October 24, 2023 • 35 mins
Throughout this podcast, we’ve made the case (and we will continue to make the case) that living an excellent life requires us to abide by a set of principles that are universal enough that we could say they are in accordance with human nature. But why? And what happens if we don’t? In this episode,...
The post Why Live a Principled Life? (Ep. 6) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All of us as adults are constantly faced
with decisions like do we tell the white
lie and not rock the boat? Say that
angers the person, Well, and so what? The
chances are that it's all gonna be forgotten
anyway. You've agreed to something but now you
resent that the person who you have to
follow through with. I'm feeling insecure, and I'm
feeling less than my friend. Welcome to another
(00:22):
episode of how to be an adult. This
is a podcast for people just like you
who've inadvertently
become adults and don't know what to do
about it. We're from the Morpheus Clinic for
hypnosis in Toronto, Canada, and that's where a
lot of our ideas come from. I'm Luke
Chao. I'm Pascal Langdell. Almost
none of us get the instruction that we
(00:44):
need in order to
even set foot off properly as an adult
and let's face it, it's an ongoing process
of adulting. We've established some basic principles
and fundamental axioms
that will help you live better and live
happier and do adulting better. If this sounds
good to you then keep on listening. This
(01:04):
episode is about why we should even follow
principles to begin with. Mhmm. Because a lot
of our listeners are probably looking for tips
for
tricks Mhmm. Of adulthood.
And there are plenty of people who have
written books and who have their own podcast
about
tips for managing relationships
a tricks for your financial life and this
kind of thing But I don't hear as
(01:25):
many people talking
about having principles.
So why should we even live a principled
life to begin with? Well, I mean, you
could start off with something really simple. And
I I think this is a situation that
that probably quite a lot of people have
gotten themselves into, which is you're hanging out
with people that you don't necessarily know quite
well and
somebody says something along the lines of, Oh,
(01:46):
you know such and such movie?
And you're in a position where you haven't
seen the movie. You've heard of it but
you don't know it. But you go, mhmm.
Like you know it. But then later on
there's a callback and you're put on the
spot and then you have a choice. Do
I then say, well actually I have heard
of it but I haven't seen it, and
you come clean, you show your ignorance and
you you risk, you know,
social, social judgment,
(02:07):
or do you then start to bullshit?
Having a principle which goes along the lines
of I must look good and it's okay
to sort of tell lies
would not be a principle that would work
very well. And then of course, you can
go to the the macro version which would
be, if I don't have basic principles about
what my values are, what I think is
(02:28):
good and important
and of value to me and the world
around me. How am I going to relate
to somebody in an intimate relationship?
If all that's up for grabs and I
don't have principles that I can fall back
on then basically I'm able to be swayed
by anybody around me
according to, you know, the moment's whim. And
(02:48):
that's again, that's not gonna lead to success.
There's so much life advice out there saying
to follow your heart.
To follow your whims,
not to overthink things.
But too often when one follows
one's heart or one follows the crowd,
one ends up in these precarious situations where
(03:09):
you then have to kind of explain something
or commit to something that you didn't actually
mean when you said it.
So we hope to prevent our listeners from
getting themselves into these kinds of situations
where because you don't have any rules for
how you'll conduct yourself,
you end up finding yourself in these situations
where maybe you've said yes, but you actually
(03:30):
mean
no or you've agreed to something but now
you resent that the person who you have
to follow through with
I think most of us you know have
grown up with rules or principles that might
have been appropriate for a child in a
specific household environment,
but which might not be adaptive in adult
(03:53):
life.
So all of us as adults are constantly
faced with decisions, like do we tell the
white lie and not rock the boat,
or do we tell the truth and then
risk offending someone else?
And ideally, we're not just trying to make
decisions on the spot about what we're gonna
do if we have a very firm grounding
(04:13):
in a set of life principles will abide
by,
then we kind of already know preemptively
whether we're the type of person who's gonna
tell the white lie or whether we're the
type of person who is gonna risk rocking
the boat, but then develop a reputation as
being straight forward and truthful. And there's also
the other aspect of it which is actually
(04:34):
it feels good to have values that you
make good on. Say say somebody calls you
up on a Friday and says look here's
a project you've got to hand it in.
If you take it on it's got to
be done by Monday
And if you want the job that's what
you've gotta do. But that weekend, your you've
got family commitments. One of your values and
your priorities is to spend more time with
(04:55):
your kids.
And the alternative is right now okay I'm
gonna disappear for the weekend. The kids aren't
gonna see me. They're gonna get fractious and
annoyed. And then the the event that we
planned is not gonna go well and I'm
gonna be a grumpy
dad for for 48 hours.
Is that I have to compare that to
the value of the work
that is being offered on the Monday.
(05:16):
And then the question comes, well,
are you in a situation to turn that
down? And that sort of is a big
question. But that then goes to, well, what
have you what are the other values in
your life that work to make that possible?
To be able to turn down the potential
for work and be able to spend time
with your family. And then if you've got
those in line that means you can turn
around and say, you know what?
(05:37):
I won't deliver on Monday, I'm passed on
this, somebody else can have to handle this,
it's not it's not gonna be me because
my value is to be with my family.
Now say that angers the person, well And
so what? The chances are that it's all
gonna be forgotten anyway and, you know, you're
keeping things in perspective and you're aligned with
your values. And so that means that
the frustration
(05:57):
of maybe not delivering on a professional
impression of promise
is balanced against making good on a value
that means something to you. I think what
I'm hearing you say is that if your
values and your priorities and your principles are
clear to you,
then you live a life without or at
least with much less regret. Yeah.
(06:20):
People often experience regret if they they live
an unprincipled life. Well, let's talk a little
bit about how many people conduct themselves
when they don't have a firm set of
principles that they abide by. So
I've mentioned a few already. 1 is to
follow your heart, to follow whatever makes you
(06:40):
feel good or whatever
feels right to you. One of the problems
with that of course is that feelings change.
Principles are supposed to be sound principles are
supposed to stay true
even when you're in the depths of any
kind of emotion.
Something else people do is they follow the
crowd. So if their friends are doing it,
(07:00):
then they might do the same thing themselves.
That's assuming your friends in aggregate make good
decisions.
And that's not always gonna be the case.
So you're at a concert. Right? And you're
you're at a festival
and you're not truly secure in your friend
group and somebody offers you a drug because
it's fun. And you think, well okay. You
(07:21):
know what? That's my friend. They wouldn't mean
me harm
and yeah, I I could do with relaxing
and this is going to make me feel
happy.
You kinda go, well okay but hold on
a second.
Is it is it the drug that is
gonna make you happy or could we have
gone a few steps earlier
and if you had your principles straight, you
would be happy
(07:42):
within your friend group without the requirement to
have drugs? Well, I I would say that
there are
sound moral systems
that allow people to use drugs to feel
good. Sure. I know you're talking about party
drugs like fat You know what I mean?
I I suppose I'm saying that it's easy
with emotions to mix up a need.
For instance, I need to feel
(08:03):
secure and validated.
