May 17, 2024 • 43 mins
Tune into an enlightening episode where Ethan and Jared Thomas, the dynamic duo of Brothers Creed Podcast, explore the powerful concept of "Carpe Diem" or "Seize the Day". They discuss the significance of cherishing and plucking each day when it's ripe, and dig into the profound ties of this principle with "Memento Mori", a Latin phrase reminding us of our mortality and life's fleeting nature.
With engaging and thoughtful conversation, this episode affirms the necessity to live in the 'now' in a world obsessed with the past and the future. It examines common cognitive fallacies such as sunk cost and arrival fallacy that often distort rational thinking and foster unrealistic expectations. This is an episode for anyone who yearns to grasp the art of being fully present in each precious moment of life.
The discussion deepens as the Thomas brothers identify prevalent happiness fallacies that can hinder us from experiencing joy in the present moment, including the Sunk Cost Fallacy and the Arrival Fallacy. These narratives from various life stages and personal experiences provide profound insight into the treasures and traps of truly living in the moment.
Delving into the complex world of time perspectives, the hosts underscore the value of appreciating the present without letting past disappointments or future uncertainties cloud our perspective. They inspire listeners with anecdotes and quotes by luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Muhammad Ali, sharing how each day is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact.
In this heartfelt and thought-provoking episode, learn to navigate the delicate balance between reminiscing about the past, planning for the future, and soaking in the present. It's a call to seize the fleeting moments of life and enrich the journey of self-discovery and growth. Make every day count with the Brothers Creed Podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Brothers Creed podcast,
where we inspire fathers to build the blueprint for the next generation.
We are the Thomas Brothers. I'm Ethan.
And I'm Jared. And today's episode, we're talking about something that's been
on my mind a lot recently, and it is about living life in the present.
(00:20):
And there's a couple, there's so much to this, about living a full life and
enjoying the moments that you have every single day, where they say the future
is a gift, or they say the moment.
The right now is a gift, and that's why they call it the present, right? There you go.
(00:41):
So they say, they also say that the only reality that actually exists is the current moment.
Future doesn't exist. Past is gone, it's done. But right now is the only thing that actually exists.
So there's something to that, and I kind of walked through some of the things
that I've been thinking about lately,
(01:01):
and especially at this stage of my life, you know, where I have young kids,
and I'm pretty healthy, and just thinking about, you know, 20 years from now,
or if I look back, what am I going to think?
And so some of these things we're going to dive into and talk about,
and it's going to be a good conversation.
I would say a thoughtful conversation.
Most of our podcasts are very thoughtful, but this one will definitely, hopefully,
(01:23):
keep you thinking throughout the week well after you've
uh we've signed off yeah all right
let's get into it all right let's do it do not
gentle into that good night old age.
Music.
Should burn and rave close at day you should be a monster an absolute monster
(01:45):
and then you should learn how to control it no retreat no surrender you can't
conceive of what i'm capable of.
Music.
(02:07):
So, this one, I was, I kind of titled this episode Carpe Diem.
Seize the carp. Carpe the diem.
If you will, for those of you who don't know what Carpe Diem means,
it actually means to seize the day.
Or a more literal translation is it's kind of like a, actually a horticulture
(02:29):
kind of term people have said that literally means to pluck the day as it is ripe.
Like a ripe fruit, plucking it and just taking it when it's ready.
So essentially what that means is to enjoy the moment.
And this has often been related to another Latin phrase called memento mori,
which is remember you are mortal and that everything will pass away and that the clock is ticking.
(02:56):
And so I think both of those come together, that realizing that it encourages
is you to realize that right now is the time that you have, and you need to
be mindful of your mortality, and you need to make the most of it.
At least that's how I interpret Carpe Diem and Memento Mori.
How do you interpret it, Ethan?
Yeah. No, I completely agree. And that was one thing that I had kind of been
(03:18):
on the tip of my tongue or my mind as I was preparing for this and just thinking, living in the moment,
enjoying the now, and
how that kind of relates to the future you
know you kind of said that now is the is a gift because they
call it the present and it's kind of interesting because you know we're every
(03:41):
single second that passes is you know there's never really i guess there's never
really a now because as soon as we say now now it's in the past right so you
know i i had put together you know quite
a few things about, you know, kids and,
and kind of how we can potentially live in the now. What are some of the benefits of living in the now?
(04:07):
And I think I struggle with this one sometimes because, and I'll talk about
this a little bit later of, is it bad to focus too much on the future or is
it bad to focus on the future? Yeah.
And I struggle with this one a little bit too, especially with like,
you know, finances and stuff like that.
Like I'm constantly worrying about tomorrow or 20 years from now, 40 years from now.
(04:30):
And it's just kind of interesting, the dynamic that there's,
there's some things that, that I'm kind of like in the moment.
And there's other things where I feel like I have more of a future view of.
Yeah. So one of the things that I thought was really interesting is it was talking
about, I had read a quote, this is not my quote that I I wanted to share,
(04:51):
but one of the quotes that I had read was about opportunity,
and it was like, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it said something
about how opportunity is a...
Is a gift of the present and how
you know opportunity is not something that
you know potentially is going to be in the future or whatever else
(05:13):
or in the past you know if an opportunity is in
the past it's gone if an opportunity is in the future then you can't rely on
it because it could change but an opportunity is something that is in the present
right now and i thought that was kind of cool it kind of made me think of how
do i I think of opportunities, right?
(05:34):
And, and do I carpe diem whenever an opportunity presents itself,
whatever that opportunity might be, whether it's, you know, playing with my
kids or building memories or investing in something or, you know,
going and doing a Spartan race because it,
you know, somebody asked me and I, and I, you know, want to get better at my health.
(05:56):
And so I say, yes, you know, cause I know it'll push me to be better. Yeah.
So, I don't know, just a couple little teasers of some things that I had thought about. Yeah.
One of the things that I kind of thought about was there's a couple different,
when I think about enjoying the future,
there are a couple different cognitive biases or fallacies that come to my mind,
(06:24):
or even they're called sometimes cognitive distortions.
And so I had three that I wanted to talk about that we'd love to hear your thoughts on these as well.
The first one is the sunk cost fallacy.
Are you familiar with the sunk cost fallacy? Yeah.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's just kind of like, oh, well, I've already bought
(06:46):
the ticket, so I might as well go.
Or I guess it's like a sunk cost, something that you can't get back that you're
like, oh, I already invested in that, so I might as well just keep going or something. Yeah, yeah.
So even though the evidence shows that you maybe shouldn't keep going, right?
So it's kind of said more technically, it is the tendency to follow through
(07:09):
on something that we've already invested heavily in.
It could be time, money, effort, emotional energy, actual physical energy,
or what have you, even when giving up is clearly a better idea.
So we're all likely to continue in an endeavor if we have already invested in it right.
(07:31):
Monetarily nobody wants to waste their time nobody wants to waste their efforts
and so that often will mean that we go against evidence that shows it's no longer in our best,
f in our best interest or is the best decision to continue forward but we're
like oh man we spent so much time on this. You just got to keep marching forward.
So sometimes because of that, the human mind will obscure rational thought because
(07:57):
there's such an emotional attachment to the sunk cost of that.
I do this a lot of times when I'm at restaurants.
If I order something and it's horrible, I'm just like, well, I already paid for it.
Might as well just eat it. you know yeah and so,
I was you know I was trying to not do that so much but especially like oh well
(08:19):
it's just whatever I've already spent the money so and I'm hungry so I'll just
eat it I think some of this comes from like a
mentality of like don't waste anything you know finish your plate I think that sometimes that.
That causes that. But I think one of the clearest examples of the sunk cost
fallacy is these folks who go to Mount Everest, right?
(08:44):
And they're waiting in line 300 yards from the top of Mount Everest,
and their oxygen tanks are dangerously low.
And they spent $100,000 to get there. And they've climbed all the way up to
the top, then 300 yards from the summit.
And they could see a storm rolling in, about to roll in the next hour.
And they're like, man, what should I do? That sunk cost, you're saying,
(09:08):
well, I've spent so much just to get here.
But to continue forward, you could die. And many people do die.
So that's a clear example of when continuing forward is not always in your best interest.
So this happens all the time in our lives.
Holding onto a bad investment, staying in a bad job, staying in a bad marriage or relationship.
(09:34):
A lot of times, you know, like, oh, you know, people always wonder,
oh, why did that woman stay with that man?
He was beating her and he was all this kind of stuff.
And, you know, people ask those questions often when women are abused.
And you have to think about it. There's so much more to it. One,
maybe she doesn't have any ability to make any money or means out if she were to leave him.
