August 31, 2023 • 38 mins
In this episode, we’re going to delve into a philosophy of adulthood that makes it empowering and liberating, rather than onerous and burdensome. We challenge a few popular notions, like that self-love is self-centred, or that truth is irrelevant in a world where narrative is everything. This is the guide to life that your parents...
The post How to Be an Adult: The Untold Lesson (Ep. 2) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.
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(00:00):
You have some of the prerequisites
Mhmm.
To happiness.
Mhmm. Actually, there is an inherent
value in the act of living. For aliveness
itself has value that needs to be honored.
Somehow
we make exceptions for ourselves where we treat
ourselves not like a fellow human being, nor
even like life.
(00:22):
Welcome to How to Be an Adult, a
podcast by the practitioners
at the Morpheus Clinic For Hypnosis in Toronto,
Canada.
It's a show for people like you who've
inadvertently become adults,
and don't know what to do about it.
I'm Luke Chao. And I'm Pascal Langdell. Whether
you're 18 or 80, this show is the
trail guide that nobody gave you when you
(00:45):
gained equality with your parents.
In this episode, we're gonna start to describe
in more depth the principles we outlined in
the first episode.
The first one being the captain of your
ship.
If there's one metaphor
that
encapsulates
in so many different ways
(01:06):
not just the responsibilities
of adulthood
but the empowerment
that one has as an adult to determine
their course and therefore their future. It's that
in the open ocean,
you're the captain of your ship.
No one else is.
And the other good news in this is
that you're not the captain of any other
(01:28):
adults
ship.
There are many ways we can take the
metaphor,
but that's essentially it. So you're captain of
your ship,
that means that you have authority over,
your direction, your course,
360 degree potential,
and what is your what is the correct
attitude to the open ocean?
(01:48):
Well,
often people feel that because there are 360
degrees of freedom and you could choose any
city in the world to live in if
you apply through the right channels.
You you can choose any university,
to attend if they'll accept you.
Because there's so much freedom, often people feel
overwhelmed even paralyzed by this freedom.
(02:10):
What I want to point out is that
the ship
can only
sail in one direction at a time,
and that makes
irrelevant
the 359
degrees of freedom
that
are not the direction you want your life
to go in.
(02:30):
It is not irresponsible
if you've surveyed
every possibility
and you're choosing only one future,
when you try to go in two directions
at once.
Let's say I'm trying to please everyone.
Let's say I'm trying to be everything to
everyone and I'm going in not just two
(02:51):
directions, I'm going in multiple directions,
that ensures that your ship at best will
zigzag
or at worst
go in circles.
And that's where I think a lot of
our listeners might have found themselves in adulthood
where your life doesn't seem to be going
anywhere.
(03:12):
If you feel your place at the helm
as your proper place, if you feel that
you've got your hands on the wheel and
you can chart your course and stay the
course until you reach each destination
and you're choosing one direction of 360.
This is how it's it's done.
It's not by zigzag. Mhmm. And and with
(03:33):
that self authority,
does that also
come with a sense of self respect, self
esteem, self love? Is is it possible to
captain a ship without that?
Well, yeah.
I've talked, so far only about where you're
going in life. So where are you gonna
place the
vessel next
but then there's the vessel itself
(03:55):
which is yours
There's the saying that the captain goes down
with the ship. Mhmm. Right? So
this metaphor holds when you imagine that your
life and your body your your health your
relationships your values that
this all comprises the the ship
so the self caring and the self loving
and the self respecting
(04:16):
is
to ensure that the faithful vessel you're on
will continue to serve you. Mhmm. So if
you're gonna live
a 100 years or you take the attitude
that you're,
a living being that deserves a good shot
at it, let's put it that way.
There's
the next axiom which is to,
it's important to take care of yourself as
(04:38):
a human life which is under your care.
Expand on that a little. If we imagine
a house plant, right?
If we imagine that someone's gifted you just
even like a little cactus,
you'll give it enough but not too much
water
you'll give it enough sunlight and for a
cactus it's going to need more sunlight
than some other species
(04:59):
and you're going to give it enough fertilizer
in the soil and you might even take
care to make sure it's specific for cactuses
It's a very loved cactus. It's a very,
I would say not over loved cactus. No.
That's a problem. If you do too much,
then you rot its roots after all. If
you water tanks too much.
But but proper cares not to give it
too much. Mhmm. Proper cares to give it
(05:21):
what it needs.
Enough but not too much.
When we take care of ourselves we're usually
breathing enough air. We're usually eating, if anything,
too much food, but we're definitely having enough
food, we have enough
available water to drink, though not everyone hydrates
themselves well enough.
Where we will, however,
(05:42):
find a lot of lack
is in the self caring and the self
loving and the self respecting. Now, since this
podcast is called How to be an adult,
I would add
that to feel consistently
loved,
to feel consistently
accepted,
(06:02):
to feel consistently
validated
You should take the side of those who
love and care about and validate you. You
shouldn't take the side of those who would
criticize you and harangue
when you're thinking your own thoughts to yourself.
Now a lot of people in their own
heads, they'll take the side of those who
(06:23):
don't like them or who would criticize them,
unfairly.
And they don't take as much the side
of those who care about them. It's almost
like we take our loved ones for granted,
how do we think so much about our
enemies. Mhmm. But that to me is an
inversion
of of the right order
where we
can care a lot less about people who
(06:44):
don't have our best interest in mind
they care instead about the the those who
would give us respecting and loving and caring
and validating. So to take your cactus or
class analogy is that there's there
are fundamental human needs that need to be
addressed,
self caring being
being a preeminent one really. Well, it's caring
(07:05):
that's the need. It's just our modern society
Yeah. That requires self caring Mhmm. To to
be
the the thing that fulfills the need. Yeah.
But that would include things like if it's
the the the universals that human
humans need, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy needs
you to have,
you know, shelter, warmth, food. You mentioned, food,
(07:26):
water, and so on. But there's also,
you need to exercise as
well. Right? I mean, that's a need that's
you could argue that's a need, and I've
heard you argue this before, and I I
agree. The emotional support network that you need,
emotional self regulation as well, it's also a
form of self care which you've touched on
there.
Being that you don't take the side of
(07:46):
the negative critic which is already is already
in the background to save you from from
the, you know, the tigers in the woods.
But
there's also what happens when,
when something goes wrong with your self care.
Say,
you break a leg, say, you find your
your mentally in a in a rough place.
(08:07):
It's easy to to get re angry and
annoyed with your, the fact that this misfortune
struck you.
What's
what's the proper attitude as a self caring
adult that that believes in their self worth
to deal with that? The question to ask
yourself
is, how would I speak to a friend
(08:28):
or a brother or a sister
who's in precisely the same situation?
And let's assume you love your friends and
your siblings.
So if if you've broken a leg,
if you were
to blame yourself and criticize yourself, that is
not in line with how you would treat
(08:49):
a loved one.
If you would show a loved one
more love, more care, more positive attention,
if you'd encourage them not to criticize themselves
too much,
then your own conscience
is telling you that that's the proper attitude.
It's not even the guy on the Internet
you're listening to. It's your own conscience is
(09:12):
telling you that the proper attitude
is to give yourself that
level Yeah. Of self loving and self caring.
I I use that
when talking to kids, actually, saying, you know,
when they're they're saying, oh, I can't do
this. I'm useless. And you say, well, okay.
