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March 20, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
36:53
Fraudulent Buddhists? Locals Questions Answered
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Time Text
All righty. Good morning, everybody.
Monday, March the 11th, 9, 18 a.m.
And I've got some questions I had posted to donors at freedomain.locals.com.
You can join the community, freedomain.locals.com.
And these were the questions that I want to answer.
Hi, Steph, says Mike.
I'm visiting Thailand in April.
I've come across a practice that seems to me to be unjust and morally questionable.
The monks who had all the time in the world I know I will have an opportunity to speak with Big Boss Monk and I'm going to confront him about this issue.
Can you please help bring some clarity to this concern?
What would be the best respectful approach and arguments against, in my view, theft?
How would a free society deal with price discrimination?
Am I even in the right position? Do they have all the means to charge what they want?
Thank you, Steph. I'm not sure what you mean by price discrimination.
Price discrimination. Do you mean charging people willing to pay more More.
Is that what you mean? So, I mean, you need to flip things in the realm of economics at all times.
Always, always, always.
So you can sit there and say...
Sorry, that was a bit aggressive.
You can make the argument that they're charging...
The visitors more and the locals less.
And you can say, oh, they're overcharging the visitors.
Or you could say, they're subsidizing the locals.
So you can say, well, they're charging tourists more, and that's bad.
Or you can say, they're charging the tourists more so they can charge the locals less.
Now, when it comes to practicing Buddhism, do you think it's the tourists who are coming for the selfie pictures who are more Buddhist, or do you think it's the locals who come to the temple on a regular basis who are the more Buddhist, right, in terms of, like, spreading Buddhism?
If I were to answer a question, and we're always prioritizing, right, so if I were to answer a question, I mean, in this particular instance, these questions went out to donors.
If I were to be asked a question from a guy who'd been around for a long time and supported the show, either financially or in some other way, spreading the ideas and so on, would I be more likely to give him my time and attention or somebody who just kind of bunched in and asked a kind of bad faith question?
When it came to sort of spread of philosophy, where would I spend my time and attention?
Say, ah, well, it's discriminatory because, well, okay, everything's discriminatory.
Everything's discriminatory.
To discriminate, I mean, obviously it has a negative view as well, but to be discriminating when I was growing up, and I think the word still has value, to be discriminating is to have good taste and to prioritize things according to a reasonable, maybe even a just...
Standard, right? The discriminating buyer prefers, the discriminating wine connoisseur, when you get married, you reject all other women for all time as romantic partners, right?
So, as far as just using the word discriminating is putting the cart before the horse.
Like, if you want to make a moral argument, you have to start from the blank slate.
Don't use morally charged words At the very beginning of a moral argument, you have to figure out what is moral or immoral.
Now, is it moral or immoral to advertise a price, have someone voluntarily come and evaluate that price, and choose to pay of his own accord?
Is that moral or immoral?
Well, I don't see how it's immoral.
Now, you could say, well, it's unfair.
Because other people are being charged less.
All right? Why is that immoral?
Charging some people more, charging some people less, is that immoral?
Charging foreigners more, I mean, a lot of people have in-group preferences, right?
That they prefer locals to tourists.
And, of course, when it comes to Buddhism, the tourists are often...
We're Richard Gere adherents, eat, pray, love, pretentious de-wads who are there to take selfies and pretend to be deep.
Is it a vanity tax?
Not a tax, right?
Is it a vanity charge?
Do the Buddhists prefer their own community, or do they prefer fly-by foreigners who probably have no particular deep understanding of or commitment to Buddhism?
Why are you going to Thailand?
Why do you care about Buddhism?
You are a donor because you posted here, so you should check out my evaluation of Buddhism in the History of Philosophers series.
I go into the Buddha in depth.
What's wrong with that?
I mean, all businesses have to figure out How they charge people who have less money?
Or, to put it another way, how do they charge people who are more price-conscious?
Now, a traditional way that this has been done in economics is with the wonderful mechanism called the coupon.
And now it's with apps, right?
Now it's with apps.
I'm a sucker for this stuff.
Honestly, I mean, because I like to save money wherever I can.