(09:57):
Two, maybe if she were to leave him, he would commit more violence.
And so sometimes there's this rationalization that happens. She's like,
well, you know, we've come so far and he doesn't beat me every day now. It's just once a week.
And so it's like, I think that that can sometimes be a sunk cost fallacy.
Like I put so much energy into this and I've tried so hard and it's just,
(10:19):
I just keep going and it'll work out. But it's like, it's not working out, you know?
And so anyway, I think that that is a cool example. And one of the things that
I think that is very clear is like gambling, right?
Yeah. I was going to mention that. A gambler just keeps going and going.
It's like, okay, at some point, it's like, I need to stop. I need to step away.
(10:40):
If I put a single dollar or more in, the risk of that is just going to be too high.
When I think about this, I actually think about your experience,
Ethan, with dental school. I know you've talked about that previously in the podcast.
You've talked about that as learning from a failure or a trial.
(11:02):
But in many ways, I think of your
experience in doing that as a sunk cost fallacy, as you realizing that.
The sunk cost, you realizing that you were in that type of a situation.
And instead of having the sunk cost fallacy and continuing forward with something
that was, you know, you were at the precipice where you had done these tests
(11:27):
and it was just roadblock after roadblock.
And if you had continued forward, you know, thinking about all the energy you had put into it,
it could have have been extremely, the risks would have been way too high for
your family, as a provider, even for your own mental health.
And so I feel like you, in that moment, realizing, hey, I've tried to go to this dental school.
(11:53):
I've got a small family here. I'm trying to make money. I'm trying to make a
living. I'm trying to maintain relationships.
And even though I've sunk so much into this, like two years,
basically, of your life, or a year and a half of your life.
It was like three years. Or three years. Well, it was like two and a half.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a big chunk, and you worked freaking hard for that,
(12:13):
but you were able to see like, hey, if I continue down this path,
I'm going to be on the top of Mount Everest with no oxygen, and then it won't
matter at all. I won't be able to come back down. Yeah.
I don't know. That's my thought. No, I appreciate that. Yeah,
I mean, I look at that, and there was a thought there when I kind of went through
(12:34):
second rounds of interviews.
Interviews and I and I got you know interview at a school and
was like you know oh well I didn't get in this year but you
know I made one more year one more year and you only apply once a year and then
kind of the summer time frame and yeah I mean it got a point it was like I had
to make a decision of do I've invested all this time I've got all this money
(12:57):
and all this you know everything else into it but it just it just didn't make
sense and you know I just kind of.
Threw my hands up and chalked it up to great life experience and then moved
on to bigger and better things.
You didn't throw your hands up. But yeah. You said the cost to continue this
is too high. And you were able to see.
Threw my hands up. I mean, I didn't throw them. I fought through it to where I was.
(13:20):
And then at the end, I was just kind of like, you know, yeah.
I think it's easy to see that as giving up, you know.
I think it's very easy to see that. But truly, I think it is a fallacy to see it that way.
Just like, oh, you got 200 yards from the summit of Everest and you just stopped?
What an idiot. What an idiot. It's like, yeah, but I'm alive.
(13:43):
So who's the idiot? Kind of like cashing in your chips while you can.
It's like I've made a decision where it was no longer in my best interest to continue forward.
The risk was far too high. And up to that point, the risk was different.
And it was far too high to continue.
And so that's one of the things I think about with sunk cost fallacy.
(14:04):
And I think of that example that you shared.
Another fallacy is called the, anything else you want to share on that one?
No, no, it's good. Another fallacy is called the arrival fallacy.
You ever heard of this one? Mm-mm.
You ever see the movie Arrival? Yeah, where the aliens come and they're like,
in that ship, and they're like right with like the ink or whatever.
Yeah. So this one's that like when the aliens arrive, are they going to be,
(14:28):
like we have this fallacy to think that they're going to be peaceful,
but in reality, they're not going to be peaceful. I'm just kidding.
That has nothing to do with this.
Now, the arrival fallacy was coined by Dr. Ben Shahar.
And that it is the illusion of reaching a destination or a goal will finally make you happy.
(14:49):
So it's just like, oh, when I finally get that job. New job.
That new job. That promotion. Then I'm going to be happy.
And I get that new promotion, then I'm going to be super happy.
Or when my kids are finally out of diapers, then it's going to be easy and I'll
be happy. or whenever I go on vacation or whatever.
(15:13):
There's so many things. Or when you get that degree or when you get married.
See, one of the things for me, I feel like this is, in my life,
in some of the teachings that I was,
I feel like this one, for me personally, rings it really true because I felt
like a lot of my younger years were really, in many ways, it was just like I
(15:33):
was following a script. ripped.
And so I was kind of told all the things that I needed to do.
You got to, you know, finish your, you got to graduate high school.
And then I went, you know, I went on my trip, my mission trip.
And then I came home and I needed to, first of all, I needed to get,
then I was told that I needed to get married right away.
So I got married right away. Then I needed to get a degree. And I got that.
(15:56):
And then I needed to get a job.
And I got that. And then I needed to get a house. And I got that. And I needed to get kids.
I got that. So I did those things as fast as I possibly could because I'm an achiever, right?
And it was almost like I felt like, oh, when I get there, when I get to that
point, then I'll be set and then I'll be taken seriously.
Then I'll feel like I'm accomplished.
(16:18):
And I feel like in many ways, I feel like that was a disservice.
And maybe that was just the way that I interpreted it. But I felt like I wish
I had taken more time to enjoy Enjoy the different stages of life that I was
in instead of rushing to try and arrive at this next level or whatever that next thing is.
(16:41):
Even now, I'm thinking, you know, oh, when, you know, sometimes I get,
I catch myself and I'm like, oh, when the kids are in high school,
then this, or when they're out of the house, then we can do this, or when I retire.
And I really catch myself thinking, like, when I retire, it's like, are you serious?
Like, am I seriously saying that? When I retire, I will do X,
(17:03):
Y, Z, or I will be this or that happy.
I was like, I want to be an old man. Ben, if I can't be happy now,
then I got a serious problem.
And so that's something, this one for me is really about living in the moment
and saying, you know, is this like being happy along with the journey?
(17:26):
So one of the things that Dr. Ben argues is that happiness is achieved through
the effort in life and not in the achievement of the goal.
So he talks about don't making real don't make unrealistic expectations about
how an achievement will make you feel that could emotionally backfire on you
you know it's like you ever see that movie.
(17:47):
What's that movie with will smith and
he like gets that job and he's like a real smart pursuit
of happiness yeah yeah i mean
it's kind of a it's a great movie i think it's
a great movie he works hard he gets that job right and
then it's just like oh total bliss total bliss you
know kind of at the end of it's not hollywoodized but in reality
(18:07):
sometimes i mean he's still single
dad even if he gets that job you know he's still gotta try to figure out what
to do where to live he's still he's working long hours and now he can't spend
time with his son you know so it's just like the happiness oftentimes is just
in the journey and it's not in this achievement so stop Stop waiting for that next achievement.
(18:30):
Stop wishing your life away or saying, I'll be happy when in anticipation for a goal or whatever.
And so I think that that is a really important one. Ethan, do you have any thoughts
on that arrival fallacy?
Yeah, this one kind of hits home with me from the kid's perspective.
(18:50):
Because a lot of times, yeah, it's like, man, whenever the kid starts walking,
I want to have to carry them around anymore or you know oh finally whenever
we get out of diapers then finally we'll be able to rest or
you know whenever the kids do this or whenever they do that
oh you know i'm finally going to be able to have fun at the beach whenever my
kid stops putting sand in their mouth or you know kamikaze towards the ocean
(19:13):
you know it's just like yeah but if you live your life like that then it's never
ending yeah because because now it's going to be oh my
kid's not putting sand in their mouth anymore, but now they're running towards the ocean.
And then now it's not there. Oh, they're not running towards the ocean, but they're,
So I'm not too far. Yeah. Not putting their life jacket on. So I'm not too far.
(19:35):
And then, and then it'll be, you know, whenever they get older or now it's,
they don't even want to hang out with you or they don't even want it.
You know, it's like, and so I don't know. Yeah.
If you just kind of wished your life away, don't let kind of wants right now,
or don't let your, don't let your uncomfortable state right now dictate.
(19:57):
You know, I guess the future.
Yeah. or drive you towards something because there's always going to be something
else. There's always going to be a different challenge.
There's always going to be, you know, if it's not one thing or another.
And then you get some people that are the you-just-waiters.
(20:18):
Those people bother me so much. It's like, oh, you know, yeah, I have kids.
You know, my oldest just turned 10.
