Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - The Me+ Mindset

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Sept. 2, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

05:01

The Me+ Mindset

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	Steph, in the past, you talked about how if you want to be loved by quality people, you need to be virtuous, positive, enthusiastic, and you need to be providing value.
	But you also talked about the harmful me plus mindset, which is thinking you consistently have to do something because you cannot be loved just for you.
	I find these two concepts contradictory.
	Can you please explain the difference?
	Is that nitpicky?
	Probably a little bit.
	So let's take okay, hit me with a why.
	It's basically the universe when I was born.
	Hit me with a why.
	Hit me with a why if you've ever known somebody who is compulsively joking.
	They can't stop joking.
	Have you ever experienced that with someone?
	Hit me with a Y if you have.
	And if you have known someone like that, maybe you've been someone like that.
	Oh, your father was like that?
	Yes, I have known a few people like that.
	They just can't stop.
	And it can be kind of fun in the right context, but it is kind of exhausting in the long run.
	Just this.
	Got to make jokes, got to make jokes.
	They got the funny voices.
	They imitate old people.
	They just jokes, jokes, jokes.
	And it gets annoying and it gets exhausting.
	Now, that's not virtue, right?
	That's what I'm talking about with the me plus is I have to be me plus I got to spend money on friends.
	I've got to be me plus I got to cook for everyone.
	I've got to be me plus I got to joke all the time.
	I've got to be me plus I can't ever have any problems that I talk about with my friends.
	I've got to be me plus I've just got to listen to everyone talk about their problems and so on.
	So that's the me plus.
	You know, having honor and integrity and virtue, well, those aren't me pluses.
	Those are you being virtuous.
	So, you know, if you feel like you have to be on all the time, if you feel like you've got to be enthusiastic all the time, if you feel like you can't be honest, you can't criticize people because then they won't like you.
	And, right, that's all the me plus.
	That's manipulative.
	Me plus is when you manipulate people.
	So if you want people to like you, which, you know, it's, it's, we're social animals.
	We want people to like us, which is why disliking people is so often used as punishment, right?
	So if you want to be liked, the question is, what do you want to be liked for?
	Do you want to be liked because you are a constant conveyor belt delivery mechanism of jokes to people and you give them the endorphins of giggling or you're constantly supportive of people and you never say anything negative to people and all of that.
	Is that why you want to be liked?
	Or do you want to be liked because you're honest and virtuous and courageous and speak the truth and listen well and all those kinds of things?
	So there is no, see, there is no me without virtue.
	I'm not offering virtue.
	I'm offering identity.
	Because virtue is when you stop manipulating people and speak the truth.
	The degree to which you focus on manipulating people, or I do, is the degree to which we are not ourselves.
	So when it comes to virtue, it is your only chance to have an identity, to have a personality, to be who you are.
	I mean, we have all these thoughts, right or wrong.
	We should be honest about them.
	We should share them.
	We should talk with people in a direct and non-manipulative manner.
	But if we are frightened of being disliked to the point where we end up having to manipulate people into liking us ourselves, we're not ourselves.
	It's like when you look at a sunset over a lake, what do you see?
	Well, you see the sun, and then you see these rippled reflections of the sun on the lake.
	It's the same thing with the moon, of course.
	You can see the stars a little bit if the lake is really smooth.
	So you see the sun, and then you see this rippled reflection of the sun.
	The sun, in this analogy, is yourself direct and honest, its own source of energy.
	The reflection that is rippled is the degree to which you think that you have to not be yourself in order to be liked.
	So the virtue of integrity is the virtue of honesty, is the virtue of directness, is the virtue of being yourself and not living in fear of being disliked.

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