What Really Makes Us Happy

Frank: 0:45

Sometimes it just flows Really flowing, we should continue.

Jake: 0:48

I think I'm getting a flowing vibe in my fingers right now. I didn't have that for a few minutes. What do you think that is Blood. What do you think it is?

Frank: 0:57

Guts and tears.

Jake: 0:58

Blood, guts and tears in my fingers.

Frank: 1:03

I didn't say blood, I just said guts and tears.

Jake: 1:05

Oh, you did that's right. Guts and tears in my fingers.

Frank: 1:09

Yes.

Jake: 1:11

How are you guys?

Frank: 1:11

doing today. We're good Exhausted.

Jake: 1:14

Why are you exhausted? Oh, you moved things in a dumpster. You moved things in a garage to a dumpster. No, I didn't even get to the garage. Oh.

Noah: 1:23

Yeah, but I'm exhausted. We got a lot done though, yeah, but it was exhausting, so it was good. My body sore, my back is really sore.

Jake: 1:43

My body has been sore since that 5K. So last weekend we all got a text from Noah that said hey, does anybody want to row a 5K with me tomorrow? And everybody said some variation of no. And next thing you know, our CrossFit gyms programming had a 5K scheduled for Friday, the following Friday, the following Friday. Did you say this? A rowing 5K? It's a rowing 5K. So concept two rowing ERG is the goal here.

Frank: 2:15

Can you define ERG, in case someone's it's?

Jake: 2:17

ergometer, sort of a fan-based resistance rowing device that is intended to emulate what it's like to row in a kayak.

Frank: 2:31

Can you?

Noah: 2:31

define emulate Fan-based resistance. It's basically like getting booed Right.

Frank: 2:38

It's Right, yeah, what about emulate?

Jake: 2:42

I just had a weird memory of like those giant French fries that people would wave at basketball games. Is that still a thing, french fries?

Frank: 2:50

You mean the fingers.

Jake: 2:51

No, I'm talking about French fries. Look up Fan Basketball, french fries. Okay.

Frank: 3:02

Keep going, Cause you only interrupt no you didn't talk about emulate, and people need to know.

Jake: 3:06

It's sort of like imitation. It's intended to.

Frank: 3:12

What about in the context of rowing?

Jake: 3:14

Duplicate or replicate the experience of rowing on water.

Frank: 3:22

Oh, okay, I got it now. Thank you, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Jake: 3:26

The whole point here is that the 5K or the 5,000 meter row is sort of a benchmark, similar to a 5K run, where you kind of test this longer duration. Cardiovascular oxidative.

Noah: 3:41

It's longer duration, but I would also say, I mean the intensity is still fairly high. Yeah, it's different than like even like a 10, if you went 10K, now you're looking, you know, the longer the duration, the lower the intensity generally to try to continue that duration. But the 5K is like that middling distance where you still push it pretty hard.

Jake: 4:04

It's not a sprint, but you know it's gonna be over in somewhere around 20 to 25 minutes, so you're willing to suffer a little bit and try to push the pace. Anyway, the whole point was that, for whatever reason the universe wanted it to be, you know the test week for the 5K row and, noah, you went into it with certain expectations, or, well, goals.

Noah: 4:32

I knew that my personal best time was 19 something and I didn't. For some reason, even though I was thinking about doing the 5K and then knew, after it was programmed that we were going to do the 5K, I didn't go and look for the photo I had taken of my personal best of, like the monitor. I don't know why I didn't, I just didn't. I knew that my time was 19 something. And here, well, here's the reason why my goal was I wanna row a sub 19. I wanna row a sub 19 5K.

Noah: 5:06

And I knew that was better than my personal best time, so it didn't matter. I wasn't gonna go look at my time. I was gonna shoot for a sub 19. And I would have been happy with 1859. I just wanted to break 19 minutes.

Jake: 5:18

Yeah, absolutely.

Noah: 5:19

And so I went into it and I just couldn't hold my pace. I ended up rowing a 19, 19, which I thought in my head was better than my personal best time. Because, all I could remember was I did 19 something and I thought it was like 1925, 1930. I thought it was mid, you know, somewhere in the middle. So after I rode the 19 19, I felt pretty good about it still, even though I didn't do the sub 19. I went home and then I found the photo of the personal best and it was 1904.

Noah: 5:50

I was four seconds off from 19 minutes, and had I known that I might have been able to push myself mentally this past Friday a little bit harder? Sure, sure, because I thought I was on a better pace than my personal best, and so now I'm just disappointed.

Frank: 6:10

But think of how tired you would have been then. Now, I mean now.

