Why Failure is Liberating | Dr. K Interviews

I'm smiling because I think you're an absolute failure and I think that that's perfectly okay I think that I was a failure too and failure is not the end of the road it's the beginning right so now you can really start to live your life because you can you've you have you have burned down potential you've burned down the idea of I will always been able to do things faster than everyone else all of that expectation and potential you're actually free of it it's a burden and every every ounce of projected failure that ounce of projected failure comes from an ounce of expectation do you see that like you can't fail if you don't expect what am i calling you friend Zack Zack and so apologies first of all Zack for our setback on Monday I had locate I'd gone to a slightly different location that had poor internet so now I've decided to move back to my underground bunker but yes I I I'm really I'm sorry about that I hope that was kind of okay for you but yeah that was fine actually kind of worked out well I got some other stuff that happened at that time so cool well neat so tell me a little bit Zack gum you know help me understand a little bit about why you're coming on today and how we can be helpful yeah so right now and actually the last like three and a half months or so I've been unemployed and living in my parents basements and making almost no progress in getting out of that because I spend pretty much every waking hour of the day playing video games and watching anime and stuff video games and anime yes folksy video games okay um browsing reddit usual the Holy Trinity yeah reddit anime Trinity of not getting anyway yeah yeah so like obviously I'm in this best situation and things I I mean not even a year ago like six months ago was in grad school working towards getting my PhD oh wow yeah and then I had a whole bunch of stressful stuff that happened over a couple months in there that slowly leads to me dropping out and yeah now I have no idea where to go with my life and I'm kind of stuck here can you tell us a little bit about the stressful stuff it's a bit of story because it was a series of things so for the first year or so of my PhD I had made very little progress in my research oh are you getting a PhD near the neuroscience branch of biomedical engineering okay I was at the University of Utah so I was I went there and started working for this professor he was new and had some projects and one of them interested me so I was working with him and after about a year I didn't really make any progress which was kind of to be expected because it was chemistry related and chemistry sometimes you just nothing works the way you expect it to and you don't know why because you can't see the things that you're interacting with but I didn't really get anywhere in a year and so he was kind of upset I was upset that nothing was happening we weren't getting anywhere so I had some stress that was building up because of that because things weren't going along as was expected and there's necessarily conflicts between us but it was sort of like passive aggressiveness um we just didn't I was just sort of getting overwhelmed well the stuff those happen to do and then this was roughly like August or September what are you having to do just lots of work I guess was that different from before kind of put this having to do with classes and research at the same time rather than just classes was more than I was used to and then also I would do what I thought was an adequate amount of work for the day like maybe six eight hours in the lab and he was like you know so such isn't done you need to be here more what I didn't like the idea of spending what would the head abs to be 10 12 plus hours a day and weekends in order to get all of them okay so when you say overwhelmed well we'll help me understand what we're talking about a little bit more precisely so one is that he's upset with you one is you're not accomplishing what his expectations are male-male p.i yes okay he is principal investigator by the way so you're so you were in someone's lab and he was saying you need to be here for like did he did he use those numbers or no but is so the experiment I was working on he wanted me to like each such each of the tests I would do he wanted me to do each test and like roughly a day the test though takes about 12 hours to do there's a breaking point in the middle where I'm capable of like pausing it okay not losing any progress at about six to eight hours so I was going up to that point and then doing the other half the next day okay he wants to do it like all at once go go go okay one test today and so there was a differential expectation set in terms of what you wanted to do and what he wanted you to do yeah okay so just about like any other ph.d program yes you get it like kind of to be expected yes and so so I'm confused about so it was overwhelming as you had classes on top of that and you weren't doing experiments but during the first half of your first year or what um yeah so like I was I mean obviously like in undergrad it was just classes maybe I had like a job on the side that I do a couple hours every now and then but like I wasn't really doing 12 hours back and I come in and I knew like I was gonna have to put in a lot of work but I didn't really realize exactly what that meant especially when I was applying to schools and people from this school were like yeah like all the professors here really chill they don't make you work weekends like other professors at other schools it's like wow that sounds like so fit for me because I don't really like spending so many hours of my life on my shirt so I went into this you know expecting to do like some hard work but I've through everything else I've done and through all of undergrad and everything I've always been able to get things done faster than everyone else so I was like I'll be able to do the same thing here and then yeah then when I sort of sat down and realized I'm gonna have to do all my classes I have to teach a lab course because I have to do ta stuff and then I have to do all this research in a day I have to be talking to other professors trying to get my committee assembled and trying to communicate with people from other areas and also have to deal with all the stuff in my apartment and paying for rent and everything like that for which it was just a lot of stuff and I'm so he's suspending more of my time not doing this sure I want to just highlight something that you said I don't know exactly what the significance of this is I've always been able to get things done faster than everyone else okay yeah I want to just note that and okay so so then then what happened so it sounds like you didn't want to spend 