So for me, if there's a coffee place that I go to once in a while, my daughter does this too, we'll collect the little cards with the stamps, or maybe there's an app or something like that.
And yeah, every now and then, it gives me a deep thrill to get a free coffee.
It just is the way...
It's the way I am.
I mean, I grew up poor, and it's also just kind of a fun game, right?
So, there are some people who don't care about price, right?
I mean, I don't know, super wealthy or something like that.
They don't care about price. So, what they do is they just go in and pay, and it doesn't matter, right?
There are other people who are more price conscious, and how do you get them To buy your services, especially if you have a fixed service.
The price of an individual coffee relative to the price of all of the infrastructure of, say, a Starbucks.
The cost of the ingredients for a single coffee is not that high.
The machines are there either way.
The workers are there either way.
You've got to heat or cool the place either way.
The corporate tax structure and marketing is there either way.
So how do you get people who are price-conscious...
To buy your stuff.
This is sort of foundational, right?
This is foundational. Is it unjust that there are different tiers in some places for the show, right?
Like some people pay a few bucks a month, some people pay a little bit more a month.
Is that discriminatory?
Well, some people are less price conscious or want to provide more value to the show, which is wonderful.
I really appreciate it. Other people are more price conscious.
And have less money to spare.
I appreciate that too.
So I have tears as well.
So to me, it's always been a really interesting question.
How do you deal With more price-conscious shoppers.
So, what do they? They have Groupons, right?
So, they'll release a bunch of stuff out to some place like Groupon or some coupon thing.
They will market.
In movie theaters, Tuesday night, it was $2.50 Tuesdays when I was a kid, or $2 Tuesdays was a thing when I was a kid.
So, movie theaters would say, okay, well, here's the night which we have the lowest attendance.
I mean, we have to run...
I mean, think of a movie theater, right?
They have to run the movies either way.
They can't just cancel a movie.
I mean, I don't know if you've ever been there.
A couple of times in my life I've been in a movie theater where they've had, like, I'm the only person watching the movie.
So they have to run the movie either way.
They might as well get some money in the till and some butts in the seats.
So, I think back in the day, it was like, I don't know, was it five or six bucks for a movie?
Or maybe they have matinee prices and so on.
Or maybe they show movies.
I remember when my daughter was very little, there was a movie just for little, little, little kids.
Like, you bring in your little, little, little kids.
And the movie was less loud and it was, you know, all of that.
So... So, you'd pay five or six bucks when I was a kid for a movie, but you could pay two bucks on a Tuesday night.
So, that way, the people who have less money, is that discriminatory?
I mean, you've got to find a way to capture the people who have less money if you want to stay in business, especially when you have fixed costs.
Now, the monks have their fixed costs.
They've got to be there. They're doing their monk stuff all the time, so they have their fixed costs no matter what, right?
Now, if you've got your coupons, your cheap nights, your Groupons, you know, your apps, your 10 stamps for the free coffee and so on, then what you're doing is people, and I don't know if this is conscious or not, for me it's fairly conscious.
So let's say there's a 10 for want, right?
Coupon, every time you get a stamp, every time you get a coffee, you get a stamp, and after 10 stamps, your coffee is free.
Okay. So what do we do mentally?
Or what do we do instinctively?
What we do instinctively or mentally is we say, oh, that means that my coffee is 10% cheaper.
Now, of course, we don't consider the time to keep, maintain, bring in, and all of that.
But, you know, my daughter loves doing it.
And I don't, I mean, if I've got an app, I'll just flash the app and, you know, every now and then I'll get something free.
Why not? No big harm, no big problem.
So we mentally discount things.
So, you can say, well, it's price discrimination and it's a rip-off of the foreigners and so on.
I mean, you can go there if you want and, I don't know, I mean, but then you have the problem that it's voluntary and you're going to say that something that is voluntary and chosen is immoral.
Now, Of course, the case that you could make, which maybe is what you're making, is saying, look, I don't mind that it's voluntary.
Of course, I don't mind that it's voluntary.
What I don't like is that it's not up front.
So they don't say, locals pay less.
Like, if you're a local, you pay five bucks, and if you're a tourist, you pay ten bucks.
Right? Maybe you don't like that they say that.
Well, there are lots of places...