Noah: 6:14

I don't think that's playing a whole lot into how tired I am right now.

Frank: 6:19

Oh well then, you definitely should have pushed harder.

Noah: 6:21

Yeah, I could, I mean I can break 19 and we're gonna do it soon.

Jake: 6:25

The thing is is that, like the pace on a 5K is measured in like minutes per 500 meter segment. So in general, if you wanted to hit a 19 minute 5K, you would have needed to see 154 is exactly 19. Yeah, one minute 54 seconds per 500 meters.

Noah: 6:48

And I averaged 156.

Jake: 6:52

Yeah, wait, really Okay. Yeah, I mean it's crazy, like the difference between my personal best. So I wrote a 20, I wrote a 2055.

Frank: 7:04

Is this what you're talking about?

Jake: 7:07

It is not, so I wrote a 2055.

Frank: 7:11

Because I found giant basketball french fries, but I don't know if they're what you're talking about.

Jake: 7:16

Yeah, and the difference between my 2055 and my personal best of 2042 is the difference between a two minute four second pace and a two minute five second pace is one second per 500 meters built up over.

Noah: 7:33

Yeah, I mean over 20 minutes. Yeah, but yeah, I mean I held a 156, or I mean I didn't hold a 156, I averaged a 156. And I know that I could do sub 19 without a doubt. So we're gonna do it again soon. Yeah, maybe a couple of weeks. Yeah, we're gonna do it again, and I'm going to the one thing I can do differently. I'm sure this is great podcasting material.

Jake: 7:59

Yeah.

Noah: 8:00

One thing I can do differently is I went out. I wouldn't say I went out hot, but I did start faster. I was holding a 150 to 152 early on for the first, I don't know, at least 1500 meters, 2000 meters, okay, and I think I'm going to next time I'm going to try to just hold the 154 the whole time. Okay, so come out, two seconds slower pace. Well, two to four seconds slower pace, but hold it the whole time.

Jake: 8:34

So that was it. I mean, and that's. I kind of reviewed some of the notes from the last 5K I did, which was toward the end of 2022. And I had just done a 5K about two months prior to that. So I had some good data to draw on, and the first time my goal was to just keep below two minutes 10 seconds per 500. And I did pretty well over the course of that 20 minutes, and I came out of it kind of feeling like I had more to give. That was my PR, though, which was the 20 minutes 42 seconds. Two months later, I retested and I thought, okay, well, I had a little bit more to give, let me try to keep it below 205. That destroyed me. I came out of it going like five seconds slower overall, but the perceived effort was so much higher and I was exhausted afterwards.

Noah: 9:32

Well, and here's the other thing, I don't know what my. It's probably on the monitor, but I don't know what my average pace was when I did the 1904. But I mentioned to you when I sent you the photo I was like, wow, at the end because it shows when it finishes. It just keeps what your pace was at the end Up on the monitor when I finished the 1904, at the end I was pushing, I was rolling a 143 right at the end.

Jake: 10:06

Yeah, it was at a 151.

Noah: 10:08

And this time I mean I was at a 153 and I don't think I had much more than that, like I was spent this time.

Jake: 10:16

Yeah, if you're rolling a 153 at the end and I'm rolling a 151 at the end, it says something about how out of it. I mean Noah's essentially four feet taller than I am, so when he rose, every single pull gets a little extra. But the biggest takeaway I would say from this 5K experience is that the mental distress was zero. There was no anxiety leading into it. There was no suffering during the process. It wasn't like okay, I'm at 2,500 meters, I'm halfway there. Oh my God, how am I gonna make it? The second half it was just hop in the saddle, go. You know, execute the strategy and get done. You guys are one of you. I think maybe it was. You know, you mentioned the Andrew Huberman podcast episode with David Goggins on it, and I haven't watched the episode, but I did come across a little snippet of it. Oh, and it was talking specifically about willpower and Huberman said the Sort of level of willpower that a person seems to have at their disposal to harness at any given point in time seems to be linked to this area of the brain called the anterior mid-singulate cortex, and he says that when they've been studying this, there is a direct correlation between the amount of, like you know, distress or hatred or lack of wanting to do something before you Do it, if you don't want to get into an ice bath.

Jake: 11:56

And then you get into an ice bath, that area of the brain grows. If you do that every day for a week and you sort of get used to it and then you're like I don't care, I'm just gonna jump in the ice bath and you do it, then there's no effect on that area of the brain. So, like what he's saying, is that Essentially, people that have the ability to jump into hard situations or to try new things or whatever, usually have a history of jumping into Situations that they really don't want to and watching themselves follow through. Hmm, oh, that that was kind of interesting and I'm starting to see that down regulation in something like a 5k where it's like, yeah, whatever, I'll do a 5k, just jump in. You know, I'm no longer getting that sort of Stimulus in response.

