Shadowing Practice: Jordan Peterson: Fix Yourself Before It's Too Late - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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You only have to ask a stupid question once.
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You ask a stupid question, and if you're in a crowd and you ask a stupid question, 80% of the people in the crowd have the same question.
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They're just too cowardly to ask.
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But you ask and then someone actually tells you.
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You never have to ask that question again.
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You're no longer stupid.
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What stupid thing am I doing that I could quit doing?
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That I would quit doing?
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Because those aren't the same thing, right?
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Because you know there's stupid things that you're doing
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that you're just not going to quit doing doing
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because you like them but there might be something on the edge there where you could stop that.
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If you want to know something about yourself sit on your bed one night
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and say to yourself you got to mean this like you got to be desperate this is no game this.
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My life is not everything I want it to be
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and perhaps it's not everything that I need it to be
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and by need I mean my life is so unbearable that the suffering that's attended upon that is make me nihilistic cynical,
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bitter, resentful, driving the proclivity to see evil everywhere except within my own heart.
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Like, these are problems, man.
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And you ask yourself, you sit on the bed and say, okay, man, I'm ready to learn something.
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What's one thing I'm doing wrong that I know I'm doing wrong that I could fix that I would fix.
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It's like you meditate on that you'll get an answer
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and it won't be one you want
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but it'll be the necessary one you know and it's often something
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that will point you to small things like
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that works you start making those micro improvements like real micro
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improvements real on the ground actual micro improvements to things you know that are wrong, you'll improve unbelievably rapidly.
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The great people I know are brutally truthful to themselves and other people, and they have insanely adventurous lives.
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Get rid of everything you say that you only say to impress other people, and just see if you can say what you believe to be true.
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That's an adventure.
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That's the thing about the truth, you know?
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Well, you've got to ask yourself, if you're not speaking the truth, who is it that's talking? if you're saying something
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that you do not believe to be true it's not you
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talking it's something else it might be the part of you
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that wants to manipulate the other person into delivering what you think you want from them well what is
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that spirit of manipulation
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that you've allowed to possess you it's not you let's say you decide to live your whole life in
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that instrumental manner you're going to craft your words like the
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student who says well i'm going to write what the professor wants to hear
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so i get the grade it's like well you just turn yourself into
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that well who is it that's doing that manipulating it's not you
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because those aren't your words so even
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if you get the grade it's not you
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that got the grade it's the false you it's the manipulative you
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so you do that your whole life you don't have your life
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and then you think well god
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that was a miserable life i manipulated everybody they were
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so damn stupid they were sucked in by it they're all contemptible everyone does it you know
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which they don't by the way and so that's a pathway to bitterness
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Partly because if you're a manipulator and you use your language falsely, you don't live your own life You live the life of whatever possesses you
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When you think it's you manipulating and so you live the life of the spirit of manipulation
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There's a book it's it's a book called about face It's it's about a guy
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that was in the Korean war and then he was in the Vietnam war and his name is Colonel David Hackworth
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When I was on deployment, I would read open up that book anywhere
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and I would read two pages or three pages before I'd go to bed
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If I was in my bed that night And and there were
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so many lessons that correlated to what I was actually going through in a real obvious example was
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when you read You can learn and you don't have to You don't have to go through the school of hard knocks.
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You don't have to get punched in the face repeatedly with things
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that turn out to be the situations that other people have absolutely gone through.
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The level of capability increases so much by seeing something one single time.
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Well, if I see something one time, I'm infinitely better than if I'd never seen it before.
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It's like those little puzzles, they give you a little puzzle, some kind of a mind bender, right?
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The mind benders only work on you one time, the riddle only works on you one time, time then you go I know the answer to
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that that's the answer you know you never get fooled by
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that again so just knowing just seeing it one time you're infinitely better so
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when you read enough you're capturing all these lessons of course
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you want to put the book on you want to become
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that person that can rattle you up man especially
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if the person is thinking all sorts of things
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that you've never thought I mean I love reading for
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that reason I could pick my peers too
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which I really loved it's like well you know i have these people around me
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but then there's these people who who've lived before me
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and in different places
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and i can set them up on my shelf i can enter into their world
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and i can benefit from everything they've thought and saturate myself with
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that person it's and it's very disruptive especially if the person
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that you're reading has a mind that's more powerful
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and more well developed than your own it was very disruptive but unbelievably useful
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unbelievably useful to try on other people like that
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and you get the benefit of their entire life distilled into
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their into their book you know it's 30 years of work
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i read this one book called the neural psychology of anxiety
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which is a it's a great scientific work it's very hard book i think it has 1800 references something like
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that and this guy jeffrey gray he actually read all those references
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and he understood them and so it took me six months to read the book
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but i got an entire education out of it.