Oh, you just wait until he's a teenager. major and then
it's just like okay and it's like oh you just wait until
he starts dating you know it's like okay it's like you
just wait until he gets married you just wait
it's like there's always someone that's like further along in the path and they
(20:40):
just you just wait you just wait and it's like i freaking hate
that like what is this gonna be worse some other time but it's
always there's just always gonna be something it's always gonna be something that
makes us uncomfortable and that's not a bad thing you know
that's where people grow and i think if you can and
learn to enjoy that place and find beauty
in it yep you know i don't particularly like changing
(21:02):
diapers but i like cute babies yeah but
i like but yeah but i like a lot of the other stuff that comes along with
babies and we're just finishing potty training our last one we
haven't i haven't changed at least a poopy diaper in six
months yeah which is which is awesome yeah
right but then there's other things where this you
know that i miss about those stages yeah and so
(21:24):
you can't just focus on one thing you got to focus on the whole thing you
know the arrival is like oh when this comes it'll
be better but then when with yeah maybe that one
thing might be easier or better but there's
other things they get lost along the way yeah that you would that you will miss
yeah i think that like a lot of people i think especially around like retirement
(21:45):
have this as well like they really think like oh when i retire it's just gonna
be so great and I'm just going to be so happy.
It's interesting. I started a new job recently, and before I started,
there was a lady that retired there probably a month or so before I started,
and she was an old lady, director of HR.
(22:09):
And so I was, you know, first about three or four weeks in, the new director
of HR went out with her to lunch, And so this lady who had retired came by the office.
And it was kind of a weird interaction. Like we had a big team meeting that she used to be part of.
So she came into the first part of the meeting. She just came to say hi to everybody.
(22:33):
And I didn't know this lady. I didn't have anything to say to this lady.
I didn't even really bother to introduce myself because she didn't even work there, right?
She was just the old director of HR.
And it was a weird interaction because she was like, oh, you guys are all here and I'm retired.
Retired and everybody in the room was like oh you're just you
(22:55):
know here to gloat or whatever and she's like my husband
calls me betty crocker now because i make a lot of snacks
and a lot of food and she was like oddly lingering a little bit too long like
she was like can i come back yeah so i'm like you know what i bet she i mean
(23:15):
she's in it she's retired so she kind of
socially is like, okay, people envy me because I'm retired.
But I bet she's, I think that when you retire, you're kind of saying,
okay, my contribution to, in some people's mind, they're saying,
oh, my contribution to the world has now ended.
And so I think that in some ways, she was almost like nostalgic or wanting to
(23:40):
come back to work to have that purpose again.
And so sometimes, you know if you're not happy before you're in retirement you're
ain't gonna be happy after you retire i mean barring you're working in like a coal mine or something,
you know so but anyway shop yeah exactly so that's that's the arrival fallacy
(24:01):
now there's a couple there's one that's kind of tangential to that it's something
called should hand gentle that's That's a nice word. Yeah. Should statements.
So this is a form of cognitive distortion is what they call this.
Cognitive distortion. That's what my wife feels after a day of all these boys
(24:21):
being home from summer, from school.
They have to cognitively adjust her mind. More like cognitive destruction.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So this one is a faulty pattern of thinking where consistent,
unhelpful, unrealistic,
and irrational thoughts or
errors in our thinking don't match up with reality of what is happening.
(24:47):
So that's a mouthful, but essentially it's you're setting expectations that,
might not take into account the particular circumstances that you're in.
So and it's usually created with
a should statement oh i should i should you know go talk to my neighbors or
(25:08):
i should go you know i should go help that person or i should you're at work
ethan you talked about you're at work and sometimes like oh i should i should
go talk to people right now you should go network i should go so in some of i think in some ways.
You, in your own mind, you are saying, I want to be this type of person.
And so I'm going to do these types of things. But this is a little bit beyond
(25:32):
that where you're setting unrealistic expectations.
And it creates a situation to where you are always anxious, leads to anger, anxiety.
Oh, I should be doing this or I should be doing that. It's like this future
thing that you're, it's like this part of you that's always nagging you to do something. thing.
Like when you're sitting on vacation, it's like, oh, I should be up doing something,
(25:57):
or I'm on vacation, I should be doing this, or I should be doing that. It's like got no chill.
Yeah. It's similar to a kind of like another cognitive distortion that's called
an all or nothing mindset or thinking, so black or white.
It's like, I should do this, or I'm a failure. And so that's kind of that black
(26:20):
and white thinking that I was talking about that takes you out of the moment
and doesn't allow you to live fully.
If you're always anxious and thinking, oh, I should do this.
If you're stacked with way too many things to do, and the expectation is you
have to do all these things, maybe you have too many unrealistic expectations of yourself. self.
(26:43):
In my life, I have felt like sometimes, I feel like I'm trying to get away from
this, but I feel like there's been so many expectations of things that I should be doing,
or else I wasn't a good dad,
or I wasn't a good leader in my home,
or I wasn't a good whatever else.
(27:05):
And these expectations, I felt at times it was so much that there was no way
that I could even been accomplished any of all that.
So it ended up where I just felt bad about my actions and I felt bad for myself.
And I felt like a failure because I wasn't doing all the things that was expected of me.
So if you're feeling like that, take a look at, well, why am I feeling like
(27:29):
that? What is behind that should?
And where does that come from? And is that realistic for me to be asking that of of myself right now.
And so anyway, I thought that was a really good one. I think that these three specifically ones.
Also that all or nothing mentality I talked about, that goes in with the shoulds,
(27:49):
but it's also kind of like, I was talking about just life with Shannon the other day and I was like,
you know, sometimes people have this thing where like they're scared to start
something and try something out because they don't want to be perceived as giving
something up or quitting something.
There's nothing worse than a quitter. People say that. And it's like,
okay, what if you just try something?
Because you want to have an experience in your life, and you don't like it, then you stop.
(28:14):
Since when is that a bad thing? I think that that mindset of like,
oh, you're a quitter is such a juvenile viewpoint to say to someone when it's like, well,
people try different like it people try different things if
you don't like it you don't like it you know it's like okay i'll go
try this or i'll try this new sport or this new
(28:37):
thing or this new hobby and if i don't like it i'll bail
on it if i do like it then guess what i've i've i've
explored some that's what our podcast is about is exploration right
we've explored something new and i've discovered something that
i've liked and so those are the ones i wanted to
talk about and those different fallacies to the arrival fallacy
the sunk cost fallacy the shoulds and
(28:58):
then all or nothing I think if we can resolve many of
those then we can and keep those in mind when we're thinking about the future
or thinking about today or thinking about the past I think it will ground us
in the presence and I think in just to round that out I think in many ways you
know there's a song about this how about when people think about their good
(29:19):
old days and the good old days are now.
I think about that. I think that it's such an important time of life right now
where my kids are young and I'm young and healthy.
And I just wake up and like, hey, what do I want for my life?
I want what I have right now because it's going really well.
And I think that that's not to say that challenges aren't going to come.
(29:41):
I expect those to come, but it's important to live and soak up these days.
And I don't want to look back and say, oh man, I wish I would have just enjoyed
doing it more, instead of just looking forward to what was to come or the end of that period.
I think that sometimes when I look back on my time in Mexico, on my mission trip,
(30:01):
I should, I should, I shoulded myself the entire, I should, you ever seen that
commercial? I just shipped my pants.
I shoulded myself that whole time. And I didn't really enjoy myself hardly at
all that whole time because I was so hard on myself about like, I should be doing this.
I should be doing that. I should doing this. I didn't take time to just enjoy.
(30:25):
I was like, oh, I've got, you know, I've got to do this. I got to do this.
I got to do this. and I was looking forward to that next change.
And then I was looking forward to the end where I could come home.
And then I didn't really get a chance.
I mean, there was like one place where I kind of was able to open my eyes a
little bit and say, hey, this is actually a really beautiful place and I want
to explore this place a little bit.
(30:45):
And so I wish I'd done that more and just slowed down a little bit and lived
a little bit more in the moment there.
Yeah. Well, I think you are a very driven person. And so I think if you're not
like driving towards marching towards something, I feel like sometimes you feel
like, you know, I'm failing or I'm doing something wrong. Yeah.
(31:07):
You know, I, and I completely understand that. You know, I remember when I was
on my mission, you know, I, I, I, there were a couple of places too.
I kind of felt like I was able to slow down and really kind of enjoy just the
experience. That's good. Good.
Which I think maybe that kind of feeds into the experience as a whole.
(31:31):
But one of the things that I wanted to kind of round this out with was when
it comes to, and this is maybe more granular than kind of the fallacies you were talking about,
but living in the moment or living in the present, right?
