January 8, 2024 • 60 mins
Happy New Year, Tangled Minds! Harry and I love you guys, more than you know. We appreciate all the texts, comments, ratings, and certainly emails. (Jack also apologizes if he didn’t text anyone back… he’s bad at that.) We hope that you have a wonderful new year however you plan on spending it! This episode Harry plays therapist and we talk about New Year’s resolutions… which Harry and Jack have different opinions on, shockingly. (Don’t forget to email us at ourtangledminds@gmail.com.)
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I am still very much at homewithout my other computer with
the audio file, but I'm notgoing to sing this week because
it was kind of embarrassing, butenjoy. And here we go. All
right, welcome back to ourtangled minds.
(00:22):
Welcome to our tangled minds.
I'm Harry Weidner.
I'm Jack Weidner. Welcome backnatto
SCIAC Bagnato you'll get it.
Welcome back to Episode 2120.
Is that a lucky Happy New Year?
Everyone?
Happy New Year?
I don't think 20 ones are luckynumber two, Roberto Clemente is
number three times seven.
(00:43):
I guess. Yeah. Yeah. See?
21 is one of those numbers thatyou think would be prime,
but it's not now.
But seven and three are bothprime. Yep. I don't know. That's
interesting.
At least to me.
No, I mean, it's interesting.
And it feels prime. It does feelprime. It's prime Jason. Yeah.
(01:08):
Good. Because like 23 is prime.
But I want 23 to be prime. Youknow, it makes sense. The 20
threes prime.
What do you have against 23?
I don't know. It's 23. Luckynumber.
I don't think so. Are only primenumbers. Lucky. I don't know. 13
is lucky in Italian. Like sevensthe number of perfection
but isn't 13 is isn't 13 Unluckyas well.
(01:31):
In America, because I don't andother countries I don't know in
what other countries?
There's no 13th floor on my inmy building.
I guess. Yeah.
I don't know. I mean, 13 isdefinitely unlucky in America. I
don't know. We're all sort ofunlucky.
Brothers Happy New Year. Yeah.
Everyone, listeners and to you,Harry. Yeah, thanks.
(01:54):
What did you do for New Year's?
I went to a friend's house.
Nice. Me. Yeah, we played boardgames. I made lasagna. Did you
make it through midnight? Yeah,I made it to like 3am my bedtime
is midnight. Of course. I makeit to midnight every night.
Wow. I didn'tknow I called. I called mom at
1230. And I was like, I wasHarry that.
(02:18):
Dude, I was asleep at 930.
That's about at 930 On NewYear's. And it was awesome. That
is awesome. Because I woke upand I ran and I went to the gym.
And yeah, it was good. It wassnowing a little bit like a
gritty run, you know, one ofthose where I was at the track,
and I was making noises and Icould tell there were clearly
(02:40):
people there who were like forNew Year's resolutions. I
haven't seen him since but. Butthey were there. And I was just
like, beaten that was you? Yeah,it was making me
wonder why they you did anythinggo back? If I saw you doing
that? Oh my god.
No, it was I was going nuts.
Horrifying. So yeah, I didn'tmake it to New Year's Long story
(03:03):
short, I don't think I need to,you know, the ball dropping.
It's a day. I did have a weirdconversation though. The day
after New Year's about this guy.
I don't know if I told you thestory. There's this guy that is
adjacent to my friend group. Ijust, he's fine. But I was just
trying to be friendly. Because Inever know how to talk to this
(03:27):
guy. And I'm just like, Oh,Happy New Year. How was your new
year? I think it was January 2,because I don't celebrate that.
And the conversation was like,alright, okay.
option.
This is why I don't talk to you.
That's what I it's like, Look,I get it. I'm a big it's a day
(03:50):
thing. You people that havelistened to the podcast know
that I think time is completelyrelative.
So, youknow, like for me to celebrate
New Years as if it is thismomentous occasion. Right? Like,
I don't do that. But when I gointo my job and my daily life, I
do have to put 2024on there. Yeah, like it matters,
(04:19):
right? Like at some point. See,here's the thing. We have picked
an arbitrary day for when it hasbeen a year since this since the
Earth has revolved around thesun. We picked an arbitrary day.
But is itcompletely arbitrary though? I
feel like there has to be somethere has to be some sort of
reasonably I wouldn't say here'sarbitrary. Here's my
(04:39):
Well, no, but like it iscompletely arbitrary because
even if you picked a reasoningbehind it, I'm assuming it's one
Western centric and based on aWestern understanding of the
seasons and the flow of time.
Like it is the SouthernHemisphere summer. Yeah. You
know, and like the New Year Ithink we think of the start of
(05:00):
the rebirth. Conveniently, it'sa Gregorian calendar
by Pope Gregory.
So it's centered around the lifeof Christ. So that is also
arbitrary. Yeah. Like, yes, youcould have symbolic reasonings
(05:22):
for and that can be very sound,but in the big scheme of things,
yeah. Okay.
It's like, like Christ beingborn and Christmas is light and
darkness. Yeah. And him being inhim dying in spring is darkness
within rebirth because itmirrors his own rebirth. You
(05:43):
know, it's like, yeah, sure,that sound reasoning, but like,
at the end of the day, you know,you're telling a story.
It's pretty arbitrary.
Yeah. Arbitrary. Okay.
All right. Yeah, so sorry, yourstory about I
just thought it was a weird, youknow, it's like, I'm just trying
to make conversation. Like ifsomeone came up to me like,
yeah, like, I don't make a bigdeal about New Year's, I will
(06:03):
talk about this, but like, I'm,you know, I'm not a big like,
let's reinvent my life kind ofguy. No. And we're just trying
to make conversation out ofsobered that
okay, that's Oh, yeah. I don'tlike that. That's a weird thing
to say. Andlet's just like, do what like
How interesting. Do you want meto find you? That, you know,
you're just gonna let your likelike, just say good. If you
don't want to have aconversation say good. I want to
(06:24):
ask any follow up. Yeah,it's not like it's not like
Christmas where you like youliterally don't celebrate
Christmas. No, but here's thesecond part of it that I wasn't
going to say he goes he goestoday's mary mother of god,
though. That'll celebrate. I waslike, Oh, my Lord.
(06:46):
You know, I would have walkedaway like that, you know, all
celebrate Mary Mother God.
Because that's, that's, that ismuch sounder than we're
standing. Very Mother God, theNew Year. Dude, if like, if
(07:09):
we're gonna get into this, like,don't like my new year was in
September, like don't ask uslike, oh, my gosh.
Anything else new going on?
Interesting.
I don't think so. I mean, no,right. I'm still at home. I
I go back on Wednesday. And Iwill say, since the holiday
(07:31):
season has passed, I have foundmyself more relaxed at home.
Because there's less pressure tolike, do and get done. And like,
it's actually been kind of niceto be able to be home for a
little bit.
Yeah. And you have snow, whichI'm super jealous about.
I think I'm gonna go crosscountry skiing tomorrow. Oh,
(07:51):
that'll be fun. I'msurprised. Well, I guess I was
surprised you didn't go skiingalready?
Well, I don't. Okay.
I don't know about oh, welldownhill. Like, do I really want
to go spend a day at SevenSprings, bumping into people
crowded, like having fun, goodskiing, but I would much rather
(08:12):
go cross country skiing rightnow. Because it's like, I'm out
in the woods. I'm alone. There'snobody bothering me. You don't
have to deal with lines. And youknow, you can just go as long as
you want. So I'm going to kindof replace my run one of my runs
this week with a good crosscountry ski. And that will give
my ankle nice time to heal andit'll just be good. I'm really
(08:34):
excited to go tomorrow. Socross country skiers actually
have the highest vo two max onaverage. When tested the really?
Yeah, that's goodminds. minds. I think like 86th
percentile right now. So I'mtrying to boost it.
Yeah, they're like nuts.
Apparently. So.
Well, I'll let you know how Ifeel tomorrow after I do it.
(08:54):
Do I mean? No.
I'm also really excited. BecauseI'm getting a physical tomorrow.
And you that would scare you,but I'm, I'm
I'm literally anxious, thinkingabout the fact that you are
getting one. Um, as for me, Imean, I just
I want to know, my cholesterol.
I want to know my AYP, OB, Iwant to know my numbers. I want
an EKG, I want to be able toread it like I want it all. I
(09:17):
already want to stop talkingabout this. Okay, we can stop
but I'm excited about it. Solet's say yep. Um, you know,
it's like, it's just to makesure I don't drop dead. When
you're, you're so healthy. Butthat's what happens like some
healthy people can have hearthidden cardiac issues and like,
then you can drop that. And so Iguess I don't want that to
(09:38):
happen to me. So I'm prettyexcited. Well, should we talk
about New Year's?
Let's talk about New Year'sresolution.
So I thought we should do NewYear's resolutions because I
wanted to encourage you to setNew Year's goals or sort of set
goals for the year for yourselfbecause I don't Throw that
(10:00):
that's something that you haveever done. No. And it's
something I was going to doregardless. And I did do. And I
just kind of this was my way ofencouraging you to structure the
next year of your life.
And here we are good. Andhere we are. I made them. Good.
Should we share them? Yeah, sodo you want to share? Yeah, I
(10:22):
want to talk with you about yourhistory, your, uh, goals guy,
right? Like you like, let's,let's, let's pretend for a
second. So you have your lifetogether? And I don't?
Um,how long? Have you been making
new year's resolutions?
(10:43):
I don't know. I think much likeyou. I don't love the idea of
New Year's resolutions. There'ssome sort of connotation about a
New Year's resolution thatpeople always sort of fail them.
But I do set yearly goals. Andthat distinction in my head
helps me be more driven aboutthem. I was gonna say, I think
that's an important distinction.
(11:04):
Yeah, that you you are makingthe arbitrary, you are
differentiating those in yourmind. Because they're the same
thing.
Right? They're the exact samething. But there's just the
language and behaviorsassociated with quote unquote,
New Year's resolutions, right,that people just don't follow
through with them.
I think if you call it a goal,you have taken a lot of classes.
(11:27):
And I think our generation hasbeen taught, you know, quote,
unquote, SMART goals. And Ithink we have been taught to
make better goals that aremanageable and achievable.
Rather than more arbitrary orabstract goals, or even easier
to fail goals, where it's like,go to the gym every day. But
it's like, that goal is kind ofprecarious, I think, in its
(11:50):
phrasing and situation. So andthen it's like, you can feel
very easily defeated, whetherwhere it's like, okay, if you
make something where you startbroad, and you say, I would like
to work on my fitness this year,and then you can get more
specific and say, Okay, well,I'd like to do these things,
these things and these things,and then you'd like, you know,
you can categorically break themdown. So I think it might be
(12:12):
like, I'm terrible at makinggoals. So I think that is
definitely something where it'slike, like I like look at I'm
like, my new year's goal is Iwant to look better. And it's
like that that goal. What doesthat mean? Right? Exactly. It's
like attributed to weight loss.
It's like genetics, it's like,I'd like to change my genetics
and be like, you know,yeah, and that sort of all the
(12:34):
goals that I set all sort ofrelate back to my personal
mission statement and my kind oflife strategy that I have
scaffolded and the goals that Ihave set, contribute to that and
make sure I'm aligning myactions with my values, in a
way. So that's how I plan mygoals in my life. But I want to
(12:59):
hear what your goals are.
Okay. So I've I have two types.