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I got to experience in six months what it took him 30 years to learn.
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Like what a gift that is.
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It's unbelievable.
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What were you reading when you were in university?
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Was it fiction?
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Novels?
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Was it nonfiction?
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What were you focusing on?
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As trite as this may sound, it was actually the most impact was from Shakespeare.
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It was the most impact on multiple levels.
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And I'll tell you the primary level.
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And when I've covered Shakespeare on my podcast, I explain this to people.
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People think, well, you know, I didn't really understand, but I read it and understand it.
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If you think you're going to just pick up Shakespeare, open it up and read it and understand it, you're not going to because it's barely written in English.
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It's barely written in English.
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It's almost another language.
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So what you have to do is you have to start to interpret it.
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And so what I realized with Shakespeare is, number one, the weight of the words, that these words were so pregnant with meaning
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that you had to pull those words and parse those words
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and pull those words apart to see all the depth
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that each individual word had and then the way
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that they're put together and what was great about this was by the time I was back
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because then I went right back into the SEAL teams
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and somebody would hand me a rules of engagement document and
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that was written by some lawyer in Washington DC
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and I'd pull it out and say wait a second this word I don't know what this word means.
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Let's pull this word out.
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Let's see what this, let's see what this actual definition of this particular word is
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and how that changes my viewpoint of these rules of engagement.
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And how can I translate that for my troops so that they actually know what to do?
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So that part for me was from a reading perspective, starting to read Shakespeare and saying, oh, okay, you're not going to understand this.
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And if you don't understand something, that's okay.
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You pull out the Oxford English dictionary and you look it up
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and then you not just find out what the meaning of the word is
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but what's the root word and where does it come from
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and what kind of depth and what kind of yeah
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and that's really that's that's unbelievably useful too virtually every word is like that
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because word is an ancient artifact it's like it's it's it's
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like an it's like an animal in some sense it has an evolutionary history
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and it transforms across time
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and each word kind of it carries the echoes of its past with it too
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because each word um attracts other words in a particular unique way
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so it kind of lives in a word ecosystem as well
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and the ecosystem contain information about the history of that word
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and you think well why is
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that important it's like well hey guess what you think in
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words you talk in words you have all these archaic entities these words these living entities
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that you use it's like the more you know about them
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the more you know about you the more you know about other people
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and the better you are formulating and communicating your ideas.
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There's nothing lost in that kind of investigation.
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There's nothing but gain there.
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Your ambition, if you have any sense, is actually to become competent.
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Do you want to be competent and dangerous or do you want to be vague and useless?
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It is definitely the case that there is no more exceptional form of the capacity to be dangerous than to be articulate.
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And so it's a moral endeavor in some real sense.
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To become articulate is to become the master of your own tongue.
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Every advantage comes with a disadvantage.
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So if you're extroverted, you're social and you're positive, but you're impulsive and you can tilt towards hedonism and you can't stand being alone.
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No matter where you land in the temperamental landscape, you're going to have your associated faults and temptations.
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You've got a goal and you'll see that as you progress towards the goal, there'll be obstacles that emerge and some of them you don't want to confront.
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That's why it's useful to order your room.
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Chaotic room makes you anxious.
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Why?
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Too many pathways, man.
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People don't really repress the things they don't want to face they just fail to unpack them.
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You want a horizon of ever-expanding possibility.
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We're built to walk uphill and
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when you reach the pinnacle of the hill you want to stop
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and appreciate the vision but the next thing you want is a higher hill in the distance.
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Beware of unintended consequences.
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It's like oh no this thing will just do what I want it to do and nothing else.
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It's like no. Turns out
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that not only is what we want from each other the real thing
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but that's also the adventure of your life and so if If you aren't truthful, and that means, unfortunately, especially at the beginning, when you start to be truthful,
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it means deeply coming to terms with your inadequacies, in humility, so it's very painful.
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Without that, you don't have the adventure of your life.
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You have the role that you've acquiesced to.
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And that'll take all the meaning out of your life.
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It's good for you to go take your place in the world.
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Have some ambition.
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Have a vision.
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Have a goal.
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Have a strategy.
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Try to be a good person.
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Not because it's your duty precisely because that's the proper way to live.
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You sit on the bed and say okay man I'm ready to learn something.
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What's one thing I'm doing wrong that I know I'm doing wrong that I I could fix, you meditate on that, you'll get an answer.