When it comes to communication, and we've talked about this before,
but when it comes to interacting with other people,
(31:56):
there are so many distractions and things that go on that I think when you're
talking with someone, I'm specifically thinking about my wife or my kids.
When I am engaging with someone or I'm speaking with someone or they're trying to talk to me.
Am I trying to live four presents at a time?
(32:21):
Am I trying to pay attention to this thing and then I'm watching my phone and
then my kid's talking to me and then this other thing?
Living in the moment or being in the moment, it's easy to get distracted with,
everything that's going around, everything that we have in our lives or maybe
worry or anxiety or whatever else it might be.
(32:42):
I think being present in a conversation is.
Leads to, you know, we've talked about active listening before and just more
meaningful interactions and strengthening of relationships.
I think it can help with kind of empathy and understanding and,
and, and like really when someone is there telling you something,
(33:03):
maybe it's something that's near and dear to them or close to their heart,
or they're struggling with something and you're really in the moment with them.
I think that's, that's, that's powerful. powerful and
so kind of i know it's kind of a different take on
on the the living in the present or living
in the moment but that was something that that really kind of jumped
out jumped out at me yeah and you
(33:27):
know there i kind of dove in a little bit too on you know what are some is it
bad to be too focused on the future you mean the present some no like is it
is it bad to focus too much on the future and not enough on the present,
I guess is what I'm saying.
So if you focus too much on the future, right, that can lead to increased just
(33:50):
stress and anxiety in general, right?
Like you were saying, if you should yourself to death, well,
I should be doing this, I should be doing that, I should be doing this,
then it's just, you're just increasing, you just become overwhelmed of all the
shoulds that you should be doing.
And that's just no way to live, right? You can neglect the present.
(34:11):
A lot of times if you're so focused on the future, then you miss those opportunities
that I talked about earlier.
Opportunities come up in the present. When an opportunity presents itself, it's right now.
And so you don't want to neglect the present because you're thinking too much of the future.
And this kind of goes into to my quote that I, that I came up to. Yeah.
(34:34):
But I think it focusing too much in the future can reduce happiness.
Kind of like what you said, the arrival thing. Oh, well, when,
when this comes, I'll be happier. When that comes, I'll be happier.
When that comes, I'll be happy.
It can cause health issues if you are just constantly looking to,
you know, you're not living in the now.
(34:55):
And this can kind of go both ways because sometimes you can like living in the
now, you kind of think of like, oh, YOLO, right? You only live once.
I have to, you know, go crazy now.
I got to eat all the sweets and I got to get, you know, just indulge and I just
got to just live in the moment, you know, and all that kind of stuff.
But I think if you completely disregard disregard the
(35:15):
future yeah then you're just gonna end up you
know if you're living in if you're living in the now for
meal to meal to meal to meal to meal then you're just gonna end up being
you know 600 pound you know unhappy
un mobile person that's
just miserable and then you're like how did i get here well you got here
because all you did was live in the now yeah and you
(35:36):
never told yourself no and you never you know i guessed
you never realized that what you
were doing maybe is sunk costs you need to turn around turn
the ship around so yeah with
that i think that there's a lot of situations where
we say we say the future like the
future is actually guaranteed future is not guaranteed man not at all and as
(35:59):
i get kind of older and i i there's people that have been not no one like really
close to me has died but i've known people that have just randomly died young.
I knew a guy that back in Boise that he had like five kids and he was in like
his, I think it was in his lower forties.
(36:21):
He was really into dirt biking. And one time he was going dirt biking,
he just fell off a cliff and died.
And it's like, he had no future. He didn't know that.
And there's another guy, like my brother-in-law, he had a business partner and
they were setting up a business and they were going to quit their jobs and really
go all in on this business.
(36:41):
And then one day, my buddy, my brother-in-law tried to call his buddy a couple times.
And then he called us, and then his mom called him and said,
hey, have you heard from Hunter?
I don't know where he is. And he's like, I haven't heard from him.
I texted him yesterday. He didn't answer.
I thought he was busy. And his mom's like, something's wrong.
She drove down to his place.
Like, I think she drove like six hours down to his house. She found him dead.
(37:04):
He had a heart attack. He had like a rare heart condition or he would have like
super low potassium levels and he would die and he died.
And he was like in his 20s. He was like late 20s.
So it's just like you're not guaranteed any time on this planet.
And like, yes, it's important to think about your future. But what if you're
(37:26):
like, man, when I retire, I'm going to be so it's going to be so fun.
It's going to be so great. It's going to be awesome.
And the day you retire on your way home from work, you get hit by a car and
you're quadriplegic the rest of your life.
Or you just get diagnosed with cancer. or you know there's another gal that
my wife knows and her husband got like he just like went into the hospital and
(37:50):
he had something on his arm i think and he was like oh yeah that's like stage
four non-operable hodgkin's lymphoma sorry and he had like and he died like four months later.
So it's like dude you got to live in the in the now you've got to remember that
you are mortal and at this time will pass you know but the same thing that is
kind of going with like the keeping up with your health in the now, right?
(38:14):
Because I want to be able to play with my grandkids.
I want to be able to run and jump and everything else.
And so thinking towards the future of I want to be able to, so what I'm going
to do right now is going to prepare my body and my mind so that when that time
comes, I can achieve my goals.
(38:35):
Well, I think it's like, I'm not necessarily, yeah, I agree with you,
but maybe it's not so so much advocating living like
day to day because if if if i'm
living in the moment then i'm like i want to do the
most happiest thing that for my day like right now and that does not include
you know going to work today maybe it's not so much work living in the exact
(38:57):
moment maybe what i'm talking about more is like live in that in that month
live in that week you know and so think about
that it's like okay well i i want to be healthy i
want to be able to do this stuff that i want to be able like this weekend i'm
doing a jiu-jitsu tournament i want to be able to do that tournament i gotta
be strong i gotta be healthy i've i've got to do things and so
(39:17):
i'm looking forward to that but i would say that's the moment you know you know
this week this month the next few months like that those these are the this
is kind of the moment different stage different stages of moments yeah thinking
like oh man i can't wait for you five six years down the road when this or that
happens or when I do this,
then I'm going to have a... It's just like a little bit different of a view.
(39:40):
But yeah, I mean, you only have... So maybe the moment is more of a guideline
than a hard and fast. Yeah, more of a guideline. This second, this nanosecond.
Yeah. Did you have a quote? Yeah, I just had one.
So this one, I don't know, the author's unknown, but it said,
don't let the sadness of your past
and the fear of your future ruin the happiness of your present. Right.
(40:02):
Yeah. Nice. I like it. Definitely. Sometimes I... Learn from the... Go ahead. Sorry.
Learn from the past and hope for the future, but enjoy the present. Yeah.
Sometimes I have a tendency to replay things in my mind from the past.
In fact, I saw a TikTok meme the other day and this guy was like...
(40:23):
This guy was in... His face was painted like a clown.
He's like me remembering... Me at 11 o'clock at night laying in bed,
remembering something i said like in high
school you know it's just like he's just beating himself about how horrible
he found he's doing i shouldn't have said that so sometimes i do have a tendency
(40:45):
to do that just to like really analyze the past past or just like hyper focus
on the future so been trying to kick that habit a little bit and just live in the present,
yeah for sure all right so the quote i had actually two quotes that were good
One is from Benjamin Franklin, good old Ben Frank.
And it is, one day is worth two tomorrows.
(41:08):
So that one was pretty good. And then another one, it said Muhammad Ali,
I don't know, sounds pretty common, but it says, don't count the days, make the days count.
And so, I don't know. Those are two that I thought were pretty cool.
Kind of hit me. You know, one today is worth two tomorrows, you know.
(41:31):
So, what am I doing, you know. A burnt hand is worth two in the bush.
Yeah, or didn't they ask Muhammad Ali, how many sit-ups do you do?
He said, I don't know, I don't start counting until it starts hurting.
I don't, yeah, I don't start counting until it starts hurting.
Was it Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson? I don't know, one of the two.
So, what is it, that's kind of like, kind of like what you said, you know, where,
Make it count. Don't worry about counting the days. Anyway. Yeah.
(41:54):
Okay. Well, this has been a great episode. I think it's been thoughtful.
It's been definitely interesting to talk through the importance of living in
the now, but also we talked a little bit about the future as well and how the now can be.
The now doesn't have to mean this one second. It could mean this week.
It could mean this month. It could even mean this year.
(42:16):
Right? I think living in the now is, I think, boiled down to not being sad about
the past and not being fearful of the future, like you said, Jared,
but just enjoying the opportunities and the things you've been blessed with
and the things you've strived for and achieved up to this point in your life. Absolutely.