And then I have goals that I'mdidn't write on here, but
they're like, be cleaner aroundmy apartment. But that's not
like, that's just like a jackGet your shit together. So I
have tangible goals. One of themis to improve my Hebrew, I can,
(13:25):
I think I read it less than akindergarten level, I have the
sound words out and like half analphabet in front of me. So I
would like to work on that. I'mdoing like Duolingo. I'm
listening to some things more Ihaven't turned my phone on to
Hebrew, because that is just waypast, but eventually,
(13:51):
maybe make that a goal, like beable to turn your friend to
Hebrew by the end ofsurvive. Yeah, I don't know,
we'll see. Contrasting that, Iwould like to be on my phone
less, me to a lot less. I wouldlike to read every day. I would
like to write every day. And Iwould like to draw every day.
And I know that I was givinglike, I'd like to go to the gym
(14:13):
every day. Reading and writingevery day are things that I
literally do every day, butbecause I'm on my phone,
sometimes I will sit with a bookon my lap and not read it. And I
want to stop that. I'm justlike, No, we're done. Because I
can very easily read and writeevery day I did for years, and I
stopped last year. And I wouldlike to get back into that I
(14:35):
have some abstract goals. I'dlike to be wrong more. I would
like to assume I'm right less.
I'd like to center my day aroundlearning and I'd like to ask
more questions.
Andwhat did I write here? Oh, yeah.
(14:56):
So I was talking to a friend AndI was like thinking about this.
And I basically like my abstractgoals are all to turn my
opinions into hypotheses andtest them. That's like, my,
those are my abstract goals.
Yeah. Like, I want to be lesssure about everything I say. And
I'd like to challenge my ownbeliefs more.
(15:17):
So, yeah, and that all sort ofrelates back to allowing
yourself to be wrong more. Ilove that as a goal, because it
lets you take risks. It lets metake risks. And then I people
that I tell these goals to theysay, Isn't that the same as
assume I'm right, less? And Isaid, No, it goes hand in hand
with that, because I'd like totalk less assuredly, about
(15:40):
things that I think that I knowabout. Like, I would like to
think, you know, like, I don'twant to, like explain something.
If I, I'd like to, like, have abarrier in my mind where I'm
like, Am I sure about this? Andthen hopefully, talk less
like an expert on differentthings that I, you know, might
not be qualified to talk? Yeah.
(16:02):
Cool. I like this. I like theheaders.
I mean, I think you can get allthose those, all of those on
there. I feel like they're,they're tangible. Mine, or I
mean, the tangible, you'll hearthe difference in our goals,
I'm sure very immediately. Imean, I wrote them in pen on a
(16:22):
notepad where I put two columnsI wrote tangible, abstract.
Yeah.
So mine are go to three coffeechats with the dean, and attend
at least one extra lecture orseminar a month. So three coffee
chats with the dean, that reallymight be all they have, in my
final semester at BU. So I'dlike to go to all of them. And
(16:46):
attend at least one extralecture or seminar month, be you
has the public lecture series.
And I'd like to go to one ofthose a month, at least. So that
is very measurable, I can knowthat I have done that. I'd like
to fundraise $1,000 a monthuntil the Boston Marathon. So
hopefully I can reach out toenough people and collect enough
support to get that done. I'dlike to grow this podcast to 500
(17:10):
listeners per episode,how you changed it?
I did it was 1000. And as muchand I Well, that's the reach
goal. You know, I 1000? No goalswork apparently. Well, 1000
would be like, I would bethrilled if we got to 1000. And
I would be very happy if we gotto 500
(17:32):
May I ask a question of how youmake goals? Do you make goals
that you would be happy toattain? Or do you make goals
that you will criticize yourselfif you fail? And I feel like
those are different things.
There are two but that's twodifferent kinds of goals. You
know, you have your reach goal,right. Okay. You have your reach
goal, which I would be thrilledagain to have 1000 listeners per
(17:53):
episode. ButI would be distance yourself
love and goal. Yeah.
Disappointed. The thebottom limit, the floor would be
500 listeners per episode by theend. Oh.
Okay. Wow.
And that's a two way street withyou and me. We're gonna have to
work. And actually, probablyit's a three way street where we
(18:17):
share our podcast.
Oh, guilt. Yeah. Guilt is good.
Yeah.
I mean, if you rate us rate uson Spotify, share it with your
friend. Do tell people listen.
Yeah.
Can you rate us on the app? Wereally need to, I think yeah, I
never thought about that. Inever thought this is like a
thing. I guess we do it twice aweek we can I other people
(18:39):
promote their own podcasts.
Pretty avidly so yeah.
So that is another one of mygoals. Read at least one book
per month and total 20throughout the year. I think
that that's achievable. One permonth is because I'd like to at
least do one a month. But okay,so you have a you have a
disappointment and reach goalfor you have like no, no, no
(19:02):
disappointment would be if Ididn't make it to 20 books
throughout the year. Okay, butone per month just keeps me
accountable everymonth. Okay, all right. Like I'm
understanding how your brainworks.
And average fewer than threehours of screen time per day.
So, like you said, be on myphone less. I turned that into a
(19:23):
number and I said beyond thisless than three hours a day.
What are you at right now?
Probably like five. Okay, that'swhere I'm at. I sometimes I'm
about six.
Yeah, and it sucks. I hatetalking about how much screen
time I have. Because it'sembarrassing. It
is a little well, I think if youlooked at the average per
Americans, I don't think itwould be embarrassing. I think
(19:45):
personally, it's embarrassingbecause you don't want to admit
you spend that much a day ofyour day on your phone. No,
I mean that that think about howmuch time that is. Yes.
What do you mean think about howmuch that is? Six hours. It's
crazy. Yeah,like That is so much time. Yeah.
So those are my New Year'sgoals.
So here's here's the thing aboutsmartphones that I do. I am
(20:07):
curious about, what if you'redoing something productive? How
do you differentiate that time?
Yeah.
I mean, there is time that I'mon my phone that I'm learning,
whether that be through apodcast or an audio book, but
I'm not on my phone during thattime. How much time do you
(20:28):
actually spend, like, on yourphone doing something?
I read this on my phone. And IGoogle a lot of stuff. That's
why the majority of my time onmy phone is me Doom, scrolling
social media, making me feelworse about myself. I'm really
good at feeling bad aboutmyself. It's very easy. So
(20:52):
why don't you offload that timespent on your phone and just
read the news on yourcomputer? Yeah, no, I
guess I could. I guess I could.
And then the paper on theweekends, you
don't have a social media issue.
Yeah, no, that's I deleted it. Idon't have Instagram on my
phone. And I just checkInstagram on my computer. Now.
(21:12):
I need to delete off my phone.
Yeah. It's just so easy toscroll mindlessly. It is but
that's how I think about life'sproblems.
It's designed to do that. Yeah,no, I
know. I know what they're doingis terrible. Yeah, but yeah.
Ya.
(21:32):
You said you were going to makea list of questions to ask me
about Yeah, no, Ihave them. I'm just saying.
Why don't we do it? Iwas thinking about, I'm thinking
about, I'mjust the just how years work.
Andlike, I was so optimistic last
(21:55):
year, I had a lot of big thingsplanned. And some things in our
life changed. Yep. Wrap it, youknow, like, a lot of stuff
happened last year. And it justtook it out of me. Yeah. And I
didn't do I think I probablyaccomplish, like, 1% of what I
(22:16):
wanted to accomplish. Wow. Andthe thought of, like, I did some
I did stuff, you know, like,like, um, you know, people post
on social media, that it's like,the fact that you've gone
through the year is a lot. And Iagree with that. I just think
it's very hard to. And maybeyou're not like this, because I
(22:36):
think you're very motivated. Butit's like, after a year like
that, you know, you say like,what if this goes wrong, that
goes wrong. And I know you canthink about that, but like, how
do you dust yourself up? Or Dustyourself off? Get up and just be
like, Okay, well, I'll try againthis year. And it's like, what,
you know, eventually, like since20, I just feel like as a
(22:59):
species, as people, but speakinggenerally, things have not gone
great. And, you know, to staywith that. Let's keep pushing
forward mindset. I just think insometimes is too much. I mean,
it is nuts. Yeah. That's funny.
(23:21):
Why do I do scroll? Because Isometimes I just can't deal with
it.
Yeah, I think it's interestingthat you said that because I was
doing my yearly reflectiontoward the end of last year. And
I really think 2023 was the mostproductive and fulfilling of my
life. I overshot all of my NewYear's goals. I sort of maintain
(23:50):
stability throughout all thechaos of the year. And I didn't
let it defeat me.
instead.
I let it drive me to do more.
Like I use I really did a lotlast year. You did you had I did
so much and thinking about that.
(24:11):
I was really proud of how Ihandled last year. You
should be I'm proud of you. Imean, you compost a lot. We
started a podcast that was 90%you.
We started the podcast. I read aton. I learned a lot. I did well
really you started reading itlike we've had conversations
about books. I year two.
(24:33):
I did the med school applicationthing. I'm going through that
process like I did a lot Istarted the ultimate MCAT guide.
I worked my job and you knowhopefully did well there. And I
just think last year was a greatyear for me. So that sort of
motivated me to say what can Iget done this year with this
(24:57):
2020 For heaven's store.
I'm at the other end of thisBactrim Yeah,
I'm like trying to quityou were talking about that. It
surprised me.
Well, what I mean, I thinkI think I'm prone to be harder
on myself. Not that you are notyou are you hold yourself to an
incredibly high standard and youmeet those standards. I don't I
don't meet my own standards,which probably means I should
(25:23):
lower them. And maybe I do, Idon't know, I just think I'm
incredibly hard on myself, youknow, you got something in your
head.
I think like, thisis, you know, 2024, I was so
scared to do resolutions,resolutions, goals, whatever.
I'm scared of goals. Because Idon't want I just don't want to
(25:49):
fail that. It's like the samereason that I don't tell people
when I'm going up because like,I anticipate the failure, which
is the mindset that you shouldnot have to accomplish a goal,
right, you have to go in beinglike, I will succeed. That is
not how I approach goals. It isI, you know, it's like, how do
(26:11):
you how do you how do youmotivate, it's just like trying
to break a cycle. And that, forme has been the hardest thing
about this yearly transition,where it's like, on one hand, we
wake up, the calendar haschanged. On the other hand, all
of the problems that wereexisting in my life existing in
the world on December 31. Werethere Jen are still there,
(26:31):
January, January 1. Yeah, wedon't have this. It's not like a
restart at a level, you know, wehave this idea of the restart
mentality where you can have afresh start, but that Fresh
Start is as artificial asanything else.
Yeah, they called him heliterally called that the Fresh
Start effect in psychology.
Okay. See? Yeah. And it's, it'skind of the phenomenon where
people set their goals based ontemporal events. Yeah. And for
(26:54):
someone that you need to leanmore into that, though I don't,
I don't care about the FreshStart effect. But you need to
lean into the Fresh Starteffect, and say, No,
because I know it's not true. Ican't make myself believe
something I completely look attime. It's not even like, I
(27:14):
don't look at time is somethingthat is structured like it time
is a measurement. And it is asabstract as other things in my
mind like it, yes. You know,it's like, I'm going to live my
life, I have to live my lifelinear, because that is how I
live my life. But like, I'maware that what is behind me is
still there, like it's not gone.
(27:36):
You have the option to ignoreit. Yeah, I got option exhibits,
that it's very real. But tome that's insincere. Why?