That do that. I mean, if you've ever been to Florida and you go to any of their attractions, there are discounts if you're a Florida resident, right?
I'm sure this happens all over the place.
There are discounts if you are a Florida resident.
Is that discriminatory?
Is that bad? Well, it's up front, right?
And so on.
But I'm not sure why they would do that.
It would complicate the price structure, right?
Like, it would be like if you've got a coffee place that gives you 10 to 1, say, effectively, your price is 10% less if you're doing the scoop.
I mean, that would be more like an advertisement for the coupon thing.
So, would they put up a sign...
In their local language, saying, if you're a local, you pay less, which then wouldn't be readable by the foreigners, usually, right?
Wouldn't speak the local language.
Or would they put up a sign in every language of everyone who came to visit saying, if you're a foreigner, you pay more?
Well, why would they do that?
I mean, you could say, well, it's not fraudulent.
It's like, well, no, but is it fraudulent if someone says it's $10 to come into the Buddhist temple if you're a foreigner, and it's $5 if you're a local, right?
Is it fraudulent to not talk about the $5 if you're a local?
I don't know. I don't know.
Wouldn't it just be kind of annoying and wouldn't cause conflict and problems?
Well, how dare you, blah, blah, blah, right?
And if people are happy to pay the $10, why tell them that locals pay $5?
I mean, I'm just asking.
Like, from a business standpoint, does it make sense to annoy your customers?
Well, how come the locals only pay $5 and I have to pay $10?
And this is sort of what you're getting into.
Maybe you perceive it to be fraudulent, right?
I don't know that it is.
I don't know that it is.
Like if I'm in Florida and I'm going to some resort and they know, let's say they know that I'm not from Florida, for whatever reason, maybe I have to show them my driver's license from Canada to do something, right?
And they say, oh, well, you're not from Florida, right?
Do they then say, well, you know, I'm charging you 30% more because you're not from Florida.
You're not a native to Florida.
You don't live in Florida. Well, why would they tell me that and say, oh, this is the price?
Whereas if I show them my ID and I have a Florida driver's license, then I'd say, oh, 30% off, right?
But they have a policy of local people paying less, but why would they tell me if I'm not a local person?
Oh, by the way, we're charging a third more because you're not a Florida...
That would just be kind of annoying.
It would turn a positive experience into potentially a negative or contentious experience.
So, I can certainly understand why they wouldn't say we charge non-locals more than locals.
I mean, again, for the spread of Buddhism, dedication to Buddhism, generic in-group preference, which is quite common across the world...
A lack of desire to provoke useless conflict.
And, of course, you get to subsidize poorer people.
You get to subsidize poorer people.
Isn't there a certain amount of charity involved in Buddhism?
I'm sure that there is.
Or just, you know, in terms of just being a nice person.
Don't you subsidize poorer people?
So you've got some, I don't know, some local rickshaw driver who's making, you know, three bucks a day, and he's been charged less to get into the Buddhist temple, whereas you, a big-nose, rich, foreign person, is paying more.
So you're lowering the prices for those in need.
In terms of a proportion of income, you can pay more.
So if you can afford more and you're happy to pay the price, why would you get upset if poorer people, who also need the spiritual services or believe that they need the spiritual services of the Buddhists, why would...
It be so upsetting to you that you, as a wealthy person, pay a little more to enter a place of spiritual enlightenment than a poor person who couldn't afford your price.
Why would you be mad at that?
You're happy to pay.
You get your benefit.
It costs you, as a proportion of income, far less to pay the foreign price for the Buddhist temple than a local would have to pay.
And also, of course, the price that most people, I don't know about you, but the price that most people are willing to pay to foreigners to access a Buddhist temple is the result of just the anti-Christian bias, right? So, you know, one thing that the media does is they push...
Any religion but Christianity, right?
Christianity is always reviled, always put down, always mocked, and all of that.
And alternate religions are Promote it, right?
So Buddhism has a positive view in the West, even though Buddhist monks quite regularly sexually abuse their boys.
You wouldn't see a big documentary, a big media series about all of that.
And so, or that there's a kid picked out of nowhere to be a living God.
I mean, it's all nuts, right?