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You grow in proportion to the weight you take on voluntarily
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and it's also true that we have no idea what the upper limit to that is.
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It's from the uphill climb that we derive our value and I mean this technically.
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So almost all the positive emotion we feel, especially the emotion that fills us with enthusiasm and that's experienced in relationship to a goal.
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And so in some sense, you want a goal that you can never attain.
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So you can always move closer to the goal that recedes as you move towards it.
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You think, well that's frustrating, it's like Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill.
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But it's not, because as you pursue that goal, you put yourself together and your life does get better and richer and more abundant.
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That's why the highest levels of virtue and goal are in some sense transcendent.
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You want them to be above everything you're doing so you can continually move towards something that's more sublime and better.
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That's what you are.
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You're here to live, not to sleep.
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And the problem with the vision of Mai Tais on the beach is that, well, first of all, that's a vision of drug-induced unconsciousness.
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Second, it's only going to work for about a week.
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Third, you're going to be a laughingstock in a month and depressed and aimless and goalless.
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It's no, that's not it's it's you want a horizon of ever-expanding possibility
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and so it does happen to people as they
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because they've staked their soul on the attainment of an instrumental goal
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and it can be a pretty high order goal
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but then you think now i'm there now what well the
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answer can't be well i'm going to live in the lap of luxury
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and never have to leave the fit what do you want
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to be a giant infant with a gold with a gold bottle you never have to do anything
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but lay in your back and suck.
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It's like you see the problem with that as a conceptualization.
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It's no, you want to be like an active warrior moving uphill with your sword in hand and that's dynamic, that's exciting.
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People are afraid of the truth because often if you reveal it it causes conflict in the moment.
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Telling the truth is definitely an adventure.
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Seeking for sure but also telling.
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Another way of going about it is to just say what you think and see what happens.
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That's an adventure because you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
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So look, there's this old idea that it's necessary to have faith in the truth.
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And so here's a way of thinking about that.
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Someone asks you a question and you might think, well, here's the outcome I want.
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And so here's how I'm going to answer that question.
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So that's one way of approaching it.
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But another way of approaching it is you ask me a question.
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I'm going to think about the answer and I'm just going to tell you what I think.
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And it doesn't matter what the outcome is
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because I'm willing to see what the outcome will be predicated on the idea
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that there isn't a better outcome than the one that truth produces.
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Even if it's harsh and terrible in the short term, and sometimes it is, it's like there isn't a better way of doing it.
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Now, you might say, well, how do you know that?
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And the answer is, well, I don't know that.
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That's why it's an article of faith, because I believe, and I believe this deeply, the being
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that you produce as a consequence of telling the truth is good by definition even though it's harsh
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and and often uncomfortable because you get in trouble one of the things
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that i've really learned recently or learned to articulate better is
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that there's a very tight relationship between aspiration
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and responsibility the first question might be do you need to aspire to something
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and the answer is well yes because you have to do something okay
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if you just sit there you'll die you can't just sit
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there you have to go act out in the world okay so act towards what?
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Well, that's whatever your aspiration is.
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You have to have an aim.
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Okay, well, what should the aim be?
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Well, it should be something worth doing, let's say.
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Why do something that you don't feel is worth doing?
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What do you think is worth doing?
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Well, if you watch other people and you judge when they're doing something worthwhile, usually judge them positively if you see that they're taking responsibility, at least for themselves.
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What, do you want to be completely useless so other people have to take care of you?
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That's pretty pathetic.
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And maybe you could get your act together so you're taking care of yourself and your family.
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And maybe you could even do better than that and take care of yourself and your family and your community.
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Well, good for you.
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That's responsibility and that's an aim.
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Well, here's one of the things that's cool about that is that your life doesn't have meaning without aspiration or an aim.
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Okay, so you need a hierarchy of values.
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There's got to be something at the top.
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It's got to be something important.
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If you don't have that, your life doesn't have any meaning.
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So if you criticize the hierarchy
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or even the ideas of idea of hierarchy you destroy the idea of aspiration
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and then people have nothing well that's not helpful people are built for a struggle
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and they're built for a weight
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and you want to take on a heavy burden voluntarily see
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if you can put yourself together see what you can do out in the world
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while you're waiting to die it's an all-in game it better be worthwhile
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if you gaze into the abyss long enough you see the light not the the darkness.
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I'm betting my life on it.
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Bring it on.
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The adventure along the route, man.
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And I would say, where's that adventure to be found?
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You don't want someone else's fate.
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Man, your fate's enough and your adventure's enough.
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It's plenty.
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It's more than you can ever fully realize.