(42:37):
Yeah, I echo that and just all the things we've said. And I appreciate those
who are listening to the podcast.
And we invite you, like we always do, to apply these things in your life,
to think about these things, ponder them.
Maybe take a break from listening after this episode.
Don't go right to the next episode. Just take a pause and think about what we
(42:59):
said. No, no, no. Go to the next episode.
We got to let this stuff sink in, man. This is heavy. This is a lot of stuff.
So let it sink in. Think about your own thing.
And then you can listen to the next episode when it comes out well they got
a week before it comes out the next week if you're following it along in real
time but with that let's build our creed together alright let's do it.
(43:26):
Music.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Brothers Creed podcast,
where we inspire fathers to build the blueprint for the next generation.
We are the Thomas Brothers. I'm Ethan.
And I'm Jared. And today's episode, we're talking about something that's been
on my mind a lot recently, and it is about living life in the present.
(00:20):
And there's a couple, there's so much to this, about living a full life and
enjoying the moments that you have every single day, where they say the future
is a gift, or they say the moment.
The right now is a gift, and that's why they call it the present, right? There you go.
(00:41):
So they say, they also say that the only reality that actually exists is the current moment.
Future doesn't exist. Past is gone, it's done. But right now is the only thing that actually exists.
So there's something to that, and I kind of walked through some of the things
that I've been thinking about lately,
(01:01):
and especially at this stage of my life, you know, where I have young kids,
and I'm pretty healthy, and just thinking about, you know, 20 years from now,
or if I look back, what am I going to think?
And so some of these things we're going to dive into and talk about,
and it's going to be a good conversation.
I would say a thoughtful conversation.
Most of our podcasts are very thoughtful, but this one will definitely, hopefully,
(01:23):
keep you thinking throughout the week well after you've
uh we've signed off yeah all right
let's get into it all right let's do it do not
gentle into that good night old age.
Music.
Should burn and rave close at day you should be a monster an absolute monster
(01:45):
and then you should learn how to control it no retreat no surrender you can't
conceive of what i'm capable of.
Music.
(02:07):
So, this one, I was, I kind of titled this episode Carpe Diem.
Seize the carp. Carpe the diem.
If you will, for those of you who don't know what Carpe Diem means,
it actually means to seize the day.
Or a more literal translation is it's kind of like a, actually a horticulture
(02:29):
kind of term people have said that literally means to pluck the day as it is ripe.
Like a ripe fruit, plucking it and just taking it when it's ready.
So essentially what that means is to enjoy the moment.
And this has often been related to another Latin phrase called memento mori,
which is remember you are mortal and that everything will pass away and that the clock is ticking.
(02:56):
And so I think both of those come together, that realizing that it encourages
is you to realize that right now is the time that you have, and you need to
be mindful of your mortality, and you need to make the most of it.
At least that's how I interpret Carpe Diem and Memento Mori.
How do you interpret it, Ethan?
Yeah. No, I completely agree. And that was one thing that I had kind of been
(03:18):
on the tip of my tongue or my mind as I was preparing for this and just thinking, living in the moment,
enjoying the now, and
how that kind of relates to the future you
know you kind of said that now is the is a gift because they
call it the present and it's kind of interesting because you know we're every
(03:41):
single second that passes is you know there's never really i guess there's never
really a now because as soon as we say now now it's in the past right so you
know i i had put together you know quite
a few things about, you know, kids and,
and kind of how we can potentially live in the now. What are some of the benefits of living in the now?
(04:07):
And I think I struggle with this one sometimes because, and I'll talk about
this a little bit later of, is it bad to focus too much on the future or is
it bad to focus on the future? Yeah.
And I struggle with this one a little bit too, especially with like,
you know, finances and stuff like that.
Like I'm constantly worrying about tomorrow or 20 years from now, 40 years from now.
(04:30):
And it's just kind of interesting, the dynamic that there's,
there's some things that, that I'm kind of like in the moment.
And there's other things where I feel like I have more of a future view of.
Yeah. So one of the things that I thought was really interesting is it was talking
about, I had read a quote, this is not my quote that I I wanted to share,
(04:51):
but one of the quotes that I had read was about opportunity,
and it was like, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it said something
about how opportunity is a...
Is a gift of the present and how
you know opportunity is not something that
you know potentially is going to be in the future or whatever else
(05:13):
or in the past you know if an opportunity is in
the past it's gone if an opportunity is in the future then you can't rely on
it because it could change but an opportunity is something that is in the present
right now and i thought that was kind of cool it kind of made me think of how
do i I think of opportunities, right?
(05:34):
And, and do I carpe diem whenever an opportunity presents itself,
whatever that opportunity might be, whether it's, you know, playing with my
kids or building memories or investing in something or, you know,
going and doing a Spartan race because it,
you know, somebody asked me and I, and I, you know, want to get better at my health.
(05:56):
And so I say, yes, you know, cause I know it'll push me to be better. Yeah.
So, I don't know, just a couple little teasers of some things that I had thought about. Yeah.
One of the things that I kind of thought about was there's a couple different,
when I think about enjoying the future,
there are a couple different cognitive biases or fallacies that come to my mind,
(06:24):
or even they're called sometimes cognitive distortions.
And so I had three that I wanted to talk about that we'd love to hear your thoughts on these as well.
The first one is the sunk cost fallacy.
Are you familiar with the sunk cost fallacy? Yeah.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's just kind of like, oh, well, I've already bought
(06:46):
the ticket, so I might as well go.
Or I guess it's like a sunk cost, something that you can't get back that you're
like, oh, I already invested in that, so I might as well just keep going or something. Yeah, yeah.
So even though the evidence shows that you maybe shouldn't keep going, right?
So it's kind of said more technically, it is the tendency to follow through
(07:09):
on something that we've already invested heavily in.
It could be time, money, effort, emotional energy, actual physical energy,
or what have you, even when giving up is clearly a better idea.
So we're all likely to continue in an endeavor if we have already invested in it right.
(07:31):
Monetarily nobody wants to waste their time nobody wants to waste their efforts
and so that often will mean that we go against evidence that shows it's no longer in our best,
f in our best interest or is the best decision to continue forward but we're
like oh man we spent so much time on this. You just got to keep marching forward.
So sometimes because of that, the human mind will obscure rational thought because
(07:57):
there's such an emotional attachment to the sunk cost of that.
I do this a lot of times when I'm at restaurants.
If I order something and it's horrible, I'm just like, well, I already paid for it.
Might as well just eat it. you know yeah and so,
I was you know I was trying to not do that so much but especially like oh well
(08:19):
it's just whatever I've already spent the money so and I'm hungry so I'll just
eat it I think some of this comes from like a
mentality of like don't waste anything you know finish your plate I think that sometimes that.
That causes that. But I think one of the clearest examples of the sunk cost
fallacy is these folks who go to Mount Everest, right?
(08:44):
And they're waiting in line 300 yards from the top of Mount Everest,
and their oxygen tanks are dangerously low.
And they spent $100,000 to get there. And they've climbed all the way up to
the top, then 300 yards from the summit.
And they could see a storm rolling in, about to roll in the next hour.
And they're like, man, what should I do? That sunk cost, you're saying,
(09:08):
well, I've spent so much just to get here.
But to continue forward, you could die. And many people do die.
So that's a clear example of when continuing forward is not always in your best interest.
So this happens all the time in our lives.
Holding onto a bad investment, staying in a bad job, staying in a bad marriage or relationship.
(09:34):
A lot of times, you know, like, oh, you know, people always wonder,
oh, why did that woman stay with that man?
He was beating her and he was all this kind of stuff.
And, you know, people ask those questions often when women are abused.
And you have to think about it. There's so much more to it. One,
maybe she doesn't have any ability to make any money or means out if she were to leave him.
(09:57):
Two, maybe if she were to leave him, he would commit more violence.
And so sometimes there's this rationalization that happens. She's like,
well, you know, we've come so far and he doesn't beat me every day now. It's just once a week.
And so it's like, I think that that can sometimes be a sunk cost fallacy.
Like I put so much energy into this and I've tried so hard and it's just,
(10:19):
I just keep going and it'll work out. But it's like, it's not working out, you know?
And so anyway, I think that that is a cool example. And one of the things that
I think that is very clear is like gambling, right?
Yeah. I was going to mention that. A gambler just keeps going and going.
It's like, okay, at some point, it's like, I need to stop. I need to step away.
(10:40):
If I put a single dollar or more in, the risk of that is just going to be too high.