What would your best mate say to you
right now? And often it turns it around
entirely because they step out themselves.
(09:35):
And for a moment, they can see themselves
as their friends might see them. Again, one
of the questions that might come up,
and
I've had this question as well is what's
the what's the big justification for caring at
all? I mean, there's a big why about
why should we care for ourselves? What is
it
that means that we
should actually care for ourselves? What gives us
(09:56):
the right to believe that's even important in
an enormous universe, you know?
Well,
this
makes me want even more so to insert
the word happy in between how to be
and
have the word
adult.
Because when you are
well enough fed and well enough rested and
(10:19):
well enough
loved,
you have some of the prerequisites
to happiness.
If you're not well enough fed and well
enough rested and well enough loved, you're missing
some of the fundamental prerequisites
for for happiness. Mhmm. Now I am assuming
almost as axiomatic
(10:40):
that our listeners want to be happy that
they don't want to be stuck in their
misery.
We understand that the plant's not going to
be happy
if you've given it too much water. We
understand that the dog's not happy if you've
not walked it enough.
We understand the friend's not happy if you're
always critical and you never speak a kind
word.
(11:01):
Somehow we make exceptions for ourselves where we
treat ourselves not like a fellow human being,
nor even like life.
We treat ourselves
almost like we're objects that can be neglected
or abused because only objects can be neglected
and abused without consequence
And a large part of what I end
up having to communicate to to my clients
(11:22):
is that you're correctly categorized as life, you're
correctly categorized as a human being
and
When you're over 18, you're correctly categorized as
an adult
where your self caring and your fulfillment of
your
own needs
(11:42):
is
the most reliable way Mhmm.
To
have those prerequisites for happiness met. You mentioned
couple of things. One was the the the
dog and the plant and whenever you use
the tree,
a reference as well. And one of the
things that I've I've heard you talk about
was well, well, actually there was a tree
(12:03):
in the street that I used to live
that,
used to pass all the time and and
they removed it. And there was like a
local outcry
about the fact that they've removed it without
consultation and so on. And this was a
a tree. It's just
a maple tree on a corner of an
average street in an average part of Toronto.
Right?
And you mentioned a similar story and it
just points out
(12:24):
actually there is an inherent
value in the act of living. Your aliveness
itself has value that needs to be honored.
It's a in one on the one hand,
the knowledge of your own death is the
burden, but the gift you get up until
that point is
the the living bit. And to me, that's
I I read some of the the chances
of you, Luke, existing
(12:44):
in your current form is something like 1
in 4 trillion,
which is those are that's an extraordinary thing,
just to think that I'm sitting next to
somebody
whose chance of existence was about 1 in
4 trillion.
I suppose if you wanna talk about fundamental
axiom, it's not even necessarily
that perhaps that your purpose for living is
to be happy. You might say that the
(13:05):
purpose of life is to honor the life
by being happy.
So that wherever you are, that you find
your way to still honor the honor your
life. With whatever your circumstance, whether you're in
your highest, you know, moment or your worst
moment, that happiness is still available, that joy
is still available. And I'd even go further
and say maybe play is still available. Because
(13:26):
I I I think that that's an awesome
that if you if you satisfy all your
basic needs,
to me, the sort of
the, of course, I'd say this as an
actor, but the,
the sort of the pinnacle of human joy,
if you like, or the opportunity for joy
is actually the ability to play and play
with others.
This description of of human beings as
(13:49):
being fully alive and as part of this
aliveness we do of things like play,
this I think everyone can resonate with. Yeah.
Yeah. And and it's an aspiration, I think
I think a lot of people
when they think of an ideal in one
way it fits into this,
it does fit into some way, some into
that category.
Like experiencing joy with your friends,
(14:11):
experiencing art and culture, or
sport or whatever it is. There's so much
built around
the experience of this
reciprocal play. But I think I think that
it's it's and that as a celebration of
being alive, I think that's a that's no
small thing. But of course, then it comes
to the the next point, which is well,
(14:32):
okay, I've stated that life is worth living
because it's worth living, which is a circular
reasoning. Right? So,
what's your position with somebody who says, well,
it's all relative. It's,
things are defined as as words define them
and that's it.
The fact that
we can kind of, you know, sit here
and say things that are going out to
(14:52):
potentially 1,000 or even millions of people. Mhmm.
And at least I have confidence in my
heart that the things I say here will
be resonant
among 1,000 or even 1,000,000 of people.
That
speaks to a kind of
common or
(15:12):
even universal
humanity. So I'll use the example of
a musician Mhmm.
Playing music,
let's say in a studio
and then recording it, releasing it and having
it be heard by, let's say, a 1000000000
people,
probably a 1000000000 hearts and minds have been
(15:35):
moved by that music,
not because the musician knew each of those
people,
but because the musician
created something
that speaks deeply to a common humanity.
Here with the podcast and in my work
as a hypnotherapist and I imagine in your
work as an actor, you're trying to create
(15:56):
a form of communication
that speaks
to that deeper,
common,
even universal humanity.
And it's not just that we're creating work
that's only for
one age group or only 1 gender or
people of a certain social
(16:16):
class
Your question is, what do I say to
the relativists?
And
my answer is that if you have arrived
at a view that
doesn't generalize
to 8,000,000,000 human beings, you're not looking at
human nature.
You're looking at something that's culturally bound or
(16:38):
time bound or even just in in one
individual.
And that's not where my interest lies. Lies.
Like the musician who wants to make timeless
music
that appeals to all of humanity,
I want to arrive at principles
that are timeless and that apply to all
of humanity. An experience we've all had
(17:00):
is becoming
big enough to get our own cup from
the cupboard and that to reach the faucet
and turn on the tap and fill it
up ourselves so that we would never have
to be thirsty inside our own homes again.
Because until we became that big,
we did have to sometimes be thirsty.
Once we're big enough to get our own
cup and fill it up, we can kind
(17:20):
of move on to fulfilling other needs that
we might have.
And I would say that
as we get older, we eventually learn to
cook for ourselves too. We eventually learn
how to make a living so that we
can pay for ourselves.
We
also
need to learn how to validate ourselves, and
(17:42):
how to love ourselves, and how to
otherwise care for ourselves for the very same
reasons.
We had to learn how to get our
own cup and fill it up ourselves.
So
there's that saying which is biblical,
My cup runneth over,
as an image of generosity.
(18:04):
And if we kind of approach other people
in the world with an empty cup,
expecting them to fill it up for us,
I mean, they might or might not, and
then we're not not guaranteed of having a
full cup.
But if we are in the world
and we ensure that our cup runneth over,
that's where we can be generous. That's where
(18:27):
we can
be loving. That's where we can set aside
our own lack or feelings of lack
to be part of something greater and to
contribute and to add to the world, as
I would suggest
adults must
do. Why should adults
care about
truth at all?
(18:47):
Well,
you've noticed that adults do care about truth.
They don't like it when people lie to
them.
And I would suggest that
this orientation
toward truth
is a defining characteristic
of being an adult
Where the child gets to be in a
fantasy play land right No one's gonna ask
(19:08):
them to design a bridge that stays standing.
Mhmm. No one's gonna ask them to make
a spacecraft
that can safely transport people to the moon
and back. Particularly off its cardboard box. Well.