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And so that's also part of the reason that we all believe that the individual has some intrinsic dignity.
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It's Don't be so sure that your position and your room is so damn trivial Might be your attitude towards it.
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It's trivial and if you're in dire straits and dire circumstances
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Just look at how much opportunity you have to make things better Well, maybe the same thing is true life, right?
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You bind yourself to it and
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that tighter you bind yourself to it the more you find out what it is and that's like a radical embrace
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we're built to walk uphill and
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when you reach the pinnacle of the hill you want to stop
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and appreciate the vision but the next thing you want is a higher hill in the distance
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because it's from the uphill climb
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that we derive our value almost all the positive emotion we feel especially the emotion
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that fills us with enthusiasm that's experienced in relationship to a goal
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and so in some sense you want a goal
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that you can never attain there's nothing that makes you more formidable than verbal competence and being able to articulate,
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be able to think, to marshal your arguments, right?
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Aim yourself in one direction and you might say, well, I've gone halfway down this path and I found out it's wrong.
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Well, how do you distinguish that from just giving up?
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Well, that's a really hard question, right?
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It's a moral hazard.
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But then the absolute is, yeah, but you have to play one of them.
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You have to learn to play one of them.
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You have to become an expert at least one of them.
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And then that's not a relative proposition.
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And I believe that's true.
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So you want to commit to something.
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And then when you commit to something, you require yourself to bring all of your disparate components moving in a single direction,
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united in a single direction.
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So it's a unifying act.
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You said that a harmless man is not a good man.
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A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.
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How should people become more dangerous?
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Oh, becoming more articulate is definitely, I would say, that's the primary array of weapons.
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I mean, physical prowess is something, and it's not nothing, that physical confidence that comes along with that as well.
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but the same thing replicated at the level of the ability to communicate and to think.
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That's a way broader field of battle and opportunity.
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In a world with seemingly infinite options, it can be challenging to decide on the best course of action for one's life.
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Pearson suggests that a useful approach is to focus on what bothers you or what you find most challenging.
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These discomforts or challenges can be an indication of where one should focus their time and energy.
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By leaning into what is difficult or uncomfortable, individuals can discover their strengths and find direction in their lives.
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Be honest with yourself about your interests, abilities, and limitations, and pursue the path that aligns most closely with your values and passions.
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There's a lot of things you could be bothered by.
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Like a million things, man.
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some things grip you they bug you and they might make you resentful
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and bitter because they bug you
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so much like they're your things man they've got you
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so then i look for a question
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that i would like the answer to i would really like the answer to it
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so i don't assume i already have the answer
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because i would actually really like to have the answer so if i could get a better answer
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great and so that's the first thing
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and that's like a prayer it's like okay here's a mystery i would like to delve into it further well
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so that's humility it's like here's a mystery
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which means i don't know i would like to delve into it further
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which means i don't know enough already
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and then then comes the revelation it's like well what's a revelation well
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if you ask yourself a question it's a real question do you get an answer
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or not the answer is well yeah thoughts start to appear in your head
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so from somewhere that's right from somewhere where do they come
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from do you have a sense depends on what you're aiming at it depends it depends on your intent so imagine
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that your intent is to make things better then maybe they
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come from the place that's designed to make things better maybe
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your intent is to make things worse then they come from hell.
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Let's say you want to become who you could be in the fullest sense.
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So let's say you're someone who's going to solve some serious problems.
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OK, the first thing you have to do is admit to the seriousness of the problems.
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That's no joke.
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And so the first thing is just the terror of the problem itself.
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And that's enough to paralyze you.
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And that's the hydra, that's the gorgon with the head of snakes.
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It'll paralyze you and turn you to stone.
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That's the basilisk in the Harry Potter series.
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You look at it and it turns you to stone and lurks underneath everything.
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And it's malevolence and tragedy.
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And so there's that.
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And then the next is, well, you're going to take responsibility for that?
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You're really going to do that, are you?
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That's a hell of a load, man.
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And so it's daunting to even consider that.
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And then there's the discipline and responsibility that that necessitates, which is also daunting.
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It's like, oh my God, the problem's that serious?
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I'm really going to have to get my act together in order to not contribute to it, much less solve it.
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And so the problem is terrible, and then the solution is daunting.