Frank: 12:47

Yeah, I find them. I found it boring. I mean I only did it to okay, but it was mostly boring.

Jake: 12:52

The, the prompt that we gave ourselves is sort of the science of happiness. That's sort of a contrary Notion. Whenever you're talking about happiness usually I would say when you're talking about happiness people are like, well, I'm doing something that I want to be doing and it kind of made me Wonder what you guys think of. Whenever you think of Happiness like what is a happy life look like? Things that it includes freedom.

Frank: 13:22

It includes challenge progress, contribution growth, and growth is just challenge progress, I guess, but Get. I think fulfillment comes from like being outside of yourself doing something outside of for you.

Jake: 13:37

Mm-hmm.

Frank: 13:38

It's a big component of it, but growth is enough for many people, Sure. So just identifying challenge and making progress.

Noah: 13:49

Yeah, I would say progress, progress and freedom. I.

Jake: 13:53

Feel like you know those are. Those are more mature answers whenever you or, as a younger version of myself, you know if somebody said, well, what is what does a happy life look like? You know you get some variation of well, it's my ties on the beach with a beautiful woman in a fast car and you know, like this is sort of the I Haven't really thought it through, I haven't really examined what drives me in my life and I just want easy, I don't want to have to work, but it is actually this contrary notion of no, you need some sort of challenge in your life that you are watching yourself overcome and this Makes you feel in some way fulfilled.

Noah: 14:37

Yeah, I think that. I Think it's a balance.

Jake: 14:41

I mean.

Noah: 14:41

I think to me, what? When I say freedom, I don't mean drinks on the beach, necessarily, but the ability to do whatever I want at any given time, and sometimes that might include Having a drink on the beach. You know what I mean, so I think that can be an element of it. But that's why I threw freedom in there, because, yeah, progress, learning, development these things are important to me and a big part of happiness. But also the freedom piece, like not just the ability to do whatever whenever, but also the ability to learn the things that I want to learn, as opposed to things that I Need to learn for a job or something right Like, I just want the freedom to choose the things that I'm doing on a regular basis, and I think, inherently, we want to progress. So if you have that freedom, you will generally do things that are going to progress you.

Frank: 15:48

I'm trying to think about this in a way that doesn't make it feel challenging to what Noah is saying, but it feels a little out of order for me to think of freedom as Like different from progress or something. Yeah, I just think Freedom is just a part of the progress. It's like you choose a place you might like to have your, not a place a, an element of your life that you might like to be away, and Then you exercise your freedom to get it, to get closer to it, or something like that. I Feel like freedom is always there, but I don't mean that it's always there a hundred percent, like you don't have anyone controlling your life, but I almost mean that we picked the things we're in, you know sure, there are always constraints and there will always be constraints.

Noah: 16:52

I don't think there's a Truly free life necessarily. I think that I think freedom is on a spectrum, if you want to draw it and I hear what you're saying but even just from a survival standpoint, there are always constraints and so, depending on your situation, just depending on the circumstances in your life, depending on the Privilege that you've had or whatever it's, it's on a spectrum for every individual.

Frank: 17:23

I think the constraints are on a spectrum for sure, but I think freedom is Internal first, and so you sure you have an identity. It's either I'm the person who finds a way, no matter the constraints, or it's I'm a person who is constrained, and that's where freedom happens. It's not like later. That's just my view of it.

Jake: 17:50

That's interesting. That actually aligns. You know, my mom met Elizabeth and Elizabeth was telling her about how she loves flipping furniture. It's like what she's doing it just like sets her soul on fire. And my mom said something that was kind of interesting. It was really just telling about the fact that we don't talk that often and she said it's so great that you are doing something that you're passionate about. I think you know Jake is gonna find something that he's passionate about someday soon and, like I said, that's an artifact of her having conversations with a previous version of me.

Jake: 18:23

I'm in this very interesting place in my life right now where I would say I am at the happiest I've ever been. On a relative scale, I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life and I have not achieved Any of the things that the jake of five years ago thought I needed to achieve to exist in a place of happiness. And I said almost what you said just now frank, to her yesterday, which was I used to think that, like the job I was doing had to have some sort of purpose in life. I had to be making a difference in the world in this like Building houses in africa, sort of sort of way and what I'm realizing now that what I really need is a challenge. I need the ability to empower the people around me to find the things that they're passionate about. I need to, you know, be put into situations where I must transform and grow, become something I'm not currently so that I can make it better.