And horrible. But you have vaguely positive views of Buddhism and Largely as a result of being programmed by the anti-Christian media.
You know, the monks in their saffron robes and their shaved heads and this, that, and the other.
The images of peace and the incense and the laughing Buddha and the yellow peaked temples.
Right, so you have all of this positive.
You've been programmed to have a positive view of Buddhism.
Buddhism is not true in a philosophical standpoint.
It's promoted.
To draw people away from the faith of their fathers, to weaken the culture and to separate you from those around you, to create your own little enclave of people who don't have A cultural tradition of Buddhism, but you have rejected the faith of your fathers in order to go and pay foreigners to kind of laugh at you for your naivete and your foolishness.
I mean, Buddhism is just another kind of mysticism, right?
It's not true. And if you're going to go for things that are not true, why wouldn't you go for things that are not true that you grew up with?
That you have more affinity with, that you have more cultural history with, that you have more evolution with, that has defined your civilization more than just about anything else.
It's not Judeo-Christian, it's Greco-Christian.
That is the amazing flavor of the West.
So why... So, you're abandoning the faith of your fathers to go and pursue the faith of foreigners because you've been programmed to do that, for the most part.
I mean, maybe you have some deep affinity and understanding, in which case.
But where do you end up?
You don't end up in Thailand. You end up with a bunch of hippie weirdos in the way.
Sorry, just to be blunt, right?
I just want to be blunt.
So, if Buddhism commands charity and you're interested in Buddhism, then you pay more so that poor people can pay less would be a good thing, wouldn't it?
If Buddhism doesn't command charity, then, I don't know, seems a little selfish in my view.
So, okay, I hope that helps, but yeah, I mean, don't automatically assume that just because someone's charging more that it's a bad thing.
That's a foundational aspect of the business world.
All right. Hey, Steph, in one of your shows you mentioned that being a commodity to your family was a great pleasure.
Sometimes. Not always, though.
I feel the opposite, as being the provider can be quite draining, constantly putting in and the feeling of getting less out personally, selfishly, from my perspective.
I know this is not true, as my wife and children give me much joy.
Work, the home, and local business.
What? As my wife and children give me much joy, work the home and local business.
I don't know what that means. Please, everyone, just please proofread your questions.
They do surprise me with the love and appreciation they give me also when looking at what we've achieved and built together and the involvement of the kids through homeschooling and the whole process is a great privilege.
Why do you think this feeling and thought creeps up from time to time in the male provider mind?
This feeling that you give and give for others to flourish, saving for the future, protecting and preparing, yet I feel neglected in the process.
Is it just a selfishness that comes through or is there legitimacy in the feeling that a male should address or discuss with his family?
Would love some philosophical insight into this thought and feeling of the male perspective.
Thanks so much. Appreciate it. P.S. My wife feels the same way some days, educating, feeding, cleaning, managing, driving up and down and assisting the community, just the roles we have.
I suppose. Yeah, I mean, do you resent that which you have committed to from time to time?
Yes, it's also known as breathing, being awake, being asleep, being alive.
Yes, there are absolutely times when you will resent the values and the virtues that you have committed to.
Yeah. Do you think I always leap out of bed in the morning with a smile on my face and a spring in my step to wrestle with the joys, depth, power, and beauty of philosophy?
That would be a big no.
I mean, you know, a lot of times it's great, and sometimes, not too often, but sometimes it blows massive amounts of intergalactic chunks across the universe, and it feels like, I don't know, meteors thudding into the chest of my heart.
So, yeah, I mean, most times it's great, sometimes it's not.
So that's life. I mean, it's like exercise.
Like most times I enjoy, reasonably enjoy exercise, or at least I enjoy the feeling afterwards.
And there are times where I just really, really don't want to do it.
I mean, most times I'll do it.
Occasionally I won't, but, and usually I feel better afterwards.
But yeah, there are times when, when it's like dieting or, you know, all of the calorie restrictions that come with age, you just, you don't want to.
I get that. Even if you love your job, there are times when your job is a drag and you'd rather be doing other things.
So that is natural.
Women love homemaking.
Women love providing for and care.
But, you know, it's a little bit of Groundhog Day with the endless laundry and cleaning and cooking and grocery shopping.