And I'm feeling I'm feeling insecure and I'm
feeling less than my friends who appear to
be having so much more fun than me.
And you can mistake that feeling for well
in which case I need to do something
about it
and
the drug is it. Do you see what
I mean?
The idea that your emotion, the need for
(08:24):
a drug is necessarily
the right thing. And if your principle is
well I trust my emotions and my gut
feeling in every circumstance,
it's not gonna work if
it's left unexamined. It's not gonna work if
it's just taken as being fundamental truth. Because
your emotions can, they're a sign of something,
but the correlating action is not necessarily
(08:45):
correct. Well, there is such a thing as
emotional reasoning where people kind of build their
reasoning or excuses
around what they're feeling in in the moment.
And that's not really reasoning. Something else that
people do when when they don't really abide
by a personal moral code or their own
principles
is they follow the outwardly
(09:08):
approved of
markers of success.
So they'll do what makes money. They'll do
what gives them prestige
even when they don't feel like it. Now
that's kind of a value system. System if
you value money if you value prestige if
you value let's say power there could be
a reasonable argument constructed
that could potentially lead to a bad life
(09:29):
sure Oh, sorry. No. Good life. A good
life. You're in you're in line with your
values in that case. Yes.
But here's what I see to be the
problem
with
following the outward signs of success.
It means that your feelings of security and
happiness
are out of your control.
(09:50):
So if there is a recession and your
stock portfolio goes down 30%,
then your happiness
just got a severe impact.
If you lose your position of power,
then you could potentially feel a deep shame
or even worthlessness
that you would not feel if you saw
(10:10):
yourself as constantly and inviolably
Mhmm. A worthy human being for for those
reasons that that you're a human being. It's
from love because you're reminding me of a
of a multi wise billionaire, I think,
I had a I had a chat to.
And,
he said it was extraordinary because they have
self help groups amongst millionaires and and billionaires.
(10:31):
And and they will air their biggest concerns.
And the 2 biggest concerns that came up
most often was the fear that somebody would
steal their family in a hostage situation or,
and this is and I kid you not,
he said, people grieved over the fact that
their yachts weren't as big as somebody else's
that they knew. And this is it goes
back to the idea that you you that
just because somebody is successful and rich and
(10:53):
appears so,
it doesn't necessarily mean that they're any happier
than you are. The architecture of their misery
is going to be somewhat different. But but
they can still be perfectly miserable. They're going
to have problems. They're just a different set
of problems than what you or I might
have. Or or even similar in the sense
that they've pursued successfully pursued the accrual of
(11:15):
money in order to fill
some kind of insecurity,
but the insecurity remains.
One problem that the wealthy have that
I guess you or I don't have or
at least not as much
is
that Billionaires let's say billionaires
will attract a lot of envy a lot
of resentment They can't just make friends with
(11:36):
anybody
I think part of the reason they have
these self help mastermind groups
among other millionaires or billionaires
is that they're not gonna be shamed for
having wealth. Yep. They're not going to be
criticized
for Having yacht envy. All the money or
having a yacht. Yep. Or having yacht envy
is Or having yacht envy. People just gonna
go, yeah, I know how that feels. Yeah.
(11:56):
Exactly.
So like I said,
different problems,
but still a whole host of problems. Mhmm.
This is kind of one of the core
insights of of the Buddha,
which is that suffering is part of life.
It's an inescapable
part of life.
So, yes, money, power, prestige,
etc. Doesn't buy you an out
(12:19):
and having principles to abide by that will
center you when you're going through the inevitable
challenges and trials and tribulations of life. This
will help you at least keep more of
an even keel in a way that even
money power and prestige
Cannot give you so now that we've told
people what not to do, we're gonna talk
about why people should live a principled life
(12:43):
to begin with.
Well, one reason that I've kind of ascertained
is
that principles
transcend
individuals
If something can be called a principle, then
it's not just for me as Luke or
you as Pascal
it's for me Luke
and for you as Pascal
and for anyone else who might be in
(13:04):
the building and potentially for other people across
cultures and across times.
And to be an adult,
we have to overcome the egocentricity
that toddlers have. We do have to kind
of care about other people and their needs
if we're gonna play well with other not
even in adulthood and childhood. We have to
play well with others.
(13:24):
And one of the ways to kind of
transcend your ego gratification
is to remember the principles that are held
by you and
the other people around you so that you
have, like, common ground rules for living life
by. In many cases,
even a baseline
of
a shared principle
can actually mean that
(13:46):
you connect and you can get on with
a greater range of people. Let's say a
general principle which is it is wrong to
use aggression to get what you want, let's
say. And if you people know that, well
the way they interact with each other will
be affected.
And
even if that's a common ground then
you that's a basic principle with anybody that
you talk to. Is that I'm not going
(14:07):
to use aggression to get my oil changed.
I'm not going to use aggression to get
my groceries packed or whatever it is.
If you have these principles that are broadly
shared by all humans, it means that you
can interact with all humans pretty well. And
even if they disagree with you on the
detail or the how,
that's of less importance because
(14:27):
you're essentially operating on a on a shared
humanity. And it's easy therefore to honor them
and respect them, even if you've disagreed with
them and vice versa.
And you'll get a great benefit from that
because
what if you were just simply to live
in your own head and agree with yourself,
what kind of hell is that for a
start? And secondly, how would you learn anything?
(14:47):
So what I'm taking from what you've said
is that you're not just arguing against solipsism.
You're also arguing against
cultural relativism. Yes. You're basically saying that if
you're dropped off in a different country
halfway around the world, there are principles that
apply in Canada,
for how to be a decent, likable,
(15:08):
prosocial human being how to be a guest
in someone's home,
even though you've never been to the culture
before.
And this in
the 21st century is is not a universally
shared upon
view so we can kind of imagine like
the xenophobic person from backwater town being transported
to a foreign and they kind of treat
(15:30):
everyone as significantly different from them But then
you have like the world traveler who's been
in many different countries, and they realize okay?
There's a lot of common ground people from
different countries.
And then they can can kind of generalize
principles for humanity
that transcend cultures. To me, if a principle
transcends cultures
and limited time span, that's definitely
(15:52):
a principle worth abiding by. And so and
so thinking of it in those terms,
it means that even throughout the different phases
in your own life so for instance, there's
childhood is 1 but there might be twenties,
might be another, maybe midlife might be another,
you know, there's different phases in the human
life
and if we were to say, well, we've
just got to find rules that suit that
(16:14):
particular day of the week or that month
or that particular year,
then it wouldn't be a good guiding principle
in each of those phases. You have to
reinvent the wheel every single time. And to
be honest, you wouldn't necessarily know if they
were good principles or not. But instead if
you're saying it sort of transcends time, you're
saying well the principle of
self care for example,
that's going to change the way that you
(16:36):
self care over time will change but the
principle will remain. So the way you take
care of yourself when you're 80 years old
is gonna be different from when you're in
your early twenties. Well, yeah. I mean, this
is how you would care for even, let's
say, a dog in the different phases of
a dog's life. Where you've got, like, the
puppy food that you feed them when they're
a puppy and then you've got the adult
(16:57):
dog food that you feed them when they're
a dog dog. You've got the senior dog
food that you feed them when they're senior
dog. And you might not make the senior
dog run around as much as the puppy,
but you're going to tire out the puppy
by making them run around a lot. So
that the principle I think is is to
in the self care context to treat yourself
as you are not as you've been. Mhmm.