Because it's not acknowledgingthe full complexity of the life
in which we all live. Like alike a realistic goal, I think
(27:57):
would be to properly grieve deedas death. That is a realistic
goal for me that I don't knowhow to begin, I don't know how
time will allow me to processthat that is a goal that I think
will help me move on with mylife. But to do these, that
isn't necessarily productive,that would be productive for me,
(28:21):
that is not going to advance mycareer, this that the other
thing so people don't make thosegoals. I think that that would
be a very real goal process,like, allow myself to feel that
grief. However, how do you allowyourself to grieve with in a
temporal frame? How do you allowlike a year? How do you how do
(28:45):
you hit goals with something asabstract as grief? Because it's
not like you can say, Okay,well, I'd like to hit stage. I'd
like to finish stage one byMarch. And then I'd like to be
pissed off until May. And thenI'd like to be you know, it's
(29:08):
like that's it because griefitself, the stages are not
linear. Soyeah, but what you can do jack
is set a weekly time goal toreally think about grief. Sure,
you know, you don't need toquantify how far along in the
(29:28):
grieving process you are. rathergive yourself time to be allowed
to grieve and not think aboutanything else. You know, it's
you can you can make the goaldifferent. Make the way you
achieve the goal differently anddefine the goal differently. So
say, say you want to do nothing,literally put everything away
(29:53):
for two hours a week. Just tofocus on grieving that can be a
way to allow yourself to grievewithin a timeframe and feel okay
about working toward grieving.
As a process, right. And I thinkthat though, is hindered by
(30:22):
the yearly, my by this idea ofthe year beginning and ending
with intrinsics. About days. WhyI think because because I don't
like yeah, so you can set youcan say for a year, but that
okay, what I'm saying is thatidea goes against the SMART
goals that I was talking aboutbeforehand. So I think I
(30:46):
basically what I'm saying is Ithink goals need to take their
needs, there can be SMART goals.
And then I think we need somesort of, like, you know, kind of
touchstones about more abstractgoals. Yeah, that don't
necessarily fit intoproductivity standards in our
everyday life. It allcomes down to what works for
(31:07):
you, and what makes you feelmotivated to do the things that
you want to do. And,yeah, and that motivation, I
think, is tricky. It's superpersonal. Like, I I'm one of
those people who, if I say it'sgoing to get done, it just gets
done. And there's no bullshit nofucking around. Like, I just do
it. And that's been, it takes alot of hard your whole life.
(31:32):
Yeah, my whole life. But I don'twake up in the morning and I and
I run seven to 14 miles. BecauseI like it. I do it because it's
in my calendar to run that much.
And it's going to get done.
Yeah, it's not like yesterday inthe snow. It was fun toward the
end, but the first six mileshurt.
(31:54):
It was weird that it was funwhen you were spraining your
ankle. Therewas it was cool, because it was
snowing. But so bad. I mean,you just have to you have to
figure out things that, like,allow you to enjoy it. Yeah. But
it's all very personal. And I'vesort of offloaded the touchy
feely aspect. And if if I sayit's gonna get done, it's just
(32:16):
gonna get done. But I think itcomes down to like, your life
strategy. And like, how do Idefine a great life? What's my
life's purpose? What's my life'svision?
I guess, how do you you havethose worked out? How do you
find something like that? A lotof time thinking.
(32:36):
It's taken years and years andyears and years for me to like,
really piece it all together?
And it's, it's not a concrete?
Document? It's, it's amendable.
It's fluid. Yeah. And then like,in in your reflections, whether
that be daily, weekly, ormonthly, or yearly? Like, how am
I aligning my actions with myvalues? And what I've defined as
(32:59):
my my life and like, what, whatdoes my great life look like?
See, it's so annoying when youtalk like that? It's not because
I think it's great, like youhave it in a very healthy way.
I'm someone who reflects a lot.
As well, not to sound You know,I just spend a lot of time
(33:21):
thinking about things. And Ithink the way you approach goals
is how I approach, let's say,living life, or lead and let's
framework it in the front in theunderstanding of religion, like,
people, I surround myself with alot of Christians and they're
(33:43):
like, aren't you concerned aboutthe afterlife? And I say no,
because I will do whatever is inmy power each day, to live a
life that is authentic, andgood, based on my understanding
of what is good in the world.
And whatever happens after I diewill happen. And I think that I
(34:04):
can do, because, you know, we, Ihave my own moral compass. But I
can't apply that within a year,or within a quantifiable that
within quantifiablemeasurements, like I can't do
that with quantities, or anExcel sheet. And I think that's
(34:26):
very hard for, for me because,like, you know, it's like, my,
my, my goal as a person, likeyou have a mission statement,
and I'd like to think that I dohave a mission statement.
I just, I it's a it's soI struggle with that kind of
mechanical thinking. And itmakes times like this times,
(34:47):
like the year really hard. It'sso hard, I think in the new year
when I want to be productive.
And I go two days, and I'mreading and I'm thinking I'm
annotating again, I'm likethinking about all this stuff
and writing poems again. Andthen I get to my desk job that
takes away all my energy. It'sand then I'm just like, I hate
(35:11):
this. And it throws mecompletely out of whatever,
like, productivity I was having.
It's done, dad and then I goweak self loathing because like,
that's where I am. And it'sallowing it's me allowing
outside things to affect me.
Yeah. But it's also kind oftrying to just work within my
(35:37):
circumstances. And that's veryhard. This is a very deep
episode of podcasts, but I hateI hate New Year. I have always
hated New Year's that I don'teven have. I literally hate New
Year's so much. I have anacademic calendar, because I
can't think about the yearbeginning and ending in January.
(35:58):
This like summer vacation islike a good time where like
summer vacation is this kind oflike liminal space where nothing
matters still in this like life?
And then I can start inSeptember, September still in my
brain is like a time where I'mlike, Alright, let's get some
work done.
Wow. Yeah,it's funny, because I'm still
very much on the academiccalendar. And I live my Oh, I
(36:18):
know you are I live my life inyours. I am a calendar year
person.
I think you could benefit fromthinking about
(36:39):
what your places with work andyour relationship is with work
this year. Yeah.
See, okay, so this is my thing.
People when I people like me,maybe there aren't people like
me, maybe people are listeningto this me like Jackson saying,
Jack has, you know, whatever. Ithink when I talk to people that
have this incredible growthmindset, they say, start by
(37:03):
thinking what the fuck do youthink I did? Not you? Yeah, just
like people. It's like, Oh, Ido. I do start by thinking. And
then I don't know, like, it'slike, is it a thought loop? Is
it? And then it's, it's there'sthis idea that when you say well
(37:25):
do you have to start byanalyzing what you're like, I
know, my relationship with workis unhealthy. And I know that I
need to change it. But I thinkfor, at least in my mind, I
would describe it as being on atreadmill where you cannot turn
it off. So it's like, okay, Icould, I could take a second.
(37:46):
And readjust if I could turn thetreadmill off. But I haven't had
enough time to turn thattreadmill off. So it's like I'm
running for my life.
But you don't know what youwere, you're running. Exactly.
Because they that's where likewe're funneled into this. We're
all sprinting somewhere, we haveto do XYZ things. And when do
(38:11):
you have with like, I can thinklike, Oh, my God, oh, my God, my
relationship with work isterrible. I should stop. I have
unhealthy working habits. Butit's like I develop those in
school where we were, you know,like, I was always doing
schoolwork. And then you know, Igot into college. And I was
like, 110% in college. And thenit's like, I'm at work. And it's
like, oh, you're just supposedto work until you die, you're
(38:33):
going to have retirement. It'slike, how do you stop this
treadmill?
Well, if I were to, if I were toask, what direction do you want
your life to go?
What would your answer betowards education? more
concrete?
I don't I just You see, I don'tknow. Like I that's what you
need. I had a North Star. Well,here's the thing. Work is
(38:56):
changing as well. I had a NorthStar, I wanted to be a
professor, that is a lessrealistic possibility. That is
not necessarily a stable jobchoice. When I was a kid, I
wanted to be a writer. That isnot a stable job choice. You
know, and it's like, oh, how doyou see yourself some days I see
myself as an artist, a failure,but an artist. And it's like,
(39:19):
what does that mean? How do you?
They're not It's not like it's aconcrete goal. So I say
education. I would have loved tobe a professor. Now. I think
it's high school. How do Itransition to that is a
complicated thing. So here'sanother added complicated thing.
To I contribute to a retirementfund, which I never thought I
do.
(39:40):
And there's the endyou can take this out of the
podcast, but just likeexplaining it to you. High
School when does when does highschool start August, right?
If I wereto work at my job booths until
August, I would not get any ofthem My matched 401 K for that
year, because it can't it's theymatch it on December 31. So then
(40:05):
I'd have to work until December31 To get my matched 401k From
my retirement, or lose all ofthat money, but then how do you
start in August?
Those I don't know, those areconversations that you'd have to
(40:26):
have.
I know, it's just hard. And it'slike, but I think it's,
I think it's easier than youthink. Probably, I think that I
think it should, I'm not sayingthat it's not difficult. But how
about this, it's probably easierthan you are making it out to
be.
I will say this, I think it'shard, it's easier, it's
(40:47):
definitely easier than I make itout to be, right. Because I'm
some I can get trapped in myhead very easily. I also think
sometimes it is harder for somepeople than you then grow grind
set people make it out to be aswell.
(41:09):
Yeah, I can understand that. ButI lack
some sympathy for people whowill not just get out there and
work their ass off to make ithappen. You know, like, it's
(41:32):
not, nothing I do is easy. Youknow, and I don't, I don't want
to come off as an ass here. Butlike, I do work extremely hard
in every aspect of my life tomake things happen. You are one
of the hardest working peopleI've ever met. And it's it's
it's not easy. And so whenI'll use the running example,
(41:57):
like, it is hard to do that,that is a difficult thing. Yeah.
But it gets done because it hasto get done. And, you know, if I
start my day doing somethinghard, the rest of my day can be
spent doing equally hard things.
It's it's like, hard work. Andoh, man. So it's growing your
(42:18):
anterior mid cingulate cortex.
And that's the part of yourbrain that that grows when you
do something that you trulydon't want to do. And it's like
a muscle. And so your capacityto do hard work increases when
you do more hard work. So it'slike, it's always forcing myself
(42:43):
to work hard. And that mightmake me come off as insensitive.
I don't think I think I come offas a crybaby in this episode, I
don't think you come off asinsensitive.
But just like, I think that youtend to get stuck in your head.
Rather than in this, this isnothing we haven't talked about
before. But you get stuck inyour head instead of the world
(43:06):
of like, this is what I want todo. And this is how I'm going to
get there. Like if, if you knownot what port you're sailing to,
no wind is useful. So if youdon't know what direction you're
trying to go, nothingthat you can do
is getting you there because youhave no clue where you're going.
(43:28):
Andif you sail into a hurricane,
you're fucked. Right?
So I think spendingtime and reflecting on like, the
direction you want your life tohead this calendar. Sure. Like,
I think just throw out all ofall of the the notions that you
have about the calendar year andjust submit to it. Just
(43:50):
completely submit to it and say,What do I want my life to look
like, by the end of this year?
And how can I make that happen?
I think that's really goodadvice. I'm going to try. I will
try well,which is why I'm even glad you
have something fucking writtendown for
(44:12):
that as far as that I usuallyget right.
You know? Yeah.
I think it's hard to get, youknow, yeah, sure. Maybe there's
the excuse of getting lost inthe shuffle, when you may be
allowing yourself a little bitto be picked up by it. Yeah.
(44:34):
Like you, you will get throughthis year. And I don't want
unwilling, I don't want you tolook back and say there are all
of these things that I wanted todo that I didn't do.
Sure. I mean, those have beenmounting up for a while. Right.
But yes. AndI mean, what will your life look
like? If you just keep doingthat year after year after year?
(44:59):
Wait, I know The answer.
suburban dad, no, just kidding.
No.
It won't look anything like youwant it to
look. Yeah. So my answer stance.
So and this was this was why Ichose the road trip over the 10
(45:22):
week shadowing experience. I wasjust thinking about this before
my next movereading that one, you had
regretted that in a singularsentence a few weeks ago.
What did I regretted my roadtrip?
Yeah, no, Iwill never regret my road trip.