10 to 12 hours a day in the lab you had a lot ya struggle in terms of life responsibilities classes committee stuff teaching it's a lot yeah yeah it was a lot so I was to an extent like I mean I would sort of did my 6-hour thing for research and all my other stuff I was like yeah you want me to do this stuff but it's just not possible and so I just read didn't do those things and I did that and then after year we I didn't make any progress so now there's what does it not make any progress means um so I guess I'll have to get a little bit into the specifics for that I was trying part of my research was to make these special particles I guess you could say and it was supposed to be just like a replication of what someone else had done and another paper and I actually talked to her in person as well she explained to me the process you were just redoing it with a different set of chemicals and in theory it should be possible and pretty easy and we planned on it only taking like a month to figure it out it's 12 months in no matter how I combined these things and we're buying other stuff online and trying other things nothing is working it so did you duplicate exactly what she did with her chemicals yes okay and even tried freaking out okay you know controlling for all of the different variables and changing everything which there was a bit of conflict and he wanted things happened fast so he was like just change these five variables all at once if it doesn't work then chop these other five variables and I'm like we don't know if these variables interact with each other need to do them one at a time and so there's a little bit of conflict they're trying to get that settles and again no matter what things I change eventually I just have to give in and change five variables at a time and sure enough it doesn't work sure now we don't know why which one was the faults of that and yeah a year in I haven't made these don't know why they don't work or what variables are a factor sometimes I run the same experiment twice and get different results and it's just like I'm completely in the dark no idea what's going on yeah so yeah so that that happens for like a year or so you know you're not really getting anywhere and still trying things out and then around this time points there was someone reminded me about I think it's an NIH grant it's something that like all grad students apply for and like their freshman and sophomore year some like big national grants or whatever okay and I was like oh I had forgotten about that and that's coming up soon and I need to have part of my research done so that I can have something to write about in there and I also needs to go get people from back and undergrad to write me letters of recommendation and I don't even know who to talk to at this point for that I also have to figure out what I'm gonna write about what the recommendations are what the requirements are and so now I have another thing on my plate that I have to worry about and that that built up some stress and there is other stuff going on part of it was you know I just ignore that for a little while and then work on the other things I had to do so of course it just keeps blowing keeps building cuz I'm procrastinating things until sort of the first major breakpoint was there was a meeting amongst grad students for this great it was students who had already gotten the grant successfully we're teaching those who hadn't how to write our papers so I went to that meeting and sat down and they started talking about how to write about your achievements and other things that you've done because that's one of the important aspects of it and the achievements that they listed out and that everyone else in the room talked about we're just so much greater than anything that I had done at that point that I immediately got impostor syndrome what do you mean by impostor syndrome like I felt like I had gotten there by accident that I totally didn't belong I had not achieved anything of great worth compared to what these people have done and that they were all aware of what they were doing and knew how to do go about their research and that I was blowing him dark and that I hadn't been made any progress because I didn't know what I was doing and that I was completely lost okay and that it was a fluke that I had ended up in this program because I was big and stupid and didn't know what I was gonna didn't know what to write about and all that other stuff and yeah I was I was really overwhelmed because so many people I swear like one of them like went to Africa and cured malaria and a tribe or something like this is wild stuff that they were doing mm-hmm it was like what have I done with my time I've gone home and spent my free time playing video games like I've always done I haven't achieved anything like these people yeah see yeah that that felt like at that moment and just all the stress of everything building up to that point and then this corner core I guess you could say moments of realization even though it's not really reality in the sense I know that it was a cause of syndrome but what do you eat Irishman can you tell us about some of those again like looking at it from this perspective I mean now I know that it was just my brain making things up and saying what you know like a moment of realizing that I don't belong here I know now is imposter syndrome but at the time when I really stress out like that I'm thinking I'm realizing that I don't belong here I'm realizing that getting here I wasn't this crazy smart person getting into this program I actually don't belong here but you've always been able to do things faster than everyone else yeah I know right like it's it's this weird conflict that goes on in my head but so yeah at that moment I sort of I guess you could say snaps and I packed up my stuff I walked out of the meeting early I got on the train I curled up in the ball on the seat and then tried to forget everything and pretend that it didn't happen which didn't work but not in the slightest and so then I kept feeling stressed out and like at some point in there I want to see a university therapist to try and help me through these things good for you and the next major breaking point that I guess was sort of the peak and caused the down spiral was when my pee I said that I had to he came up to me we had a lab meeting the next day he said oh by the way the meeting that we had tomorrow whoever was presenting isn't gonna present it said you're going to present your outline on this spring now I had written anything this was like four o'clock in the afternoon I had to go to another lab across campus to do more research that day and had a homework assignment due that night so I stayed up until like 3:00 a.m. working on