(17:17):
Not as you're going to be in the
distant future but instead to recognize
how you are
each ongoing phase of your life and to
treat yourself and care for yourself
accordingly.
So it's it's not just that these principles
go across
short timescales relatively as far as human life
is concerned,
but some of these principles are 1000 of
(17:39):
years old. And they've survived
the rise and the fall of the Roman
Empire. They've survived
communism and fascism.
And they persist because
the externals, if you like, of whatever is
going on in the world or in your
life will change. It's the very nature
of humanity is that the change is the
(18:00):
only thing you can guarantee.
And so therefore,
your principles
that can withstand that, those are gonna be
the bedrock of your behaviour. Most
likely, some of the people listening to this
podcast
are actually gonna reach
the age of a 100,
which means they're going to possibly be living
in the 22nd
(18:20):
century.
The technology is going to be different. The
music's going to be different. There are going
to be social norms and social mores they're
going to have in that distant future that
we can't even predict today.
But there are gonna be some principles that
were true in the time of, let's say,
the stoics
that are still true today and that are
gonna be truthful in the next century
(18:41):
simply because while culture changes
and there are fads that might last only
like weeks not even years,
human beings as the human organism,
we are
genetically basically the same as we were 50,000
years ago
and we're probably gonna be I mean
(19:01):
say
gene engineering and all that technology we're probably
gonna be basically the same species
thousands
of years in the future so any principle
that seems to transcend time and culture and
space
probably
is describing
human nature. Well, I hope all of this
is leading to actually specific principles that we're
(19:22):
gonna share with our
listeners in subsequent episodes. Actually, I'm excited about
the episode about work and money. Yeah.
Because it's such a big part of people's
lives.
And so many people live
like they're that donkey with the carrot in
front of them and then the stick behind
them and they're motivated by these extrinsic factors.
(19:45):
And to some degree, we all are motivated
by external factors. But when we're only motivated
by external factors,
regardless of our internal principles that we try
to abide by, then we're so much at
the whim
of our employer.
We're so much at the whim of the
economy. We're so much at the whim of
our landlord. We're so much at the whim
(20:07):
of the Bank of Canada or the the
Fed down in the US
that we can't possibly feel stable and secure.
We'll save that whole conversation for when we
sit down for the money episode
which is it's gonna be a great episode
just because money is often where people abandon
their principles unfortunately.
So Pascal,
we're talking about living a principled life where
(20:30):
we abide by
a set of rules
that other people will know about,
doesn't this make a person who's principled
predictable?
Doesn't it mean that others might take advantage
of them because it's gonna be obvious what
they will and will not do?
(20:50):
I think there's 2 response I can make
to this. Well, one is that if you
think of your personality trait and say, well,
I think the best of the people that
I meet. I start off
by assuming the best of people.
On the other side, you could say, well,
that makes me gullible or I'm I'm open
to a scam.
Right? I'm easily duple.
(21:11):
And the thing that then you've got to
ask the you've got a a a valid
question which is, well, do I train myself
out of being so easily duple and in
the process lose
the benefits that I gain
from
starting off from a position of trust in
people.
And that again will go back to a
certain value. So it's not necessarily the case
(21:34):
that that if you have a principle it
automatically makes you gullible.
It's more a question of, well, are you
choosing
to behave in a certain way based on
a value that on the whole works better
for you?
And then
can you educate yourself to be aware of
the sharks that are in the water,
of the hustles and the things that do
occur so that at least you're not ignorant?
(21:55):
Because that's just ignorance, that's not gullibility.
Well one interesting thing about people who are
easily caught
it's not the honest people
right it's dishonest people
who are easily caught
Part of the reason I think is that
if you do have a sound set of
principles
then
you can easily identify
(22:17):
those who say things or do things that
are not in line with what people say
and do when they have a similar set
of principles.
On the other hand, if you're dishonest
and then you meet a dishonest person, it
doesn't even register to you that anything's
gone amiss.
I actually think that having a set of
(22:38):
principles
that generalizes
means that,
you'll vibe with people who are principled
and it's not gonna feel right inside
if you meet someone who's unprincipled.
That also makes sense as to why I
think it was Marcus Aurelius, there was a
sort of a coup against him.
(22:58):
And he that, you know, he's emperor of
Rome and,
Hugely powerful and we assumed
that emperors of Rome would just
throw people to
the lions in that case.
And he didn't.
He basically rounded them all up and said
Don't do that.
Basically.
And other people were saying You've got to
destroy these families and take all their their
(23:19):
wealth and you've got to make an example
of them. But it went against his principles
and he was
possibly the most successful emperor
of the
Roman Empire at the time.
He wasn't gullible. You know, he knew what
was going on, but the way that he
conducted himself thereafter
aligned with his principles. And you can't be
(23:41):
an emperor of Rome
by being gullible and easily duped, you know.
Well, it's kind of like the sport of,
let's say, boxing or any sport.
Are you being
gullible
if you abide by the rules?
Yeah.
Well, no. The sport of boxing remains civilized
(24:01):
if there is no hitting below the belt,
if there is no eye gouging.
Right? If you're the first
to hit below the belt it's no longer
really the sport of boxing that that that
we know and that you've changed the rules
of the game which makes you susceptible to
someone else you know doing something nasty to
you. Then there's a question which is what
(24:23):
if somebody else is changing the rules of
the game? You always have the option of
not playing the game. Game. Right? Right. So
most of the things we do even if
we tell ourselves that we have no other
choice
usually we do have a choice but the
alternatives we find
palatable
so it might not feel good to exit
the ring
(24:44):
But exiting the ring I would suggest it
is always an option. I mean, obviously, if
someone's actually, like, confined to a prison, for
example, then there are many freedoms. They're not
getting different roles and freedoms that they don't
have. But for all of us in the
free
world, the analogy I'll use is that the
person
(25:04):
who's choosing
to run a marathon or the person who's
choosing to step into the ring for the
sport of boxing
is gonna feel very different
from the person who's running away from wolves
or who has to defend themselves in a
straight fight.
Fight. If the game is voluntary,
then you can step out
(25:25):
if you choose to, but you stay in
the game because you'd rather have the the
the the glory and the pride
and the sense of achievement for for doing
well.
Whereas the person being chased by wolves actually
has no choice.
Often, we kind of feel
this fight or flight, life or death feeling
when we actually have choice
and we're actually
(25:46):
in the sport of boxing, not in a
street fight. We're actually in a marathon. We're
not being chased by wolves.
Does this
explain
or give you a sort of
a more objective view
of examples where somebody has changed the rules
and it is life or death? So the
example being the Nazis knocking on your door
(26:07):
and saying,
Who do you have in there? That's another
occasion where your values can go, Okay, I
value
equality,
liberal, freedom, democracy.