Yes.
So
part of our transition to adulthood
means that we have to acknowledge that there
is a material
universe.
(19:28):
So
children are allowed a certain latitude when it
comes to the truth, both in their
explorative play, but also they have to learn
the value of telling the truth. It's tough
because
kids fear the repercussions
of doing something wrong. They don't have that
self assurance yet, so
(19:48):
sometimes their proclivity is to lie because they
fear the consequence of being told. Sometimes they
have absolutely nothing.
And so it's a process of of learning
that in fact telling the truth
means facing perhaps the consequences,
but then being brave enough to face
them.
And then you have to say, and this
is something that I think,
(20:10):
is
again you know, part of being an adult.
You have to say, well, I'm willing to,
say what I believe to be true
to the best of my ability
and accept the consequences as ultimately being better
than if I had lied.
So as an adult, I think
that
(20:31):
you have to be in a position where
you have that self assurance
to say, to own up when you've done
something wrong. And in the same way, to
therefore not be fearful of telling the truth
and to accept the consequences
as being either good or bad but accepting
that ultimately it can only lead to good.
The analogy that I
(20:52):
use is the dragon in the kitchen.
Right?
So in this story,
a kid returns home from school and there's
this small
dragon sitting on the kitchen table. And the
kid goes, mom, mom, there's a there's a
dragon on the table and the mom's too
busy. He goes, no, there isn't. Don't worry
about it. Don't worry about it. And then,
sure enough, the next day,
(21:13):
kid comes in. Mom, mom, there's a dragon
on the table. This time, it's bigger. And,
the mom and dad are in the kitchen.
They go, don't worry about it. Just imagining
things, you know.
And this goes on for some time, and
then eventually, the the, the child comes back
from school, and the parents are standing and
looking at the the house which is completely
collapsing in its place is this massive dragon
(21:34):
and the kid goes, I told you there
was a dragon in the kitchen and the
parents go, yep,
yep, there was a dragon in the kitchen.
And this is to this end, it's sort
of,
the moral of that story is that it's
better to tell the truth while the dragon
is small.
Those uncomfortable truths to yourself and to others.
Because you don't want that
(21:56):
that, denial to turn into a monster that
then affects your life to such a bad
degree. Well, we've we've talked about the
external consequences
of lying. Mhmm.
There are also
internal consequences.
Right. To lying.
Where if you want to see yourself
(22:16):
as an honest
person of integrity
Then every lie you tell
chips
away at that self-concept
until that self-concept
after enough lies will no longer be able
to hold. Mhmm. And I would suggest that
it is a path to happiness
to have a self-concept that you're a decent
(22:38):
person.
But I I I also say that just
like,
the kid that's afraid,
there there's there's you can see that there's
reasons why people will lie to themselves or
lie to others either knowingly or unknowingly,
and that
humans
will often fall from their own conscience. You
(22:59):
know that phrase,
the softest pillow is an easy conscience.
That suggests that a lot of people don't
have soft pillows. You know, so you make
that a sentence. It suggests that that's not
not the rule. It might be the exception.
But as a as a as a general
rule perhaps and
something that's axiomatic to
(23:19):
being an adult is
facing
those
truths early on, knowing that that's actually the
the best time to face them, however uncomfortable
it might be.
And I would add that
even if there are consequences.
Externally.
Right? So someone's angry at you or
you've got to pay a fine or go
(23:41):
to jail for a couple years or whatever.
Or some of his attitude to you is
utterly changed. Yes. You know that that's a
consequence. That's a consequence for a lot of
people. Even then, I would suggest
that there's gonna be psychological
relief. Mhmm.
Because you've spoken the truth,
you've faced the consequences.
It's no longer a burden for your conscience
(24:04):
because whatever proper punishment, even if it's just
losing, just losing a friend, whatever proper consequence
has been doled out
and then you can sleep well at night
again.
The Catholics had,
confession, right?
Where, you know, you don't have to carry
it in your own heart if you confess
it to a priest.
(24:25):
I mean there are problems with that system.
But still the concept I think is sound
that if you tell the truth to a
priest during the modern world, you tell the
truth to a therapist,
then you can sleep a little bit better
at night because it's not just your burden
any longer than now you've externalized it. Mhmm.
Alright. So we we spoke,
in the last,
(24:46):
episode about being
pro social and how how that's that's an
important
principle,
to follow.
I would even suggest it's it's an expression
of your humanity.
Right. And to be anything other than
prosocial. This this doesn't mean,
by the way, it doesn't mean you have
to go party a lot. It it means
(25:08):
that you act in ways that are beneficial
to others and not just yourself. You could
also take to the other extreme as I
hang up with the best way I can
do this is to the only way I
can do this is to retreat into silence
for the next 30 years. And I don't
mean self sacrificing either. Right.
Because you are a human being. You are
a member of society.
Again, I I wasn't I I I wouldn't
(25:29):
overthink it too much because just hanging out
out at the park
and talking to whichever people walk by, it's
not any formally defined role, but that's a
very prosocial thing to do in your neighborhood.
Or just, you know, if you have too
many cherry tomatoes from your garden,
just like leaving it on your front yard
(25:50):
or giving to the neighbors.
And and it's not specifically transactional. It's more
generally transactional for
society as a whole. So if I if
I leave my cherry tomatoes
out, it's not for any one person in
order to have reciprocal. I'm giving it to
this neighbor in order to get something back
from them.
It's more of a general
a general attitude.
(26:11):
Correct. And I would point out that, you
know, the person leaving out the cherry tomatoes
gets something back through their active generosity.
Okay. Let's let's say that you are
you're living in modern society where you have
a plethora of choices. You're almost paralyzed by
the potentials that face you in your life.
Okay? How do you put your priorities in
(26:32):
place? I say priorities like that's even possible.
Could it be a sequence of singular priorities
is probably a better way of putting it.
You have to use your own judgment
and your own knowledge and basically too as
all adults must do Mhmm. Which is to
sacrifice
some aspects
of your life
in favor of aspects of your life that
(26:53):
you assign a higher priority to. So I'll
give you an example.
There are many people who sacrifice their health.
So, they don't sleep well,
they don't eat well, they don't exercise.
They sacrifice their health
for money and a career.
There are other people who will not make
that sacrifice.
(27:14):
So they're gonna sacrifice
their career and their income potential
Mhmm. In favor of being at the gym
Mhmm.
At 5 pm and not staying behind like
some of the other people at work.
And because we each have to manage time
as a scarce resource,
All of us, by necessity,
(27:34):
have to choose,
are we gonna stay behind at 5 o'clock
and value work, or are we gonna leave
and
for one person is to go to the
gym? For someone else, it's to see their
girlfriend. For someone else, it's to be with
their kids.
For someone else, it's to have a hobby,
like singing in a choir.
The reason I say it's it's not for
me, it's not for you, it's not for
any outside authority to defund priorities for for
(27:56):
anyone is that we just don't have the
information
that each individual has about themselves.
So even
if our listeners feel like
they can't prioritize or
they don't know what is important
I would say that you nonetheless
still have much better information
(28:16):
than us guys talking to you through the
internet.
So if you want to be unhealthy and
rich in the future
that determines your priorities today.
If you want to be healthy
and
to value the simpler things in life in
the future. Well, that's gonna decide the things
you do today. Which is not necessary. This
is just a binary for
(28:38):
illustration.
