, I was just not having it at that moment.
	And why were you not having it?
	That's my question.
	Why were you not having it?
	I was convinced she cheated on me, and I felt so betrayed because we had lots of conversations about cheating, talking with other people, and in our three-year relationship,
	I never contacted other girls about meeting up with them and talking about some stuff that she said to him in that message, so the betrayal I felt was so intense that I thought that there was no coming back from that.
	Now, she did admit to messaging this guy who said he slept with her, and she did admit to that and showed you the message that she wanted to meet up with him?
	I showed her the message.
	I got the picture of the message, so I sent her the message, asked her what that was.
	First, she lied at first.
	She said that it was not her.
	And five minutes later, she called me, then admitted, but said that there was nothing going on.
	So it was so sketchy, I could not...
	I did not see any scenario in where she did not cheat.
	Wait, wait, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	A message is not a cheat.
	It's not good, but that's not a cheat, is it?
	I mean, just saying you want to meet up with some guy, even if it's kind of sketchy, that's not the same as cheating, is it?
	Right, but there was no reason for her to be messaging him, asking to meet, and not telling me.
	Of course there was!
	We just talked about it.
	Of course there was a reason for her to be messaging another guy.
	Well, she was looking around.
	You wouldn't commit!
	If you've got a job, right?
	You've got a job, and you've got to think about this.
	Women have half the reproductive lifespan that men have.
	In fact, it's really more like a third.
	Right?
	So you've got to put it in three years, right?
	You've got to do it three times.
	It's like dog years, so to speak, right?
	Because women have a reproductive cycle from 18 to 40.
	Men have it from 18 to 80, right?
	So... Gosh, is that... Let's just say three times, right?
	So if you're in a relationship for nine years and the woman hasn't decided if she wants to marry you, what do you think?
	Well, she's not interested in spending her life with me.
	If you are in a job and they keep saying, after a year or so, they say, you know, you're going to get a big promotion and we're going to make you partner, right?
	And then nine years later, they're still talking about it.
	What do you think?
	They haven't done it.
	They haven't done it, they do checkout, practically.
	And then they say, oh, well, you know, the economy's a bit down.
	We can't do it this year.
	And they say, oh, well, we had a major account that quit.
	We can't do it this year.
	Oh, the dollar is weak and the whatever, the trade winds are blowing the wrong way.
	And you know, like, how long is it before you start looking for a new job?
	Not too long.
	Well, you might give them a year, maybe, maybe two.
	But after that, it's like, come on, you guys just stringing me along.
	You're just getting a lot of work out of me without any commitment.
	You're exploiting me, right?
	So you won't commit to her, and three years for a woman is nine years for a man.
	Three months for a woman, nine months for a man.
	One year for a woman, three years for a man.
	So she's nine years into the relationship, biologically speaking, and you won't commit.
	And of course she's just in the same way you'd start looking for a new job.
	If you're people who say, oh yeah, no, we'll make you partner next year.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	No, no question, right?
	We're underpaying you now, but yeah, we'll, um...
	I did not get that impression from our relationship, but maybe I gotta rethink my thinking about that.
	Well, why do you think that she was looking elsewhere?
	Well, honestly, in the last few months of our relationships, we had a bit more conflict than we usually have.
	So maybe that's also something to think about.
	Well, OK, so if the relationship is three years, no commitment, and it's also going in the wrong direction,
	Yeah, that's just another reason for her to contact somebody else.
	Now, listen, I don't agree that she contacts another guy.
	I don't think that's right.
	I think that she should sit down and say, look, I'm losing faith in our relationship rapidly.
	I don't know where it's going.
	You know, we're fighting more, and after three years, we should be getting ready to get married, or at least get engaged.
	And yet we're fighting more.
	And probably the reason that you're fighting more is because there's no commitment.
	In the same way that if your bosses kept promising you a promotion that they never delivered on, you'd end up getting pretty mad at your bosses, right?
	Yeah.
	I would be furious with my boss if something like that happened.
	Right.