These rules that these the people are asking
me to play by
are life or
death. But for the greater life and for
the greater,
purpose that I may survive and then do
(26:28):
more good,
I can lie. I think that in these
very complicated situations,
you kind of have to trust your own
judgement in these situations.
So I know I'm going to lie
to safe and frank. Mhmm. Even at, you
know, the risk of myself
being imprisoned or killed,
(26:48):
mainly because I don't want to live in
a world where I'm kind of participating
in the pogroms.
Patrick Henry down in the U. S. Said
give me liberty or give me death. He
would rather
die free
than to live under tyranny.
And there are many people who would rather
die free than to live under tyranny and
(27:09):
we do consider this to be principled.
If anything we consider it somewhat cowardly
if we're giving Anne Frank to the Nazis.
So I think that in these situations,
you do have to kind of play it
by ear. But I know for myself,
I'm giving up my principle to always tell
the truth
in order to preserve
(27:30):
greater principles.
And I suppose,
the idea that you're also saying is that
if you have principles
and that you make a choice, you're not
being chased by balls in
this case. I'm sure that Schindler
is an example of somebody that turned being
chased by walls into making a proactive choice
and for years was considered a a collaborator.
(27:50):
And my French grandfather,
was in the Maquis, which was the the
conservative resistance.
He did not talk about anything that had
happened. At least very rarely, little snippets of
information. It turned out that he was a
radio operator, which is one of the most
dangerous jobs.
But he'd made this
decision
to be a radio operator
(28:10):
in Nazi France
with a wife and I think his first
child as well. That's no small thing. And
then the reason he didn't talk about it
was because
anybody that knew who he was
faced being tortured, and they were. And people
who died not saying and not revealing who
he was.
(28:31):
But I look at those decisions that my
grandparents
made and I'm sort of in awe. I
mean, I've never been tested. My principal's never
been tested to that degree. And I can
only hope
that I would
come out with a sort of proactive approach
that aligns with my values
in some way. And I hope I never
get tested in that way to some degree,
but I mean, man, mean, just imagine that.
(28:53):
I think extraordinary.
That shows you the power of having principles
where even the
prospect of torture or death
is not enough to cause you to deviate
from being on the side of the good
guys
and then defending freedom.
We are in awe of such people because
(29:13):
they are very much admirable
people
as much as I can in my life.
I like you hope I am never actually
going to be in a situation where I'm
being metaphorically chased by wolves. And this is
put to the test.
But I know I would have a hard
time sleeping
route. I think that with that example,
(29:36):
you've summarized
the power of having principles and also
how admirable it is when a person has
principles and sticks with them. Taking away from
extreme global conflict,
Obviously we don't want to be posed with
that degree
of choice and yet in everyday life we're
still faced with similar choices. They're in the
(29:58):
same family.
So for instance, if
I'm in a situation where if I say
something it's going to
potentially endanger a relationship. But if I don't
say something, the problem will persist and grow.
And it might feel like life or death
because it might be a very important relationship.
But if you if you don't live by
(30:18):
your principle
of telling uncomfortable truths with the faith that
ultimately it's going to be better than keeping
a lie,
you know.
Then that's still a
huge step for somebody to do. I mean,
there's such a lot of fear involved
with telling uncomfortable truths.
It's not just
moralistically,
(30:38):
hypothetically, it's the right thing to do. I
mean, in the situation you described, the relationships
got in rocky to begin with. Mhmm. And
I would suggest that just purely pragmatically,
just practically
handling
the problem, bringing it out into the open,
putting light upon it,
just purely pragmatically
(30:58):
devoid of any more morality at all,
it's a sound principle
to do it because it's going to objectively
lead to a better future for you and
for the other person. In either direction as
well. You may not know what that future
is and yet you can say well this
principle
is not even it's not even necessary as
you say, the best principles are not particularly
(31:19):
moral,
but they are practical
and the outcomes
of living by them are practically better. Right.
So you pick another one, we can test
it. I gotta pick it up. Okay.
Let's use the example of you found a
wallet on the street. Mhmm. Right? And there's
cash inside, plus credit cards and ID and
everything. Do you keep the cash as a
(31:40):
finder's fee?
Right.
Because a lot of people would
keep the cash
and then a lot of people wouldn't. So
people who do keep the cash, they might
rationalize that someone's gonna steal it anyway. The
postman's gonna steal it anyway.
They might rationalize
that, well, their kid needs a new pair
of shoes. This is not a life or
(32:00):
death situation,
yet the consequences
of either keeping the money
or returning the money
are gonna stick with you.
If you keep the money, what sticks with
you is some money. And if you have
a conscience at all, some degree of guilt,
some degree of just this inescapable knowledge that
(32:21):
you have stolen money and then if you
bought something with that stolen money then you
have basically a stolen thing
that you don't deserve
Whereas if you return the wallet, then you're
not keeping the money. So, you know, you're
a little bit poorer.
Right?
But then you have for maybe the rest
(32:41):
of your life knowledge
that you're an honest person
who returns everything inside the wallet, including the
cash that you could have very easily
extracted
before dropping the wallet in the postbox. So
you could say one of the principles is
to
behave in a pro social manner. And you
could say, well,
(33:02):
morally, you could say, well, it's because,
it's right to do so because it is
so. But if you think from a very
pragmatic point of view, if everybody behaves in
a way which is pro social,
things are better for more people. So it's
like a it's a pragmatic,
axiom. Yeah. Well, I use this so I
(33:22):
mean, it does kinda create more of a
high trust society in a small way if
everyone's doing it
but each person dropping off the whole wallet
is just like a drop in the bucket
I'm thinking more
intra personally as opposed to interpersonally.
Right. Where intra personally
at some point you're going to, you know,
hit your pillow at bedtime,
(33:44):
and you're gonna remember
things you did that day. Was it was
it a French French writer, philosopher
said,
the softest pillow is an easy conscience. That's
right. Softest pillow is an easy conscience. We
might have talked about this in prior episodes.
The argument I'm making
for following principles like do not steal
(34:04):
is that it leads to you being not
just any adult. Right. It leads you to
being a happy adult, which is the whole
point of this podcast.
Being a decent honest person
and you know then being able
to see yourself like that. Yeah. As you
noted helps you literally sleep better at night,
(34:25):
and it helps you metaphorically
sleep better at night because even if no
one else knows the good thing you did
you will know the good thing you did
and then if no one finds out about
the bad thing you did
you will still know for the rest of
your life
the bad thing you did.
I think that's a good note to end
(34:45):
on. Yeah. Yeah. So if you like these
ideas and you like the principles we're talking
about, Luke and I are available for hire
through the Morpheus Clinic for hypnosis.
And we're based in Toronto, but we also
treat people online worldwide.
If you wanna hear more of the kinds
of things we say, please subscribe to us
on YouTube at Morpheus Hypnosis where you can
watch the video version of the podcast,
or you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
(35:07):
and other major platforms
to hear the audio
version.