When I think about this, I actually think about your experience,
Ethan, with dental school. I know you've talked about that previously in the podcast.
You've talked about that as learning from a failure or a trial.
(11:02):
But in many ways, I think of your
experience in doing that as a sunk cost fallacy, as you realizing that.
The sunk cost, you realizing that you were in that type of a situation.
And instead of having the sunk cost fallacy and continuing forward with something
that was, you know, you were at the precipice where you had done these tests
(11:27):
and it was just roadblock after roadblock.
And if you had continued forward, you know, thinking about all the energy you had put into it,
it could have have been extremely, the risks would have been way too high for
your family, as a provider, even for your own mental health.
And so I feel like you, in that moment, realizing, hey, I've tried to go to this dental school.
(11:53):
I've got a small family here. I'm trying to make money. I'm trying to make a
living. I'm trying to maintain relationships.
And even though I've sunk so much into this, like two years,
basically, of your life, or a year and a half of your life.
It was like three years. Or three years. Well, it was like two and a half.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a big chunk, and you worked freaking hard for that,
(12:13):
but you were able to see like, hey, if I continue down this path,
I'm going to be on the top of Mount Everest with no oxygen, and then it won't
matter at all. I won't be able to come back down. Yeah.
I don't know. That's my thought. No, I appreciate that. Yeah,
I mean, I look at that, and there was a thought there when I kind of went through
(12:34):
second rounds of interviews.
Interviews and I and I got you know interview at a school and
was like you know oh well I didn't get in this year but you
know I made one more year one more year and you only apply once a year and then
kind of the summer time frame and yeah I mean it got a point it was like I had
to make a decision of do I've invested all this time I've got all this money
(12:57):
and all this you know everything else into it but it just it just didn't make
sense and you know I just kind of.
Threw my hands up and chalked it up to great life experience and then moved
on to bigger and better things.
You didn't throw your hands up. But yeah. You said the cost to continue this
is too high. And you were able to see.
Threw my hands up. I mean, I didn't throw them. I fought through it to where I was.
(13:20):
And then at the end, I was just kind of like, you know, yeah.
I think it's easy to see that as giving up, you know.
I think it's very easy to see that. But truly, I think it is a fallacy to see it that way.
Just like, oh, you got 200 yards from the summit of Everest and you just stopped?
What an idiot. What an idiot. It's like, yeah, but I'm alive.
(13:43):
So who's the idiot? Kind of like cashing in your chips while you can.
It's like I've made a decision where it was no longer in my best interest to continue forward.
The risk was far too high. And up to that point, the risk was different.
And it was far too high to continue.
And so that's one of the things I think about with sunk cost fallacy.
(14:04):
And I think of that example that you shared.
Another fallacy is called the, anything else you want to share on that one?
No, no, it's good. Another fallacy is called the arrival fallacy.
You ever heard of this one? Mm-mm.
You ever see the movie Arrival? Yeah, where the aliens come and they're like,
in that ship, and they're like right with like the ink or whatever.
Yeah. So this one's that like when the aliens arrive, are they going to be,
(14:28):
like we have this fallacy to think that they're going to be peaceful,
but in reality, they're not going to be peaceful. I'm just kidding.
That has nothing to do with this.
Now, the arrival fallacy was coined by Dr. Ben Shahar.
And that it is the illusion of reaching a destination or a goal will finally make you happy.
(14:49):
So it's just like, oh, when I finally get that job. New job.
That new job. That promotion. Then I'm going to be happy.
And I get that new promotion, then I'm going to be super happy.
Or when my kids are finally out of diapers, then it's going to be easy and I'll
be happy. or whenever I go on vacation or whatever.
(15:13):
There's so many things. Or when you get that degree or when you get married.
See, one of the things for me, I feel like this is, in my life,
in some of the teachings that I was,
I feel like this one, for me personally, rings it really true because I felt
like a lot of my younger years were really, in many ways, it was just like I
(15:33):
was following a script. ripped.
And so I was kind of told all the things that I needed to do.
You got to, you know, finish your, you got to graduate high school.
And then I went, you know, I went on my trip, my mission trip.
And then I came home and I needed to, first of all, I needed to get,
then I was told that I needed to get married right away.
So I got married right away. Then I needed to get a degree. And I got that.
(15:56):
And then I needed to get a job.
And I got that. And then I needed to get a house. And I got that. And I needed to get kids.
I got that. So I did those things as fast as I possibly could because I'm an achiever, right?
And it was almost like I felt like, oh, when I get there, when I get to that
point, then I'll be set and then I'll be taken seriously.
Then I'll feel like I'm accomplished.
(16:18):
And I feel like in many ways, I feel like that was a disservice.
And maybe that was just the way that I interpreted it. But I felt like I wish
I had taken more time to enjoy Enjoy the different stages of life that I was
in instead of rushing to try and arrive at this next level or whatever that next thing is.
(16:41):
Even now, I'm thinking, you know, oh, when, you know, sometimes I get,
I catch myself and I'm like, oh, when the kids are in high school,
then this, or when they're out of the house, then we can do this, or when I retire.
And I really catch myself thinking, like, when I retire, it's like, are you serious?
Like, am I seriously saying that? When I retire, I will do X,
(17:03):
Y, Z, or I will be this or that happy.
I was like, I want to be an old man. Ben, if I can't be happy now,
then I got a serious problem.
And so that's something, this one for me is really about living in the moment
and saying, you know, is this like being happy along with the journey?
(17:26):
So one of the things that Dr. Ben argues is that happiness is achieved through
the effort in life and not in the achievement of the goal.
So he talks about don't making real don't make unrealistic expectations about
how an achievement will make you feel that could emotionally backfire on you
you know it's like you ever see that movie.
(17:47):
What's that movie with will smith and
he like gets that job and he's like a real smart pursuit
of happiness yeah yeah i mean
it's kind of a it's a great movie i think it's
a great movie he works hard he gets that job right and
then it's just like oh total bliss total bliss you
know kind of at the end of it's not hollywoodized but in reality
(18:07):
sometimes i mean he's still single
dad even if he gets that job you know he's still gotta try to figure out what
to do where to live he's still he's working long hours and now he can't spend
time with his son you know so it's just like the happiness oftentimes is just
in the journey and it's not in this achievement so stop Stop waiting for that next achievement.
(18:30):
Stop wishing your life away or saying, I'll be happy when in anticipation for a goal or whatever.
And so I think that that is a really important one. Ethan, do you have any thoughts
on that arrival fallacy?
Yeah, this one kind of hits home with me from the kid's perspective.
(18:50):
Because a lot of times, yeah, it's like, man, whenever the kid starts walking,
I want to have to carry them around anymore or you know oh finally whenever
we get out of diapers then finally we'll be able to rest or
you know whenever the kids do this or whenever they do that
oh you know i'm finally going to be able to have fun at the beach whenever my
kid stops putting sand in their mouth or you know kamikaze towards the ocean
(19:13):
you know it's just like yeah but if you live your life like that then it's never
ending yeah because because now it's going to be oh my
kid's not putting sand in their mouth anymore, but now they're running towards the ocean.
And then now it's not there. Oh, they're not running towards the ocean, but they're,
So I'm not too far. Yeah. Not putting their life jacket on. So I'm not too far.
(19:35):
And then, and then it'll be, you know, whenever they get older or now it's,
they don't even want to hang out with you or they don't even want it.
You know, it's like, and so I don't know. Yeah.
If you just kind of wished your life away, don't let kind of wants right now,
or don't let your, don't let your uncomfortable state right now dictate.
(19:57):
You know, I guess the future.
Yeah. or drive you towards something because there's always going to be something
else. There's always going to be a different challenge.
There's always going to be, you know, if it's not one thing or another.
And then you get some people that are the you-just-waiters.
(20:18):
Those people bother me so much. It's like, oh, you know, yeah, I have kids.
You know, my oldest just turned 10.
Oh, you just wait until he's a teenager. major and then
it's just like okay and it's like oh you just wait until
he starts dating you know it's like okay it's like you
just wait until he gets married you just wait
it's like there's always someone that's like further along in the path and they
(20:40):
just you just wait you just wait and it's like i freaking hate
that like what is this gonna be worse some other time but it's
always there's just always gonna be something it's always gonna be something that
makes us uncomfortable and that's not a bad thing you know
that's where people grow and i think if you can and
learn to enjoy that place and find beauty
in it yep you know i don't particularly like changing
(21:02):
diapers but i like cute babies yeah but
i like but yeah but i like a lot of the other stuff that comes along with
babies and we're just finishing potty training our last one we
haven't i haven't changed at least a poopy diaper in six
months yeah which is which is awesome yeah
right but then there's other things where this you
know that i miss about those stages yeah and so
(21:24):
you can't just focus on one thing you got to focus on the whole thing you
know the arrival is like oh when this comes it'll
be better but then when with yeah maybe that one
thing might be easier or better but there's
other things they get lost along the way yeah that you would that you will miss
yeah i think that like a lot of people i think especially around like retirement
(21:45):
have this as well like they really think like oh when i retire it's just gonna
be so great and I'm just going to be so happy.