	So, and look, I'm not saying that a commitment magically heals all wounds or anything like that, but just so you understand the sort of female process.
	I know that if, you know, my daughter is
	Is with a guy for a couple of years, and there's no ring on her finger, and there's no... not even... when it's gonna happen?
	I'd be pretty mad.
	So... That's... I mean, I don't know, obviously, but it's a possibility to... to mull over, because, I mean, you don't want this to happen again.
	Because another thing, too, another reason why you wouldn't be... If you don't know why you broke up with this girl,
	Like deep down?
	Other than, you know, she sent a message to a guy which, you know... You can look at that thing that happened with this girl, right?
	So you can look at that and you can say, that's a disaster, it's all over, I'm dumping her, right?
	Or, what you can say, is you can say, this is an indication that something is wrong with the relationship, it's showing up in this way, and we need to get to the bottom of it.
	Rather than break up.
	Now, maybe you get to the bottom of it, and you break up anyway.
	But, when you see something like that, the solution isn't just to break up.
	The solution is to try and dig in, as we're sort of doing now, okay, what's going on?
	Why is this happening?
	I mean, I've been married 21 years.
	I've never even been remotely tempted by anyone outside the relationship.
	And, you know, I dated a fair number of women in my youth, and my wife has never been tempted by anyone outside the relationship.
	There's no question of our, like, love and loyalty and devotion and all of that.
	But if she did get attracted to some guy, I can't imagine, but if she did, it'd be like, okay, this is a symptom that there's something not working in the relationship, which we need to really address.
	Whereas if you break up, you never find out what that thing is.
	And then what happens is you go forward and you say, man, I could invest three years into a relationship and the woman could just cheat on me.
	Why on earth would I get involved in another relationship?
	Three years in, the woman can just betray you.
	This is exactly what I was thinking after that relationship.
	And I still think about it a lot.
	It messed me up really, really bad.
	Yes it did.
	And so what I'm trying to say is that if you know why it messed up so badly and broke your heart and broke her heart, if you know why it messed up so badly after three years, then you don't have to be paranoid about a random disaster hitting your next relationship.
	I mean, I knew why my relationships didn't work out in my teens and twenties, because I wasn't living my values.
	Okay, now I live my values.
	Oh look, my relationship is working out.
	After I started living my values, which to our earlier point was about my standards having consequences, so they weren't just noise.
	Well, again, older than you when this was happening and with far fewer excuses because I've been in a philosophy even longer.
	But once I'm like, you know what?
	I'm going to live my values and my standards are going to have consequences.
	Within one year of doing that, I meet the woman of my dreams.
	We get engaged in four months and we're married after 11 months.
	The first time we really met each other, we're married within 11 months and we've been 21 years and it's been about as perfect a thing as you could imagine.
	I'm not saying this to brag or anything like that, but what I am saying is that, okay, once I figured out why my relationships weren't working, I had no fear of a relationship not working.
	Like, as I'm getting older,
	I mentioned this the other day.
	When I play racket sports, I occasionally will pull a calf muscle.
	And I'd be like, oh, that's annoying or whatever.
	Maybe I'm just walking around.
	And it's like, well, no, all I need to do is I need to do a bunch of calf muscle exercise every week.
	And now I don't worry about my calf.
	I know what the problem is.
	It's that, you know, just as you age, your muscles get weaker.
	And so I just need to strengthen that muscle.
	And now I work on strengthening... I didn't used to have to do this when I was younger, but I'm older now, so I have to work on strengthening quads and calves and...
	and glutes and all of that, because those are my lunging and turning.
	I just need to work on strengthening those outside of playing racquet sports, so now I don't worry when I play racquet sports whether anything bad is going to happen, because I know what the problem is.
	In the same way, like, I couldn't figure out why I had jimmy legs, like, restless legs when I went to sleep to keep me awake, and it's like, well, now that I stretch, I never have to worry about it.
	So once you know the cause of something, you don't worry about it happening in the future.