And look out for our next episode where
we're going to give you some concrete principles
for how to take care of your mind
and your emotions.
All of us as adults are constantly faced
with decisions like do we tell the white
lie and not rock the boat? Say that
angers the person, Well, and so what? The
chances are that it's all gonna be forgotten
anyway. You've agreed to something but now you
resent that the person who you have to
follow through with. I'm feeling insecure, and I'm
feeling less than my friend. Welcome to another
(00:22):
episode of how to be an adult. This
is a podcast for people just like you
who've inadvertently
become adults and don't know what to do
about it. We're from the Morpheus Clinic for
hypnosis in Toronto, Canada, and that's where a
lot of our ideas come from. I'm Luke
Chao. I'm Pascal Langdell. Almost
none of us get the instruction that we
(00:44):
need in order to
even set foot off properly as an adult
and let's face it, it's an ongoing process
of adulting. We've established some basic principles
and fundamental axioms
that will help you live better and live
happier and do adulting better. If this sounds
good to you then keep on listening. This
(01:04):
episode is about why we should even follow
principles to begin with. Mhmm. Because a lot
of our listeners are probably looking for tips
for
tricks Mhmm. Of adulthood.
And there are plenty of people who have
written books and who have their own podcast
about
tips for managing relationships
a tricks for your financial life and this
kind of thing But I don't hear as
(01:25):
many people talking
about having principles.
So why should we even live a principled
life to begin with? Well, I mean, you
could start off with something really simple. And
I I think this is a situation that
that probably quite a lot of people have
gotten themselves into, which is you're hanging out
with people that you don't necessarily know quite
well and
somebody says something along the lines of, Oh,
(01:46):
you know such and such movie?
And you're in a position where you haven't
seen the movie. You've heard of it but
you don't know it. But you go, mhmm.
Like you know it. But then later on
there's a callback and you're put on the
spot and then you have a choice. Do
I then say, well actually I have heard
of it but I haven't seen it, and
you come clean, you show your ignorance and
you you risk, you know,
social, social judgment,
(02:07):
or do you then start to bullshit?
Having a principle which goes along the lines
of I must look good and it's okay
to sort of tell lies
would not be a principle that would work
very well. And then of course, you can
go to the the macro version which would
be, if I don't have basic principles about
what my values are, what I think is
(02:28):
good and important
and of value to me and the world
around me. How am I going to relate
to somebody in an intimate relationship?
If all that's up for grabs and I
don't have principles that I can fall back
on then basically I'm able to be swayed
by anybody around me
according to, you know, the moment's whim. And
(02:48):
that's again, that's not gonna lead to success.
There's so much life advice out there saying
to follow your heart.
To follow your whims,
not to overthink things.
But too often when one follows
one's heart or one follows the crowd,
one ends up in these precarious situations where
(03:09):
you then have to kind of explain something
or commit to something that you didn't actually
mean when you said it.
So we hope to prevent our listeners from
getting themselves into these kinds of situations
where because you don't have any rules for
how you'll conduct yourself,
you end up finding yourself in these situations
where maybe you've said yes, but you actually
(03:30):
mean
no or you've agreed to something but now
you resent that the person who you have
to follow through with
I think most of us you know have
grown up with rules or principles that might
have been appropriate for a child in a
specific household environment,
but which might not be adaptive in adult
(03:53):
life.
So all of us as adults are constantly
faced with decisions, like do we tell the
white lie and not rock the boat,
or do we tell the truth and then
risk offending someone else?
And ideally, we're not just trying to make
decisions on the spot about what we're gonna
do if we have a very firm grounding
(04:13):
in a set of life principles will abide
by,
then we kind of already know preemptively
whether we're the type of person who's gonna
tell the white lie or whether we're the
type of person who is gonna risk rocking
the boat, but then develop a reputation as
being straight forward and truthful. And there's also
the other aspect of it which is actually
(04:34):
it feels good to have values that you
make good on. Say say somebody calls you
up on a Friday and says look here's
a project you've got to hand it in.
If you take it on it's got to
be done by Monday
And if you want the job that's what
you've gotta do. But that weekend, your you've
got family commitments. One of your values and
your priorities is to spend more time with
(04:55):
your kids.
And the alternative is right now okay I'm
gonna disappear for the weekend. The kids aren't
gonna see me. They're gonna get fractious and
annoyed. And then the the event that we
planned is not gonna go well and I'm
gonna be a grumpy
dad for for 48 hours.
Is that I have to compare that to
the value of the work
that is being offered on the Monday.
(05:16):
And then the question comes, well,
are you in a situation to turn that
down? And that sort of is a big
question. But that then goes to, well, what
have you what are the other values in
your life that work to make that possible?
To be able to turn down the potential
for work and be able to spend time
with your family. And then if you've got
those in line that means you can turn
around and say, you know what?
(05:37):
I won't deliver on Monday, I'm passed on
this, somebody else can have to handle this,
it's not it's not gonna be me because
my value is to be with my family.
Now say that angers the person, well And
so what? The chances are that it's all
gonna be forgotten anyway and, you know, you're
keeping things in perspective and you're aligned with
your values. And so that means that
the frustration
(05:57):
of maybe not delivering on a professional
impression of promise
is balanced against making good on a value
that means something to you. I think what
I'm hearing you say is that if your
values and your priorities and your principles are
clear to you,
then you live a life without or at
least with much less regret. Yeah.
(06:20):
People often experience regret if they they live
an unprincipled life. Well, let's talk a little
bit about how many people conduct themselves
when they don't have a firm set of
principles that they abide by. So
I've mentioned a few already. 1 is to
follow your heart, to follow whatever makes you
(06:40):
feel good or whatever
feels right to you. One of the problems
with that of course is that feelings change.
Principles are supposed to be sound principles are
supposed to stay true
even when you're in the depths of any
kind of emotion.
Something else people do is they follow the
crowd. So if their friends are doing it,
(07:00):
then they might do the same thing themselves.
That's assuming your friends in aggregate make good
decisions.
And that's not always gonna be the case.
So you're at a concert. Right? And you're
you're at a festival
and you're not truly secure in your friend
group and somebody offers you a drug because
it's fun. And you think, well okay. You
(07:21):
know what? That's my friend. They wouldn't mean
me harm
and yeah, I I could do with relaxing
and this is going to make me feel
happy.
You kinda go, well okay but hold on
a second.
Is it is it the drug that is
gonna make you happy or could we have
gone a few steps earlier
and if you had your principles straight, you
would be happy
(07:42):
within your friend group without the requirement to
have drugs? Well, I I would say that
there are
sound moral systems
that allow people to use drugs to feel
good. Sure. I know you're talking about party
drugs like fat You know what I mean?
I I suppose I'm saying that it's easy
with emotions to mix up a need.
For instance, I need to feel
(08:03):
secure and validated.
And I'm feeling I'm feeling insecure and I'm
feeling less than my friends who appear to
be having so much more fun than me.