this presentation once I finally got home and then I go in of course it's crap because I'm super tired and I'd haven't gotten any sleep and he just beats the crap out of me in this presentation about how bad everything is what does he say and it was just I can't even remember now this is like six months ago but it was it was like the the topics that I was talking about weren't goods I wasn't communicating the right points I wasn't explaining it and I was spinning in too much detail it wasn't simple enough for like layman's terms understands I was focusing on the wrong points I didn't again like for the achievements that I've done that sort of a big portion of this I didn't have anything and I didn't know what to talk about and also in my presentation he was even nitpicking things like my graphs were done in Excel and it's not Matt well when they should be done in MATLAB that's unacceptable and so I had sort of in that looks to the other lab members for like please for the love of God help me and none of them did anything they just agreed with him they're like yeah you should work on those things I'm like okay for support from someone else and they left you out in the cold yeah and so again like let's just had been constantly building up for last couple of months to this point and there's already a breaking point so it kept building from there and then this happens so I went home that day and I got off the train and I was walking down the side what's in my house and I know why this is so hard to say I had looks I had stopped on the sidewalk and turned towards the road and considered walking into traffic sure and yeah that was that was a moment I didn't what what are you feeling as you try to say that I hit oh no it's funny cuz like thinking about okay how am I gonna tell the story I've been through this exact moment several times in my head I don't really feel anything yep then that saying is different yep very very important observation so what are you feeling as you say it are you feeling something good are you feeling something bad bad um are you getting a piece of what it was like to stand on that side walk a little bit it's what I'm feeling is like the reality of how severe it was good tell us about that so restating you know everything that I've experienced again saying it feels like it wasn't that big of a deal like yes there was a lot of stress and things but it's all like I'm listening out like things that I guess you could say normal grad students go through lots of worker things had to do and I'm thinking normal grad students this wasn't anything extreme but then thinking about that moment there it's like no it was it was a lot worse is that can you just pose us about your reality in that moment that everything's beautifully put what does that mean I was in a dark place I wasn't what made it dark join what I was doing my outlook on life and the world was very negative in what way was it negative I didn't really see much of the positives of life and I viewed everything I guess from like very pessimistic viewpoint so to add in a little bit to that a lot of the reddit discussion that I was viewing around this time was about corruption and stuff in the world and so I was latching on to that things like global warming whatnot which all helps contribute to it and then it was like I'm a victim of this I had lots of views that academia and I actually still kind of agree with these the academia is very corrupt and isn't what it's supposed to be it's supposed to be about doing research to learn about things that we don't understand and instead it's about writing papers to get money and a lot of papers are just made-up crap just so that they can get funded and it was like I am in I went into this to do something nice and great and it said I'm here in this corrupt situation being manipulated by the people above me who are just in it to get money and everything is boxing how does it feel to be manipulated how does it feel terrible part of the meat that goes into the meat grinder grinder that is a ph.d program feels awful like oh my god how do people do that how do people know it's it's like super depressing it's what's depressing about it tell me the thoughts Zac what were the thoughts that were going through your head because it's not fair there we go right cuz in your head you don't think this is super depressing yeah what do you think in your head stressed out I what you think in your head overwhelmed it's not what you think in your head yeah I'm thinking that I put in a lot of effort to get here I followed all the rules I followed the guidelines there we go and what you followed the rules and what and what happened I got this point word the higher-ups are using minions they're taking my labor they're paying me nothing they're expecting needs to do things that I can't do good what else I followed the rules and what I got but yeah I'd say got let down as I understand you got fuck-buddy yeah you're taking my time did you feel alone mm-hmm oh yeah I can only imagine right so sitting there is your professor tears you a new in your lab meeting and then all of all of the other grad students are kind of like right no one's yeah and then you no one's protecting you especially when the other lab members are like making progress on their stuff and I'm not and now it's very isolating to feel like you're the only one going through it because you are right everyone else is sitting here what are you doing yeah absolutely nothing you're failing it's like being in a classroom of kids who can read and you can't yeah yeah when we talk about feeling overwhelmed what were you what were the thoughts there stuff like again this is this is too much I can't do this too many expectations of me how can I fake it and make it seem like I'm doing the work but I'm not how do other people get through it okay can I I I think those are the I think those make sense I'm gonna so I can't do this and how can I fake it I think there's another kind of level to that which is that how can I push off failure you can't do this but I don't want to fail quite yet is there anything I can do but you know that the failure is coming you feel if the failure is coming and is there anything you can scrape together to prevent going into bankruptcy like today yeah can I push out this failure and push out this failure and push out this failure and each time you push out the failure you try to buy yourself some time to where maybe people won't notice maybe you can pull it together maybe you can fix it and the more time that goes on the failure becomes more and more and more certain and you push it out and you push it out and you push it out and you're faking it and you're faking it and everyone's making progress and it's becoming more and more