	And that's why I keep asking you why you broke up with this girl, because if you don't know why, or you think, well, it was a good relationship and we loved each other and she was great.
	She was smart and pretty, but man, after three, three years, she just wanted to go date someone else.
	And I don't know why.
	And like, then you'd be like, how on earth could you trust anyone again?
	I get what you're saying.
	I'm just thinking.
	I'm not saying anything.
	I'm thinking about it a lot, but if there's still a question about why did I leave her, I still don't have additional answers.
	Everything that I can connect is that message and her having a bad temper that I did not like.
	Those were the main decisions.
	No, no, no.
	Identifying problems
	Doesn't mean the relationship ends, right?
	So if you say, well, you say to her, listen, I love you, man, you've got a real temper.
	Do you know how easy it is to solve a real temper?
	It's ridiculous.
	It doesn't take five years of therapy.
	I mean, anger management courses, 10 courses, and you've got a big, a good handle on your temper.
	It's like phobias, right?
	Like, I'm afraid of spiders.
	You know, progressive exposure, man, 10 sessions, you're done, you're okay.
	I mean, something's a bit meaty and complicated to deal with.
	Having a bad temper is not something that is intractable.
	Honestly, you go to therapy, go to anger management, and you can solve it.
	I mean, I used to have a really bad temper when I was younger.
	You just deal with it.
	This is not a big, monstrous, complex, ten years of Freudian analysis to get to the root of it.
	And so, if she has a bad temper, I mean, you look up, how do you deal with a bad temper?
	Right?
	And you say to her, listen, this is a big barrier.
	I know I also have a bad temper, so let's do it together.
	And then maybe you both go to counseling, or you go to anger management, or whatever it is, right?
	You can even do the work on your own.
	And you just make a standard, which says, look, we don't yell at each other.
	We don't call each other names.
	So the bad temper thing, that's not like demonic possession where you need the Pope to cure you on a long weekend, right?
	Yeah, definitely it wasn't and most of the relationship was great and most of my friends were very jealous of me of having such a girlfriend.
	Well, that probably doesn't help either.
	So what did your friends say when you said... Did you talk to your friends about breaking up with her?
	With a few of my very closest friends.
	Okay, and what did they say?
	What did they say?
	Both of them thought that I should have tried to work it out, that I was a bit too overzealous.
	You were pulling the trigger too quick, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so your friends say, work it out, right?
	You've got your girlfriend's mother calling you up, begging you to work things out, right?
	And some of the girlfriend's friends that I never heard about were contacting me also.
	Saying you broke her heart, please fix this, whatever, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, do you regret breaking up with her in the way that you did?
	When that happened, I did not regret it, but now I regret it very much.
	Okay, so you regret it, your girlfriend regrets it, her friends regret it, your friends regret it, her mother regrets it enormously.
	So everyone got harmed by this.
	So when everyone gets harmed by this thing, someone's benefiting.
	Otherwise, it's not going to happen.
	You know, like if you go on a date with the girl of your dreams and you decide to stick a fork in your eye?
	Well, your eye doesn't help.
	The restaurant doesn't get help.
	The girlfriend is pretty horrified, or the date is pretty horrified.
	Like, nobody benefits, so it doesn't happen.
	For things to happen, someone has to benefit, right?
	So... Did your parents... How long were your parents engaged for, do you know?
	Well, not quite a lot.
	They dated maybe...
	Eight.
	I think they dated about a little less than a year, got engaged, and quickly after engagement had a kid.
	Okay.
	So your parents were like 18 months from meeting to becoming parents, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So you're twice that and you haven't even got an engagement ring for her.
	Or told her when that's going to happen.
	So why didn't your parents tell you, look, she's smart, she's beautiful, she's got a lot of options,
	You need to lock this down.
	They never told me that.
	You know what my mother told me?
	After we broke up and some time passed, she told me that she always thought that we would not work out.
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Which was such a blow to me because that was, I think, a year or so after the breakup.
	Then I had a conflict with my mother and I said, why didn't you ever say anything about our relationships?