Jake: 19:26

And I find myself in that situation right now. I find myself in this place where I get to choose, where I put my efforts. At the same time, there's this also other aspect to me, which is sort of the freedom aspect. I think that when I look at myself on the Aggressive drive, generative drive, pleasure drive sort of spectrum, I gravitate toward the pleasure drive. I've always wanted more freedom, but there's this correlation for me between the more freedom I have and the less progressive or productive I really am. I tend to over indulge in things that just give me comfort. So in this sort of situation where I'm working for someone else right now and they're sort of saying like, hey, here's the vision, here's what we're trying to achieve, and I put that responsibility on my shoulders to say, okay, I'm gonna get us there, I don't have the freedom really to choose what I'm doing with my time.

Frank: 20:28

But I do love what I'm doing and I feel so much happiness in it yeah, I would only add one reframe, which is that you did choose it, sure, but I know what you mean. Like a moment to moment, you might have never thought I'm gonna be in this trello board what am I? Trello board or whatever? Yeah, but you did choose the objective, which is what I meant by the like. The freedom is totally there now, sure, I think sure yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying.

Jake: 21:01

I even agree with you. I do think it's a very abstract sort of distinction. I think of it in terms of that sort of like maslow's hierarchy of need. There is a place that you've described before is like when I have this much in the bank account, I can make pure decisions right, and I do feel like I'm at a place now where I can make close to pure decisions.

Frank: 21:25

They're not 100% pure, yeah they are always constrained, nose right. I mean, oh yeah, my money or Emotions or social standards or whatever, there's always constraints, but on the same level there and in a greater percentage, you can grow. This element to Is personal agency and so you know, yeah, there are constraints on our lives and they change, but our agency grow, can grow and can definitely grow in a way that's bigger than the constraints ever.

Jake: 22:00

If I put myself in the mindset of a person who is not currently happy in their life situation okay and wants to be happier. If we give ourselves this sort of paradigm where we say you either change the world around you, your environment, or you change yourself in the way that you're responding to the environment as the two major ways of going about something, if you change yourself, you change your environment.

Noah: 22:28

Typically.

Jake: 22:30

Eventually yeah.

Frank: 22:33

Let's say that it was hard to follow Jake without your additional information. But thank you, for I think I'm like that or mark twain was probably mark twain. What do you want from me? That's how I feel when I use. Why are you asking me questions about my professional life or whatever?

Jake: 23:01

The greatest step that I believe I have taken to go from not being terribly happy, not being very content, into feeling really great about my environment and, like I said earlier, probably the happiest that I've ever been in my life is to look at the ways that I chose to be where I am. When I have felt that the world is happening to me, I feel like a victim and I don't feel like I have agency. When I look at my day to day and I say, man, work is hard. Today, there is stuff that I really don't want to be doing. To ask myself what I would be doing if I had 100% freedom. I eventually you know, I might spend a couple of months like having my ties on the beach, but eventually I would want to challenge myself with something.

Noah: 24:01

Why not?

Jake: 24:02

this I put myself here previously. I chose to be here. I want challenge in my life, some part of me once challenge in my life, alright, rise to this one. Like for whatever reason, that mindset has brought me immense happiness.

Frank: 24:21

Yes, good, really good point. That's Kind of what I was trying to get out with the moment to moment freedom which is it's available now, regardless of the circumstances, if you're at the worst job ever. I don't know what. Is it chicken sexing or something? Maybe you know what chicken sexing is trash juice, something or other. Do you know what chicken sexing is?

Jake: 24:56

I think all chickens are female, aren't they?

Frank: 24:59

No, chickens are baby versions, I think. And then they become roosters.

Jake: 25:04

Roosters, that's right chicken I thought it was having sex like a chicken.

Frank: 25:09

No, chicken sexing is where. Thank you, jake, that fine offer story.

Jake: 25:18

Is my contribution.

Noah: 25:20

Elizabeth just heard that and went that sounds normal. Yeah.

Frank: 25:25

Chicken sexing is like there's a machine pumping out chickens at. You got conveyor belt of live little baby chickens right. You look at them for what sex they are, you throw them in the corresponding Assembly line, got it? It's a very human process in a machine driven world. But just chicken sexing.

Jake: 25:50

Okay, I don't think that's the worst job. Okay, what is something to do with trash juice? I'm sure of.

Frank: 25:57

Do you know what chicken factories smell like? Yeah, yeah you understand what it feels like to spend eight hours doing the exact same thing.

Jake: 26:06

It's terrible, it's really bad. You know trash mind you create the world, which is what my point is.