inevitable mmm-hmm is that how you felt yeah yeah definitely how does that feel [Music] again like I just belong that I should never have gone to grad school in the first place and that it was a huge do you sell it was the only offer you're a huge I guess both like there's there's a perspective of I'm a huge cuz I can't do this but also it was a huge buck up decision to put myself in a situation when I should have known that I could've done this I should have known like why did I think that I was so capable I've always been able to get things done faster than everyone else yeah and yeah that's a lot Zach yeah so tell us tell us what so you're walking home you're considering stepping into traffic why didn't you I thought they would hurt what did you decide to do then so it was fear that kept you from stepping in traffic traffic huh was mine it's hard to explain if it was really fear is again it was the thought that like this will hurt I really like that yeah I'll figure it out later so what did you do enzyme I walked home and I lied down a bit I cried and then and I think I took a nap or something I just like fell asleep then I woke up at like 8 o'clock or something and then made dinner plates of videogames what did you play I don't remember okay what are you playing nowadays Prince Cape lots and lots and lots of runescape okay and what are your parents think right now I mean I don't know exactly what their thoughts are but my mom has like I say I think I feel like she chides me and like bothers me a lot when realistically it's like maybe once every two weeks you'll say hey have you been looking for jobs and that's about it but he feels annoying to me like yes duh why is it why is it annoying it's because it's like I'm in this situation and you know I've been in this situation because I was calling you while I was going through it all you know that I feel terrible and then I'm trying to put a little effort at it can't I can into it and you're still asking me about it especially right now during the Kovac thing it's like what jobs you want me to get what is there you got some that like you've you got one I'll go find one long like sure lunch you once you hand out to me it's so easy to go get one why don't you tell me where they are I've applied for so many and they've all rejected me and like it's not that easy and I don't know if it's just my head but I feel like they're disappointed I know my my brother he has autism and so we as a family have to take care of him but sometimes because of his patterns and things he will end up staying up and super late and waking up at like 12 o'clock in the afternoon or something which I mean I do too because I play video games really late at night but my parents will yell at him and be like why are you staying up and so late why are you getting up so like that's not good for you and they never say it to me but I could feel it directed it and you as well what's it like for them to never say it to you it's good question it's like passive-aggressiveness innocence i guess it's not the right wording but sure that's maybe describing what it is it's not how you feel ya know it just school can i offer something yeah yeah there a part of you that's like can you just call me a up and be done with it yeah can you just call me out on my instead of asking in a polite motherly loving concern how the job search is going can you just call me once in your life and say why the haven't you found a job yet what the is wrong with you mm-hmm how would it feel if your mom said that jeez the yes yep it would still feel pretty but anything even would also be I would know what they're thinking very really why don't you know what they're thinking cuz they don't talk about it a whole lot sure it's why don't they talk about it a whole lot if I know probably cuz it's hard but who is it hard for ya it's hard for them to talk about it cuz I mean I don't talk about these things with them because it's hard for me to talk about it so it's gotta be hard for them to you right sure do you think maybe the reason they don't talk about it is because you don't talk about it mean yeah so I want you to put yourself in their shoes for a moment Zach your son has been in a competitive ph.d program essentially washes out you see him sleeping till noon every day you can tell he's struggling and so you put on your kid gloves and you handle him like the fragile piece of porcelain he is right they can see you're hurting they probably don't want to bother you they don't want to ask you hard questions because they're afraid of how they're gonna make you feel cuz they they love you yes no yeah so what do you think they're trying to do I mean how does someone who loves you respond to a situation where like yours I have no idea how are they responding I mean again just try not to mess with it too much they're so trying to make sure that I'm hopefully trying but they're also not trying to interfere too much sure they're trying to give you your space hmm how hard do you think they think a conversation about this will be for you very I mean we had a conversation once you told me about it while back and I remember one this was exactly a couple months ago but we went to there's a bar nearby and we went there and I knew going down like they're gonna try to talk about it that's why they're calling yeah and yeah they I mean I remember whole lot cuz I'm a super lightweight and so one single beer puts me out pretty quickly but I do remember we talked about that and how I was applying for things what I was applying for what I wanted to do better at school because I haven't technically dropped out I'm gonna leave of absence mm-hmm so do I want to go back and I'm like not really and then bringing up that they eventually want to be empty Esther's and so they want to try and help me through this because they can't keep me here forever again like no how do you feel about yourself sack yeah I felt like a huge like how do you feel I head off today like I've had so much potential and I have drops down to this huge love that that potential yeah potential is a bad drug hate it what are you hearing on it it's like it's these high expectations that as long as you meet them everyone praises you but if you don't meet them it's just like faces of scorn and like everyone nobody talks about it like I had like all my friends were like oh yeah my tell everyone like how dare you talk back to this guy he's a PhD student all's crap and I'm nobody even talks like this when I was like oh yeah you know I think I'm gonna drop out I was kind of it none of my friends ever talked about it again it's like nobody wants to touch on the subjects that I failed now he wants it like when you have huge potential everyone talks about all these like crazy things