You know, there's just a certain amount of repetition and that's important.
So I think accepting that that's just part of life, that even if you love something, there are times when you don't love it.
It's going to happen now. If it grows in frequency or it becomes something important, then it's usually a sign that something needs to change.
So, one of the ways that you know if your complaints are valid or not, and by valid, I don't mean that you shouldn't accept them emotionally, but do they signal the need for change, right?
So, yeah, there are times when philosophy kind of sucks.
But then what I do in my head is I say, okay, well, what other life do I want?
I mean, I wanted kids and I wanted a family, so for me, being in pursuit of that, it was great.
So I'd be unhappy because I didn't have a wife and a family, and I'd say, okay, well, what life do I want?
Well, I want a wife and a family.
So I went out and got me a wife and a family, and I'm happier.
So that solved the problem.
If you're overweight, say, oh, I'm unhappy that I'm a pair, right?
I'm unhappy that I'm overweight.
So, okay, well, what would make me happier?
Losing weight. Okay, so you lose weight.
Makes things better, right? So, do you have another kind of life that you want with your family?
Right? So, if you work outside the home, let's say you're gone 10 hours a day, maybe you want more time at home.
Maybe you feel like you're missing out on your children's childhoods because you're gone a lot working.
Okay. Well, maybe you can cut back to part-time for the couple of years that your kids are very little.
If you can afford to, I think that's a great thing to do.
Because it sets up a lifelong, even greater lifelong bond, right?
So, you know, maybe for the couple of years that your kids are very little, you can be home more with your wife and maybe that would be a more satisfying job.
Maybe, you know, you're going to bleed through some savings.
Maybe you need to move to a smaller place or whatever it is, right?
But, you know, maybe there's a certain amount of automatic thing.
Well, I got to go work. You know, 40 hours a week, plus commute, plus this, plus that, plus some travel from time to time.
Maybe I've got to go and do all of that stuff and that, you know, maybe you're not happy about that and maybe you'd like to spend more time with your family and have less money.
Again, not taking forever, but for a couple of years, right?
I'm sure your wife would appreciate it if you're home, helping out.
Your kids would love it, I'm sure, if you're home.
So maybe there's something you need to change.
But if you're dissatisfied with Right?
It's sort of an old joke about, yes, you meet some young, attractive person in Los Angeles, right?
And he says, well, you know, I'm currently an actor, but I'm hoping to break into waitering, being a waiter.
I mean, that would be funny, right?
Because it's always the other way around.
So, for me, I don't want to make this about me.
I'm just sort of trying to give you an example, right?
So, for me, it's like, yeah, okay, there are occasions when I don't want to do philosophy.
I don't want to be a pirate.
I don't want to do philosophy. But it's never because of philosophy itself.
It's usually for some other reason, for whatever reason, right?
And there are times when...
You know, I remember when I was in Australia, I mean, the time switch was pretty radical, obviously, and there were times when I just was not at my peak energy to do a speech, but, you know, there were a thousand people waiting to hear a speech, so go do a speech, right?
It's not because of giving a speech isn't the problem, it was just, you know, giving a speech on the other side of the world with a little time to flip my schedule was a problem, right?
So it's not usually the thing itself, it's a bunch of other stuff that is going on.
So for me, it's like, okay, yeah, there are times where it's a drag.
So what else do I want? Like, what would I change?
Well, if there's something I want to change in my life, I mean, it's funny, like, you don't want to change for every little discontent you have, right?
I wouldn't sit there and say, gee, I have to give a speech when I'm tired, so I'm just going to quit and go back to computer software.
That would be, I don't know, like if you have one disagreement with your wife, you get divorced, right?
So it has to be something substantial and growing and where there is a positive alternative, right?
So yes, there will be times in life where you have this occasional discontent.
There are times in my life I don't want to exercise.
Does that mean I'm going to stop exercising?
It does not. It does not.
I enjoy far too much the feeling of strength in my bones and in my muscles.
And I enjoy being attractive to my wife.
I enjoy all of that stuff.
And honestly, exercise, if you do it right, exercise is not much of...
A negative. Oh, it subtracts time from your life.