Frank: 26:14

so if you say I'm gonna be here chicken sexing today, yeah, how can I do it in a way that is most fun?

Jake: 26:22

yeah, oh.

Frank: 26:25

Yeah, huh. Then you introduce some sense of challenge in your day and even chicken sexing can be fulfilling and freeing.

Jake: 26:37

Chicken sexing shut up.

Frank: 26:41

I was trying to focus on chicken sexing.

Jake: 26:44

Yeah, not speaking, for instance, I'm having a conversation about chicken sexing right now and I'm not miserable, right, somehow it's the lack of chicken sexing.

Noah: 26:57

Empathy I actually think one up, one of your weaknesses, okay can be honest One of your weaknesses is examples okay, yeah, I'm just trying to help, you know.

Frank: 27:12

well, you're not helping, but you are trying to do something and I think that's good. I'm glad you're using your agency here.

Jake: 27:23

I think that sometimes you have great examples frank no, I'm certainly capable of that.

Frank: 27:30

I don't hate it yeah, I think this is real, this is really valuable and I think what we're actually talking about is talked about in this Yale happiness course and it's hedonic adaptation. And some of the recommendations are like to do a hedonic reset, which is to go to a very bad neighborhood and eat lunch or something and you can see how how much bet like you go, like return to bad neighborhood you grew up in and see how far you've come, because we do get sort of adapted to our surroundings.

Jake: 28:05

I did something like that yesterday. It was very interesting. Before we met my mom, we spent like two hours on google maps, elizabeth and I, and she showed me some of the places that she lived in new mexico, which was totally different than anywhere that I lived in. She was like here, this is the house I grew up in. Look how tiny that thing is. I was like I grew up in a tiny house. Now in my mind my house was small, but it wasn't this tiny.

Jake: 28:34

I looked it up on google maps and it is on this little ramshackle dead end road. The picture of it currently is it has half a roof on it and not much else. It's falling apart is a one bedroom home. That's about 650 square feet, and I started like, walking back through this place that I lived for the first six years in my life and I realized that my best friend at that time was later arrested for gang related murder. You know like that was where I lived and I almost walked that street yesterday to remember that and I was like whoa. You know, so many little shifts in my life took me away from that environment and that experience but I could have been a totally different person.

Frank: 29:27

Yeah, yeah, I mean, and those areas that we often think will make us happier, like the most prone to hedonic adaptation, like money, where you live, what job you have. If I had to go back to Caterpillar for a day and be an EMT, security officer, plant protective services, whatever guy, that was truly the opposite of freedom. I mean I was stuck inside the gates of Caterpillar. Yeah, I had to scan points around the plant at certain times of the day. I basically had to walk the entire plant or drive it or whatever route I had that day and bleep, bleep, bleep this little tags everywhere. If I just go back there for a minute, I mean, the amount of freedom I have right now is insane compared to the amount of freedom I had then.

Jake: 30:27

No joke.

Frank: 30:27

And I thought that it was great. Then it's the most money I made anywhere in my life. Yeah, so I don't know. Those things we often think will make us happier super prone to hedonic adaptation. So one way to enhance those areas of our lives is to do the hedonic resets where we go back, I suppose, physically or mentally. But none of those areas that are super prone to hedonic adaptation are the ones that actually make us happy. Yeah, so if you listened to this podcast, then you should go take the Yale Science Well-Being course, because it's much better than us at describing what will make you truly happy. These are some of the things that actually make us happy in the research, jake, do you wanna read them?

Jake: 31:26

Things that actually make us happy and how to be happier. Rethink what awesome stuff is.

Frank: 31:33

What do you mean by that one?

Noah: 31:35

The first one I need to initially think what awesome stuff is.

Jake: 31:39

Okay.

Frank: 31:40

You do already. You think freedom is awesome stuff. Never in that term. I know, but what if you rethought it?

Noah: 31:49

Trying, I still think freedom Okay.

Jake: 31:54

Yeah, I mean, it's so weird. I know I sound like an insane person, but I talk about being in painful situations as being exceptional opportunities. Like I'm not joking when I say that, I feel it with every fiber of my being. When something starts to go wrong, when I feel depressed, when I'm on the edge of a panic attack, I smile and I say this is awesome. I can't wait to see what happens from it. And it's not some sort of compulsive defensive mechanism anymore, it is a life lived. Looking at the experience of saying something terrible happened, I responded to it, I transformed, I grew, I became something better and like I don't know if there's a thing that could truly destroy my life anymore. I love those moments.