you're gonna do and then when you fail to meet that it's just dropped that's everything you do feels like failure I stopped showing my game status on discord because I felt ashamed yeah everything you do feels like a failure failure how do you feel Zach what I mean like again like like I'm a failure like I have Arden a Hellyer yes you like it when I'm sitting in my parents basement playing video games so yeah so here's the crazy thing I agree with you I think you are a failure here's the difference between me and you though why am i why are you smiling right now no idea why am i smiling I also don't know okay so I think why are you smiling oh I think you're smiling out of defensive this because sometimes when we deal with negative negative terrible things all we can do is smile otherwise everything comes crashing apart falling down I'm smiling because I think you're an absolute failure and I think that that's perfectly okay I think that I was a failure too and failure is not the end of the road it's the beginning right so now you can really start to live your life because you can you've you have you have burned down potential you've burned down the idea of I will always been able to do things faster than everyone else all of that expectation and potential you're actually free of it it's a burden and every every ounce of projected failure that ounce of projected failure comes from an ounce of expectation do you see that like you can't fail if you don't expect like you can't see that right so like like washing out of a ph.d program is only an issue if you were expected to be there and be successful if you felt like you were like everyone else and if you felt like you could cut it there because you're smarter than everyone and you can't start with the idea that you suck at life and then like that's where like honestly dude that's where my life began it's like where you are now like though the problem is that we build this house of cards that is potential and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger but boy is it fragile right that's the imposter syndrome it looks like a house you look at it from outside it's tall has lots of walls and lots of rooms puff of wind and the thing comes crumbling down and now like that's not I wish for you I don't wish for you bizarrely that you had succeeded because if you had succeeded all you would have done is add another layer to the house of cards do you see that yeah every success that you had has just increased like you're just stacking the the house of cards higher and higher and higher and it's a foundation because it's gonna come tumbling down and I think you can actually begin now I think failure is when you begin because now you have no expectation so you sort of expectation still but we'll try to disabuse you of those very soon I'm smiling because I think that this is like good for you I think like this is gonna change your life and ten years from now you're gonna look back on it and you're gonna like realize like cuz that's I mean that's what I hope for you maybe ten years from now you'll you'll be no where you'll be sitting at home playing video games and you'll have accomplished nothing and then that's kind of shitty that's possibility we have to acknowledge that I don't think that this is gonna be easy but I think that like there's a lot of stuff here that's so important and I think it has to start with like you accepting that you are a failure like you can talk about victimization as much as you want to and I think that that's fair because I think there are a lot of things that make me furious about your experience and the experience of PhD programs in general and at the top of the list is if a student fails a test whose fault is it students incorrect PII absolutely right there's one person in that relationship who has knowledge and one person who doesn't it is the responsibility of the teacher to help the student along the responsibility of a PI's if your experiment isn't working for a year like how the do you expect a first year PhD student to figure out why their experiment isn't working like that's the job of a PI like if your experiments don't work for a year and you're doing what your PI is doing why on earth are you accepting responsibility your your grad student he's the guy who's running the lab like if he's telling you to change five variables and it doesn't work out like whose fault is that I want to say him Vanessa feel like it's me for actually doing the five variable experiment and not say no but yeah so so I understand where you're coming from but this is where you have to admit that like you have to acknowledge that there's a power dynamic right did you tell your your PI that you think you guys should do one variable at a time yes and what did he say no so what are you like what are your options then don't have any I guess exactly so I think you did what you were supposed to do you raised your concerns with your PI and your PI is young and dumb and a product of his academic environment and so he decided to abuse you in the same way that he was abused the cycle of abuse continues mm-hmm that's like PhD programs and academia in medicine is like that it's like these surgeons are like all these medical students cry when I call them a piece of what the hell is wrong with them like it's like yeah and and they're like but I got called a piece of and it's like yeah but you don't have to call other people a piece of you can be nicer to them just because you're abused doesn't mean that you need to abuse others so I mean I do I think that you were victimized by your circumstances absolutely but like I don't think in a sense I don't think that that kind of matters like it pisses me off and you know when I work with students I try to take the response like I've learned that like if they don't learn that's like my fault right and did I really do the best job that I can I mean they're not to say that I'm completely responsible because if I like try and try and try and they like go home and don't study and don't do anything that I told them to do like then I put the blame on them but as a teacher you know if you're doing what your PI is telling you to do and the experiments are not working out then it's not your fault unless you're being negligent like so if you're being negligent in some way and like half-assing the experiments then then it then it is your fault but that's why I asked you did you run it the same way as the previous person did your results turn out the same and the answer to that question is yes which means that it sounds like you did a good job because you got the same results a couple of other interesting things that I'm gonna go off on a quick tangent but you know the other thing there is that 70% of like studies