It's like, well, not necessarily.
Of course, you can listen to music.
You can listen to shows like this.
Sometimes if I'm exercising, I will, if I'm on a weight machine, I can have a game of Catan or something like that.
So it's not just total dead time or something like that.
So yeah, discontentment is natural from time to time.
If it's something significant, and particularly if it's growing, then you need to change something.
And you should be open to everything when it comes to changing your life.
I mean, outside of you have a commitment, obviously, you know, when I say like outside of your moral commitments, like if you've If you've got a mortgage, you shouldn't be open to, I don't know, not paying your mortgage.
Well, I mean, you can be open to that too, just you've got to move.
It's in terms of keeping your commitments, right?
Like, there's not an option called, well, maybe I'll just stop paying my bills, right?
You've made an obligation to pay your bills and so on, right?
Or, you know, I choose to not feed my children.
You've got to feed your kids and all that, right?
So, you've got a commitment to your wife.
But everything...
Everything that is moral should be on the table in terms of designing your life.
Everything. So, if you have a job that takes you away and you feel like I'm working and everyone else is having a family life except me, that's really important.
That's not really how we're designed.
That's really, really important to understand.
Maybe there's something within you that you can say, okay, well...
Is there a way for me to spend more time with my family?
Right? Which, there is a resentment that comes in men to some degree, which is, if your family is like, I'm not saying they would be, but if your wife in particular, maybe your kids too, it depends how old they are, but if your wife is, and again, I'm not saying she is, but if your wife were to say...
No, I don't want to give up my days at the spa.
You get back to work.
I don't want to give up a really expensive house.
I don't want to give up our new cyber truck or something like that.
You get back to work.
I'd rather have inconsequential Hermes handbags for $10,000 than have you home five minutes more a week, right?
Okay, well, that's not a good thing at all.
If your family chooses money over your presence, I mean outside of a bare minimum that you have to eat and pay your bills, If your family chooses excess over time with you, well, that would be something you would resent.
If you sit down with your family and you say, I feel like I'm spending too much time away from the family and I'm spending too much time making money and not enough time with the family, I want to change that.
Now, if your kids are like, yay, dad will be home more, fantastic.
I don't need a new bike.
I want time with my dad.
Right? I don't need a PS5. I want time with my dad.
Right? I mean, isn't that kind of how it should be that people will choose you over stuff?
And if you are a father who's gotten into the hamster wheel of providing stuff over you, then there will be times where you resent that.
And that makes perfect sense to resent that.
Now, to resent that is not to resent people.
It's really, really important.
To resent your life does not mean to resent the people in your life.
Why? Because you chose it all.
Resentment says, I want something to change.
And for a lot of men who are working too hard, the resentment is, I miss my family.
But the subterranean resentment, which is where the real problem is, is why doesn't my family miss me more?
Why doesn't my family say, you're gone too much, I want you home during the day, let's find a way to make that happen.
And if we have to live lean for a couple of years, we'll live lean for a couple of years, but it's more important that we have time together as a family than you provide all this money.
Is your family using you?
I mean, this is the resentment of the male provider, right?
And women have their own resentments too, but is my family viewing me as a sort of cash-generating ATM livestock workhorse?
Are they just using me to get money so they can have their happy paradise at home?
I remember a guy I worked with many, many years ago, and he had a family cottage.
And his wife and his kids would go up to the cottage all summer.
And he would, it was like, it was a four-hour drive or something, because, you know, traffic and all that, especially Fridays.
So, he would be in town wrestling with difficult clients and managing payroll and, you know, all of this business stuff.
And he called his wife.
They wouldn't be home because they'd be out, you know, fishing or boating or kayaking or, I don't know, wakeboarding or whatever the heck they were doing.
And he'd be like, you know, they're up there.
In the summers, he would get resentful.
They're up there. They have the best life on the planet.
And I'm sitting here dealing with angry clients and eating frozen dinners.
And he would get up to the cottage, and he'd say, you know, you finally get to the cottage around 10 o'clock at night, you go to sleep, you wake up, and wouldn't you know it, there's a whole list of things that need to be fixed around the cottage, and that's my Saturday, and then Sunday I have to leave after lunch so that I don't get stuck in traffic.