Oh, I think you had saidsomething where you were like,
that road trip cost me a lot ofshadowing experience did
(45:45):
marketing in the med school? Itdid. I mean, I'm sorry. I think
I foisted myself upon you. Whenyou said that. I was like, oh,
Harry's regretting hisNo, no, just that was, that was
just very matter of fact, like,I didn't do this 10 week
shadowing experience, because Iwanted to go on my road trip.
But if I'm sitting on mydeathbed, and I'm thinking about
(46:06):
my life, and the decisions thatI've made, I 100% 10 times out
of 10. And glad that I did thatroad trip. And the ability for
me to say that makes me knowthat I made the right decision.
Whether or not that affects my,my application for medical
school, I don't really care. Ithat I try to make decisions
(46:31):
again. And it all goes back tomy life strategy. And my mission
statement like I would muchrather have been personally
fulfilled by that road trip thanprofessionally fulfilled by the
stupid 10 week shadowing programthat everyone hears about. But
ya know, I'll never forget thatroad trip. It was incredible.
(46:54):
So, but that's how I make thedecision by my my deathbed.
However many years in thefuture, it's like, what decision
would I rather have made?
It's a fun way to live.
Living by a deathbed decision.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess.
(47:20):
Yeah. Ifear the death. But that's why I
would rather just dropped that.
No, don't fear it.
I reflect not dying all thetime. I would not like to
reflect while dying.
But that's when you will reflectthe most dude,
I know. That's why I don't wantto deal with
well, then you just need to sitwith it. What?
(47:43):
You asked me earlier in theepisode, where am I running
away?
And maybe, maybe that's a startto stop. Yeah,
like, it's like, it's just stopdoing? Yeah. Just stopped doing
it. We're like the, we're likethe therapist and the patient,
(48:06):
or not the therapist and thepatient. That's it. Now, because
I think therapists were like, Idon't even know. It's just it's
that like classic like thing yousee on social media where it's
like, people are like, or likethe kid comes up. And he's like,
this hurts when I do this. Andhe like, twist his arm one way.
And the moms just like, whydon't you not do that? Yeah. And
then people are like, well, it'snot that simple. That it just
(48:29):
goes back and forth. It's likechicken in the egg. Um, so
because I didn't get to myquestions I read, we actually
addressed some of the questions.
Like, how do you make a yearmanageable? was one. How do you
work within a week time set ofwhen you are both working doing
school? Like how do youmultitask in a day?
(48:53):
Yeah, I can answer that onepretty easily. Like, okay, I
have. I have a, this is aspreadsheet of how many hours I
will spend doing everythingevery week. Wow. So you're done
by I have allocated the weeklywaking hours. I have it right
here.
I keep it open.
And it's all on this. I've myentire life map, sort of in one
(49:18):
dashboard page.
I feel like I need to figure outhow to live like you within my
means. Like I was talking to aprofessor the other day. And he
said, It's good to beuncomfortable at home. Meaning
like, maybe find your center ofwhere you can work and then push
(49:41):
those bounds but don't try to bein someone else's home. And you
know, so like when I say home, Imean like we're fit look where
you're uncomfortable, right?
Like some people are verycomfortable doing the nine to
five. You're very comfortablewith spreadsheets. I'm not
comfortable with a nine to fiveor spreadsheets. Yeah. So I
think I need to figure out whereI'm comfortable. And then I can
push myself further from there,right? Maybe that should be my
(50:06):
goal.
You need to define it a littlebetter.
Sorry, sounds like you have yourspreadsheets in. How big is it?
There are112 waking hours. And the week I
have class homework playingguitar, brainstorming, my my
job, reading, writing, workingout running.
(50:36):
And that pretty much likecooking and eating. That's all
in there.
And you divide the time betweenthem. Yeah. Do you how important
is your calendar to you? And Iknow the answer to this, but
like, what kind of calendar doyou use?
Just my online calendar? And Iuse the online calendar because
allows me to be flexible? I do Ihave flexibility built into my
(51:01):
life. It's not all very rigid.
But you schedule you'reflexible. I schedule my
flexibility. And that that worksfor me.
Yeah, it works really well forme. kind of love it.
Actually thinking, thinkingabout it, like virtually half.
(51:22):
It's almost like something somepeople look forward to. Yeah,
no, I scheduled this in. Yeah.
And I loveI have designed my life to be
completely motivated by thingsthat I enjoy. And so like my
journaling, I've integrated theminus two to plus two scale of
(51:42):
the day with differentvariables, like what I did
during that day. And I alsothat's the quantitative aspect.
And then I have the qualitativeaspect where I'm reflecting and
asking myself questions andanswering those questions. But
the fact that I can run logisticregressions on the positive or
negative outcomes of my days,like all that gets me going.
(52:08):
And the smile on your face.
It's,it's good, it's good. And I've,
I've dropped those little eastereggs into my life, so that I
continue doing the hard thingsthat I don't necessarily want to
do.
Yeah, you're almost like Pav?
Like you're like dog trainingyourself? I mean, I guess here's
a here's a little treat. Yeah,right. I give myself a little
(52:33):
treat sloth treat.
But that's not to go back tolike your original question.
Yeah. How do you balanceeverything? I have a
spreadsheet. There's 112 wakinghours in a week.
How do I? How do I fill themall?
(52:54):
And that's how you balance it?
Yeah.
Like you can't overbook thosethings?
And then, okay, so my last onewas? How do you look at things
I'm trying to I kind of justwrote down like, it basically
has to do with integrating theemotional into a productivity
(53:23):
mindset. So we talked a littlebit about grief, which is what
brought up this question.
Just like,I think a lot of people, Is it
as simple as just saying, if Iwork on processing emotions,
that makes me X amount of moreconventionally productive? Is it
just saying that that isproductive time? Do you spend a
(53:45):
lot of time like processing,let's say grief, or
understanding your anger towardssomething or sympathy or
sadness, sadness, or like,dwelling on this? I worry about
getting to existential about it,like you're worrying about like
(54:06):
World War Three, but like,processing the fact that let's
say in Boston, you drive downthat stretch of, you know, the
the homeless population, youknow, like, how do you try to do
your due diligence, do the duediligence as a future med
(54:26):
medicine provider, and one whois a good human? And also like,
stay within this Americanproductivity mindset? Like, how
do you how do you measure it?
I mean, it's no secret that I'mpretty good at
compartmentalizing things.
You're not analyzing it.
(54:47):
I schedule my journaling time,and I scheduled my reflections.
So that's, that's when you dothat kind of stuff. Yeah. Like I
have.
I have a this is anotherspreadsheet that I have. It's a
spreadsheet of the journalingprompts that are all
categorized. And and so when Ineed to explore something, I go
to that category, I look at allthe questions that I've compiled
(55:09):
for it. And I answer thosequestions. And that sort of
gives me structure in thinkingabout life and what's going on
and what I need to think aboutwhat directions I want to go and
how I need to handle it.
Okay, yeah. And it works for meis compart, right now is
compartmentalizing. And I'mterrible at compartmentalizing.
(55:33):
So that makes sense why I wouldnot have just assumed it was
during your journaling. BecauseI can't put away dishes without
thinking about some things.
Yeah, don't have to do withdishes.
And I'm not kidding, if I amdoing something throughout the
day that I know that I need toreflect on I will put a note in
for myself, and then address itwhen I have time to reflect on
(55:54):
it.
I don't let it sort of throw offmy day, and
my daily balance. But I put itoff and say this is something I
need to spend time thinkingabout. And then I'll think about
it at that time. So say I'mreading an article, and I see
something that I need toexplore. I'll put it off to the
(56:17):
side. And I'll say, check thisout later. Think about it.
I want to do it right thenI it's just I know that I can't,
I can't afford to take threehours out of my data, like,
go into this one thing. There'sthis great quote, by
(56:37):
a poet and I think she's talkingabout how, you know, when a poem
when she feels a poem coming on,she doesn't believe that it come
it comes almost from externallyand then enters her. And if she
gets it, it's hers. So she wasoutside. And she felt a poem
(56:58):
coming on. And she was hanginglaundry. And then she had the
run inside. And by the time shegot the notepad, the poem had
left her and went on to someoneelse. And I think that hearing
that at a young age, I don'tknow if it's psychologically
like me, but I feel like that,like if I have an idea, and I
(57:20):
would be like this in school,you know, if I had an idea, it
would enter like, like a line Ihad I had and I have to write it
down. It would be gone. And I'dhave to deal with it then and
I'd have to think about it thenand it would be this kind of
almost all consuming thing.
Yeah. And that I don't think isa good like, I'm like having
(57:40):
this like reflection of like,yeah, like that's probably not a
good way.
It just depends on again, howyou want to live your life and
how you feel like your, yourtime is best structured.
I think a lot for me, which isannoying, is as much as I will
give you shit for going into themythos of the quote like the
(58:02):
I'll say the tech foundermythos. But like this, like
genius entrepreneur, I think youbuy into that mythos. And I give
you a lot of shit for it. But Ihave fully bought in since I was
a kid into this, like, ourartistic mythos. And at some
point, I started working like, Idon't know when, but like, I
(58:24):
think I have to believe thatthere was a part of that, that I
wanted to be a little chaotic,became I was always chaotic, but
I think like, I was like, Oh, Iidentify with chaos. I can you
know, people live like that. Or,uh, you know, like, people work
at night. Oh, I work at night.
You know, like, I'm spontaneous.
(58:45):
I'm this that the other thing.
And I think like with allthings, there has to be this
kind of mix. And there's amiddle ground where it's like,
okay, yeah, I work a little bitlike that. I'm a little
spontaneous. But I can sit anddigest things. Like when I write
poetry now that thatoverwhelming feeling will be one
(59:08):
line, and it might be theinitial line, but I found that
it's better if I marinate on it.
Yeah. And that is something thatI think maybe yeah, that's
that's interesting. My my goalbeing deconstructing this mythos
that I have. Maybe maybe theidea of character that I wanted
(59:30):
to find myself in has beeninhibitory for me. And maybe
that is a way of working outsideof it.
Yeah. It's all very individual.
Like my the way that I live mylife has been very trial and
error. I've tried it all. I'vedone everything that I can. And
I've just found what works wellfor me.
(59:51):
Yeah, mine has been an error.
Yeah, well, but that's okay.
Because you'll find somethingthat works, but setting it up
We'll loop it back to thebeginning of what you
fail more often.
Yeah, you know, try things thatyou wouldn't otherwise try. And
(01:00:12):
maybe you'll be pleasantlysurprised in how it works for
your life.
I do wonder, like, you seem tofit into a cultural norms of
like waking up early. We're anearly society here. I wonder how
you would do in a society thatstayed up later and work later
and had a differentunderstanding of productivity?
(01:00:34):
Probably not as well. I wonderif we have a different
conversation? Yeah.
And I think it's easy for me tosit here and say that I wouldn't
let it bother me. But am I?
Yeah, I don't know. It'sinteresting to me. Yeah.
Well, should we wrap it?
Yeah, let's wrap it. All right.
Anything else? You want to say?
(01:00:57):
We good? No. Okay, people. Thankyou so much for listening. Where
were you talking about? Oh,yeah. Like, like us on Spotify
portrayed us kindly. on Spotify,share the pod talk to your
friends. Um, I don't know if youhave any episode ideas. If you
(01:01:19):
want to hear more or less ofsomething. Email us at our
tangled minds@gmail.com I'llread them and then forward it to
Harry. Um, yeah, I think that'sit. But thank you so much for
sticking around and seeing howthis mess unravels. We'll see
you in two weeks. And Harun aregoing to talk about possibly
doing a live stream marathon forhim to get some money for the
(01:01:41):
marathon. Yeah, andif you if you can, and are
willing, please donate.