Frank: 32:42

Yeah Well, you made a fizzy. You're making a physiological change in response which also prepares you for the adversity. Like if you're going to Be in shitty situation, a, it would be best to be at your peak. Yeah, um, and be like okay, well, I've been through shitty situations before. I know this is going to work out. I know anyone who ever told me as a little kid that I would die and go to hell for this Doesn't seem to be correct. Um, I'm going to think this is actually going to cause me to grow and it's great. Like, let's do it. Yeah, this attitude is huge, I mean.

Jake: 33:24

Yeah, but I apply that, that same concept to like freedom. When I feel a lack of freedom and I mean I'm in an eGram seven. Like freedom is our ultimate goal, from like that compulsive need perspective, then I've come to the conclusion. Whether or not it's true and whether or not anybody else needs to is a different matter. But I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as 100% freedom, like there are those constraints or whatever adversities. And if I come to that conclusion, then what I say is striving towards something that can never be is a moot point. It is. It is a vain effort. So when I find myself in a situation where all I'm thinking about is I wish I had freedom to be doing something else, it's instead saying but I'm here, let's use this. What is this opportunity? Let's make lemonade.

Frank: 34:23

Yeah, I don't think it doesn't exist, but I think it's incredibly boring yeah.

Jake: 34:30

If you have true freedom.

Frank: 34:32

I mean, I've sort of done it a few times where I had no obligations to anyone. It is so boring.

Jake: 34:40

Well, this is like one of the theodicies posited by Thomas Aquinas a long time ago, whenever they were trying to figure out, like you know, if God is like this all good, all knowing, all powerful entity, why would he create a world that has pain? And it's like because it got freaking bored, like what we have to acknowledge is that if you had the ability to have an orgasm 100% of the time that you were alive, even that would have the adonic adaptation and you would be like, okay, I need contrast, I have to have it. It's like you can't have something called good without bad, and so they came up with this idea called the best of all possible worlds. The best of all possible worlds actually does have boredom, actually does have pain, does have all these things that we would call negative, but they allow us to experience what's positive.

Frank: 35:37

Yeah, yeah, and has seasons Spring is after winter.

Jake: 35:44

Yeah, yeah, when you think those people in Southern California are pretty happy, though they look happy?

Frank: 35:49

I don't think so, man. I think they get bored.

Jake: 35:52

Yeah.

Frank: 35:53

They might be happy, though. They get more sun than us Sun, so much. Do you think they're happy or no? Their heat on a cat adaptation problems must be really high.

Jake: 36:06

Oh, that's interesting.

Frank: 36:07

That's an interesting idea. Yeah, I think the next point is to invest in experiences over things. Thwart your hedonic adaptation.

Jake: 36:17

The ways that you might do that are to savor enjoyable moments, take a second to really be there and enjoy it. Do you guys have any mechanisms for, like, bringing yourself back into the moment, grounding activities? For me it's finding an object in the room, like, right now, if I am in the room, I'm going to be in the room Right now if I. For some reason, it's not people. People are weird. But if I look at that chair right now, all of a sudden I feel the space of the room that I'm in and I'm like oh wow, I've been in my head for a long time. I'm here right now. What's up, guys?

Frank: 36:54

Usually more tactile for me. Okay, I'll feel table surface desk Interesting, something with grooves.

Noah: 37:03

Okay, Feels real. I like activity.

Jake: 37:08

Really that's so interesting. I think I go somewhere else during activity.

Frank: 37:14

I mean you can use the breath. A lot of people use the breath. I've also done like the spotlight type meditations. Where have you done this?

Jake: 37:23

I don't think so.

Frank: 37:26

You essentially like. It's usually guided, but you can do it on your own. Pretend that there's a spotlight on a part of your body and then it moves throughout your body and you feel all the sensations in the area the light is on. Gotcha Sort of reminds me to, brings me back to the idea that I'm a person with a body.

Jake: 37:46

Sort of like a body scan type of thing.

Frank: 37:48

Yeah, I think so Cool.

Jake: 37:52

Use negative visualization.

Frank: 37:54

I don't know if that thing we just talked about at all is what save ring enjoyable moments are, but it could be.

Jake: 38:01

Well, I think it's a vehicle to get to a place where you can.

Frank: 38:07

Yeah, I mean. To me this feels more just like it's really nice to be here with my friends making a podcast.

Jake: 38:15

Yeah, how nice I get that For me. I exist, so like that's, that's just another thought for me, like I have to bring myself into the space physically.

Frank: 38:32

Okay.

Jake: 38:35

Otherwise it blends in with the rest of my experience.

Frank: 38:38

What would make you savor it? Looking at the chair.