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But the upside of that is like
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well there isn't anything better to have than a problem that's worth solving
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like that's really worth solving right and so the more of
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that you take on the more you have a reason to
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get out of bed in the morning no matter what i think i'm getting up i'm trudging forward
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doesn't matter what i'm suffering from i've got things
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that need to be done they're necessary and that gives you that sense of purpose that is the antidote to bitterness
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okay well let's say you want your life to be meaningful it's like okay
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then what you do matters it actually matters
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so that's an interesting thing well
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so let's say you go over your past with a fine-tooth comb
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and you decide you're going to take responsibility for everything
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that you did that was wrong and everything that you failed to do
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that you could have done that was right like does that change the world?
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It's like, depends on how thoroughly you do it.
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You might say it changes the world like nothing else possibly can.
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And I think that that's actually right.
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You have to allow yourself a certain latitude for error.
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And that's a useful thing to know too.
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One of the things I tell people
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when they're trying to develop a vision for their life or an implementable plan is make a bad plan.
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Make the best one you can, but don't get obsessive about it.
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It's like, make a plan, implement it you'll figure out when you implement it why it's stupid exactly
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and then you can fix it a little bit compare yourself to who you were yesterday
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and not to who someone else is today the same basic idea right is
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that you have to get your markers for success right
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because otherwise you can end up in the situation you described which is
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that like there's always people out there who are doing far
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better than you on pretty much anything you want to imagine and if
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all you're doing is seeing yourself in their reflected light, let's say, then it's going to be pretty damn dismal.
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But it's not a good comparison because you shouldn't just compare it.
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Well, first of all, there's danger in just comparing yourself to others, period, because they're not you
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and God only knows what struggles they had to undertake to get to where they were
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or what burdens they're currently carrying that you're not aware of.
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You just don't know any of that.
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But you can certainly contrast yourself with yourself.
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And that's a lot better.
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It is the only way.
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Well, it's also the only way of really measuring anything approximating proper improvement.
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You can actually tell when you're a little better than you were yesterday.
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And you can actually do that.
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That's another thing that's so interesting about it, is that you can actually make yourself a little better in some way,
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pretty much, well, I don't know if it's at every moment, but you can certainly do it every day.
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It's funny, I mean, you know, obviously, if you have a problem and you think about it, you can think up a solution.
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And it's not obvious how you do that.
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You know, I mean, it's not like you know how you're manipulating your neurons or something.
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It happens of its own accord in some sense, like you can participate in it, I guess, and you can interfere with it, and it seems to take a certain amount of willpower,
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but it still all happens mysteriously behind the scenes.
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One of the things that I've been...
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So, you know, there's lots of different ways to interpret the world, and you can maybe even make a case
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that there's an endless number of ways to interpret the world
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and the problem with that is
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that it kind of disorients you in terms of what you should be doing but just
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because there's a very large number of ways to interpret the
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world doesn't mean there's a very large number of productive meaningful
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and sustainable ways to interpret the world
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and one of the things you do have to do is figure out how you can conduct yourself today
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so that you don't upset the apple cart in a week or a month or a year
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and so you know what what you do in some sense psychologically is you admit to yourself
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that your current frame of reference is faulty
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and then you start opening the door to a different kind of thinking
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which is more creative thinking it's more lateral thinking saying well i'm wrong
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but that's not necessarily a problem because i could be right
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if i thought some other way well you know that's great
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often it works yeah there's there's almost no lack there's almost no into the utility of trying to figure out
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which ways that you're wrong because there's lots of them
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and every time you discover one then you don't have to be quite
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so wrong anymore that's a really good deal yeah what's your
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time worth you're a university student well certainly worth minimum wage
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because obviously but it's worth way more than that because
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if you spend a productive hour when you're 20 then you gain the benefits of
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that hour for the rest of your life so there's the compounding effect of time spent when you're young.
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So I say, well, let's assume your time's worth 50 bucks an hour, which I think is an underestimate, but whatever, let's call it 50.
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We call it 25, but we'll call it 50.
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That's $2,000 a week.
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You're wasting.
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It's $100,000 a year.
423
It's like, how much better would your life be if you weren't wasting $100,000 a year?
424
The Da Vinci Code, everyone liked that.
425
It sold a lot.
426
And you know, it was full of little mysteries
427
and it's full of hints that there was more to the world than you think
428
and which is definitely true and
429
that you know there was a way of getting access to
430
that knowledge and it would really be worthwhile and people like
431
that they like that idea and the reason for that is
432
because it's actually it's true learn to write I'm dead serious like I'm dead serious about
433
that because Because writing is formalized thinking.
434
And so the way you write is, first of all you need a problem.
435
Because why write if you don't have a problem?
436
So this is good advice if you're just writing an essay, by the way, for your classes.
437
Pick a bloody problem that you want to write about.
438
Because otherwise it's false right from the start.