Only for illustration. Obviously, there are priorities other
than
health and health. And also streams as well.
But,
one, you can be
healthy and
be successful in business. It's not to say
that's impossible. But I think what you're
saying is that
a, it should be a discrete choice as
in I'm
open eyed
(29:00):
observing my needs, wants and values and trying
to make my choices align with those.
So there's that. And then in doing that
you are gonna have to pick a course
for your ship
and stick to it basically,
until more information comes.
Life can be long. It can also be
short. Do we ever arrive anywhere? Do we
(29:20):
ever you said there's a port. Sure. But
do we ever sort of go, right, that's
it. I'm an adult now. I don't need
to learn anymore. Or or is it is
it
a or is is it is basically being
an adult a lifelong learning process?
I think it was helpful in the prior
episode to define what is an adult.
Because it's in that context
that
(29:40):
I'm answering the question.
Someone who is
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90,
a 100,
they're all legally
and socially
defined to be adults.
But obviously every decade or so,
you're gonna reassess
some of the items at the very back
(30:01):
of your closet.
You might also benefit from reassessing
some aspects of your self-concept
that might be outdated.
And I would say that everyone has the
capacity
to do this kind of reassessment or spring
cleaning once in a while. So they're keeping
thoughts about themselves that are current and truthful
(30:22):
and relevant. Up to date. Up to date.
And they're letting go of thoughts that are
no longer current.
So all your thoughts about you and childhood
are no
longer relevant or current
when you're, say, 40 years old.
For all of you who are listening, you're
probably still making new friends, you're reading new
books, and you're definitely listening to new podcasts.
(30:44):
So you are already treating yourself
as a lifelong learner. You are already treating
yourself as someone who's on a lifelong
journey to to being the most you can
be or to being the the best that
you can be. Mhmm.
One day, you're gonna face the inevitable. That's
episode 12, by the way. You're gonna face
(31:05):
the inevitable, and you're not gonna want to
be thinking
that you wasted your adult years not learning
anything new, not making new friends, not doing
anything new. You're gonna wanna think that you
had a full rich life
and one of the ways to be able
to look back and
feel that you've had a full rich fulfilling
(31:26):
life
is to always
be growing. Mhmm. Metaphorically. I think part part
of that goes back to what we touched
on perhaps in the first,
first episode about maintaining those aspects of adolescence
into your adulthood. Maintaining aspects of curiosity, of
openness to new experiences.
Curiosity,
openness Mhmm. A beginner's mind as the Zen
(31:49):
Buddhists say. Yeah.
These are not childish thoughts.
These are
our human thoughts.
A childish thought might be, just to give
you a preview of the next episode,
that you've got to
turn to other people for validation
in matters pertaining to you personally that's a
(32:10):
childish thought right that you can abandon at
18
but curiosity
openness to experience
wanting to learn new things and meet new
people
these are not actually in my view
childish
thoughts
or behaviors
these are human thoughts and behaviors that you
see in children
(32:31):
and you only don't see in adults who
have a very different concept of adulthood.
In general,
take
responsibility.
They go n. That's it. Cut, we're done.
Well, responsibility
like being an adult
often develops bad connotations
because
(32:51):
parents try to make
sometimes bad parents try to make responsibility
into this tremendous burden that
you don't know how to handle and
it makes adulthood
awful. Yeah.
And you've also
heard me
recast
(33:12):
responsibility
as a most wonderful thing Mhmm. That gives
me power and prestige in the world. Which
is exactly when when, you know, my kids
say, Oh, I'd love to be an adult.
That's what they're seeing. They're seeing that freedom,
that agency,
that,
the fact that I can
know what I can take out of the
(33:32):
fridge, how much chocolate I can eat.
I know
that very many adults will go, oh, yeah.
No. It's hard though. Oh, yeah, you don't
wanna be an adult. Enjoy your youth while
you're off. You have no idea, you know,
how difficult it is.
And they're just projecting upon the young person
their own struggles and challenges and limited view.
(33:54):
In my experience,
adulthood
is a lot better Mhmm. Than childhood. Mhmm.
The part
that I I wanna put a spotlight on
is that
the freedoms of adulthood
are when you're feeling like the captain of
your own ship.
They're
(34:15):
going to keep you sailing through the difficult
parts.
When you were a child and you didn't
have this freedom, when you went through the
difficult parts,
I mean,
what what what could you do? Mhmm. Unless
you had really, really good parents. Well, that
that's what I was gonna say. I was
gonna say, well,
you know saying that the adulthood is is
(34:36):
better than being a kid. Is that that's
a That maybe a personal experience
in the sense that if you had a
fantastic childhood,
then you could say, well, that period
I was fit for purpose as a child
and my parents were fit for purpose as
parents.
Now what do I do now I'm an
adult? Which is,
sort of a different equation,
(34:57):
Right? So it's not necessarily that childhood is
not as good as being an adult. It's
more like if you've got good parents then
childhood is a great gestation period
of
growth in preparation
for a lifetime of being an adult. So
that's probably the proper way of looking at
it rather than
one thing being better than the other. Well,
one one In an ideal world, right? So
(35:19):
One title I considered for this podcast, cast,
it's just too long. I think it's a
good encapsulation
of what I want to achieve. It's things
your parents should have told you Mhmm. But
didn't. Mhmm. A guide for adults. Yeah.
And it's because only It wouldn't quite fit
on that. It would not. Yeah.
It's only very lucky people who have parents
(35:40):
who set them up so that adulthood is
gonna be better than Mhmm. The childhood.
The rest of us have to learn it,
say, through a podcast,
But at least now this podcast exists. Yeah.
Now is your chance to do the,
the Star Wars quote.
It's actually Spider Man. It's the second time.
(36:01):
I'm called Man. It's
it's Ben Parker,
says In the comments, I'm gonna be absolutely
As you demolish for that.
God.
So uncle Ben
says to Peter Parker,
with great power comes great responsibility.
Right? And Peter Parker tries to live his
(36:21):
life
by that, and it's very truthful. It it,
you know,
when you have power,
without responsibility you're a bull in a china
shop
with responsibility
you can help to shape the world into
a better shape because you've been elevated to
that position of power.
But
the inverse is also
(36:42):
true. So when I was a kid,
I really, really wanted just to get past
the childhood phase
to become an adult
because
when you take on
responsibility
it comes with power. It comes with prestige.
It's not just that when you're thrust into
(37:03):
a position where you have power that you
then must
perform the duty
of being responsible with that power.
It's also that when you claim
increasing responsibility
for yourself that there is
power that comes with that.
Alright. Well,
(37:23):
let's wrap this up then. Okay. Yeah. Thanks
for listening. Pascal and I are both available
for hire through the Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis
in Toronto, Canada,
and we are seeing clients
worldwide.
The website is morpheusclinicdot
com and there you can ask for a
free consultation where we can apply some of
our thought to the concerns that you have.
(37:44):
The ideas you've heard during this episode are
some of the ideas that we instill in
our clients.
And if you've benefited from what you've heard
here, feel free to share the podcast with
anyone who you think might benefit,
and like and subscribe.
You can find us on YouTube at Morpheus
Hypnosis
or you can subscribe to the podcast, on
(38:05):
Spotify, on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is
that you find,
your podcasts.