	Try to help me or so.
	And then after all of that passed, she said, well, I always thought that you would not work out.
	But she also didn't help you.
	If she thought, well, it might not work out, then she would want to give you good advice to help, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So, who benefits from you breaking up?
	You don't.
	The girl doesn't.
	Obviously, this guy who said he slept with her and then didn't, right?
	Maybe he benefits, but he's not a huge part of the equation, right?
	So, who benefits from you not getting married to someone who dislikes your parents?
	Yeah, obviously my parents benefit from that greatly.
	Which is why they're not giving you the entirely sensible advice.
	I mean, if I have a son and he's dating some wonderful woman, month after month, year after year goes by, and he's not even telling her when they might get engaged, I mean, I'd take a wet fish and I'd smack him upside the head.
	And I often think that I will never meet a girl like that again.
	That's what I think very often.
	Well, I don't know if she's married now, but you can always go back and grovel.
	Well, she's not.
	She's not.
	Well, you can always go back and grovel.
	That's always an option.
	Male groveling is seriously sexy, because it shows a woman just how much power she has over you, and there's nothing wrong with good old-fashioned male groveling.
	It's a serious question.
	You would consider that a viable option, going back to her and groveling?
	Absolutely!
	In a heartbeat.
	If you're still thinking about, okay, how long ago did you break up?
	Five years?
	Six years ago.
	Six years ago.
	Look, dude, if you're still thinking about her six years, I would absolutely go back and I would grovel, I would cry, I would rent my garments, I would scream at the top of my lungs, I would yodel, I would just pour my heart out.
	Yeah, even after all the other girls I was interested in and the data on them, I still think about her.
	Of course, yeah, yeah.
	And I would say, listen, if you want me to cut off my little finger, you want me to shave my head, cut off my little finger, you tell me what it takes to get you to come to coffee with me.
	I am wretched, and I did a wrong thing, and it was terrible.
	Yes, I got bad advice, but it's my responsibility for listening to it.
	I still think of you every day.
	Worst mistake of my life.
	Look, what's the worst thing that could happen?
	She says no, but at least she doesn't feel like she was just dumped.
	At least she knows that you really loved her.
	And you still think of her.
	So yeah, absolutely.
	I mean, be honest!
	If you're still thinking of her and she's not married, yeah, pour your heart out, man.
	I mean, I can't tell you what to do.
	I tell you what I would do in that situation.
	I would have done it years ago.
	It's like, oh God, yeah, I made the worst mistake of my life.
	The odds of you ever taking me back are virtually zero, but I just want you to know so that you don't go through the rest of your life thinking that I was indifferent or broke up with you and it was just no thing for me.
	It was the worst thing I ever did.
	I got really bad advice from my parents.
	No advice.
	I should have, I should have offered to marry you years before the end of the relationship, or at least make a commitment as to when that was going to happen.
	I jumped the gun.
	I was scared that you didn't like my parents or rather my parents were scared that you didn't.
	And it was all a big convoluted mess, but I just want you to know.
	I mean, most of the stuff that you said, it's pretty honest.
	And the thing that I fear the most is that I will regret my decision for the
	The rest of my days.
	And even if and when I meet somebody and get married, have kids, I still think if I will regret my decision.
	Right.
	But the reason you regret, and I know we don't have much more time, but here's the thing.
	The reason you regret your decision, my friend, is the conditions that had you make that decision are still in place.
	So you can't trust the next relationship.
	Because let's say that your parents, look, they sabotaged the hell out of your brother, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, they also did not help you keep this woman.
	They'd also not help you with the breakup.
	You say, Oh, I broke up with this woman.
	They just smack you upside the head with a wet fish and say, are you crazy?
	She was wonderful.
	She was fantastic.
	Why didn't you tell us ahead of time?
	And of course they would ask you how are things going with so-and-so and, and right.
	So this, but they would like, no, you call her over like right now, there's nothing else we need to do for the rest of the weekend.
	Call her over, have her come over.
	I need to get to the bottom of this.