And you can mistake that feeling for well
in which case I need to do something
about it
and
the drug is it. Do you see what
I mean?
The idea that your emotion, the need for
(08:24):
a drug is necessarily
the right thing. And if your principle is
well I trust my emotions and my gut
feeling in every circumstance,
it's not gonna work if
it's left unexamined. It's not gonna work if
it's just taken as being fundamental truth. Because
your emotions can, they're a sign of something,
but the correlating action is not necessarily
(08:45):
correct. Well, there is such a thing as
emotional reasoning where people kind of build their
reasoning or excuses
around what they're feeling in in the moment.
And that's not really reasoning. Something else that
people do when when they don't really abide
by a personal moral code or their own
principles
is they follow the outwardly
(09:08):
approved of
markers of success.
So they'll do what makes money. They'll do
what gives them prestige
even when they don't feel like it. Now
that's kind of a value system. System if
you value money if you value prestige if
you value let's say power there could be
a reasonable argument constructed
that could potentially lead to a bad life
(09:29):
sure Oh, sorry. No. Good life. A good
life. You're in you're in line with your
values in that case. Yes.
But here's what I see to be the
problem
with
following the outward signs of success.
It means that your feelings of security and
happiness
are out of your control.
(09:50):
So if there is a recession and your
stock portfolio goes down 30%,
then your happiness
just got a severe impact.
If you lose your position of power,
then you could potentially feel a deep shame
or even worthlessness
that you would not feel if you saw
(10:10):
yourself as constantly and inviolably
Mhmm. A worthy human being for for those
reasons that that you're a human being. It's
from love because you're reminding me of a
of a multi wise billionaire, I think,
I had a I had a chat to.
And,
he said it was extraordinary because they have
self help groups amongst millionaires and and billionaires.
(10:31):
And and they will air their biggest concerns.
And the 2 biggest concerns that came up
most often was the fear that somebody would
steal their family in a hostage situation or,
and this is and I kid you not,
he said, people grieved over the fact that
their yachts weren't as big as somebody else's
that they knew. And this is it goes
back to the idea that you you that
just because somebody is successful and rich and
(10:53):
appears so,
it doesn't necessarily mean that they're any happier
than you are. The architecture of their misery
is going to be somewhat different. But but
they can still be perfectly miserable. They're going
to have problems. They're just a different set
of problems than what you or I might
have. Or or even similar in the sense
that they've pursued successfully pursued the accrual of
(11:15):
money in order to fill
some kind of insecurity,
but the insecurity remains.
One problem that the wealthy have that
I guess you or I don't have or
at least not as much
is
that Billionaires let's say billionaires
will attract a lot of envy a lot
of resentment They can't just make friends with
(11:36):
anybody
I think part of the reason they have
these self help mastermind groups
among other millionaires or billionaires
is that they're not gonna be shamed for
having wealth. Yep. They're not going to be
criticized
for Having yacht envy. All the money or
having a yacht. Yep. Or having yacht envy
is Or having yacht envy. People just gonna
go, yeah, I know how that feels. Yeah.
(11:56):
Exactly.
So like I said,
different problems,
but still a whole host of problems. Mhmm.
This is kind of one of the core
insights of of the Buddha,
which is that suffering is part of life.
It's an inescapable
part of life.
So, yes, money, power, prestige,
etc. Doesn't buy you an out
(12:19):
and having principles to abide by that will
center you when you're going through the inevitable
challenges and trials and tribulations of life. This
will help you at least keep more of
an even keel in a way that even
money power and prestige
Cannot give you so now that we've told
people what not to do, we're gonna talk
about why people should live a principled life
(12:43):
to begin with.
Well, one reason that I've kind of ascertained
is
that principles
transcend
individuals
If something can be called a principle, then
it's not just for me as Luke or
you as Pascal
it's for me Luke
and for you as Pascal
and for anyone else who might be in
(13:04):
the building and potentially for other people across
cultures and across times.
And to be an adult,
we have to overcome the egocentricity
that toddlers have. We do have to kind
of care about other people and their needs
if we're gonna play well with other not
even in adulthood and childhood. We have to
play well with others.
(13:24):
And one of the ways to kind of
transcend your ego gratification
is to remember the principles that are held
by you and
the other people around you so that you
have, like, common ground rules for living life
by. In many cases,
even a baseline
of
a shared principle
can actually mean that
(13:46):
you connect and you can get on with
a greater range of people. Let's say a
general principle which is it is wrong to
use aggression to get what you want, let's
say. And if you people know that, well
the way they interact with each other will
be affected.
And
even if that's a common ground then
you that's a basic principle with anybody that
you talk to. Is that I'm not going
(14:07):
to use aggression to get my oil changed.
I'm not going to use aggression to get
my groceries packed or whatever it is.
If you have these principles that are broadly
shared by all humans, it means that you
can interact with all humans pretty well. And
even if they disagree with you on the
detail or the how,
that's of less importance because
(14:27):
you're essentially operating on a on a shared
humanity. And it's easy therefore to honor them
and respect them, even if you've disagreed with
them and vice versa.
And you'll get a great benefit from that
because
what if you were just simply to live
in your own head and agree with yourself,
what kind of hell is that for a
start? And secondly, how would you learn anything?
(14:47):
So what I'm taking from what you've said
is that you're not just arguing against solipsism.
You're also arguing against
cultural relativism. Yes. You're basically saying that if
you're dropped off in a different country
halfway around the world, there are principles that
apply in Canada,
for how to be a decent, likable,
(15:08):
prosocial human being how to be a guest
in someone's home,
even though you've never been to the culture
before.
And this in
the 21st century is is not a universally
shared upon
view so we can kind of imagine like
the xenophobic person from backwater town being transported
to a foreign and they kind of treat
(15:30):
everyone as significantly different from them But then
you have like the world traveler who's been
in many different countries, and they realize okay?
There's a lot of common ground people from
different countries.
And then they can can kind of generalize
principles for humanity
that transcend cultures. To me, if a principle
transcends cultures
and limited time span, that's definitely
(15:52):
a principle worth abiding by. And so and
so thinking of it in those terms,
it means that even throughout the different phases
in your own life so for instance, there's
childhood is 1 but there might be twenties,
might be another, maybe midlife might be another,
you know, there's different phases in the human
life
and if we were to say, well, we've
just got to find rules that suit that
(16:14):
particular day of the week or that month
or that particular year,
then it wouldn't be a good guiding principle
in each of those phases. You have to
reinvent the wheel every single time. And to
be honest, you wouldn't necessarily know if they
were good principles or not. But instead if
you're saying it sort of transcends time, you're
saying well the principle of
self care for example,
that's going to change the way that you
(16:36):
self care over time will change but the
principle will remain. So the way you take
care of yourself when you're 80 years old
is gonna be different from when you're in
your early twenties. Well, yeah. I mean, this
is how you would care for even, let's
say, a dog in the different phases of
a dog's life. Where you've got, like, the
puppy food that you feed them when they're
a puppy and then you've got the adult
(16:57):
dog food that you feed them when they're
a dog dog. You've got the senior dog
food that you feed them when they're senior
dog. And you might not make the senior
dog run around as much as the puppy,
but you're going to tire out the puppy
by making them run around a lot. So
that the principle I think is is to
in the self care context to treat yourself
as you are not as you've been. Mhmm.