And watch out for the next episode where
we dig into another one of these principles
and talk specifically about your place in the
world amongst others.
So press the subscribe button and, keep an
eye out for the next episode.
You have some of the prerequisites
Mhmm.
To happiness.
Mhmm. Actually, there is an inherent
value in the act of living. For aliveness
itself has value that needs to be honored.
Somehow
we make exceptions for ourselves where we treat
ourselves not like a fellow human being, nor
even like life.
(00:22):
Welcome to How to Be an Adult, a
podcast by the practitioners
at the Morpheus Clinic For Hypnosis in Toronto,
Canada.
It's a show for people like you who've
inadvertently become adults,
and don't know what to do about it.
I'm Luke Chao. And I'm Pascal Langdell. Whether
you're 18 or 80, this show is the
trail guide that nobody gave you when you
(00:45):
gained equality with your parents.
In this episode, we're gonna start to describe
in more depth the principles we outlined in
the first episode.
The first one being the captain of your
ship.
If there's one metaphor
that
encapsulates
in so many different ways
(01:06):
not just the responsibilities
of adulthood
but the empowerment
that one has as an adult to determine
their course and therefore their future. It's that
in the open ocean,
you're the captain of your ship.
No one else is.
And the other good news in this is
that you're not the captain of any other
(01:28):
adults
ship.
There are many ways we can take the
metaphor,
but that's essentially it. So you're captain of
your ship,
that means that you have authority over,
your direction, your course,
360 degree potential,
and what is your what is the correct
attitude to the open ocean?
(01:48):
Well,
often people feel that because there are 360
degrees of freedom and you could choose any
city in the world to live in if
you apply through the right channels.
You you can choose any university,
to attend if they'll accept you.
Because there's so much freedom, often people feel
overwhelmed even paralyzed by this freedom.
(02:10):
What I want to point out is that
the ship
can only
sail in one direction at a time,
and that makes
irrelevant
the 359
degrees of freedom
that
are not the direction you want your life
to go in.
(02:30):
It is not irresponsible
if you've surveyed
every possibility
and you're choosing only one future,
when you try to go in two directions
at once.
Let's say I'm trying to please everyone.
Let's say I'm trying to be everything to
everyone and I'm going in not just two
(02:51):
directions, I'm going in multiple directions,
that ensures that your ship at best will
zigzag
or at worst
go in circles.
And that's where I think a lot of
our listeners might have found themselves in adulthood
where your life doesn't seem to be going
anywhere.
(03:12):
If you feel your place at the helm
as your proper place, if you feel that
you've got your hands on the wheel and
you can chart your course and stay the
course until you reach each destination
and you're choosing one direction of 360.
This is how it's it's done.
It's not by zigzag. Mhmm. And and with
(03:33):
that self authority,
does that also
come with a sense of self respect, self
esteem, self love? Is is it possible to
captain a ship without that?
Well, yeah.
I've talked, so far only about where you're
going in life. So where are you gonna
place the
vessel next
but then there's the vessel itself
(03:55):
which is yours
There's the saying that the captain goes down
with the ship. Mhmm. Right? So
this metaphor holds when you imagine that your
life and your body your your health your
relationships your values that
this all comprises the the ship
so the self caring and the self loving
and the self respecting
(04:16):
is
to ensure that the faithful vessel you're on
will continue to serve you. Mhmm. So if
you're gonna live
a 100 years or you take the attitude
that you're,
a living being that deserves a good shot
at it, let's put it that way.
There's
the next axiom which is to,
it's important to take care of yourself as
(04:38):
a human life which is under your care.
Expand on that a little. If we imagine
a house plant, right?
If we imagine that someone's gifted you just
even like a little cactus,
you'll give it enough but not too much
water
you'll give it enough sunlight and for a
cactus it's going to need more sunlight
than some other species
(04:59):
and you're going to give it enough fertilizer
in the soil and you might even take
care to make sure it's specific for cactuses
It's a very loved cactus. It's a very,
I would say not over loved cactus. No.
That's a problem. If you do too much,
then you rot its roots after all. If
you water tanks too much.
But but proper cares not to give it
too much. Mhmm. Proper cares to give it
(05:21):
what it needs.
Enough but not too much.
When we take care of ourselves we're usually
breathing enough air. We're usually eating, if anything,
too much food, but we're definitely having enough
food, we have enough
available water to drink, though not everyone hydrates
themselves well enough.
Where we will, however,
(05:42):
find a lot of lack
is in the self caring and the self
loving and the self respecting. Now, since this
podcast is called How to be an adult,
I would add
that to feel consistently
loved,
to feel consistently
accepted,
(06:02):
to feel consistently
validated
You should take the side of those who
love and care about and validate you. You
shouldn't take the side of those who would
criticize you and harangue
when you're thinking your own thoughts to yourself.
Now a lot of people in their own
heads, they'll take the side of those who
(06:23):
don't like them or who would criticize them,
unfairly.
And they don't take as much the side
of those who care about them. It's almost
like we take our loved ones for granted,
how do we think so much about our
enemies. Mhmm. But that to me is an
inversion
of of the right order
where we
can care a lot less about people who
(06:44):
don't have our best interest in mind
they care instead about the the those who
would give us respecting and loving and caring
and validating. So to take your cactus or
class analogy is that there's there
are fundamental human needs that need to be
addressed,
self caring being
being a preeminent one really. Well, it's caring
(07:05):
that's the need. It's just our modern society
Yeah. That requires self caring Mhmm. To to
be
the the thing that fulfills the need. Yeah.
But that would include things like if it's
the the the universals that human
humans need, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy needs
you to have,
you know, shelter, warmth, food. You mentioned, food,
(07:26):
water, and so on. But there's also,
you need to exercise as
well. Right? I mean, that's a need that's
you could argue that's a need, and I've
heard you argue this before, and I I
agree. The emotional support network that you need,
emotional self regulation as well, it's also a
form of self care which you've touched on
there.
Being that you don't take the side of
(07:46):
the negative critic which is already is already
in the background to save you from from
the, you know, the tigers in the woods.
But
there's also what happens when,
when something goes wrong with your self care.
Say,
you break a leg, say, you find your
your mentally in a in a rough place.
(08:07):
It's easy to to get re angry and
annoyed with your, the fact that this misfortune
struck you.
What's
what's the proper attitude as a self caring
adult that that believes in their self worth
to deal with that? The question to ask
yourself
is, how would I speak to a friend
(08:28):
or a brother or a sister
who's in precisely the same situation?
And let's assume you love your friends and
your siblings.
So if if you've broken a leg,
if you were
to blame yourself and criticize yourself, that is
not in line with how you would treat
(08:49):
a loved one.
If you would show a loved one
more love, more care, more positive attention,
if you'd encourage them not to criticize themselves
too much,
then your own conscience
is telling you that that's the proper attitude.
It's not even the guy on the Internet
you're listening to. It's your own conscience is
(09:12):
telling you that the proper attitude
is to give yourself that
level Yeah. Of self loving and self caring.
I I use that
when talking to kids, actually, saying, you know,
when they're they're saying, oh, I can't do
this. I'm useless. And you say, well, okay.
What would your best mate say to you
right now? And often it turns it around
entirely because they step out themselves.