And then I'm back for a week of TV dinners and angry clients.
So he was resentful.
And I understand that. It should be the case that, of course, his family should say, no, we miss you.
We want time with you.
And there are, of course, you know, the predatory men, there are predatory women, and some of the women will demand money from the guy and demand that he work while they go up and have a great life.
And he is a conveyor belt of cash to a family that chooses the cash over him.
And that's a feeling of rejection.
But, of course, he chose these people to have in his life.
He chose the high-status, very attractive woman who was, I mean, she wasn't a gold digger, but she liked her money.
She liked the money. She liked the status.
She liked the cottage. And he didn't have a strong enough bond with his kids where they would say, no, dad, I don't want to be up at the cottage.
I want to spend time with you. Right?
So he had chosen to become the provider of resources rather than the connector of souls that should be the foundation of everyone who's an adult in the family.
So, if you've designed and created a life where the primary value that you add is financial, then don't be surprised when the primary value that you add is financial.
So, you can get resentful at that and say, well, people should choose me over money, but if you've been...
I mean, honestly, it's like the woman who dresses really revealingly and really provocatively, like, you know, boobs up, butt out, skin tight, cleavage, blah, blah, blah, and then says, well, I can't believe that men objectify me.
It's like, well... If you don't want to be objectified, you know, maybe don't dress that way.
It's just a thought, you know? And again, there's nothing wrong with women dressing like that.
Sure. But then don't complain that a man is responding to your physical cues if your physical cues are front and center.
You know, it's like the man who roams around with a million-dollar watch on and super expensive cars and all of that, and then he's like, I can't believe that people...
Only interact with me on the basis of my wealth.
It's like, well, but you're putting your wealth on full display and all of that, so maybe that's got something to do with it.
So you've designed a life, if you're feeling this way, maybe, where the value you provide is financial.
So then that is usually a good sign to give up money in exchange for time with people, right?
Time with loved ones and money.
That's the big pole that men shift back and forth between, the two poles, right?
The two sons that compete for our gravitational pull.
Money, generating money, time with loved ones.
And if you feel like too much weight has gone into the generating money side of things, then it might be time to pull back on the generating money for time with people.
And if your family loves you, if your wife loves you, and I'm sure she does, and you say, I miss time with you and the kids, and I feel like I'm just kind of a workhorse...
And, you know, this is more than just occasional discontent, which we always have.
This has kind of been growing and it's becoming pretty important to me.
Then, I mean, if she loves you, she'll say, well, we need to find a way to accommodate what you want, right?
We need to find a way to accommodate what you need and what you want.
And that's the loving side.
The practical side is that if she, I don't know, not that she would, but if she sort of whips you back to, you know, you got to keep going to work and get the hell back out there and make some money, then you're just going to end up sabotaging your career and you're going to end up broke.
It's like exercise, right?
If you push yourself past your limits, all you do is injure yourself, and then you can't exercise as you recover.
So you end up doing negative things, right?
So she'll be wise about that.
I mean, there'll be a loving thing, which is, yes, we should work to provide everyone in the family with what works best for them.
And if more time with your family and less money is what works for you, then the family should find a way to accommodate that.
And there might be a little bit of awe, disappointing from the kids, but then they'll look back and say this was actually a great time and all this, that and the other, right?
So, she also will know that if you are feeling like a workhorse and you are feeling like you're just a money provider, then even if she doesn't, quote, love you, I'm sure she does, right?
But even if she didn't, she'd say, well...
We're going to have to change that because, you know, I want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by working it too hard, so to speak, right?
So, yeah, I mean, recognize that there's going to be some chafing at every parts in life, but...
Every now and then, most people get headaches.
Like, I get a couple of headaches, maybe a year, maybe five, I don't know, whatever, right?
And just, I slept funny or got up too early or something like that, right?
Or slept too long. So, every now and then, but, you know, if you wake up with a migraine every day, that's probably something to look into, right?
So... I hope that helps.
I really do appreciate everyone's questions.
And of course, your support is absolutely invaluable to me.
FreeDomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
I really, really would appreciate that.
Lots of love from up here.
Take care, everyone. I'll talk to you soon.
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