Jake: 38:43

No, it would be acknowledging my state of mind, my state of physiology, whatever is correlated with what's happening in this environment, right now with me.

Frank: 38:57

Can you do it Like into the microphone?

Jake: 39:00

What do you like right now?

Frank: 39:02

Yeah, yeah.

Jake: 39:04

Like well, number one, I spend so little time in the space that I'm in that it's like a it's, it's a trip to come back into it. But like to realize that there are other human beings, in this freaking mystery of the world that I have connected with and been in a relationship with for 15 years, are like still here in it and actively engaging with me, and we're going through this thing called life, trying to figure it out a little bit, trying to talk about it. We've made this moment in time every single week to come together and do this Like that is really exceptional and I'm overwhelmingly grateful for it. This is so cool.

Frank: 39:48

Same here. That sounds a lot like savory. I'm glad you did that. Yeah, you shared that with us. Yeah, I feel the same way too, but do you feel happier now that you did that? I do, actually. Isn't that crazy?

Jake: 40:02

There's a. I think my heart rate increased. I think, yeah, there's like more emotions flowing.

Frank: 40:08

Yeah, seems like that one works.

Jake: 40:12

It does. Yeah, there you go, guys.

Frank: 40:15

Use negative visualization.

Jake: 40:17

Ah, it's like creating. I can do this one Creating contrast, even when there might not be any in this moment.

Frank: 40:26

Sure, yeah, what if my friends died? What would I? What would next Sunday be like? Hmm, you know, yeah, if you guys were both gone, you think I'd come here Do the podcast by myself. I don't know.

Jake: 40:42

Depends on how you need a degree. I hope so, man. I really hope so. Hey guys, yeah.

Frank: 40:46

I think that's negative visualization. Yeah, I think that's negative visualization.

Jake: 40:50

Yeah.

Frank: 40:52

And it makes me happy that you're alive.

Jake: 40:55

Think as if today was your last day to increase gratitude. I don't know exactly what that means.

Frank: 41:01

Yeah, so pretend you were going to die today and you had to go to your job. Um, what would you be grateful for there?

Jake: 41:11

Interesting.

Frank: 41:13

What would you do different?

Jake: 41:16

Oh, yeah, yeah, you start to notice. You know the things that you actually enjoy about that place.

Frank: 41:21

Yeah, there's not going to be a tomorrow, so I probably should tell this guy I like him.

Jake: 41:26

Yeah, even though. Bruce tells the same joke every single day, sometimes five times a day. You know what it's actually kind of endearing. What is the joke? Uh, what we got here is an IDT situation. Get it. Uh oh, I guess I didn't have my Karnak turbine on. I gotta see the future. You know what this made me think of, though, is the death bed sort of situation, which isn't quite the same, but it is when faced with a decision. Visualize yourself on your death bed. Which decision will you have wished that you made?

Frank: 42:14

Oh yeah that's good Practice. Gratitude daily. Do you want to take this one?

Noah: 42:20

Yeah, gratitude. It's impossible to be in a negative mindset. If you're grateful, your body literally, if you're truly grateful, your body only has one way to respond. It's part of my meditation practice. How do you do it? Just think about things I'm grateful for.

Jake: 42:49

Is one of the I appreciate Ways that our emotions and our physiological behaviors, or whatever, are inextricably linked. There was a time in my life when I truly did hate the job I was in Waking up every day. It was so hard to make myself, I mean, it was just drudgery, the first thing that I did every morning before anything. The alarm would go off and I made myself smile. It's so weird what happens when your body is smiling. Your mind goes oh, why are we smiling? We must be happy. What is there to be grateful for? And it sort of pushes you into that questioning and you start creating lists why am I happy?

Frank: 43:34

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. I do a similar thing. I do like three minutes. Almost every day starts with the exact same memory. I sort of re-experience it. It's not that meaningful, it just was really something I was grateful for, and then I just jump between them as many as I can sort of fully embody for three minutes. It's really good, really helpful to feel. It counters the idea that the world is happening to you in some way. It makes you feel like you're a part of it. Yeah, or something.

Jake: 44:24

Anyways.

Frank: 44:24

I like it. You should do it. Try it if you don't do it.

Jake: 44:27

That is. I think I do something like that intuitively. I couldn't even tell you. I'm going to pay attention now to what that first thought every day is. But there's something and I get to it. Richard Rohr he says that he meditates every day, or prays every day until he gets to a yes. And he says that some days it takes longer to get to a yes. But what I take that yes to mean is like oh, I am grateful. Oh I am an active participant. Oh, I do get to be this.

Frank: 44:56

Do you know what he means by the yes?