(09:35):
And for a moment, they can see themselves
as their friends might see them. Again, one
of the questions that might come up,
and
I've had this question as well is what's
the what's the big justification for caring at
all? I mean, there's a big why about
why should we care for ourselves? What is
it
that means that we
should actually care for ourselves? What gives us
(09:56):
the right to believe that's even important in
an enormous universe, you know?
Well,
this
makes me want even more so to insert
the word happy in between how to be
and
have the word
adult.
Because when you are
well enough fed and well enough rested and
(10:19):
well enough
loved,
you have some of the prerequisites
to happiness.
If you're not well enough fed and well
enough rested and well enough loved, you're missing
some of the fundamental prerequisites
for for happiness. Mhmm. Now I am assuming
almost as axiomatic
(10:40):
that our listeners want to be happy that
they don't want to be stuck in their
misery.
We understand that the plant's not going to
be happy
if you've given it too much water. We
understand that the dog's not happy if you've
not walked it enough.
We understand the friend's not happy if you're
always critical and you never speak a kind
word.
(11:01):
Somehow we make exceptions for ourselves where we
treat ourselves not like a fellow human being,
nor even like life.
We treat ourselves
almost like we're objects that can be neglected
or abused because only objects can be neglected
and abused without consequence
And a large part of what I end
up having to communicate to to my clients
(11:22):
is that you're correctly categorized as life, you're
correctly categorized as a human being
and
When you're over 18, you're correctly categorized as
an adult
where your self caring and your fulfillment of
your
own needs
(11:42):
is
the most reliable way Mhmm.
To
have those prerequisites for happiness met. You mentioned
couple of things. One was the the the
dog and the plant and whenever you use
the tree,
a reference as well. And one of the
things that I've I've heard you talk about
was well, well, actually there was a tree
(12:03):
in the street that I used to live
that,
used to pass all the time and and
they removed it. And there was like a
local outcry
about the fact that they've removed it without
consultation and so on. And this was a
a tree. It's just
a maple tree on a corner of an
average street in an average part of Toronto.
Right?
And you mentioned a similar story and it
just points out
(12:24):
actually there is an inherent
value in the act of living. Your aliveness
itself has value that needs to be honored.
It's a in one on the one hand,
the knowledge of your own death is the
burden, but the gift you get up until
that point is
the the living bit. And to me, that's
I I read some of the the chances
of you, Luke, existing
(12:44):
in your current form is something like 1
in 4 trillion,
which is those are that's an extraordinary thing,
just to think that I'm sitting next to
somebody
whose chance of existence was about 1 in
4 trillion.
I suppose if you wanna talk about fundamental
axiom, it's not even necessarily
that perhaps that your purpose for living is
to be happy. You might say that the
(13:05):
purpose of life is to honor the life
by being happy.
So that wherever you are, that you find
your way to still honor the honor your
life. With whatever your circumstance, whether you're in
your highest, you know, moment or your worst
moment, that happiness is still available, that joy
is still available. And I'd even go further
and say maybe play is still available. Because
(13:26):
I I I think that that's an awesome
that if you if you satisfy all your
basic needs,
to me, the sort of
the, of course, I'd say this as an
actor, but the,
the sort of the pinnacle of human joy,
if you like, or the opportunity for joy
is actually the ability to play and play
with others.
This description of of human beings as
(13:49):
being fully alive and as part of this
aliveness we do of things like play,
this I think everyone can resonate with. Yeah.
Yeah. And and it's an aspiration, I think
I think a lot of people
when they think of an ideal in one
way it fits into this,
it does fit into some way, some into
that category.
Like experiencing joy with your friends,
(14:11):
experiencing art and culture, or
sport or whatever it is. There's so much
built around
the experience of this
reciprocal play. But I think I think that
it's it's and that as a celebration of
being alive, I think that's a that's no
small thing. But of course, then it comes
to the the next point, which is well,
(14:32):
okay, I've stated that life is worth living
because it's worth living, which is a circular
reasoning. Right? So,
what's your position with somebody who says, well,
it's all relative. It's,
things are defined as as words define them
and that's it.
The fact that
we can kind of, you know, sit here
and say things that are going out to
(14:52):
potentially 1,000 or even millions of people. Mhmm.
And at least I have confidence in my
heart that the things I say here will
be resonant
among 1,000 or even 1,000,000 of people.
That
speaks to a kind of
common or
(15:12):
even universal
humanity. So I'll use the example of
a musician Mhmm.
Playing music,
let's say in a studio
and then recording it, releasing it and having
it be heard by, let's say, a 1000000000
people,
probably a 1000000000 hearts and minds have been
(15:35):
moved by that music,
not because the musician knew each of those
people,
but because the musician
created something
that speaks deeply to a common humanity.
Here with the podcast and in my work
as a hypnotherapist and I imagine in your
work as an actor, you're trying to create
(15:56):
a form of communication
that speaks
to that deeper,
common,
even universal humanity.
And it's not just that we're creating work
that's only for
one age group or only 1 gender or
people of a certain social
(16:16):
class
Your question is, what do I say to
the relativists?
And
my answer is that if you have arrived
at a view that
doesn't generalize
to 8,000,000,000 human beings, you're not looking at
human nature.
You're looking at something that's culturally bound or
(16:38):
time bound or even just in in one
individual.
And that's not where my interest lies. Lies.
Like the musician who wants to make timeless
music
that appeals to all of humanity,
I want to arrive at principles
that are timeless and that apply to all
of humanity. An experience we've all had
(17:00):
is becoming
big enough to get our own cup from
the cupboard and that to reach the faucet
and turn on the tap and fill it
up ourselves so that we would never have
to be thirsty inside our own homes again.
Because until we became that big,
we did have to sometimes be thirsty.
Once we're big enough to get our own
cup and fill it up, we can kind
(17:20):
of move on to fulfilling other needs that
we might have.
And I would say that
as we get older, we eventually learn to
cook for ourselves too. We eventually learn
how to make a living so that we
can pay for ourselves.
We
also
need to learn how to validate ourselves, and
(17:42):
how to love ourselves, and how to
otherwise care for ourselves for the very same
reasons.
We had to learn how to get our
own cup and fill it up ourselves.
So
there's that saying which is biblical,
My cup runneth over,
as an image of generosity.
(18:04):
And if we kind of approach other people
in the world with an empty cup,
expecting them to fill it up for us,
I mean, they might or might not, and
then we're not not guaranteed of having a
full cup.
But if we are in the world
and we ensure that our cup runneth over,
that's where we can be generous. That's where
(18:27):
we can
be loving. That's where we can set aside
our own lack or feelings of lack
to be part of something greater and to
contribute and to add to the world, as
I would suggest
adults must
do. Why should adults
care about
truth at all?
(18:47):
Well,
you've noticed that adults do care about truth.
They don't like it when people lie to
them.
And I would suggest that
this orientation
toward truth
is a defining characteristic
of being an adult
Where the child gets to be in a
fantasy play land right No one's gonna ask
(19:08):
them to design a bridge that stays standing.
Mhmm. No one's gonna ask them to make
a spacecraft
that can safely transport people to the moon
and back. Particularly off its cardboard box. Well.
Yes.
So
part of our transition to adulthood
means that we have to acknowledge that there
is a material
universe.