439
It's up to you to engage with the material until you find something that grips you.
440
That you desire to investigate.
441
Okay, so you need a problem.
442
Well, the next thing you need to do is we need to have something to say about the problem. So
443
reading Reading is really good for that read as much as you can get your hands on that addresses the problem Okay,
444
so now now you now you know a bunch of things or at least provisionally You at least have access to it.
445
Well now you start you start sorting through it's like okay.
446
Well
447
Maybe I need to summarize what I've learned and then I need to iron out the
448
contradictions between what I've learned and I need to
449
elegantly formulate that and I need to get my word choice right
450
and my phrase choice right and my sentence choice right
451
and I need to organize the sentences into proper paragraphs and the paragraphs into proper
452
sequence so that I have a coherent argument
453
and at the same time what you're doing is is your your your your
454
You're integrating your own personality at the highest and most abstract level of organization
455
And you're sharpening your tools and you're putting yourself straight
456
because you're learning to think You learn to do that by writing many many years you hone your words
457
They're the most powerful thing about you bar none
458
if you are an effective writer and speaker and communicator you you have all the authority and competence that there is.
459
And so you're at university, maybe you're taking humanities degree.
460
Well, what's the humanities degree for?
461
It's to teach you how to think.
462
You learn to think by writing.
463
Now, there's more to read, to speak, and all of that.
464
But the best thing you can do is read and write every day, a couple of hours every day.
465
Write about things you find important and see if you can discover what you believe to be true.
466
And that will build you a foundation and it's unbelievably practical.
467
Like if you look at people who are phenomenally successful across life, there's various reasons but one of them is
468
that they're unbelievably good at articulating what they're aiming at and strategizing and negotiating and enticing people with a vision forward.
469
It's like get your words together man, that makes you unstoppable.
470
And that's really, that's the core of the humanities, that idea.
471
Get your words together.
472
Make yourself an articulate creature.
473
And then you're deadly in the best possible way.
474
So, and take that seriously.
475
The best thing you can do is teach people to write.
476
Because there's no difference between that and thinking.
477
And one of the things that just blows me away about universities
478
is that no one ever tells students why they should write something.
479
It's like, well, you have to do this assignment.
480
Well, why are you writing?
481
Well, you need the great.
482
It's like no You need to learn to think
483
Because thinking makes you act effectively in the world thinking makes you win the battles you undertake
484
And those could be battles for good things if you can think and speak and write you are
485
Absolutely deadly Nothing can get in your way So that's why you learn to write it's like
486
When I can't believe that people aren't just told that it's it's it's like
487
It's the most powerful weapon you could possibly provide someone with.
488
And I mean, I know lots of people who have been staggeringly successful and watched them throughout my life.
489
Those people, you don't want to have an argument with them.
490
They'll just slash you into pieces.
491
And not in a malevolent way.
492
It's like, if you're going to make your point and they're going to make their point, you better have your points organized.
493
Because otherwise you are going to look like and be an absolute idiot.
494
You are not going to get anywhere.
495
The truth of the matter is that you have a lot of potential as a child, but none of that is capable of manifesting itself as freedom before you become disciplined.
496
And discipline is a matter of the imposition of order, and the order is necessary, especially for people who are hopeless and nihilistic.
497
And what does it mean?
498
Well, it doesn't mean, geez, I hate getting up at 8 o'clock in the morning to get ready for work.
499
That just means that you're not very disciplined, you know.
500
Or maybe that it might mean something deeper.
501
But I'd start with lack of discipline before, you know, rearranging your whole life.
502
Because you might say, well, I hate getting up at 8 o'clock in the morning, no matter what I'm doing, and then it's not your job.
503
I don't mean don't do difficult things.
504
I mean, watch yourself.
505
And if you see that you're doing things that make you hate yourself,
506
then consider the cost of continuing.
507
You know, if something's valuable you'll make sacrifices to attain it.
508
That discovery of sacrifice, I think that's what separates human beings.
509
It's one of the primary factors separating human beings from animals.
510
Because we discovered that we could let go of something we value in the present
511
and we would gain something we value even more in the future.
512
Lay a disciplinary structure on yourself, get the chaos in check, And then you can move towards a state that's freer, because it's discipline first.
513
Like, look, if you're going to become a concert pianist, there's going to be several thousand hours of extraordinarily disciplined practice.
514
That's the imposition of order on your potential, let's say.
515
But what comes out of that is a much grander freedom.
516
And so virtually every freedom that you have in life that's true freedom is purchased at the price of discipline.
517
That it's not some casual self-help doctrine, it's that if you don't organize yourself properly, you'll pay for it, and in a big way, and so will the people around you.