	Cause this is, this is not right.
	Like, however, this is playing out.
	Maybe you stay together.
	Maybe you don't, but the way this is playing out, that's not right.
	So if your parents don't want you to marry a quality woman who might interfere with their hold over you, then the fact that you're still in contact with your parents means that the conditions under which your relationships don't work out, those conditions still exist.
	Which means your relationships can't work out.
	And whether you see your parents or not, I don't know, but you need to.
	If this is an undertow, like my family, my family had no problem with anyone I was dating until one person.
	The person that was genuinely right for me.
	I was never warned against anyone.
	I was ever dating, all the relationships I had that didn't work out, nobody said anything about that it might not work out, that it might not be great, that it might not be positive, blah, blah, blah.
	They were all fine with all the relationships that didn't work out.
	And then the one relationship that came along that was perfect for me, they had a problem with.
	Not just my family, but friends as well.
	Now, what does that tell you?
	That my family is invested in my dating failures.
	Now, this could be for any number.
	It could be because they wanted to keep me as a resource.
	It could be, I'm talking about my parents here, or it could just be that I took an opposite approach to my parents.
	And when you take an opposite approach to people around you, you are each invested in each other's failure.
	I mean, I've talked about the analogy of, you're both lost in the woods, your friend goes north, you go south, there's only one city for 200 miles.
	If he gets to the city, you've gone completely the wrong direction.
	And so, you don't want him to die in the woods, but you don't want him to find the city, because that means you're going to die in the woods.
	Like, you're now in a win-lose situation.
	When you take an opposite approach to people, you're now in a win-lose situation.
	If I take reason, philosophy, self-knowledge and all of that, integrity and living my values, I take that as my approach and my friends or family are all like, you know, hedonism and collectivism and mysticism and following your whims and pleasure-based life forms and anti-philosophy and anti-empiricism, then we can't both be happy.
	And if I'm happy, it means they've made the wrong choice.
	If they're happy, that means I've made the wrong choice.
	So when you take the opposite approach to life, you will always sabotage the other person and they will always sabotage you.
	Because it's win-lose.
	You don't help the guy you're competing with train to beat you.
	So if you, the moment you take an opposite approach, the moment I said, I didn't know this at the time of course, right?
	The moment I said, reason, evidence, empiricism, facts, self-knowledge, that's it.
	The moment I said that, I was locked in mortal combat with all the people around me who took the opposite approach.
	Mortal combat for the soul, for the soul's existence, for the soul's salvation.
	The moment you say, this is the path to heaven, everyone who does the opposite is going to hell.
	And the moment they say, well, no, my path is the path to heaven.
	Your path is the path to hell.
	Then you are enemies.
	You are fundamental existential opposites, and you are rooting for each other's failure.
	And it's not like we're mean or malevolent, but you are rooting for each other's failure.
	If you have a girl that you absolutely love, and your friend takes her on a date for whatever reason, and you want to date her, you don't want your friend's date to go well.
	You want her to find him boring, or lazy, or unattractive, or whatever, right?
	You don't want him to succeed.
	Of course.
	And it's not like you hate your friend, it's just, you want the girl.
	And we want this treasure called happiness.
	And now your parents' approach to happiness is nagging, conformity, bullying, excuses, justifications, externalizing, projecting, manipulating, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Now you are taking the opposite approach, right?
	Now if you're taking the opposite approach to get to happiness, your parents do X, you do anti-X.
	Your parents go north, you go south.
	You're doing the opposite of what they're doing to achieve happiness.
	Can you both achieve happiness?
	No way.
	Absolutely not.
	In fact, if they get happy, you're fucked.
	And if you get happy, they're fucked.
	So you think that they're invested in your happiness when your happiness means that they can't be happy?
	That they're wrong?
	That they made massive mistakes that are probably unrecoverable?
	God, no.
	If you're lost in the desert and you go the opposite direction, then there's only one oasis for a hundred miles.
	And you get a phone call from your friend on the last crackling cell reception.