It's interesting. I started a new job recently, and before I started,
there was a lady that retired there probably a month or so before I started,
and she was an old lady, director of HR.
(22:09):
And so I was, you know, first about three or four weeks in, the new director
of HR went out with her to lunch, And so this lady who had retired came by the office.
And it was kind of a weird interaction. Like we had a big team meeting that she used to be part of.
So she came into the first part of the meeting. She just came to say hi to everybody.
(22:33):
And I didn't know this lady. I didn't have anything to say to this lady.
I didn't even really bother to introduce myself because she didn't even work there, right?
She was just the old director of HR.
And it was a weird interaction because she was like, oh, you guys are all here and I'm retired.
Retired and everybody in the room was like oh you're just you
(22:55):
know here to gloat or whatever and she's like my husband
calls me betty crocker now because i make a lot of snacks
and a lot of food and she was like oddly lingering a little bit too long like
she was like can i come back yeah so i'm like you know what i bet she i mean
(23:15):
she's in it she's retired so she kind of
socially is like, okay, people envy me because I'm retired.
But I bet she's, I think that when you retire, you're kind of saying,
okay, my contribution to, in some people's mind, they're saying,
oh, my contribution to the world has now ended.
And so I think that in some ways, she was almost like nostalgic or wanting to
(23:40):
come back to work to have that purpose again.
And so sometimes, you know if you're not happy before you're in retirement you're
ain't gonna be happy after you retire i mean barring you're working in like a coal mine or something,
you know so but anyway shop yeah exactly so that's that's the arrival fallacy
(24:01):
now there's a couple there's one that's kind of tangential to that it's something
called should hand gentle that's That's a nice word. Yeah. Should statements.
So this is a form of cognitive distortion is what they call this.
Cognitive distortion. That's what my wife feels after a day of all these boys
(24:21):
being home from summer, from school.
They have to cognitively adjust her mind. More like cognitive destruction.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So this one is a faulty pattern of thinking where consistent,
unhelpful, unrealistic,
and irrational thoughts or
errors in our thinking don't match up with reality of what is happening.
(24:47):
So that's a mouthful, but essentially it's you're setting expectations that,
might not take into account the particular circumstances that you're in.
So and it's usually created with
a should statement oh i should i should you know go talk to my neighbors or
(25:08):
i should go you know i should go help that person or i should you're at work
ethan you talked about you're at work and sometimes like oh i should i should
go talk to people right now you should go network i should go so in some of i think in some ways.
You, in your own mind, you are saying, I want to be this type of person.
And so I'm going to do these types of things. But this is a little bit beyond
(25:32):
that where you're setting unrealistic expectations.
And it creates a situation to where you are always anxious, leads to anger, anxiety.
Oh, I should be doing this or I should be doing that. It's like this future
thing that you're, it's like this part of you that's always nagging you to do something. thing.
Like when you're sitting on vacation, it's like, oh, I should be up doing something,
(25:57):
or I'm on vacation, I should be doing this, or I should be doing that. It's like got no chill.
Yeah. It's similar to a kind of like another cognitive distortion that's called
an all or nothing mindset or thinking, so black or white.
It's like, I should do this, or I'm a failure. And so that's kind of that black
(26:20):
and white thinking that I was talking about that takes you out of the moment
and doesn't allow you to live fully.
If you're always anxious and thinking, oh, I should do this.
If you're stacked with way too many things to do, and the expectation is you
have to do all these things, maybe you have too many unrealistic expectations of yourself. self.
(26:43):
In my life, I have felt like sometimes, I feel like I'm trying to get away from
this, but I feel like there's been so many expectations of things that I should be doing,
or else I wasn't a good dad,
or I wasn't a good leader in my home,
or I wasn't a good whatever else.
(27:05):
And these expectations, I felt at times it was so much that there was no way
that I could even been accomplished any of all that.
So it ended up where I just felt bad about my actions and I felt bad for myself.
And I felt like a failure because I wasn't doing all the things that was expected of me.
So if you're feeling like that, take a look at, well, why am I feeling like
(27:29):
that? What is behind that should?
And where does that come from? And is that realistic for me to be asking that of of myself right now.
And so anyway, I thought that was a really good one. I think that these three specifically ones.
Also that all or nothing mentality I talked about, that goes in with the shoulds,
(27:49):
but it's also kind of like, I was talking about just life with Shannon the other day and I was like,
you know, sometimes people have this thing where like they're scared to start
something and try something out because they don't want to be perceived as giving
something up or quitting something.
There's nothing worse than a quitter. People say that. And it's like,
okay, what if you just try something?
Because you want to have an experience in your life, and you don't like it, then you stop.
(28:14):
Since when is that a bad thing? I think that that mindset of like,
oh, you're a quitter is such a juvenile viewpoint to say to someone when it's like, well,
people try different like it people try different things if
you don't like it you don't like it you know it's like okay i'll go
try this or i'll try this new sport or this new
(28:37):
thing or this new hobby and if i don't like it i'll bail
on it if i do like it then guess what i've i've i've
explored some that's what our podcast is about is exploration right
we've explored something new and i've discovered something that
i've liked and so those are the ones i wanted to
talk about and those different fallacies to the arrival fallacy
the sunk cost fallacy the shoulds and
(28:58):
then all or nothing I think if we can resolve many of
those then we can and keep those in mind when we're thinking about the future
or thinking about today or thinking about the past I think it will ground us
in the presence and I think in just to round that out I think in many ways you
know there's a song about this how about when people think about their good
(29:19):
old days and the good old days are now.
I think about that. I think that it's such an important time of life right now
where my kids are young and I'm young and healthy.
And I just wake up and like, hey, what do I want for my life?
I want what I have right now because it's going really well.
And I think that that's not to say that challenges aren't going to come.
(29:41):
I expect those to come, but it's important to live and soak up these days.
And I don't want to look back and say, oh man, I wish I would have just enjoyed
doing it more, instead of just looking forward to what was to come or the end of that period.
I think that sometimes when I look back on my time in Mexico, on my mission trip,
(30:01):
I should, I should, I shoulded myself the entire, I should, you ever seen that
commercial? I just shipped my pants.
I shoulded myself that whole time. And I didn't really enjoy myself hardly at
all that whole time because I was so hard on myself about like, I should be doing this.
I should be doing that. I should doing this. I didn't take time to just enjoy.
(30:25):
I was like, oh, I've got, you know, I've got to do this. I got to do this.
I got to do this. and I was looking forward to that next change.
And then I was looking forward to the end where I could come home.
And then I didn't really get a chance.
I mean, there was like one place where I kind of was able to open my eyes a
little bit and say, hey, this is actually a really beautiful place and I want
to explore this place a little bit.
(30:45):
And so I wish I'd done that more and just slowed down a little bit and lived
a little bit more in the moment there.
Yeah. Well, I think you are a very driven person. And so I think if you're not
like driving towards marching towards something, I feel like sometimes you feel
like, you know, I'm failing or I'm doing something wrong. Yeah.
(31:07):
You know, I, and I completely understand that. You know, I remember when I was
on my mission, you know, I, I, I, there were a couple of places too.
I kind of felt like I was able to slow down and really kind of enjoy just the
experience. That's good. Good.
Which I think maybe that kind of feeds into the experience as a whole.
(31:31):
But one of the things that I wanted to kind of round this out with was when
it comes to, and this is maybe more granular than kind of the fallacies you were talking about,
but living in the moment or living in the present, right?
When it comes to communication, and we've talked about this before,
but when it comes to interacting with other people,
(31:56):
there are so many distractions and things that go on that I think when you're
talking with someone, I'm specifically thinking about my wife or my kids.
When I am engaging with someone or I'm speaking with someone or they're trying to talk to me.
Am I trying to live four presents at a time?
(32:21):
Am I trying to pay attention to this thing and then I'm watching my phone and
then my kid's talking to me and then this other thing?
Living in the moment or being in the moment, it's easy to get distracted with,
everything that's going around, everything that we have in our lives or maybe
worry or anxiety or whatever else it might be.
(32:42):
I think being present in a conversation is.