are like not reproducible so I think that's a big issue and the last thing that I just want to toss your way is like do you know how people win a Nobel Prize in science no actually so they actually start with a failed experiment all Nobel praat all most Nobel Prizes at least that I've studied so I've studied fifteen or sixteen Nobel prize-winning spare experiments in in biology or medicine and all of them start with a failed experiment what do you think about that why does someone get a Nobel Prize because they've made a huge discovery how do you make a huge discovery what luck sure but what makes a discovery huge what does it mean to be a huge discovery either it has a big impact on the world or on the field okay but what determine a huge discovery and big impact are synonymous Yeah right so what makes something a big impact changes everything it changes what something not very what does it change what people thought absolutely so think about this for a second in order to change the way that people think you have to start with a failed experiment and what I mean by a failed experiment is the people who won Nobel prizes they did an experiment and their results were not what they expected and this is what separates 99% of scientists from 1% of scientists instead of looking at it as a failure they looked at it as an opportunity I'm expecting this result and in the process of figuring out why I did not get the result I expected I'm discovering something huge that changes the way that we at science do you get that like the biggest travesty here is that your pee I lost an opportunity to win a Nobel Prize what you don't understand is that you don't you don't have a year of failed experiments you have a year of data that suggests that something about the world is not the way that we have conceived and if you guys spent the time and energy to figure out what that is that's how you win a Nobel Prize why did you guys fail why is it that all of your expectations think about this Nobel Prizes come when all of our expectations are wrong when we have a thousand expectations for a particular result and that result does not happen and then we discover why then it changes our thousand expectations before that is a big impact so the crazy thing here is that all you see is a failed experiment I don't even see failed experiments I see data I see a wonderful opportunity to like understand something about how the variables like result in like compounds in a new and different way it's exactly why you got into a ph.d program for the first place and I think it's a travesty that that you are in a situation call it luck or call it idiocy of your pie or whatever I mean I'm being judgemental I mean maybe the guy's brilliant and compassionate and we're just getting a biased view it's very possible but like I I don't I don't conceive what you did is a failure at all I think are you a failure sure you can accept that but deep down I really don't think so right I think that in a sense you are a victim of your circumstances I think you did the experiments that you were supposed to do I think the only real mistake you made here is that you've got a big ego and you have unrealistic expectations yeah there are a couple of other things like this is the other thing is when you're smart like you're gonna rise until you equilibria right like if I take an object of a certain density and I put it into a fluid of a certain density what is the object I'm gonna do either sink or float depending on the density of both of them in relation to each other exactly so if I have a gradient of densities a gradient of liquids of different densities they're gonna equilibria and then if I put an object of different of a different density where is it going to end up or whichever one is equal to a sense exactly so welcome to academia my friend so we're you rise you got accepted to the ph.d program because you were hot and undergrad and you're gonna equilibria to like where you normally belong and so the higher up you go like the more average you become like everyone thinks that such hot that dr. K is from Harvard like in Harvard I am subpar I'm really like no one even knows who I am and like I work with people like you guys think I'm brilliant you guys have no idea I'm really not that smart I think I'm really one of y'all I don't think I'm really any different from you guys and you guys are so confused by that and it's like I don't think you guys have been at Harvard it's like you just want to see smart people you should go there and and I mean it really I mean I met people that just blew my mind with just how much knowledge they were able to absorb and hold in their head I was like holy and so the one thing to understand is that the better you do the more you're gonna feel in a sense like a failure until you abandon this whole complex right because you're gonna keep rising and then you're not gonna be I've always been able to get things faster than everyone else that thought is the problem like if I had to diagnose one thing that I could surgically remove from your brain it is a bad thought there's comparison in there there's ego in there there's an expectation of ease in there right there's so many things there that are just like so wrong their potential like that's the other thing good potential is such a curse such a curse it's such a burden because you can't win with potential either you meet expectations in which no one is surprised or you're below expectations in which everyone is disappointed yeah it's like average or failure like when you sign up for potential you sign up to be average at best or meet expectations get a see a D or an F can't get an A if your potential if you have very high potential you just can't you know maybe you can win a Nobel Prize that's the only thing that would be impressive to anyone yeah that's a very good way of putting it that I hadn't talked about before is it's you're signing up for average yep at this at best now I don't really know I kind of got on my soapbox so I'm gonna just pause for a by the way do you know anything about IRB applications okay I'm looking for someone to do IRB stuff I heard yeah institutional review board so we're trying to study healthy gamer so we're doing like research and we're looking for researchers so let's just kind of go back to a couple things so first of all all right so any thoughts or questions so far Zack nothing comes to mind no okay so we've got two options one is you can tell us the rest of the story because you actually haven't told us everything yet which I would love to hear if you're emotionally up for it and the second question is like I think there's a question of like what do we do right or I guess the other question that I would ask you is like how can I help you