518
And I would say, start where you can start.
519
You know, if something announces itself to you as in need of repair, that you could repair, then hey, fix it.
520
You fix a hundred things like that, your life will be a lot different.
521
Now I often tell people too, fix the things you repeat every day.
522
Because people tend to think of those as trivial.
523
You get up, you brush your teeth, you have your breakfast, you know, you have your routines that you go through every day.
524
Well, those probably constitute 50% of your life.
525
And people think, well, they're mundane and I don't need to pay attention to them.
526
It's like, no, no, that's exactly wrong.
527
The things you do every day, those are the most important things you do.
528
hands down well there isn't anything better to have than a
529
problem that's worth solving like that's really worth solving right and
530
so the more of
531
that you take on the more you have a reason to
532
get out of bed in the morning no matter what like
533
i'm getting up i'm trudging forward it doesn't matter what i'm suffering from i've got things
534
that need to be done they're necessary and that gives you
535
that sense of purpose that is the antidote to bitterness
536
so yeah there's lots of of reasons to you know
537
because I thought for a long time imagine
538
that imagine you have a choice in front of you
539
because you do so here's the choice your life life is either meaningful
540
or meaningless okay so let's go through the meaningless part first
541
because you think well of course I don't want it to
542
be meaningless it's like yeah just hold on a second nothing you do matters and
543
so impulsive pleasure is the order of the day no responsibility
544
that's you can do whatever you want like pleasure island in
545
penokyo right it's like neverland in in in peter pan you're still a kid
546
you can play all the time impulsive pleasure and
547
and no responsibility that's the reward for meaninglessness well
548
but then the other side is okay well let's say you
549
want your life to be meaningful it's like okay then what
550
you do matters it actually matters right make a mistake hurts you hurts your family, hurts the world in a deeper way than you think.
551
And you have to be awake to that.
552
And then you have to take it on yourself.
553
So you're at a particular stage right now.
554
And that stage would involve a particular worldview and the behaviors that go along with that.
555
So the perceptions and behaviors.
556
But it's not enough because you haven't mastered the whole world and you're making mistakes all the time.
557
And then there's other neurological mechanisms.
558
that so maybe that's a more left hemisphere phenomenon the instantiation of
559
that identity then there's right hemisphere mechanisms that are tracking your errors
560
and sort of and keeping track of them
561
and the errors are an indication that your theory is incomplete
562
so it acute the errors accumulate and the information around the errors accumulate
563
and another identity starts to become formulated and it It solves all the problems your previous identity did,
564
but also some additional ones.
565
When you have an aha moment like that, it's the manifestation of that next identity that's making itself known.
566
It's, you know, because it's being built from the bottom up.
567
It isn't explicit yet.
568
Then you'll encounter an explicit statement.
569
You mentioned a couple there, and they map onto that.
570
And that's the aha.
571
It's like, oh, yes.
572
Oh, yes.
573
That's what ties together these things that I've been wrestling with in the back of my mind, right?
574
Someone made it explicit and that's what well that's one of the great things about language
575
That can also help fill in the gaps too
576
because you think you know You can start to make arguments based on
577
that observation that I have that's that's that that's the manifestation
578
What is the consequence the long-term consequence of acting so many people especially because of the world
579
I live in an Instagram and social media we kind of build out these personas
580
and yeah We almost follow the implicit instructions that come with those personas.
581
Well, that's the problem right there Is
582
that I think Pinocchio is brilliant work of art
583
if you're a puppet and an actor and Pinocchio is both at times in
584
that movie both a puppet and an actor
585
So why an actor like why is there why is there something wrong with being an actor?
586
Well, the first question is well who sets your role?
587
And then the second question is who's pulling your strings?
588
So you've put on this front that is there to make you popular
589
and sexy and desirable and to mask from yourself your own inadequacies, but that's a role.
590
Well, who wrote it and for what purpose?
591
And you know, maybe you're acting out a tragedy.
592
Maybe you're acting out a narcissist.
593
You don't know because you've put that on yourself in an attempt in some ways to deliver to people what they want,
594
or more accurately, to look as though you're delivering to people what they want.
595
And it's not nothing to do that, right?
596
Because at least you're attempting, in some sense, to adapt to the social world.
597
Someone who's really infantile and dependent, someone who's never left home, part of their problem is that they haven't crafted a persona.
598
So you don't want to denigrate it entirely, but it's no substitute for the real thing and it turns out that
599
Not only is what we want from each other the real thing But that's also the adventure of your life.