Jake: 44:59

Well, that's what I'm describing. I think it's different for everyone. I got you, but it's like I say yes to this place, to my experience in it, to participating and contributing.

Frank: 45:13

Yeah, Whatever that means for you. The thing I'm most grateful for probably in my life it's always the first memory is either it's always fast, it's always in the sunshine, it's either like jet skiing or riding a motorcycle, that sort of that feeling just something that I really enjoy. It feels free.

Jake: 45:36

It's nice.

Frank: 45:38

And then I jumped to all kinds of other things, but that one's like really easy for me to experience.

Jake: 45:44

It's cool.

Frank: 45:45

Yeah, reset your reference points. We talked about this.

Jake: 45:50

That's huge. That is absolutely huge. If you're scrolling through Instagram every day and the only people you're following are showing you their mansion and their fast cars and how much money they just rolled in or whatever. It's again that balance between enjoying your life where you're at and identifying where you want to go. Well, maybe I want to follow these people because they motivate me to go somewhere else. However, if I say they're happy and I'm not even implicitly, somewhere in my mind that contrast is going to tell me I won't be happy until I get to where they are. That is an insidious little monster that can grow if you let it.

Frank: 46:37

I used to have really weird feelings about, like, going to dinner with people from where I'm from.

Jake: 46:42

Hmm.

Frank: 46:44

Um, because almost every time, money is a part of the conversation Ah, we can't afford it. Um, like, I like to go to roots and Springfield with people from Decatur, yeah, and I used to be like just so annoyed by this money problem as a part of it. Um, because I wasn't feeling empathetic about it. I was just like it's not that much money or fine, like you'll figure it out, which is just like the most asshole thing possible. You could say, um, but now I just buy, I'm like I we're, I'm going to take care of dinner, so let's go. Yeah, um, and then they have this awesome experience I get to help someone and they get to spend their money on what they need.

Frank: 47:38

Yeah, um, I don't know it. It's something I had to transform because it was not fulfilling to anyone in the way I was doing it, and now it sort of is a reset for me. Yeah, um, lots of things like this, though Uh, that we tend to just be tribal about things, and so, um, I think sometimes it makes a lot of sense to go to different areas of the hierarchy in life or whatever. I don't even like that. There's a hierarchy, don't don't misunderstand that, but sort of going to. I can go back to very poor neighborhoods, very poor homes, really easily. In my mind it's of being a paramedic yeah, um, and that's super valuable to do, like it's really easy to be grateful for not that much if you understand what it's like to have a nothing yeah, um. Then the dopamine detox is next.

Jake: 48:42

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the. I don't like adaptation piece. I mean, like, dopamine is a chemical, just like caffeine or alcohol, something like that. Like, if I drink four cups of coffee every single day, I've got a baseline that says, in order to feel normal, I have to have four cups of coffee. Um, same with uh for alcoholic drinks or whatever. Um, I'm going to want that. If I reset that and I don't have coffee for a month, um, when I come back, that first hit of coffee is probably going to hit me pretty hard. So if I'm finding that it's really hard, I need more, more, more to, and I'm never sass satisfied, this ravenous beast inside of me that always needs more. It would probably be a good idea to find out what I'm giving myself, that I don't even realize that that is requiring me to always go after more.

Frank: 49:41

Yeah, I'll never forget the time that I ate meat, salt and pepper and water. That was the only oral intake for 14 days. And then I ate um, just plain, like field greens, salad greens, and I mean it was Skittles. I mean the amount of sugar was Skittles level. Sweet, this one's real for sure. Take a break, come back to it, it's better.

Jake: 50:09

Yeah, I think that, um, like we said, you know, if, if you're finding that you are not content, if you're having a hard time, if you find yourself dreading waking up every day or just thinking negative thoughts about your environment, it's sometimes very difficult to change that environment and sometimes that can make you feel hopeless, like you're drowning and you can't see a way out. The best way to get your head above water to be able to make decisions, to change your environment is to change the way you feel about where you're at currently, and I think that a lot of those I mean I've, like I said, like we did, you know, like I expressed just verbally it sounds stupid, but do it in a room by yourself, whatever, if you feel embarrassed by it, just start saying out loud the things that you're thankful for, and you will have a positive response to it and maybe then you can see a clearer path to changing that environment as well.

Frank: 51:09

Yeah, yeah. These methods for sort of resetting, hedonic adaptation, are huge for getting initial momentum or initial motivation, I think, to really pursue the things that actually make us happy, which I think we should talk about next week on the Unbecoming Platypus podcast.

Jake: 51:29

I'll be there.