I would really appreciate it.
The human fundthe human fund at Harry
Weidner sock? No, that'sa no no, no, no, no joke. Joke
joke. All right. All right. I'mgonna stop this
I am still very much at homewithout my other computer with
the audio file, but I'm notgoing to sing this week because
it was kind of embarrassing, butenjoy. And here we go. All
right, welcome back to ourtangled minds.
(00:22):
Welcome to our tangled minds.
I'm Harry Weidner.
I'm Jack Weidner. Welcome backnatto
SCIAC Bagnato you'll get it.
Welcome back to Episode 2120.
Is that a lucky Happy New Year?
Everyone?
Happy New Year?
I don't think 20 ones are luckynumber two, Roberto Clemente is
number three times seven.
(00:43):
I guess. Yeah. Yeah. See?
21 is one of those numbers thatyou think would be prime,
but it's not now.
But seven and three are bothprime. Yep. I don't know. That's
interesting.
At least to me.
No, I mean, it's interesting.
And it feels prime. It does feelprime. It's prime Jason. Yeah.
(01:08):
Good. Because like 23 is prime.
But I want 23 to be prime. Youknow, it makes sense. The 20
threes prime.
What do you have against 23?
I don't know. It's 23. Luckynumber.
I don't think so. Are only primenumbers. Lucky. I don't know. 13
is lucky in Italian. Like sevensthe number of perfection
but isn't 13 is isn't 13 Unluckyas well.
(01:31):
In America, because I don't andother countries I don't know in
what other countries?
There's no 13th floor on my inmy building.
I guess. Yeah.
I don't know. I mean, 13 isdefinitely unlucky in America. I
don't know. We're all sort ofunlucky.
Brothers Happy New Year. Yeah.
Everyone, listeners and to you,Harry. Yeah, thanks.
(01:54):
What did you do for New Year's?
I went to a friend's house.
Nice. Me. Yeah, we played boardgames. I made lasagna. Did you
make it through midnight? Yeah,I made it to like 3am my bedtime
is midnight. Of course. I makeit to midnight every night.
Wow. I didn'tknow I called. I called mom at
1230. And I was like, I wasHarry that.
(02:18):
Dude, I was asleep at 930.
That's about at 930 On NewYear's. And it was awesome. That
is awesome. Because I woke upand I ran and I went to the gym.
And yeah, it was good. It wassnowing a little bit like a
gritty run, you know, one ofthose where I was at the track,
and I was making noises and Icould tell there were clearly
(02:40):
people there who were like forNew Year's resolutions. I
haven't seen him since but. Butthey were there. And I was just
like, beaten that was you? Yeah,it was making me
wonder why they you did anythinggo back? If I saw you doing
that? Oh my god.
No, it was I was going nuts.
Horrifying. So yeah, I didn'tmake it to New Year's Long story
(03:03):
short, I don't think I need to,you know, the ball dropping.
It's a day. I did have a weirdconversation though. The day
after New Year's about this guy.
I don't know if I told you thestory. There's this guy that is
adjacent to my friend group. Ijust, he's fine. But I was just
trying to be friendly. Because Inever know how to talk to this
(03:27):
guy. And I'm just like, Oh,Happy New Year. How was your new
year? I think it was January 2,because I don't celebrate that.
And the conversation was like,alright, okay.
option.
This is why I don't talk to you.
That's what I it's like, Look,I get it. I'm a big it's a day
(03:50):
thing. You people that havelistened to the podcast know
that I think time is completelyrelative.
So, youknow, like for me to celebrate
New Years as if it is thismomentous occasion. Right? Like,
I don't do that. But when I gointo my job and my daily life, I
do have to put 2024on there. Yeah, like it matters,
(04:19):
right? Like at some point. See,here's the thing. We have picked
an arbitrary day for when it hasbeen a year since this since the
Earth has revolved around thesun. We picked an arbitrary day.
But is itcompletely arbitrary though? I
feel like there has to be somethere has to be some sort of
reasonably I wouldn't say here'sarbitrary. Here's my
(04:39):
Well, no, but like it iscompletely arbitrary because
even if you picked a reasoningbehind it, I'm assuming it's one
Western centric and based on aWestern understanding of the
seasons and the flow of time.
Like it is the SouthernHemisphere summer. Yeah. You
know, and like the New Year Ithink we think of the start of
(05:00):
the rebirth. Conveniently, it'sa Gregorian calendar
by Pope Gregory.
So it's centered around the lifeof Christ. So that is also
arbitrary. Yeah. Like, yes, youcould have symbolic reasonings
(05:22):
for and that can be very sound,but in the big scheme of things,
yeah. Okay.
It's like, like Christ beingborn and Christmas is light and
darkness. Yeah. And him being inhim dying in spring is darkness
within rebirth because itmirrors his own rebirth. You
(05:43):
know, it's like, yeah, sure,that sound reasoning, but like,
at the end of the day, you know,you're telling a story.
It's pretty arbitrary.
Yeah. Arbitrary. Okay.
All right. Yeah, so sorry, yourstory about I
just thought it was a weird, youknow, it's like, I'm just trying
to make conversation. Like ifsomeone came up to me like,
yeah, like, I don't make a bigdeal about New Year's, I will
(06:03):
talk about this, but like, I'm,you know, I'm not a big like,
let's reinvent my life kind ofguy. No. And we're just trying
to make conversation out ofsobered that
okay, that's Oh, yeah. I don'tlike that. That's a weird thing
to say. Andlet's just like, do what like
How interesting. Do you want meto find you? That, you know,
you're just gonna let your likelike, just say good. If you
don't want to have aconversation say good. I want to
(06:24):
ask any follow up. Yeah,it's not like it's not like
Christmas where you like youliterally don't celebrate
Christmas. No, but here's thesecond part of it that I wasn't
going to say he goes he goestoday's mary mother of god,
though. That'll celebrate. I waslike, Oh, my Lord.
(06:46):
You know, I would have walkedaway like that, you know, all
celebrate Mary Mother God.
Because that's, that's, that ismuch sounder than we're
standing. Very Mother God, theNew Year. Dude, if like, if
(07:09):
we're gonna get into this, like,don't like my new year was in
September, like don't ask uslike, oh, my gosh.
Anything else new going on?
Interesting.
I don't think so. I mean, no,right. I'm still at home. I
I go back on Wednesday. And Iwill say, since the holiday
(07:31):
season has passed, I have foundmyself more relaxed at home.
Because there's less pressure tolike, do and get done. And like,
it's actually been kind of niceto be able to be home for a
little bit.
Yeah. And you have snow, whichI'm super jealous about.
I think I'm gonna go crosscountry skiing tomorrow. Oh,
(07:51):
that'll be fun. I'msurprised. Well, I guess I was
surprised you didn't go skiingalready?
Well, I don't. Okay.
I don't know about oh, welldownhill. Like, do I really want
to go spend a day at SevenSprings, bumping into people
crowded, like having fun, goodskiing, but I would much rather
(08:12):
go cross country skiing rightnow. Because it's like, I'm out
in the woods. I'm alone. There'snobody bothering me. You don't
have to deal with lines. And youknow, you can just go as long as
you want. So I'm going to kindof replace my run one of my runs
this week with a good crosscountry ski. And that will give
my ankle nice time to heal andit'll just be good. I'm really
(08:34):
excited to go tomorrow. Socross country skiers actually
have the highest vo two max onaverage. When tested the really?
Yeah, that's goodminds. minds. I think like 86th
percentile right now. So I'mtrying to boost it.
Yeah, they're like nuts.
Apparently. So.
Well, I'll let you know how Ifeel tomorrow after I do it.
(08:54):
Do I mean? No.
I'm also really excited. BecauseI'm getting a physical tomorrow.
And you that would scare you,but I'm, I'm
I'm literally anxious, thinkingabout the fact that you are
getting one. Um, as for me, Imean, I just
I want to know, my cholesterol.
I want to know my AYP, OB, Iwant to know my numbers. I want
an EKG, I want to be able toread it like I want it all. I
(09:17):
already want to stop talkingabout this. Okay, we can stop
but I'm excited about it. Solet's say yep. Um, you know,
it's like, it's just to makesure I don't drop dead. When
you're, you're so healthy. Butthat's what happens like some
healthy people can have hearthidden cardiac issues and like,
then you can drop that. And so Iguess I don't want that to
(09:38):
happen to me. So I'm prettyexcited. Well, should we talk
about New Year's?
Let's talk about New Year'sresolution.
So I thought we should do NewYear's resolutions because I
wanted to encourage you to setNew Year's goals or sort of set
goals for the year for yourselfbecause I don't Throw that
(10:00):
that's something that you haveever done. No. And it's
something I was going to doregardless. And I did do. And I
just kind of this was my way ofencouraging you to structure the
next year of your life.
And here we are good. Andhere we are. I made them. Good.
Should we share them? Yeah, sodo you want to share? Yeah, I
(10:22):
want to talk with you about yourhistory, your, uh, goals guy,
right? Like you like, let's,let's, let's pretend for a
second. So you have your lifetogether? And I don't?
Um,how long? Have you been making
new year's resolutions?
(10:43):
I don't know. I think much likeyou. I don't love the idea of
New Year's resolutions. There'ssome sort of connotation about a
New Year's resolution thatpeople always sort of fail them.
But I do set yearly goals. Andthat distinction in my head
helps me be more driven aboutthem. I was gonna say, I think
that's an important distinction.
(11:04):
Yeah, that you you are makingthe arbitrary, you are
differentiating those in yourmind. Because they're the same
thing.
Right? They're the exact samething. But there's just the
language and behaviorsassociated with quote unquote,
New Year's resolutions, right,that people just don't follow
through with them.
I think if you call it a goal,you have taken a lot of classes.
(11:27):
And I think our generation hasbeen taught, you know, quote,
unquote, SMART goals. And Ithink we have been taught to
make better goals that aremanageable and achievable.
Rather than more arbitrary orabstract goals, or even easier
to fail goals, where it's like,go to the gym every day. But
it's like, that goal is kind ofprecarious, I think, in its
(11:50):
phrasing and situation. So andthen it's like, you can feel
very easily defeated, whetherwhere it's like, okay, if you
make something where you startbroad, and you say, I would like
to work on my fitness this year,and then you can get more
specific and say, Okay, well,I'd like to do these things,
these things and these things,and then you'd like, you know,
you can categorically break themdown. So I think it might be
(12:12):
like, I'm terrible at makinggoals. So I think that is
definitely something where it'slike, like I like look at I'm
like, my new year's goal is Iwant to look better. And it's
like that that goal. What doesthat mean? Right? Exactly. It's
like attributed to weight loss.
It's like genetics, it's like,I'd like to change my genetics
and be like, you know,yeah, and that sort of all the
(12:34):
goals that I set all sort ofrelate back to my personal
mission statement and my kind oflife strategy that I have
scaffolded and the goals that Ihave set, contribute to that and
make sure I'm aligning myactions with my values, in a
way. So that's how I plan mygoals in my life. But I want to
(12:59):
hear what your goals are.
Okay. So I've I have two types.
And then I have goals that I'mdidn't write on here, but
they're like, be cleaner aroundmy apartment. But that's not
like, that's just like a jackGet your shit together. So I
have tangible goals. One of themis to improve my Hebrew, I can,
(13:25):
I think I read it less than akindergarten level, I have the
sound words out and like half analphabet in front of me. So I
would like to work on that. I'mdoing like Duolingo. I'm
listening to some things more Ihaven't turned my phone on to
Hebrew, because that is just waypast, but eventually,
(13:51):
maybe make that a goal, like beable to turn your friend to
Hebrew by the end ofsurvive. Yeah, I don't know,
we'll see. Contrasting that, Iwould like to be on my phone
less, me to a lot less. I wouldlike to read every day. I would
like to write every day. And Iwould like to draw every day.