or how can my self and twitch chat how can we help you and so what do you think should we tell the rest of the story let's ask twitch @d can you see chat yeah I can pull it up okay good that's good that you're raising it but I'm gonna tell us what is what does twitch chat want to do do do we want to hear the story or do we want to get you know figuring out how to help you what does chat say yeah yeah see this is what I hate about like I always ask them for things and it's like they don't help both white people happy yeah like like but like they just never they're never satisfied you think having a pie is bad these guys they're never satisfied they want everything all the time more more MORE okay so let's finish the story okay and okay cry if you need to are you hoping for emotional catharsis by the way uh if that's what it comes to I guess you know because I can ask you couldn't you know leading probing questions about your emotions but I I'm not feeling that we're gonna get there if that's okay with you yeah that's fine so tell us the rest of the story so you you went home you you wrapped you slept you woke up you ate dinner and then what happened yeah so woke up ate dinner played video games went to beds next day go back to doing research and stuff obviously feeling very down not able to get enough pretty much done getting not getting any progress and I believe it was either the day after or two days after that when I was on the train home browsing reddit again that I came across a thread in our league of legends about a former pro player who had attempted suicide hmm he didn't succeed but they had posted a link to his blog where he left his last no and I read the whole thing probably not a good decision if it's a why do you say yeah I mean of course everyone's like if you are in a situation like this please don't read this and after reading it I just it just affirmed everything why does everyone why does everyone can can you pull it up I have to go archive that maybe I can so tell me tell me why is it not a good idea to read that note I'm confused um because again it's it's a person who was on the verge of suicide and his thoughts that he was laying out and I related with a lot of it and it's sort of like it was a confirmation I guess I look of everything that I was going through and it was like you're justified in thinking the way you are and other people went through with it so it's okay to go through with it I see okay that's okay you don't have to find it I was just kind of curious so so I mean it sounds to me like you feel like reading it would make you more likely to try to hurt yourself yes okay okay I mean there is data that suggests that suicide happens in clusters so maybe it is dangerous but and what about what you read resonated with you your um loneliness the feeling that the world's is off and it's not there to help you lots of negative babies feeling oh yeah feeling comfort in games and I would say fantasies a whole games anime movies books all that stuff other worlds I guess feel like you belong more of those growths than you do the real world that's diving more into them and being attached to them and he had said that he preferred to be a third party observer of things rather than be in the mix of them and so that was like his motivation for wanting to kill himself I didn't fully agree with that but like I can see where he's coming from and it's like this work related to other aspects I guess what I did and did not resonate with you about that oddly specific thing to remember yeah I I guess I can give an example in that for some games that I played there's a big speedrun scene and I like to observe the meta of the speedrunning and understand why they do it but I don't really participate so much and just be running itself what is being an observer do um you removes a lot of distress of the situation the less you do like for me it allows me to experience the joy of having solved it quote-unquote or like solve the problem understanding something learn something new that any risk yeah so interesting what do you think about that it's a good question I mean I don't like risk in general I feel like it's kind of a normal thing yeah for people but we're asking you questions that are gonna have very very plain and simple answers okay so it doesn't have to be a complicated answer yeah it's just kind of play because the questions that you ask I always know that you ask things that are kind of out of the blue and unexpected and I'm hit with them like I don't know what I think good that's why you're here you're not here to share with us the answers that you already have Zak yeah you're here to learn the things that you don't know so what do you think about being an observer you say and I think it's it may mean it's may sound simple but I think it's very good I'm glad that you're laying down basic assumptions because that's important I don't like risk fair so what else I do like to work through problems of things without ends yeah yeah with that risk I so like yeah I like to go like to work the problems of things but if I can minimize or remove risk then I like to do so mm-hmm if it's something that requires a lot of effort I like to give it a shot and put in that effort but I don't want to have that ever be wasted okay so having it be on something that's almost hobby like innocence means that even if I don't figure out either someone else well and then I can look at their answer or it's like yeah whatever I'll just go do this with something else mm-hmm and it doesn't feel like I wasted any time again low risk are you an observer for your life sometimes okay there are times that I have that perspective where I observed my own life but and what happens to you in those times I sort of just become detached for a lot of the emotional aspects of it do you still feel the emotions yeah I still feel them but not quite to the same degree I don't know how to explain it sure we don't have good words for that in English by the way yeah so what do you think I mean is it a pleasant or unpleasant experience to be an observer in one's life kind is neutral okay what is it like to not be an observer in one's life life is kind of feels pretty bad yeah what about when things are good I mean it feels good in the good situations does it feel better to be an observer or better to feel good in the good situations this means specifically in the good situation it feels good to be in them and not observing them hmm I think that's an experiment that you should run I'd love to hear your answer after you actually use your scientific training to develop a hypothesis and systematically collect data so what we're talking about is exactly what would that talked about so when you said when I kind of asked what is it like