(17:17):
Not as you're going to be in the
distant future but instead to recognize
how you are
each ongoing phase of your life and to
treat yourself and care for yourself
accordingly.
So it's it's not just that these principles
go across
short timescales relatively as far as human life
is concerned,
but some of these principles are 1000 of
(17:39):
years old. And they've survived
the rise and the fall of the Roman
Empire. They've survived
communism and fascism.
And they persist because
the externals, if you like, of whatever is
going on in the world or in your
life will change. It's the very nature
of humanity is that the change is the
(18:00):
only thing you can guarantee.
And so therefore,
your principles
that can withstand that, those are gonna be
the bedrock of your behaviour. Most
likely, some of the people listening to this
podcast
are actually gonna reach
the age of a 100,
which means they're going to possibly be living
in the 22nd
(18:20):
century.
The technology is going to be different. The
music's going to be different. There are going
to be social norms and social mores they're
going to have in that distant future that
we can't even predict today.
But there are gonna be some principles that
were true in the time of, let's say,
the stoics
that are still true today and that are
gonna be truthful in the next century
(18:41):
simply because while culture changes
and there are fads that might last only
like weeks not even years,
human beings as the human organism,
we are
genetically basically the same as we were 50,000
years ago
and we're probably gonna be I mean
(19:01):
say
gene engineering and all that technology we're probably
gonna be basically the same species
thousands
of years in the future so any principle
that seems to transcend time and culture and
space
probably
is describing
human nature. Well, I hope all of this
is leading to actually specific principles that we're
(19:22):
gonna share with our
listeners in subsequent episodes. Actually, I'm excited about
the episode about work and money. Yeah.
Because it's such a big part of people's
lives.
And so many people live
like they're that donkey with the carrot in
front of them and then the stick behind
them and they're motivated by these extrinsic factors.
(19:45):
And to some degree, we all are motivated
by external factors. But when we're only motivated
by external factors,
regardless of our internal principles that we try
to abide by, then we're so much at
the whim
of our employer.
We're so much at the whim of the
economy. We're so much at the whim of
our landlord. We're so much at the whim
(20:07):
of the Bank of Canada or the the
Fed down in the US
that we can't possibly feel stable and secure.
We'll save that whole conversation for when we
sit down for the money episode
which is it's gonna be a great episode
just because money is often where people abandon
their principles unfortunately.
So Pascal,
we're talking about living a principled life where
(20:30):
we abide by
a set of rules
that other people will know about,
doesn't this make a person who's principled
predictable?
Doesn't it mean that others might take advantage
of them because it's gonna be obvious what
they will and will not do?
(20:50):
I think there's 2 response I can make
to this. Well, one is that if you
think of your personality trait and say, well,
I think the best of the people that
I meet. I start off
by assuming the best of people.
On the other side, you could say, well,
that makes me gullible or I'm I'm open
to a scam.
Right? I'm easily duple.
(21:11):
And the thing that then you've got to
ask the you've got a a a valid
question which is, well, do I train myself
out of being so easily duple and in
the process lose
the benefits that I gain
from
starting off from a position of trust in
people.
And that again will go back to a
certain value. So it's not necessarily the case
(21:34):
that that if you have a principle it
automatically makes you gullible.
It's more a question of, well, are you
choosing
to behave in a certain way based on
a value that on the whole works better
for you?
And then
can you educate yourself to be aware of
the sharks that are in the water,
of the hustles and the things that do
occur so that at least you're not ignorant?
(21:55):
Because that's just ignorance, that's not gullibility.
Well one interesting thing about people who are
easily caught
it's not the honest people
right it's dishonest people
who are easily caught
Part of the reason I think is that
if you do have a sound set of
principles
then
you can easily identify
(22:17):
those who say things or do things that
are not in line with what people say
and do when they have a similar set
of principles.
On the other hand, if you're dishonest
and then you meet a dishonest person, it
doesn't even register to you that anything's
gone amiss.
I actually think that having a set of
(22:38):
principles
that generalizes
means that,
you'll vibe with people who are principled
and it's not gonna feel right inside
if you meet someone who's unprincipled.
That also makes sense as to why I
think it was Marcus Aurelius, there was a
sort of a coup against him.
(22:58):
And he that, you know, he's emperor of
Rome and,
Hugely powerful and we assumed
that emperors of Rome would just
throw people to
the lions in that case.
And he didn't.
He basically rounded them all up and said
Don't do that.
Basically.
And other people were saying You've got to
destroy these families and take all their their
(23:19):
wealth and you've got to make an example
of them. But it went against his principles
and he was
possibly the most successful emperor
of the
Roman Empire at the time.
He wasn't gullible. You know, he knew what
was going on, but the way that he
conducted himself thereafter
aligned with his principles. And you can't be
(23:41):
an emperor of Rome
by being gullible and easily duped, you know.
Well, it's kind of like the sport of,
let's say, boxing or any sport.
Are you being
gullible
if you abide by the rules?
Yeah.
Well, no. The sport of boxing remains civilized
(24:01):
if there is no hitting below the belt,
if there is no eye gouging.
Right? If you're the first
to hit below the belt it's no longer
really the sport of boxing that that that
we know and that you've changed the rules
of the game which makes you susceptible to
someone else you know doing something nasty to
you. Then there's a question which is what
(24:23):
if somebody else is changing the rules of
the game? You always have the option of
not playing the game. Game. Right? Right. So
most of the things we do even if
we tell ourselves that we have no other
choice
usually we do have a choice but the
alternatives we find
palatable
so it might not feel good to exit
the ring
(24:44):
But exiting the ring I would suggest it
is always an option. I mean, obviously, if
someone's actually, like, confined to a prison, for
example, then there are many freedoms. They're not
getting different roles and freedoms that they don't
have. But for all of us in the
free
world, the analogy I'll use is that the
person
(25:04):
who's choosing
to run a marathon or the person who's
choosing to step into the ring for the
sport of boxing
is gonna feel very different
from the person who's running away from wolves
or who has to defend themselves in a
straight fight.
Fight. If the game is voluntary,
then you can step out
(25:25):
if you choose to, but you stay in
the game because you'd rather have the the
the the glory and the pride
and the sense of achievement for for doing
well.
Whereas the person being chased by wolves actually
has no choice.
Often, we kind of feel
this fight or flight, life or death feeling
when we actually have choice
and we're actually
(25:46):
in the sport of boxing, not in a
street fight. We're actually in a marathon. We're
not being chased by wolves.
Does this
explain
or give you a sort of
a more objective view
of examples where somebody has changed the rules
and it is life or death? So the
example being the Nazis knocking on your door
(26:07):
and saying,
Who do you have in there? That's another
occasion where your values can go, Okay, I
value
equality,
liberal, freedom, democracy.