And I know that I was givinglike, I'd like to go to the gym
(14:13):
every day. Reading and writingevery day are things that I
literally do every day, butbecause I'm on my phone,
sometimes I will sit with a bookon my lap and not read it. And I
want to stop that. I'm justlike, No, we're done. Because I
can very easily read and writeevery day I did for years, and I
stopped last year. And I wouldlike to get back into that I
(14:35):
have some abstract goals. I'dlike to be wrong more. I would
like to assume I'm right less.
I'd like to center my day aroundlearning and I'd like to ask
more questions.
Andwhat did I write here? Oh, yeah.
(14:56):
So I was talking to a friend AndI was like thinking about this.
And I basically like my abstractgoals are all to turn my
opinions into hypotheses andtest them. That's like, my,
those are my abstract goals.
Yeah. Like, I want to be lesssure about everything I say. And
I'd like to challenge my ownbeliefs more.
(15:17):
So, yeah, and that all sort ofrelates back to allowing
yourself to be wrong more. Ilove that as a goal, because it
lets you take risks. It lets metake risks. And then I people
that I tell these goals to theysay, Isn't that the same as
assume I'm right, less? And Isaid, No, it goes hand in hand
with that, because I'd like totalk less assuredly, about
(15:40):
things that I think that I knowabout. Like, I would like to
think, you know, like, I don'twant to, like explain something.
If I, I'd like to, like, have abarrier in my mind where I'm
like, Am I sure about this? Andthen hopefully, talk less
like an expert on differentthings that I, you know, might
not be qualified to talk? Yeah.
(16:02):
Cool. I like this. I like theheaders.
I mean, I think you can get allthose those, all of those on
there. I feel like they're,they're tangible. Mine, or I
mean, the tangible, you'll hearthe difference in our goals,
I'm sure very immediately. Imean, I wrote them in pen on a
(16:22):
notepad where I put two columnsI wrote tangible, abstract.
Yeah.
So mine are go to three coffeechats with the dean, and attend
at least one extra lecture orseminar a month. So three coffee
chats with the dean, that reallymight be all they have, in my
final semester at BU. So I'dlike to go to all of them. And
(16:46):
attend at least one extralecture or seminar month, be you
has the public lecture series.
And I'd like to go to one ofthose a month, at least. So that
is very measurable, I can knowthat I have done that. I'd like
to fundraise $1,000 a monthuntil the Boston Marathon. So
hopefully I can reach out toenough people and collect enough
support to get that done. I'dlike to grow this podcast to 500
(17:10):
listeners per episode,how you changed it?
I did it was 1000. And as muchand I Well, that's the reach
goal. You know, I 1000? No goalswork apparently. Well, 1000
would be like, I would bethrilled if we got to 1000. And
I would be very happy if we gotto 500
(17:32):
May I ask a question of how youmake goals? Do you make goals
that you would be happy toattain? Or do you make goals
that you will criticize yourselfif you fail? And I feel like
those are different things.
There are two but that's twodifferent kinds of goals. You
know, you have your reach goal,right. Okay. You have your reach
goal, which I would be thrilledagain to have 1000 listeners per
(17:53):
episode. ButI would be distance yourself
love and goal. Yeah.
Disappointed. The thebottom limit, the floor would be
500 listeners per episode by theend. Oh.
Okay. Wow.
And that's a two way street withyou and me. We're gonna have to
work. And actually, probablyit's a three way street where we
(18:17):
share our podcast.
Oh, guilt. Yeah. Guilt is good.
Yeah.
I mean, if you rate us rate uson Spotify, share it with your
friend. Do tell people listen.
Yeah.
Can you rate us on the app? Wereally need to, I think yeah, I
never thought about that. Inever thought this is like a
thing. I guess we do it twice aweek we can I other people
(18:39):
promote their own podcasts.
Pretty avidly so yeah.
So that is another one of mygoals. Read at least one book
per month and total 20throughout the year. I think
that that's achievable. One permonth is because I'd like to at
least do one a month. But okay,so you have a you have a
disappointment and reach goalfor you have like no, no, no
(19:02):
disappointment would be if Ididn't make it to 20 books
throughout the year. Okay, butone per month just keeps me
accountable everymonth. Okay, all right. Like I'm
understanding how your brainworks.
And average fewer than threehours of screen time per day.
So, like you said, be on myphone less. I turned that into a
(19:23):
number and I said beyond thisless than three hours a day.
What are you at right now?
Probably like five. Okay, that'swhere I'm at. I sometimes I'm
about six.
Yeah, and it sucks. I hatetalking about how much screen
time I have. Because it'sembarrassing. It
is a little well, I think if youlooked at the average per
Americans, I don't think itwould be embarrassing. I think
(19:45):
personally, it's embarrassingbecause you don't want to admit
you spend that much a day ofyour day on your phone. No,
I mean that that think about howmuch time that is. Yes.
What do you mean think about howmuch that is? Six hours. It's
crazy. Yeah,like That is so much time. Yeah.
So those are my New Year'sgoals.
So here's here's the thing aboutsmartphones that I do. I am
(20:07):
curious about, what if you'redoing something productive? How
do you differentiate that time?
Yeah.
I mean, there is time that I'mon my phone that I'm learning,
whether that be through apodcast or an audio book, but
I'm not on my phone during thattime. How much time do you
(20:28):
actually spend, like, on yourphone doing something?
I read this on my phone. And IGoogle a lot of stuff. That's
why the majority of my time onmy phone is me Doom, scrolling
social media, making me feelworse about myself. I'm really
good at feeling bad aboutmyself. It's very easy. So
(20:52):
why don't you offload that timespent on your phone and just
read the news on yourcomputer? Yeah, no, I
guess I could. I guess I could.
And then the paper on theweekends, you
don't have a social media issue.
Yeah, no, that's I deleted it. Idon't have Instagram on my
phone. And I just checkInstagram on my computer. Now.
(21:12):
I need to delete off my phone.
Yeah. It's just so easy toscroll mindlessly. It is but
that's how I think about life'sproblems.
It's designed to do that. Yeah,no, I
know. I know what they're doingis terrible. Yeah, but yeah.
Ya.
(21:32):
You said you were going to makea list of questions to ask me
about Yeah, no, Ihave them. I'm just saying.
Why don't we do it? Iwas thinking about, I'm thinking
about, I'mjust the just how years work.
Andlike, I was so optimistic last
(21:55):
year, I had a lot of big thingsplanned. And some things in our
life changed. Yep. Wrap it, youknow, like, a lot of stuff
happened last year. And it justtook it out of me. Yeah. And I
didn't do I think I probablyaccomplish, like, 1% of what I
(22:16):
wanted to accomplish. Wow. Andthe thought of, like, I did some
I did stuff, you know, like,like, um, you know, people post
on social media, that it's like,the fact that you've gone
through the year is a lot. And Iagree with that. I just think
it's very hard to. And maybeyou're not like this, because I
(22:36):
think you're very motivated. Butit's like, after a year like
that, you know, you say like,what if this goes wrong, that
goes wrong. And I know you canthink about that, but like, how
do you dust yourself up? Or Dustyourself off? Get up and just be
like, Okay, well, I'll try againthis year. And it's like, what,
you know, eventually, like since20, I just feel like as a
(22:59):
species, as people, but speakinggenerally, things have not gone
great. And, you know, to staywith that. Let's keep pushing
forward mindset. I just think insometimes is too much. I mean,
it is nuts. Yeah. That's funny.
(23:21):
Why do I do scroll? Because Isometimes I just can't deal with
it.
Yeah, I think it's interestingthat you said that because I was
doing my yearly reflectiontoward the end of last year. And
I really think 2023 was the mostproductive and fulfilling of my
life. I overshot all of my NewYear's goals. I sort of maintain
(23:50):
stability throughout all thechaos of the year. And I didn't
let it defeat me.
instead.
I let it drive me to do more.
Like I use I really did a lotlast year. You did you had I did
so much and thinking about that.
(24:11):
I was really proud of how Ihandled last year. You
should be I'm proud of you. Imean, you compost a lot. We
started a podcast that was 90%you.
We started the podcast. I read aton. I learned a lot. I did well
really you started reading itlike we've had conversations
about books. I year two.
(24:33):
I did the med school applicationthing. I'm going through that
process like I did a lot Istarted the ultimate MCAT guide.
I worked my job and you knowhopefully did well there. And I
just think last year was a greatyear for me. So that sort of
motivated me to say what can Iget done this year with this
(24:57):
2020 For heaven's store.
I'm at the other end of thisBactrim Yeah,
I'm like trying to quityou were talking about that. It
surprised me.
Well, what I mean, I thinkI think I'm prone to be harder
on myself. Not that you are notyou are you hold yourself to an
incredibly high standard and youmeet those standards. I don't I
don't meet my own standards,which probably means I should
(25:23):
lower them. And maybe I do, Idon't know, I just think I'm
incredibly hard on myself, youknow, you got something in your
head.
I think like, thisis, you know, 2024, I was so
scared to do resolutions,resolutions, goals, whatever.
I'm scared of goals. Because Idon't want I just don't want to
(25:49):
fail that. It's like the samereason that I don't tell people
when I'm going up because like,I anticipate the failure, which
is the mindset that you shouldnot have to accomplish a goal,
right, you have to go in beinglike, I will succeed. That is
not how I approach goals. It isI, you know, it's like, how do
(26:11):
you how do you how do youmotivate, it's just like trying
to break a cycle. And that, forme has been the hardest thing
about this yearly transition,where it's like, on one hand, we
wake up, the calendar haschanged. On the other hand, all
of the problems that wereexisting in my life existing in
the world on December 31. Werethere Jen are still there,
(26:31):
January, January 1. Yeah, wedon't have this. It's not like a
restart at a level, you know, wehave this idea of the restart
mentality where you can have afresh start, but that Fresh
Start is as artificial asanything else.
Yeah, they called him heliterally called that the Fresh
Start effect in psychology.
Okay. See? Yeah. And it's, it'skind of the phenomenon where
people set their goals based ontemporal events. Yeah. And for
(26:54):
someone that you need to leanmore into that, though I don't,
I don't care about the FreshStart effect. But you need to
lean into the Fresh Starteffect, and say, No,
because I know it's not true. Ican't make myself believe
something I completely look attime. It's not even like, I
(27:14):
don't look at time is somethingthat is structured like it time
is a measurement. And it is asabstract as other things in my
mind like it, yes. You know,it's like, I'm going to live my
life, I have to live my lifelinear, because that is how I
live my life. But like, I'maware that what is behind me is
still there, like it's not gone.
(27:36):
You have the option to ignoreit. Yeah, I got option exhibits,
that it's very real. But tome that's insincere. Why?
Because it's not acknowledgingthe full complexity of the life
in which we all live. Like alike a realistic goal, I think
(27:57):
would be to properly grieve deedas death. That is a realistic
goal for me that I don't knowhow to begin, I don't know how
time will allow me to processthat that is a goal that I think
will help me move on with mylife. But to do these, that
isn't necessarily productive,that would be productive for me,
(28:21):
that is not going to advance mycareer, this that the other
thing so people don't make thosegoals. I think that that would
be a very real goal process,like, allow myself to feel that
grief. However, how do you allowyourself to grieve with in a
temporal frame? How do you allowlike a year? How do you how do
(28:45):
you hit goals with something asabstract as grief? Because it's
not like you can say, Okay,well, I'd like to hit stage. I'd
like to finish stage one byMarch. And then I'd like to be
pissed off until May. And thenI'd like to be you know, it's
(29:08):
like that's it because griefitself, the stages are not
linear. Soyeah, but what you can do jack
is set a weekly time goal toreally think about grief. Sure,
you know, you don't need toquantify how far along in the
(29:28):
grieving process you are. rathergive yourself time to be allowed
to grieve and not think aboutanything else. You know, it's
you can you can make the goaldifferent. Make the way you
achieve the goal differently anddefine the goal differently. So
say, say you want to do nothing,literally put everything away
(29:53):
for two hours a week. Just tofocus on grieving that can be a
way to allow yourself to grievewithin a timeframe and feel okay
about working toward grieving.