600
And so if you aren't truthful and that means Unfortunately, especially at the beginning when you start to be truthful.
601
It means Deeply coming to terms with your inadequacies in humility.
602
So it's very painful Without that you don't have the adventure of your life.
603
You have the role that has been, that you've acquiesced to.
604
And that'll take all the meaning out of your life.
605
Imagine that the world was constituted so
606
that the true adventure of your life emerged as a consequence of truth in speech and action.
607
Because that would be reflective of the real you, so it would be you living.
608
and then imagine that the adventure that would occur
609
if you dwelled in the truth would be so overwhelming that it would justify all the suffering.
610
I really contended with this idea of struggle and chaos in my life
611
and the role it plays and once upon a time I thought I was trying to
612
rid my life of chaos and struggle.
613
I thought that's why I was trying to get rich and get the Ferrari and the blonde.
614
I thought that would create a life free of struggle.
615
But then I looked at some studies
616
and I heard about this thing called gold medal depression when Olympians come back from the Olympics and they've lost orientation.
617
And I tried to understand the role
618
that struggle would have to play for me to be a fulfilled human being for the rest of my life.
619
We're built to walk uphill.
620
And when you reach the pinnacle of the hill, you want to stop and appreciate the vision.
621
But the next thing you want is a higher hill in the distance because it's the uphill climb that...
622
It's from the uphill climb that we derive our value, and I mean this technically.
623
So almost all the positive emotion we feel, especially the emotion that fills us with enthusiasm, that's experienced in relationship to a goal.
624
And so in some sense, you want a goal that you can never attain, right?
625
So you can always move closer to the goal that recedes as you move towards it.
626
You think, well, that's frustrating.
627
It's like Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill.
628
But it's not because as you pursue that goal, you put yourself together and your life does get better and richer and more abundant.
629
That's why the highest levels of virtue and goal are in some sense transcendent.
630
You want them to be above everything you're doing so you can continually move towards something that's more sublime and better.
631
That's what you are.
632
You're here to live, not to sleep.
633
Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 633 sentences and 7702 words to shadow. The speech runs for 41:38. The speaker talks fast, about 185 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- adventure /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/ (noun) — A feeling of desire for new and exciting things.
- discipline /ˈdɪsəplɪn/ (noun) — A controlled behaviour; self-control.
- solve /sɒlv/ (verb) — To find an answer or solution to a problem or question; to work out.
- emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ (noun) — A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data.
- articulate /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/ (verb) — To make clear or effective.
- outcome /ˈaʊtkʌm/ (noun) — That which is produced or occurs as a result of an event or process.
- consequence /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ (noun) — An effect; something that follows a cause as a result.
- interpret /ɪnˈtɜː.pɹɪt/ (verb) — To decode the meaning of a topic and then act, whether to continue researching the topic, follow through, act in opposition, or further the understanding…
- climb /ˈklaɪ̯m/ (verb) — To traverse a slope or contour, either upwards (ascending) or downwards (descending).
- meaningful /ˈmiː.nɪŋ.fl̩/ (adjective) — Having meaning, significant.
- attain /əˈteɪn/ (verb) — To come to or reach (a place) by motion or progression.
- compare /kəmˈpɛɚ/ (verb) — To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it…
- deeply /ˈdi(ː)pli/ (adverb) — To a deep extent or degree; very greatly.
- discover /dɪˈskʌvə/ (verb) — To find or learn something for the first time.
- humanity /hjuˈmænɪti/ (noun) — Humankind; human beings as a group.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- take on (verb) — To acquire, bring in, or introduce.
- come from (verb) — To have as one's origin, birthplace or nationality.
- figure out (verb) — To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
- find out (verb) — To discover, as by asking or investigating.
- get up (verb) — To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb.
- go through (verb) — To travel from one end of something to the other.
- look at (verb) — To observe or watch.
- sit on (verb) — To block, suppress, restrain (something).
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 214 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, worthwhile /ˌwɜː(ɹ)θˈwaɪl/, pathetic /pəˈθɛtɪk/, thoroughly /ˈθʌɹ.ə.li/, tooth /tuθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, harsh /ˈhɑɹʃ/, indication /ɪndɪˈkeɪʃən/, revelation /ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/, ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: articulate /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/, humanity /hjuˈmænɪti/, enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, humility /hjuːˈmɪlɪti/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like adventure, discipline, solve.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you just sit there you'll die · if something's valuable you'll make · if you don't organize yourself properly, you'll pay |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've allowed · you've never thought · who've lived |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were sucked · was written · will be predicated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | student who says · people who who · man who has |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.