These rules that these the people are asking
me to play by
are life or
death. But for the greater life and for
the greater,
purpose that I may survive and then do
(26:28):
more good,
I can lie. I think that in these
very complicated situations,
you kind of have to trust your own
judgement in these situations.
So I know I'm going to lie
to safe and frank. Mhmm. Even at, you
know, the risk of myself
being imprisoned or killed,
(26:48):
mainly because I don't want to live in
a world where I'm kind of participating
in the pogroms.
Patrick Henry down in the U. S. Said
give me liberty or give me death. He
would rather
die free
than to live under tyranny.
And there are many people who would rather
die free than to live under tyranny and
(27:09):
we do consider this to be principled.
If anything we consider it somewhat cowardly
if we're giving Anne Frank to the Nazis.
So I think that in these situations,
you do have to kind of play it
by ear. But I know for myself,
I'm giving up my principle to always tell
the truth
in order to preserve
(27:30):
greater principles.
And I suppose,
the idea that you're also saying is that
if you have principles
and that you make a choice, you're not
being chased by balls in
this case. I'm sure that Schindler
is an example of somebody that turned being
chased by walls into making a proactive choice
and for years was considered a a collaborator.
(27:50):
And my French grandfather,
was in the Maquis, which was the the
conservative resistance.
He did not talk about anything that had
happened. At least very rarely, little snippets of
information. It turned out that he was a
radio operator, which is one of the most
dangerous jobs.
But he'd made this
decision
to be a radio operator
(28:10):
in Nazi France
with a wife and I think his first
child as well. That's no small thing. And
then the reason he didn't talk about it
was because
anybody that knew who he was
faced being tortured, and they were. And people
who died not saying and not revealing who
he was.
(28:31):
But I look at those decisions that my
grandparents
made and I'm sort of in awe. I
mean, I've never been tested. My principal's never
been tested to that degree. And I can
only hope
that I would
come out with a sort of proactive approach
that aligns with my values
in some way. And I hope I never
get tested in that way to some degree,
but I mean, man, mean, just imagine that.
(28:53):
I think extraordinary.
That shows you the power of having principles
where even the
prospect of torture or death
is not enough to cause you to deviate
from being on the side of the good
guys
and then defending freedom.
We are in awe of such people because
(29:13):
they are very much admirable
people
as much as I can in my life.
I like you hope I am never actually
going to be in a situation where I'm
being metaphorically chased by wolves. And this is
put to the test.
But I know I would have a hard
time sleeping
route. I think that with that example,
(29:36):
you've summarized
the power of having principles and also
how admirable it is when a person has
principles and sticks with them. Taking away from
extreme global conflict,
Obviously we don't want to be posed with
that degree
of choice and yet in everyday life we're
still faced with similar choices. They're in the
(29:58):
same family.
So for instance, if
I'm in a situation where if I say
something it's going to
potentially endanger a relationship. But if I don't
say something, the problem will persist and grow.
And it might feel like life or death
because it might be a very important relationship.
But if you if you don't live by
(30:18):
your principle
of telling uncomfortable truths with the faith that
ultimately it's going to be better than keeping
a lie,
you know.
Then that's still a
huge step for somebody to do. I mean,
there's such a lot of fear involved
with telling uncomfortable truths.
It's not just
moralistically,
(30:38):
hypothetically, it's the right thing to do. I
mean, in the situation you described, the relationships
got in rocky to begin with. Mhmm. And
I would suggest that just purely pragmatically,
just practically
handling
the problem, bringing it out into the open,
putting light upon it,
just purely pragmatically
(30:58):
devoid of any more morality at all,
it's a sound principle
to do it because it's going to objectively
lead to a better future for you and
for the other person. In either direction as
well. You may not know what that future
is and yet you can say well this
principle
is not even it's not even necessary as
you say, the best principles are not particularly
(31:19):
moral,
but they are practical
and the outcomes
of living by them are practically better. Right.
So you pick another one, we can test
it. I gotta pick it up. Okay.
Let's use the example of you found a
wallet on the street. Mhmm. Right? And there's
cash inside, plus credit cards and ID and
everything. Do you keep the cash as a
(31:40):
finder's fee?
Right.
Because a lot of people would
keep the cash
and then a lot of people wouldn't. So
people who do keep the cash, they might
rationalize that someone's gonna steal it anyway. The
postman's gonna steal it anyway.
They might rationalize
that, well, their kid needs a new pair
of shoes. This is not a life or
(32:00):
death situation,
yet the consequences
of either keeping the money
or returning the money
are gonna stick with you.
If you keep the money, what sticks with
you is some money. And if you have
a conscience at all, some degree of guilt,
some degree of just this inescapable knowledge that
(32:21):
you have stolen money and then if you
bought something with that stolen money then you
have basically a stolen thing
that you don't deserve
Whereas if you return the wallet, then you're
not keeping the money. So, you know, you're
a little bit poorer.
Right?
But then you have for maybe the rest
(32:41):
of your life knowledge
that you're an honest person
who returns everything inside the wallet, including the
cash that you could have very easily
extracted
before dropping the wallet in the postbox. So
you could say one of the principles is
to
behave in a pro social manner. And you
could say, well,
(33:02):
morally, you could say, well, it's because,
it's right to do so because it is
so. But if you think from a very
pragmatic point of view, if everybody behaves in
a way which is pro social,
things are better for more people. So it's
like a it's a pragmatic,
axiom. Yeah. Well, I use this so I
(33:22):
mean, it does kinda create more of a
high trust society in a small way if
everyone's doing it
but each person dropping off the whole wallet
is just like a drop in the bucket
I'm thinking more
intra personally as opposed to interpersonally.
Right. Where intra personally
at some point you're going to, you know,
hit your pillow at bedtime,
(33:44):
and you're gonna remember
things you did that day. Was it was
it a French French writer, philosopher
said,
the softest pillow is an easy conscience. That's
right. Softest pillow is an easy conscience. We
might have talked about this in prior episodes.
The argument I'm making
for following principles like do not steal
(34:04):
is that it leads to you being not
just any adult. Right. It leads you to
being a happy adult, which is the whole
point of this podcast.
Being a decent honest person
and you know then being able
to see yourself like that. Yeah. As you
noted helps you literally sleep better at night,
(34:25):
and it helps you metaphorically
sleep better at night because even if no
one else knows the good thing you did
you will know the good thing you did
and then if no one finds out about
the bad thing you did
you will still know for the rest of
your life
the bad thing you did.
I think that's a good note to end
(34:45):
on. Yeah. Yeah. So if you like these
ideas and you like the principles we're talking
about, Luke and I are available for hire
through the Morpheus Clinic for hypnosis.
And we're based in Toronto, but we also
treat people online worldwide.
If you wanna hear more of the kinds
of things we say, please subscribe to us
on YouTube at Morpheus Hypnosis where you can
watch the video version of the podcast,
or you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
(35:07):
and other major platforms
to hear the audio
version.
And look out for our next episode where
we're going to give you some concrete principles
for how to take care of your mind
and your emotions.
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