As a process, right. And I thinkthat though, is hindered by
(30:22):
the yearly, my by this idea ofthe year beginning and ending
with intrinsics. About days. WhyI think because because I don't
like yeah, so you can set youcan say for a year, but that
okay, what I'm saying is thatidea goes against the SMART
goals that I was talking aboutbeforehand. So I think I
(30:46):
basically what I'm saying is Ithink goals need to take their
needs, there can be SMART goals.
And then I think we need somesort of, like, you know, kind of
touchstones about more abstractgoals. Yeah, that don't
necessarily fit intoproductivity standards in our
everyday life. It allcomes down to what works for
(31:07):
you, and what makes you feelmotivated to do the things that
you want to do. And,yeah, and that motivation, I
think, is tricky. It's superpersonal. Like, I I'm one of
those people who, if I say it'sgoing to get done, it just gets
done. And there's no bullshit nofucking around. Like, I just do
it. And that's been, it takes alot of hard your whole life.
(31:32):
Yeah, my whole life. But I don'twake up in the morning and I and
I run seven to 14 miles. BecauseI like it. I do it because it's
in my calendar to run that much.
And it's going to get done.
Yeah, it's not like yesterday inthe snow. It was fun toward the
end, but the first six mileshurt.
(31:54):
It was weird that it was funwhen you were spraining your
ankle. Therewas it was cool, because it was
snowing. But so bad. I mean,you just have to you have to
figure out things that, like,allow you to enjoy it. Yeah. But
it's all very personal. And I'vesort of offloaded the touchy
feely aspect. And if if I sayit's gonna get done, it's just
(32:16):
gonna get done. But I think itcomes down to like, your life
strategy. And like, how do Idefine a great life? What's my
life's purpose? What's my life'svision?
I guess, how do you you havethose worked out? How do you
find something like that? A lotof time thinking.
(32:36):
It's taken years and years andyears and years for me to like,
really piece it all together?
And it's, it's not a concrete?
Document? It's, it's amendable.
It's fluid. Yeah. And then like,in in your reflections, whether
that be daily, weekly, ormonthly, or yearly? Like, how am
I aligning my actions with myvalues? And what I've defined as
(32:59):
my my life and like, what, whatdoes my great life look like?
See, it's so annoying when youtalk like that? It's not because
I think it's great, like youhave it in a very healthy way.
I'm someone who reflects a lot.
As well, not to sound You know,I just spend a lot of time
(33:21):
thinking about things. And Ithink the way you approach goals
is how I approach, let's say,living life, or lead and let's
framework it in the front in theunderstanding of religion, like,
people, I surround myself with alot of Christians and they're
(33:43):
like, aren't you concerned aboutthe afterlife? And I say no,
because I will do whatever is inmy power each day, to live a
life that is authentic, andgood, based on my understanding
of what is good in the world.
And whatever happens after I diewill happen. And I think that I
(34:04):
can do, because, you know, we, Ihave my own moral compass. But I
can't apply that within a year,or within a quantifiable that
within quantifiablemeasurements, like I can't do
that with quantities, or anExcel sheet. And I think that's
(34:26):
very hard for, for me because,like, you know, it's like, my,
my, my goal as a person, likeyou have a mission statement,
and I'd like to think that I dohave a mission statement.
I just, I it's a it's soI struggle with that kind of
mechanical thinking. And itmakes times like this times,
(34:47):
like the year really hard. It'sso hard, I think in the new year
when I want to be productive.
And I go two days, and I'mreading and I'm thinking I'm
annotating again, I'm likethinking about all this stuff
and writing poems again. Andthen I get to my desk job that
takes away all my energy. It'sand then I'm just like, I hate
(35:11):
this. And it throws mecompletely out of whatever,
like, productivity I was having.
It's done, dad and then I goweak self loathing because like,
that's where I am. And it'sallowing it's me allowing
outside things to affect me.
Yeah. But it's also kind oftrying to just work within my
(35:37):
circumstances. And that's veryhard. This is a very deep
episode of podcasts, but I hateI hate New Year. I have always
hated New Year's that I don'teven have. I literally hate New
Year's so much. I have anacademic calendar, because I
can't think about the yearbeginning and ending in January.
(35:58):
This like summer vacation islike a good time where like
summer vacation is this kind oflike liminal space where nothing
matters still in this like life?
And then I can start inSeptember, September still in my
brain is like a time where I'mlike, Alright, let's get some
work done.
Wow. Yeah,it's funny, because I'm still
very much on the academiccalendar. And I live my Oh, I
(36:18):
know you are I live my life inyours. I am a calendar year
person.
I think you could benefit fromthinking about
(36:39):
what your places with work andyour relationship is with work
this year. Yeah.
See, okay, so this is my thing.
People when I people like me,maybe there aren't people like
me, maybe people are listeningto this me like Jackson saying,
Jack has, you know, whatever. Ithink when I talk to people that
have this incredible growthmindset, they say, start by
(37:03):
thinking what the fuck do youthink I did? Not you? Yeah, just
like people. It's like, Oh, Ido. I do start by thinking. And
then I don't know, like, it'slike, is it a thought loop? Is
it? And then it's, it's there'sthis idea that when you say well
(37:25):
do you have to start byanalyzing what you're like, I
know, my relationship with workis unhealthy. And I know that I
need to change it. But I thinkfor, at least in my mind, I
would describe it as being on atreadmill where you cannot turn
it off. So it's like, okay, Icould, I could take a second.
(37:46):
And readjust if I could turn thetreadmill off. But I haven't had
enough time to turn thattreadmill off. So it's like I'm
running for my life.
But you don't know what youwere, you're running. Exactly.
Because they that's where likewe're funneled into this. We're
all sprinting somewhere, we haveto do XYZ things. And when do
(38:11):
you have with like, I can thinklike, Oh, my God, oh, my God, my
relationship with work isterrible. I should stop. I have
unhealthy working habits. Butit's like I develop those in
school where we were, you know,like, I was always doing
schoolwork. And then you know, Igot into college. And I was
like, 110% in college. And thenit's like, I'm at work. And it's
like, oh, you're just supposedto work until you die, you're
(38:33):
going to have retirement. It'slike, how do you stop this
treadmill?
Well, if I were to, if I were toask, what direction do you want
your life to go?
What would your answer betowards education? more
concrete?
I don't I just You see, I don'tknow. Like I that's what you
need. I had a North Star. Well,here's the thing. Work is
(38:56):
changing as well. I had a NorthStar, I wanted to be a
professor, that is a lessrealistic possibility. That is
not necessarily a stable jobchoice. When I was a kid, I
wanted to be a writer. That isnot a stable job choice. You
know, and it's like, oh, how doyou see yourself some days I see
myself as an artist, a failure,but an artist. And it's like,
(39:19):
what does that mean? How do you?
They're not It's not like it's aconcrete goal. So I say
education. I would have loved tobe a professor. Now. I think
it's high school. How do Itransition to that is a
complicated thing. So here'sanother added complicated thing.
To I contribute to a retirementfund, which I never thought I
do.
(39:40):
And there's the endyou can take this out of the
podcast, but just likeexplaining it to you. High
School when does when does highschool start August, right?
If I wereto work at my job booths until
August, I would not get any ofthem My matched 401 K for that
year, because it can't it's theymatch it on December 31. So then
(40:05):
I'd have to work until December31 To get my matched 401k From
my retirement, or lose all ofthat money, but then how do you
start in August?
Those I don't know, those areconversations that you'd have to
(40:26):
have.
I know, it's just hard. And it'slike, but I think it's,
I think it's easier than youthink. Probably, I think that I
think it should, I'm not sayingthat it's not difficult. But how
about this, it's probably easierthan you are making it out to
be.
I will say this, I think it'shard, it's easier, it's
(40:47):
definitely easier than I make itout to be, right. Because I'm
some I can get trapped in myhead very easily. I also think
sometimes it is harder for somepeople than you then grow grind
set people make it out to be aswell.
(41:09):
Yeah, I can understand that. ButI lack
some sympathy for people whowill not just get out there and
work their ass off to make ithappen. You know, like, it's
(41:32):
not, nothing I do is easy. Youknow, and I don't, I don't want
to come off as an ass here. Butlike, I do work extremely hard
in every aspect of my life tomake things happen. You are one
of the hardest working peopleI've ever met. And it's it's
it's not easy. And so whenI'll use the running example,
(41:57):
like, it is hard to do that,that is a difficult thing. Yeah.
But it gets done because it hasto get done. And, you know, if I
start my day doing somethinghard, the rest of my day can be
spent doing equally hard things.
It's it's like, hard work. Andoh, man. So it's growing your
(42:18):
anterior mid cingulate cortex.
And that's the part of yourbrain that that grows when you
do something that you trulydon't want to do. And it's like
a muscle. And so your capacityto do hard work increases when
you do more hard work. So it'slike, it's always forcing myself
(42:43):
to work hard. And that mightmake me come off as insensitive.
I don't think I think I come offas a crybaby in this episode, I
don't think you come off asinsensitive.
But just like, I think that youtend to get stuck in your head.
Rather than in this, this isnothing we haven't talked about
before. But you get stuck inyour head instead of the world
(43:06):
of like, this is what I want todo. And this is how I'm going to
get there. Like if, if you knownot what port you're sailing to,
no wind is useful. So if youdon't know what direction you're
trying to go, nothingthat you can do
is getting you there because youhave no clue where you're going.
(43:28):
Andif you sail into a hurricane,
you're fucked. Right?
So I think spendingtime and reflecting on like, the
direction you want your life tohead this calendar. Sure. Like,
I think just throw out all ofall of the the notions that you
have about the calendar year andjust submit to it. Just
(43:50):
completely submit to it and say,What do I want my life to look
like, by the end of this year?
And how can I make that happen?
I think that's really goodadvice. I'm going to try. I will
try well,which is why I'm even glad you
have something fucking writtendown for
(44:12):
that as far as that I usuallyget right.
You know? Yeah.
I think it's hard to get, youknow, yeah, sure. Maybe there's
the excuse of getting lost inthe shuffle, when you may be
allowing yourself a little bitto be picked up by it. Yeah.
(44:34):
Like you, you will get throughthis year. And I don't want
unwilling, I don't want you tolook back and say there are all
of these things that I wanted todo that I didn't do.
Sure. I mean, those have beenmounting up for a while. Right.
But yes. AndI mean, what will your life look
like? If you just keep doingthat year after year after year?
(44:59):
Wait, I know The answer.
suburban dad, no, just kidding.
No.
It won't look anything like youwant it to
look. Yeah. So my answer stance.
So and this was this was why Ichose the road trip over the 10
(45:22):
week shadowing experience. I wasjust thinking about this before
my next movereading that one, you had
regretted that in a singularsentence a few weeks ago.
What did I regretted my roadtrip?
Yeah, no, Iwill never regret my road trip.
Oh, I think you had saidsomething where you were like,
that road trip cost me a lot ofshadowing experience did
(45:45):
marketing in the med school? Itdid. I mean, I'm sorry. I think
I foisted myself upon you. Whenyou said that. I was like, oh,
Harry's regretting hisNo, no, just that was, that was
just very matter of fact, like,I didn't do this 10 week
shadowing experience, because Iwanted to go on my road trip.