(19:28):
So
children are allowed a certain latitude when it
comes to the truth, both in their
explorative play, but also they have to learn
the value of telling the truth. It's tough
because
kids fear the repercussions
of doing something wrong. They don't have that
self assurance yet, so
(19:48):
sometimes their proclivity is to lie because they
fear the consequence of being told. Sometimes they
have absolutely nothing.
And so it's a process of of learning
that in fact telling the truth
means facing perhaps the consequences,
but then being brave enough to face
them.
And then you have to say, and this
is something that I think,
(20:10):
is
again you know, part of being an adult.
You have to say, well, I'm willing to,
say what I believe to be true
to the best of my ability
and accept the consequences as ultimately being better
than if I had lied.
So as an adult, I think
that
(20:31):
you have to be in a position where
you have that self assurance
to say, to own up when you've done
something wrong. And in the same way, to
therefore not be fearful of telling the truth
and to accept the consequences
as being either good or bad but accepting
that ultimately it can only lead to good.
The analogy that I
(20:52):
use is the dragon in the kitchen.
Right?
So in this story,
a kid returns home from school and there's
this small
dragon sitting on the kitchen table. And the
kid goes, mom, mom, there's a there's a
dragon on the table and the mom's too
busy. He goes, no, there isn't. Don't worry
about it. Don't worry about it. And then,
sure enough, the next day,
(21:13):
kid comes in. Mom, mom, there's a dragon
on the table. This time, it's bigger. And,
the mom and dad are in the kitchen.
They go, don't worry about it. Just imagining
things, you know.
And this goes on for some time, and
then eventually, the the, the child comes back
from school, and the parents are standing and
looking at the the house which is completely
collapsing in its place is this massive dragon
(21:34):
and the kid goes, I told you there
was a dragon in the kitchen and the
parents go, yep,
yep, there was a dragon in the kitchen.
And this is to this end, it's sort
of,
the moral of that story is that it's
better to tell the truth while the dragon
is small.
Those uncomfortable truths to yourself and to others.
Because you don't want that
(21:56):
that, denial to turn into a monster that
then affects your life to such a bad
degree. Well, we've we've talked about the
external consequences
of lying. Mhmm.
There are also
internal consequences.
Right. To lying.
Where if you want to see yourself
(22:16):
as an honest
person of integrity
Then every lie you tell
chips
away at that self-concept
until that self-concept
after enough lies will no longer be able
to hold. Mhmm. And I would suggest that
it is a path to happiness
to have a self-concept that you're a decent
(22:38):
person.
But I I I also say that just
like,
the kid that's afraid,
there there's there's you can see that there's
reasons why people will lie to themselves or
lie to others either knowingly or unknowingly,
and that
humans
will often fall from their own conscience. You
(22:59):
know that phrase,
the softest pillow is an easy conscience.
That suggests that a lot of people don't
have soft pillows. You know, so you make
that a sentence. It suggests that that's not
not the rule. It might be the exception.
But as a as a as a general
rule perhaps and
something that's axiomatic to
(23:19):
being an adult is
facing
those
truths early on, knowing that that's actually the
the best time to face them, however uncomfortable
it might be.
And I would add that
even if there are consequences.
Externally.
Right? So someone's angry at you or
you've got to pay a fine or go
(23:41):
to jail for a couple years or whatever.
Or some of his attitude to you is
utterly changed. Yes. You know that that's a
consequence. That's a consequence for a lot of
people. Even then, I would suggest
that there's gonna be psychological
relief. Mhmm.
Because you've spoken the truth,
you've faced the consequences.
It's no longer a burden for your conscience
(24:04):
because whatever proper punishment, even if it's just
losing, just losing a friend, whatever proper consequence
has been doled out
and then you can sleep well at night
again.
The Catholics had,
confession, right?
Where, you know, you don't have to carry
it in your own heart if you confess
it to a priest.
(24:25):
I mean there are problems with that system.
But still the concept I think is sound
that if you tell the truth to a
priest during the modern world, you tell the
truth to a therapist,
then you can sleep a little bit better
at night because it's not just your burden
any longer than now you've externalized it. Mhmm.
Alright. So we we spoke,
in the last,
(24:46):
episode about being
pro social and how how that's that's an
important
principle,
to follow.
I would even suggest it's it's an expression
of your humanity.
Right. And to be anything other than
prosocial. This this doesn't mean,
by the way, it doesn't mean you have
to go party a lot. It it means
(25:08):
that you act in ways that are beneficial
to others and not just yourself. You could
also take to the other extreme as I
hang up with the best way I can
do this is to the only way I
can do this is to retreat into silence
for the next 30 years. And I don't
mean self sacrificing either. Right.
Because you are a human being. You are
a member of society.
Again, I I wasn't I I I wouldn't
(25:29):
overthink it too much because just hanging out
out at the park
and talking to whichever people walk by, it's
not any formally defined role, but that's a
very prosocial thing to do in your neighborhood.
Or just, you know, if you have too
many cherry tomatoes from your garden,
just like leaving it on your front yard
(25:50):
or giving to the neighbors.
And and it's not specifically transactional. It's more
generally transactional for
society as a whole. So if I if
I leave my cherry tomatoes
out, it's not for any one person in
order to have reciprocal. I'm giving it to
this neighbor in order to get something back
from them.
It's more of a general
a general attitude.
(26:11):
Correct. And I would point out that, you
know, the person leaving out the cherry tomatoes
gets something back through their active generosity.
Okay. Let's let's say that you are
you're living in modern society where you have
a plethora of choices. You're almost paralyzed by
the potentials that face you in your life.
Okay? How do you put your priorities in
(26:32):
place? I say priorities like that's even possible.
Could it be a sequence of singular priorities
is probably a better way of putting it.
You have to use your own judgment
and your own knowledge and basically too as
all adults must do Mhmm. Which is to
sacrifice
some aspects
of your life
in favor of aspects of your life that
(26:53):
you assign a higher priority to. So I'll
give you an example.
There are many people who sacrifice their health.
So, they don't sleep well,
they don't eat well, they don't exercise.
They sacrifice their health
for money and a career.
There are other people who will not make
that sacrifice.
(27:14):
So they're gonna sacrifice
their career and their income potential
Mhmm. In favor of being at the gym
Mhmm.
At 5 pm and not staying behind like
some of the other people at work.
And because we each have to manage time
as a scarce resource,
All of us, by necessity,
(27:34):
have to choose,
are we gonna stay behind at 5 o'clock
and value work, or are we gonna leave
and
for one person is to go to the
gym? For someone else, it's to see their
girlfriend. For someone else, it's to be with
their kids.
For someone else, it's to have a hobby,
like singing in a choir.
The reason I say it's it's not for
me, it's not for you, it's not for
any outside authority to defund priorities for for
(27:56):
anyone is that we just don't have the
information
that each individual has about themselves.
So even
if our listeners feel like
they can't prioritize or
they don't know what is important
I would say that you nonetheless
still have much better information
(28:16):
than us guys talking to you through the
internet.
So if you want to be unhealthy and
rich in the future
that determines your priorities today.
If you want to be healthy
and
to value the simpler things in life in
the future. Well, that's gonna decide the things
you do today. Which is not necessary. This
is just a binary for
(28:38):
illustration.
Only for illustration. Obviously, there are priorities other
than
health and health. And also streams as well.