Leads to, you know, we've talked about active listening before and just more
meaningful interactions and strengthening of relationships.
I think it can help with kind of empathy and understanding and,
and, and like really when someone is there telling you something,
(33:03):
maybe it's something that's near and dear to them or close to their heart,
or they're struggling with something and you're really in the moment with them.
I think that's, that's, that's powerful. powerful and
so kind of i know it's kind of a different take on
on the the living in the present or living
in the moment but that was something that that really kind of jumped
out jumped out at me yeah and you
(33:27):
know there i kind of dove in a little bit too on you know what are some is it
bad to be too focused on the future you mean the present some no like is it
is it bad to focus too much on the future and not enough on the present,
I guess is what I'm saying.
So if you focus too much on the future, right, that can lead to increased just
(33:50):
stress and anxiety in general, right?
Like you were saying, if you should yourself to death, well,
I should be doing this, I should be doing that, I should be doing this,
then it's just, you're just increasing, you just become overwhelmed of all the
shoulds that you should be doing.
And that's just no way to live, right? You can neglect the present.
(34:11):
A lot of times if you're so focused on the future, then you miss those opportunities
that I talked about earlier.
Opportunities come up in the present. When an opportunity presents itself, it's right now.
And so you don't want to neglect the present because you're thinking too much of the future.
And this kind of goes into to my quote that I, that I came up to. Yeah.
(34:34):
But I think it focusing too much in the future can reduce happiness.
Kind of like what you said, the arrival thing. Oh, well, when,
when this comes, I'll be happier. When that comes, I'll be happier.
When that comes, I'll be happy.
It can cause health issues if you are just constantly looking to,
you know, you're not living in the now.
(34:55):
And this can kind of go both ways because sometimes you can like living in the
now, you kind of think of like, oh, YOLO, right? You only live once.
I have to, you know, go crazy now.
I got to eat all the sweets and I got to get, you know, just indulge and I just
got to just live in the moment, you know, and all that kind of stuff.
But I think if you completely disregard disregard the
(35:15):
future yeah then you're just gonna end up you
know if you're living in if you're living in the now for
meal to meal to meal to meal to meal then you're just gonna end up being
you know 600 pound you know unhappy
un mobile person that's
just miserable and then you're like how did i get here well you got here
because all you did was live in the now yeah and you
(35:36):
never told yourself no and you never you know i guessed
you never realized that what you
were doing maybe is sunk costs you need to turn around turn
the ship around so yeah with
that i think that there's a lot of situations where
we say we say the future like the
future is actually guaranteed future is not guaranteed man not at all and as
(35:59):
i get kind of older and i i there's people that have been not no one like really
close to me has died but i've known people that have just randomly died young.
I knew a guy that back in Boise that he had like five kids and he was in like
his, I think it was in his lower forties.
(36:21):
He was really into dirt biking. And one time he was going dirt biking,
he just fell off a cliff and died.
And it's like, he had no future. He didn't know that.
And there's another guy, like my brother-in-law, he had a business partner and
they were setting up a business and they were going to quit their jobs and really
go all in on this business.
(36:41):
And then one day, my buddy, my brother-in-law tried to call his buddy a couple times.
And then he called us, and then his mom called him and said,
hey, have you heard from Hunter?
I don't know where he is. And he's like, I haven't heard from him.
I texted him yesterday. He didn't answer.
I thought he was busy. And his mom's like, something's wrong.
She drove down to his place.
Like, I think she drove like six hours down to his house. She found him dead.
(37:04):
He had a heart attack. He had like a rare heart condition or he would have like
super low potassium levels and he would die and he died.
And he was like in his 20s. He was like late 20s.
So it's just like you're not guaranteed any time on this planet.
And like, yes, it's important to think about your future. But what if you're
(37:26):
like, man, when I retire, I'm going to be so it's going to be so fun.
It's going to be so great. It's going to be awesome.
And the day you retire on your way home from work, you get hit by a car and
you're quadriplegic the rest of your life.
Or you just get diagnosed with cancer. or you know there's another gal that
my wife knows and her husband got like he just like went into the hospital and
(37:50):
he had something on his arm i think and he was like oh yeah that's like stage
four non-operable hodgkin's lymphoma sorry and he had like and he died like four months later.
So it's like dude you got to live in the in the now you've got to remember that
you are mortal and at this time will pass you know but the same thing that is
kind of going with like the keeping up with your health in the now, right?
(38:14):
Because I want to be able to play with my grandkids.
I want to be able to run and jump and everything else.
And so thinking towards the future of I want to be able to, so what I'm going
to do right now is going to prepare my body and my mind so that when that time
comes, I can achieve my goals.
(38:35):
Well, I think it's like, I'm not necessarily, yeah, I agree with you,
but maybe it's not so so much advocating living like
day to day because if if if i'm
living in the moment then i'm like i want to do the
most happiest thing that for my day like right now and that does not include
you know going to work today maybe it's not so much work living in the exact
(38:57):
moment maybe what i'm talking about more is like live in that in that month
live in that week you know and so think about
that it's like okay well i i want to be healthy i
want to be able to do this stuff that i want to be able like this weekend i'm
doing a jiu-jitsu tournament i want to be able to do that tournament i gotta
be strong i gotta be healthy i've i've got to do things and so
(39:17):
i'm looking forward to that but i would say that's the moment you know you know
this week this month the next few months like that those these are the this
is kind of the moment different stage different stages of moments yeah thinking
like oh man i can't wait for you five six years down the road when this or that
happens or when I do this,
then I'm going to have a... It's just like a little bit different of a view.
(39:40):
But yeah, I mean, you only have... So maybe the moment is more of a guideline
than a hard and fast. Yeah, more of a guideline. This second, this nanosecond.
Yeah. Did you have a quote? Yeah, I just had one.
So this one, I don't know, the author's unknown, but it said,
don't let the sadness of your past
and the fear of your future ruin the happiness of your present. Right.
(40:02):
Yeah. Nice. I like it. Definitely. Sometimes I... Learn from the... Go ahead. Sorry.
Learn from the past and hope for the future, but enjoy the present. Yeah.
Sometimes I have a tendency to replay things in my mind from the past.
In fact, I saw a TikTok meme the other day and this guy was like...
(40:23):
This guy was in... His face was painted like a clown.
He's like me remembering... Me at 11 o'clock at night laying in bed,
remembering something i said like in high
school you know it's just like he's just beating himself about how horrible
he found he's doing i shouldn't have said that so sometimes i do have a tendency
(40:45):
to do that just to like really analyze the past past or just like hyper focus
on the future so been trying to kick that habit a little bit and just live in the present,
yeah for sure all right so the quote i had actually two quotes that were good
One is from Benjamin Franklin, good old Ben Frank.
And it is, one day is worth two tomorrows.
(41:08):
So that one was pretty good. And then another one, it said Muhammad Ali,
I don't know, sounds pretty common, but it says, don't count the days, make the days count.
And so, I don't know. Those are two that I thought were pretty cool.
Kind of hit me. You know, one today is worth two tomorrows, you know.
(41:31):
So, what am I doing, you know. A burnt hand is worth two in the bush.
Yeah, or didn't they ask Muhammad Ali, how many sit-ups do you do?
He said, I don't know, I don't start counting until it starts hurting.
I don't, yeah, I don't start counting until it starts hurting.
Was it Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson? I don't know, one of the two.
So, what is it, that's kind of like, kind of like what you said, you know, where,
Make it count. Don't worry about counting the days. Anyway. Yeah.
(41:54):
Okay. Well, this has been a great episode. I think it's been thoughtful.
It's been definitely interesting to talk through the importance of living in
the now, but also we talked a little bit about the future as well and how the now can be.
The now doesn't have to mean this one second. It could mean this week.
It could mean this month. It could even mean this year.
(42:16):
Right? I think living in the now is, I think, boiled down to not being sad about
the past and not being fearful of the future, like you said, Jared,
but just enjoying the opportunities and the things you've been blessed with
and the things you've strived for and achieved up to this point in your life. Absolutely.
(42:37):
Yeah, I echo that and just all the things we've said. And I appreciate those
who are listening to the podcast.
And we invite you, like we always do, to apply these things in your life,
to think about these things, ponder them.
Maybe take a break from listening after this episode.
Don't go right to the next episode. Just take a pause and think about what we
(42:59):
said. No, no, no. Go to the next episode.
We got to let this stuff sink in, man. This is heavy. This is a lot of stuff.
So let it sink in. Think about your own thing.
And then you can listen to the next episode when it comes out well they got
a week before it comes out the next week if you're following it along in real
time but with that let's build our creed together alright let's do it.
(43:26):
Music.
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