	He says, I found the oasis.
	What does that mean for you?
	You're dead.
	You are now going to die in the desert of thirst.
	Because he found it, and you went the opposite direction.
	Do you see what I'm saying?
	Yeah.
	And I have to say, I'm very excited about you laying so much stuff out for me, but at the same time, I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that just... I don't know what else to say.
	Well, your sinking feeling is... These are just facts.
	I mean, and this is not even a debatable fact.
	That if you're doing the opposite of people around you, and you're, like, if you have a theory that says, if I lose weight and exercise, if I want to lose weight, I eat less and I exercise more, and your friend has a theory which says, well, to lose weight, I need to sit on the couch and eat to my heart's content, you can't both be right, because they're opposite approaches.
	You're saying a calorie deficit has me lose weight, he's saying a calorie excess has me lose weight.
	So you're doing the opposite.
	You can't have the same outcome.
	You can only have opposite outcomes if you're doing the opposite.
	So what I'm saying is that, and the reason why your heart is sinking, is that I'm pointing out a fundamental conflict that is absolutely manifest in your relationship with your family.
	They cannot be invested in your success if you're doing the opposite of what they're doing.
	They can only be invested in your failure.
	Particularly if they're kind of selfish, right?
	And so the sinking feeling is the reason why you're not a father is your parents are invested in your failure because you're doing the opposite.
	The moment you do the opposite of the people around you, you are enemies.
	Again, I wish it were different, but this just, this is like basic syllogism, right?
	This is, this isn't, you don't even need empirical evidence.
	It's interesting because they always say they want to have grandchildren and they can't wait to have
	You don't openly sabotage people, otherwise it's not sabotage.
	Sabotage is covert by definition.
	I mean, whoever blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline didn't announce it.
	Sabotage by definition is camouflaged.
	So of course they're going to say, we want the opposite of what unconsciously we're actually doing to you.
	Their marriage was founded on decisive action to get married, and they'd never say anything to you about you dragging your feet marrying this woman from your early twenties, after three years.
	So that's sabotage.
	Your mother knows exactly how to lose weight.
	You said she was overweight.
	She lost weight, right?
	She knows exactly how to lose weight.
	So if a child gains weight under her tutelage, she is sabotaging that child.
	So of course they will say the opposite of what they're doing.
	That's the whole point of sabotage.
	You know, in war, if you want to disable a truck, if you bomb it from the air, that's an attack.
	If you sneak in under the cover of the night pretending to be a mechanic and you cut the fuel line so that it can't run, that's sabotage, right?
	But the only reason you get access is you pretend to be a mechanic.
	So I want to go fix this tank, and you actually break it.
	That's sabotage, right?
	That's subterfuge.
	That's hidden warfare.
	And it's all very testable, and to me this is blindingly obvious and very logical.
	I'm not saying it's not upsetting.
	Of course it's upsetting.
	But you can sit down, whatever you want to do, you can do, but you sit down with your parents and you say, oh, mom, dad, quick question.
	What is your goal for my happiness?
	How do you know what's going to make me happy and how are you working to help me achieve it?
	I mean, if my daughter comes to me and says something like that, I can go on for an hour.
	You know, it's important to be likable, but not a pushover.
	It's important to have integrity, but not to the point where you put yourself in danger.
	Like all of these things, these are the ways in which I'm working to try and help you achieve a life that is going to be positive and rewarding for you.
	That would be quite an interesting conversation with them.
	Well, no, they'd just be a bunch of platitudes.
	Well, we just want what's best for you.
	But it's like, yeah, no, but in terms of my actual life, what are you doing to try and help me?
	You know, well, we don't want to interfere, blah blah blah.
	It's like, okay, well, there's just not going to be anything.
	Because over-controlling people who are sabotaging you, whenever you point out that they haven't helped you, all they say is, well, we want you to have free will, we don't want to interfere, it's your life.
	And the funniest thing for me, at least, is that when I first started reading philosophy, it was very clearly pointed out that
	If you choose X for virtue, then people who are choosing the opposite of X are going to sabotage you.