But,
one, you can be
healthy and
be successful in business. It's not to say
that's impossible. But I think what you're
saying is that
a, it should be a discrete choice as
in I'm
open eyed
(29:00):
observing my needs, wants and values and trying
to make my choices align with those.
So there's that. And then in doing that
you are gonna have to pick a course
for your ship
and stick to it basically,
until more information comes.
Life can be long. It can also be
short. Do we ever arrive anywhere? Do we
(29:20):
ever you said there's a port. Sure. But
do we ever sort of go, right, that's
it. I'm an adult now. I don't need
to learn anymore. Or or is it is
it
a or is is it is basically being
an adult a lifelong learning process?
I think it was helpful in the prior
episode to define what is an adult.
Because it's in that context
that
(29:40):
I'm answering the question.
Someone who is
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90,
a 100,
they're all legally
and socially
defined to be adults.
But obviously every decade or so,
you're gonna reassess
some of the items at the very back
(30:01):
of your closet.
You might also benefit from reassessing
some aspects of your self-concept
that might be outdated.
And I would say that everyone has the
capacity
to do this kind of reassessment or spring
cleaning once in a while. So they're keeping
thoughts about themselves that are current and truthful
(30:22):
and relevant. Up to date. Up to date.
And they're letting go of thoughts that are
no longer current.
So all your thoughts about you and childhood
are no
longer relevant or current
when you're, say, 40 years old.
For all of you who are listening, you're
probably still making new friends, you're reading new
books, and you're definitely listening to new podcasts.
(30:44):
So you are already treating yourself
as a lifelong learner. You are already treating
yourself as someone who's on a lifelong
journey to to being the most you can
be or to being the the best that
you can be. Mhmm.
One day, you're gonna face the inevitable. That's
episode 12, by the way. You're gonna face
(31:05):
the inevitable, and you're not gonna want to
be thinking
that you wasted your adult years not learning
anything new, not making new friends, not doing
anything new. You're gonna wanna think that you
had a full rich life
and one of the ways to be able
to look back and
feel that you've had a full rich fulfilling
(31:26):
life
is to always
be growing. Mhmm. Metaphorically. I think part part
of that goes back to what we touched
on perhaps in the first,
first episode about maintaining those aspects of adolescence
into your adulthood. Maintaining aspects of curiosity, of
openness to new experiences.
Curiosity,
openness Mhmm. A beginner's mind as the Zen
(31:49):
Buddhists say. Yeah.
These are not childish thoughts.
These are
our human thoughts.
A childish thought might be, just to give
you a preview of the next episode,
that you've got to
turn to other people for validation
in matters pertaining to you personally that's a
(32:10):
childish thought right that you can abandon at
18
but curiosity
openness to experience
wanting to learn new things and meet new
people
these are not actually in my view
childish
thoughts
or behaviors
these are human thoughts and behaviors that you
see in children
(32:31):
and you only don't see in adults who
have a very different concept of adulthood.
In general,
take
responsibility.
They go n. That's it. Cut, we're done.
Well, responsibility
like being an adult
often develops bad connotations
because
(32:51):
parents try to make
sometimes bad parents try to make responsibility
into this tremendous burden that
you don't know how to handle and
it makes adulthood
awful. Yeah.
And you've also
heard me
recast
(33:12):
responsibility
as a most wonderful thing Mhmm. That gives
me power and prestige in the world. Which
is exactly when when, you know, my kids
say, Oh, I'd love to be an adult.
That's what they're seeing. They're seeing that freedom,
that agency,
that,
the fact that I can
know what I can take out of the
(33:32):
fridge, how much chocolate I can eat.
I know
that very many adults will go, oh, yeah.
No. It's hard though. Oh, yeah, you don't
wanna be an adult. Enjoy your youth while
you're off. You have no idea, you know,
how difficult it is.
And they're just projecting upon the young person
their own struggles and challenges and limited view.
(33:54):
In my experience,
adulthood
is a lot better Mhmm. Than childhood. Mhmm.
The part
that I I wanna put a spotlight on
is that
the freedoms of adulthood
are when you're feeling like the captain of
your own ship.
They're
(34:15):
going to keep you sailing through the difficult
parts.
When you were a child and you didn't
have this freedom, when you went through the
difficult parts,
I mean,
what what what could you do? Mhmm. Unless
you had really, really good parents. Well, that
that's what I was gonna say. I was
gonna say, well,
you know saying that the adulthood is is
(34:36):
better than being a kid. Is that that's
a That maybe a personal experience
in the sense that if you had a
fantastic childhood,
then you could say, well, that period
I was fit for purpose as a child
and my parents were fit for purpose as
parents.
Now what do I do now I'm an
adult? Which is,
sort of a different equation,
(34:57):
Right? So it's not necessarily that childhood is
not as good as being an adult. It's
more like if you've got good parents then
childhood is a great gestation period
of
growth in preparation
for a lifetime of being an adult. So
that's probably the proper way of looking at
it rather than
one thing being better than the other. Well,
one one In an ideal world, right? So
(35:19):
One title I considered for this podcast, cast,
it's just too long. I think it's a
good encapsulation
of what I want to achieve. It's things
your parents should have told you Mhmm. But
didn't. Mhmm. A guide for adults. Yeah.
And it's because only It wouldn't quite fit
on that. It would not. Yeah.
It's only very lucky people who have parents
(35:40):
who set them up so that adulthood is
gonna be better than Mhmm. The childhood.
The rest of us have to learn it,
say, through a podcast,
But at least now this podcast exists. Yeah.
Now is your chance to do the,
the Star Wars quote.
It's actually Spider Man. It's the second time.
(36:01):
I'm called Man. It's
it's Ben Parker,
says In the comments, I'm gonna be absolutely
As you demolish for that.
God.
So uncle Ben
says to Peter Parker,
with great power comes great responsibility.
Right? And Peter Parker tries to live his
(36:21):
life
by that, and it's very truthful. It it,
you know,
when you have power,
without responsibility you're a bull in a china
shop
with responsibility
you can help to shape the world into
a better shape because you've been elevated to
that position of power.
But
the inverse is also
(36:42):
true. So when I was a kid,
I really, really wanted just to get past
the childhood phase
to become an adult
because
when you take on
responsibility
it comes with power. It comes with prestige.
It's not just that when you're thrust into
(37:03):
a position where you have power that you
then must
perform the duty
of being responsible with that power.
It's also that when you claim
increasing responsibility
for yourself that there is
power that comes with that.
Alright. Well,
(37:23):
let's wrap this up then. Okay. Yeah. Thanks
for listening. Pascal and I are both available
for hire through the Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis
in Toronto, Canada,
and we are seeing clients
worldwide.
The website is morpheusclinicdot
com and there you can ask for a
free consultation where we can apply some of
our thought to the concerns that you have.
(37:44):
The ideas you've heard during this episode are
some of the ideas that we instill in
our clients.
And if you've benefited from what you've heard
here, feel free to share the podcast with
anyone who you think might benefit,
and like and subscribe.
You can find us on YouTube at Morpheus
Hypnosis
or you can subscribe to the podcast, on
(38:05):
Spotify, on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is
that you find,
your podcasts.
And watch out for the next episode where
we dig into another one of these principles
and talk specifically about your place in the
world amongst others.
So press the subscribe button and, keep an
eye out for the next episode.
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