But if I'm sitting on mydeathbed, and I'm thinking about
(46:06):
my life, and the decisions thatI've made, I 100% 10 times out
of 10. And glad that I did thatroad trip. And the ability for
me to say that makes me knowthat I made the right decision.
Whether or not that affects my,my application for medical
school, I don't really care. Ithat I try to make decisions
(46:31):
again. And it all goes back tomy life strategy. And my mission
statement like I would muchrather have been personally
fulfilled by that road trip thanprofessionally fulfilled by the
stupid 10 week shadowing programthat everyone hears about. But
ya know, I'll never forget thatroad trip. It was incredible.
(46:54):
So, but that's how I make thedecision by my my deathbed.
However many years in thefuture, it's like, what decision
would I rather have made?
It's a fun way to live.
Living by a deathbed decision.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess.
(47:20):
Yeah. Ifear the death. But that's why I
would rather just dropped that.
No, don't fear it.
I reflect not dying all thetime. I would not like to
reflect while dying.
But that's when you will reflectthe most dude,
I know. That's why I don't wantto deal with
well, then you just need to sitwith it. What?
(47:43):
You asked me earlier in theepisode, where am I running
away?
And maybe, maybe that's a startto stop. Yeah,
like, it's like, it's just stopdoing? Yeah. Just stopped doing
it. We're like the, we're likethe therapist and the patient,
(48:06):
or not the therapist and thepatient. That's it. Now, because
I think therapists were like, Idon't even know. It's just it's
that like classic like thing yousee on social media where it's
like, people are like, or likethe kid comes up. And he's like,
this hurts when I do this. Andhe like, twist his arm one way.
And the moms just like, whydon't you not do that? Yeah. And
then people are like, well, it'snot that simple. That it just
(48:29):
goes back and forth. It's likechicken in the egg. Um, so
because I didn't get to myquestions I read, we actually
addressed some of the questions.
Like, how do you make a yearmanageable? was one. How do you
work within a week time set ofwhen you are both working doing
school? Like how do youmultitask in a day?
(48:53):
Yeah, I can answer that onepretty easily. Like, okay, I
have. I have a, this is aspreadsheet of how many hours I
will spend doing everythingevery week. Wow. So you're done
by I have allocated the weeklywaking hours. I have it right
here.
I keep it open.
And it's all on this. I've myentire life map, sort of in one
(49:18):
dashboard page.
I feel like I need to figure outhow to live like you within my
means. Like I was talking to aprofessor the other day. And he
said, It's good to beuncomfortable at home. Meaning
like, maybe find your center ofwhere you can work and then push
(49:41):
those bounds but don't try to bein someone else's home. And you
know, so like when I say home, Imean like we're fit look where
you're uncomfortable, right?
Like some people are verycomfortable doing the nine to
five. You're very comfortablewith spreadsheets. I'm not
comfortable with a nine to fiveor spreadsheets. Yeah. So I
think I need to figure out whereI'm comfortable. And then I can
push myself further from there,right? Maybe that should be my
(50:06):
goal.
You need to define it a littlebetter.
Sorry, sounds like you have yourspreadsheets in. How big is it?
There are112 waking hours. And the week I
have class homework playingguitar, brainstorming, my my
job, reading, writing, workingout running.
(50:36):
And that pretty much likecooking and eating. That's all
in there.
And you divide the time betweenthem. Yeah. Do you how important
is your calendar to you? And Iknow the answer to this, but
like, what kind of calendar doyou use?
Just my online calendar? And Iuse the online calendar because
allows me to be flexible? I do Ihave flexibility built into my
(51:01):
life. It's not all very rigid.
But you schedule you'reflexible. I schedule my
flexibility. And that that worksfor me.
Yeah, it works really well forme. kind of love it.
Actually thinking, thinkingabout it, like virtually half.
(51:22):
It's almost like something somepeople look forward to. Yeah,
no, I scheduled this in. Yeah.
And I loveI have designed my life to be
completely motivated by thingsthat I enjoy. And so like my
journaling, I've integrated theminus two to plus two scale of
(51:42):
the day with differentvariables, like what I did
during that day. And I alsothat's the quantitative aspect.
And then I have the qualitativeaspect where I'm reflecting and
asking myself questions andanswering those questions. But
the fact that I can run logisticregressions on the positive or
negative outcomes of my days,like all that gets me going.
(52:08):
And the smile on your face.
It's,it's good, it's good. And I've,
I've dropped those little eastereggs into my life, so that I
continue doing the hard thingsthat I don't necessarily want to
do.
Yeah, you're almost like Pav?
Like you're like dog trainingyourself? I mean, I guess here's
a here's a little treat. Yeah,right. I give myself a little
(52:33):
treat sloth treat.
But that's not to go back tolike your original question.
Yeah. How do you balanceeverything? I have a
spreadsheet. There's 112 wakinghours in a week.
How do I? How do I fill themall?
(52:54):
And that's how you balance it?
Yeah.
Like you can't overbook thosethings?
And then, okay, so my last onewas? How do you look at things
I'm trying to I kind of justwrote down like, it basically
has to do with integrating theemotional into a productivity
(53:23):
mindset. So we talked a littlebit about grief, which is what
brought up this question.
Just like,I think a lot of people, Is it
as simple as just saying, if Iwork on processing emotions,
that makes me X amount of moreconventionally productive? Is it
just saying that that isproductive time? Do you spend a
(53:45):
lot of time like processing,let's say grief, or
understanding your anger towardssomething or sympathy or
sadness, sadness, or like,dwelling on this? I worry about
getting to existential about it,like you're worrying about like
(54:06):
World War Three, but like,processing the fact that let's
say in Boston, you drive downthat stretch of, you know, the
the homeless population, youknow, like, how do you try to do
your due diligence, do the duediligence as a future med
(54:26):
medicine provider, and one whois a good human? And also like,
stay within this Americanproductivity mindset? Like, how
do you how do you measure it?
I mean, it's no secret that I'mpretty good at
compartmentalizing things.
You're not analyzing it.
(54:47):
I schedule my journaling time,and I scheduled my reflections.
So that's, that's when you dothat kind of stuff. Yeah. Like I
have.
I have a this is anotherspreadsheet that I have. It's a
spreadsheet of the journalingprompts that are all
categorized. And and so when Ineed to explore something, I go
to that category, I look at allthe questions that I've compiled
(55:09):
for it. And I answer thosequestions. And that sort of
gives me structure in thinkingabout life and what's going on
and what I need to think aboutwhat directions I want to go and
how I need to handle it.
Okay, yeah. And it works for meis compart, right now is
compartmentalizing. And I'mterrible at compartmentalizing.
(55:33):
So that makes sense why I wouldnot have just assumed it was
during your journaling. BecauseI can't put away dishes without
thinking about some things.
Yeah, don't have to do withdishes.
And I'm not kidding, if I amdoing something throughout the
day that I know that I need toreflect on I will put a note in
for myself, and then address itwhen I have time to reflect on
(55:54):
it.
I don't let it sort of throw offmy day, and
my daily balance. But I put itoff and say this is something I
need to spend time thinkingabout. And then I'll think about
it at that time. So say I'mreading an article, and I see
something that I need toexplore. I'll put it off to the
(56:17):
side. And I'll say, check thisout later. Think about it.
I want to do it right thenI it's just I know that I can't,
I can't afford to take threehours out of my data, like,
go into this one thing. There'sthis great quote, by
(56:37):
a poet and I think she's talkingabout how, you know, when a poem
when she feels a poem coming on,she doesn't believe that it come
it comes almost from externallyand then enters her. And if she
gets it, it's hers. So she wasoutside. And she felt a poem
(56:58):
coming on. And she was hanginglaundry. And then she had the
run inside. And by the time shegot the notepad, the poem had
left her and went on to someoneelse. And I think that hearing
that at a young age, I don'tknow if it's psychologically
like me, but I feel like that,like if I have an idea, and I
(57:20):
would be like this in school,you know, if I had an idea, it
would enter like, like a line Ihad I had and I have to write it
down. It would be gone. And I'dhave to deal with it then and
I'd have to think about it thenand it would be this kind of
almost all consuming thing.
Yeah. And that I don't think isa good like, I'm like having
(57:40):
this like reflection of like,yeah, like that's probably not a
good way.
It just depends on again, howyou want to live your life and
how you feel like your, yourtime is best structured.
I think a lot for me, which isannoying, is as much as I will
give you shit for going into themythos of the quote like the
(58:02):
I'll say the tech foundermythos. But like this, like
genius entrepreneur, I think youbuy into that mythos. And I give
you a lot of shit for it. But Ihave fully bought in since I was
a kid into this, like, ourartistic mythos. And at some
point, I started working like, Idon't know when, but like, I
(58:24):
think I have to believe thatthere was a part of that, that I
wanted to be a little chaotic,became I was always chaotic, but
I think like, I was like, Oh, Iidentify with chaos. I can you
know, people live like that. Or,uh, you know, like, people work
at night. Oh, I work at night.
You know, like, I'm spontaneous.
(58:45):
I'm this that the other thing.
And I think like with allthings, there has to be this
kind of mix. And there's amiddle ground where it's like,
okay, yeah, I work a little bitlike that. I'm a little
spontaneous. But I can sit anddigest things. Like when I write
poetry now that thatoverwhelming feeling will be one
(59:08):
line, and it might be theinitial line, but I found that
it's better if I marinate on it.
Yeah. And that is something thatI think maybe yeah, that's
that's interesting. My my goalbeing deconstructing this mythos
that I have. Maybe maybe theidea of character that I wanted
(59:30):
to find myself in has beeninhibitory for me. And maybe
that is a way of working outsideof it.
Yeah. It's all very individual.
Like my the way that I live mylife has been very trial and
error. I've tried it all. I'vedone everything that I can. And
I've just found what works wellfor me.
(59:51):
Yeah, mine has been an error.
Yeah, well, but that's okay.
Because you'll find somethingthat works, but setting it up
We'll loop it back to thebeginning of what you
fail more often.
Yeah, you know, try things thatyou wouldn't otherwise try. And
(01:00:12):
maybe you'll be pleasantlysurprised in how it works for
your life.
I do wonder, like, you seem tofit into a cultural norms of
like waking up early. We're anearly society here. I wonder how
you would do in a society thatstayed up later and work later
and had a differentunderstanding of productivity?
(01:00:34):
Probably not as well. I wonderif we have a different
conversation? Yeah.
And I think it's easy for me tosit here and say that I wouldn't
let it bother me. But am I?
Yeah, I don't know. It'sinteresting to me. Yeah.
Well, should we wrap it?
Yeah, let's wrap it. All right.
Anything else? You want to say?
(01:00:57):
We good? No. Okay, people. Thankyou so much for listening. Where
were you talking about? Oh,yeah. Like, like us on Spotify
portrayed us kindly. on Spotify,share the pod talk to your
friends. Um, I don't know if youhave any episode ideas. If you
(01:01:19):
want to hear more or less ofsomething. Email us at our
tangled minds@gmail.com I'llread them and then forward it to
Harry. Um, yeah, I think that'sit. But thank you so much for
sticking around and seeing howthis mess unravels. We'll see
you in two weeks. And Harun aregoing to talk about possibly
doing a live stream marathon forhim to get some money for the
(01:01:41):
marathon. Yeah, andif you if you can, and are
willing, please donate.
I would really appreciate it.
The human fundthe human fund at Harry
Weidner sock? No, that'sa no no, no, no, no joke. Joke
joke. All right. All right. I'mgonna stop this
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