	I mean, this is all over Ayn Rand, this is in Aristotle, this is like all over the place, right?
	And it's obviously basically logical, right?
	I mean, it's logic 101.
	And yet, I continue to flounder around and try to get people who were
	Either explicitly or implicitly dedicated to my failure to try and get them on board.
	You know, which is like, your friend goes north of the desert, you go south, and after half a day, you're a couple of miles apart, wrestling your way through the sand dunes, and you keep calling him and saying, no, no, no, you've got to come back!
	And he's like, he can see his, he can see the oasis just on the, it's not a mirage, he can actually see the oasis.
	And you're saying, no, no, no, come back and die with me in the desert.
	And he's like, no, no, no, I'm, I'm going on, man.
	I can see the, I can see the oasis from here.
	He's not going to turn around.
	And how is he gonna feel if his oasis turns out to be a mirage, and you call him with the splashing sounds of bathing and drinking at the oasis, and now he knows he dies in the desert.
	How does he feel?
	Is he happy that you succeeded?
	Of course not.
	No.
	No.
	I mean, this is the part of the general... I mean, the general sabotage in the world about me, right?
	Against me.
	The sabotage against me is based on the desperate knowledge that I am succeeding and I am happy and these are the right... this is the right way to live and these are the right principles.
	So you don't need to sabotage people who are already self-destructing.
	You have to sabotage people who are succeeding.
	And the sabotage is confirmation that they're right.
	And so the fact that your parents didn't help you in your relationship
	is the biggest indication that it probably was the right thing for you.
	If it was the wrong relationship for you, they would have worked to try and keep you in it.
	But the fact that they didn't help you keep it, and didn't push back upon the breakup, and didn't help you figure out why it happened so you could trust again?
	Straight up sabotage, man.
	Straight up.
	Because now you're in your late twenties, you don't know how to pair bond, you don't know how to trust your instincts, you don't know
	How to be in love?
	Half of your heart is still locked up in what happened six years ago.
	And your parents' number one mission should be to help you solve that.
	And they're not.
	They're talking to you about bullshit activities and what to eat, a little bit of politics, and wasn't it raining yesterday quite a lot?
	That's sabotage, right?
	Distraction is the fundamental sabotage.
	Avoidance of any important topics, avoidance of any depth, avoidance of any connection.
	I mean, look, we've been talking, what, three hours, right?
	So we've been talking three hours.
	Look how much we've accomplished in three hours.
	It's amazing, honestly.
	You've got 30 years, almost, with your parents!
	That kind of avoidance is the ultimate sabotage.
	My family was enthusiastic and facilitated.
	All the relationships that didn't work.
	That's sabotage.
	Had a family member walk with me into a diamond store to help me buy an engagement ring for the wrong woman.
	And then when I met the right woman, they're like, ah, you're going to break up.
	Nope.
	That's sabotage.
	And again, I'm not saying it's conscious.
	It doesn't matter.
	I don't care whether it's conscious or not.
	It doesn't matter to me one bit.
	But that's the effect.
	Every time I was going in the wrong direction, people cheered me on.
	Every time I turned to the right direction, people booed and threw things at me.
	So yeah, why are you not married and a happy husband and father?
	Because you're being sabotaged.
	Because you chose opposite from your parents.
	And you're trying to walk in two different directions at the same time.
	To do what's best for them and to do what's best for you.
	But what's best for them and what's best for you, given that you've taken opposite approaches to life and happiness, you can't serve two masters.
	You cannot.
	You know, I read this, I can't even remember the title of it.
	Maybe somebody can remember.
	I read this book on a girl who was, it was a novel about a girl who was anorexic.
	And I remember that she had a mental breakdown because she was running late for a class, a math class, but she didn't have her math book with her.
	And she's like, okay, well, if I get to my math class without my math book, I'll be punished or I'll be scolded.
	But if I go back to my locker to get my math book, then I will be late for my class and I will be scolded.
	And she just curled up and sat down against the wall.
	Having kind of a breakdown because she was in a no-win situation.
	She couldn't go to her math class without her book and she couldn't go back to get her book because then she'd be late.
	So she was in a situation where she was going to be scolded no matter what.
	She could not achieve non-scolding.
	She could not serve these two masters of having the book and being on time.
	Almost everyone who calls me is being sabotaged in their own life.
	Do you know how I know that?
	I'm at a loss of words, honestly.
	Because they're calling me!
	They're calling me.
	And look, I appreciate that.
	I'm very honored by that trust.
	But if you had people in your life who were helping you, you likely wouldn't be calling me.
	You'd be talking to them, right?
	Yes, but this is something that I've been thinking about for years, actually.
	And I never had
	I can talk with my friends a lot, but not at this level.
	Nobody could give me that kind of feedback that you just did.
	No, I get that for sure.
	But it doesn't take any particular brilliance if you're a parent, right?
	and you got married very quickly and you had kids very quickly, it doesn't take a certain philosophical brilliance to say, well, we got married quickly, why haven't you proposed to this woman after three years?
	That's not brilliance, right?
	And so you're calling me because the sabotage has accumulated to the point where it's almost impossible to see because it's become like air or gravity or whatever, right?
	It's just become part of your environment.
	But if your parents hadn't been sabotaging you, in my opinion, if your parents hadn't been sabotaging you, they would have helped you to keep and maintain and grow this relationship from your early 20s into marriage and fatherhood and so on, right?
	And then you wouldn't be calling me saying, I'm really panicked about not being a father, right?
	So now maybe you need a certain amount of brilliance to uncover these patterns, but if these patterns weren't there for so long and so well hidden and so on, then you wouldn't need to call me because you would already be a father and married in that way.
	In the same way that, like, you don't need to be a surgeon if, you know, somebody starts smoking and their friends say, stop smoking, that's ridiculous, right?
	Don't do that, that's bad for you, and you stop smoking, then you don't need a surgeon.
	But if you smoke for 20 years and then you get some sort of cancer, then you need a very skilled surgeon to try and save your life, right?
	Yeah, that's also a great analogy.
	And I'm very obviously super happy that you called and I'm sort of very pleased that it's been, it sounds like it's been sort of very productive and positive conversation.
	But yeah, that's, you know, when you choose the opposite path, you create enemies and you become an enemy.
	And you see, here's the thing.
	You're also sabotaging your parents by not enforcing your standards, which means they get to get away with bad behavior, which means that bad behavior continues.
	You're both sabotaging each other at this point in your life.
	Yeah, I got a lot to think about after this call.
	Yes, and I know it's late where you are, and I'm sure we've been, what, three and a quarter hours or something like that.
	It's not too late, but it's been a lot of information, almost overwhelming.
	OK, well listen, mull it over.
	These are all conjectures and hypotheses.
	I think there's evidence for it, but it's your life.
	And I obviously wish you the very best.
	And first of all, thank you again for that very kind message you sent initially.
	Obviously, if there's anything else I can do, super happy to.
	If you want to talk about how to talk to this girl from your early 20s, great.
	Find out if she's in a relationship or not.
	And even if she's in a relationship, though, if you just were to say to her how much you regret what you did,
	That might not be... I mean, that's not breaking up her relationship with her boyfriend or anything, but I think it would be good closure for her.
	But if she's single, you never know.
	You never know, right?
	You never know what's gonna happen with people.
	If you are very honest with them, it might be something enormously interesting and probably quite refreshing for her as a whole.
	Yes, I do agree that it would be good for a start because I know it's gonna keep eating at me.
	I just know it.
	If I don't say it, I'm just gonna keep thinking about it.
	No matter what girl I date, it's just going to be on my mind.
	I know it.
	All right.
	Listen, will you keep me posted about how it's going?
	Definitely.
	All right.
	Thanks, brother.
	Thank you for a great call and I really appreciate the time.
	Bye bye.
	Thank you very much.
	Bye.

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