to not be an observant you were like well most of life is so would this said that we're all human being this is the fundamental state of life is dukkha or suffering and that the way to get free of dukkha and suffering is to become an observer then consciousness and mind are separate things and that even as you that emotion exists within the mind but consciousness is separate of the mind and that's hard for us to really understand but it's kind of like what you said it's hard to describe you still feel the emotions it's just there's distance between you and the emotions it's like the difference between being in a cage with a lion or maybe I've just been watching too much Tiger King or or being outside of the cage right the lion is still there and it hasn't changed but your position with respect to the lion drastically changes what you're able to appreciate or not appreciate about the lion does that make sense mm-hmm and and so I how much of an observer have you been throughout this whole saga with with grad school I didn't really start doing so until at some point in the therapy that was one of those things that they talked about was trying to not be in the storm but be aware of the storm being there you can't make it go away but look at it don't be in it in a sense yeah which I could only pull off a handful of times at best because it's so hard to do absolutely right so this is why we train like we don't start we don't dump people into the ocean to teach them how to swim right we start in calm waters and that's why I like meditation is normally done like we start by observing our breath and we separate our mind from we sort of develop a sense of consciousness outside of mind but something like breath that has like nothing no value attached to it and the more valuable things become the harder it is to be detached mm-hmm and in your case it's it's hard right this is what I think is really unfortunate you know we teach this stuff as treatment and therapists do it instead of teaching it as a basic skill that everyone learns in school which is really where I think it should be taught like it's kind of like okay like a therapist is sort of like someone who teaches you how to swim but people don't seek out therapists until they're drowning in the ocean it's like kind of really bass-ackwards yeah and and so that's part of you mean that's part of why we do this right so I'm part of our goal here is to help people understand some of these skills and start to develop them and and hopefully be prepared for when when stuff like what happens to you happen but let's kind of go back to your story so what happened the next day uh I think X the next day I went to therapy and I told her all about it and then she was like you should go home today or well it was it was more like if like I think that you should you should decide for yourself but if you think that you shouldn't you should go home to it so that was on like a Friday or something and so I took that day off I just emailed my PA I was like I can't do today above the blah I didn't even like really read much whatever I would just sense it and then that day and that entire weekend I spent playing path of Exile non-stop for like 18 hours a day just trying to not experience anything mathematics I was very good at that yes then I had to go back to work on Monday I don't remember a whole lot at some point in there I I just I don't wanna say like forcefully but like convinced my PI like I can't write this paper it's not going to happen and also it was like I'm in a pretty place right now I'm thinking about either taking leave of absence or dropping down to the master's program or something like that I've been talking with the therapist about this he was kind of hesitant eventually at some point I had to as I brought up with her she was like dude I'm gonna write you a letter to your PI so he understands how serious the situation is cuz he's not taking it seriously eventually decided we decided to drop downs the master's program instead of the PhD cuz I was almost done with my credits and I was like cool finished my credits and now just graduate take my degree and go do something else and then I found out that I had to write a thesis still and they were like yeah you got like since you haven't gotten anywhere in your research that's like at least another six months before you down with that I can't take this for six more months and then that's when I attempted weep absence and okay yeah then moved out came back here and spent three and a half months playing video games and not talking about it how does it feel to talk about it today it's nice to address it it's like it's been there and it's been kind of eating away very slowly because I try not to focus on it but it's been sitting there and yeah I mean I've been watching a lot of streams and trying to appear strains are trying to like address it myself but there's kind of only so far I can get stuck in my own head mm-hmm yeah it's it's nice to address it and talk about it and get it out I guess do you want to move forward I guess define that a little bit better cuz I don't like I want to get out a feeling all the time but I also just don't really have any I don't like I don't want to go back to what I was experiencing before of this like super high effort thing you're just so done good good I don't think I needed to find it I think you understood the nuance of my question and you gave me a very good answer right so there's a presumption that progress is completing your prior goal mm-hmm but it sounds like you don't want to you want to do more than what you're doing right now but you don't necessarily want to quote-unquote succeed yeah she's interesting right because that's not usually how we think you think that if I fail a test what's my goal Cass the next ones yeah there's a presumption that you keep going mm-hmm right but it's good I'm glad I think it's actually a huge step forward that you realize that you may not want to do that so now we're gonna get so how do you think we can help you Zach what would be helpful um I guess how to like solve these sort of emotional attachments I still have that because like you say I there's this feeling that I have to live up to certain expectations even still even though like I failed and there is I would hope eventually a release from that I still feel attached to those expectations sure awesome it's the burden of potential okay yep absolutely so I think some of this is going to be propagated by you and some of it as an echo so you've got a choice you just what was your reaction they're like what we echo confusion okay so so what I mean by that is like like so the the burden of potential is something that has been fed you been feeding it every day growing up being the kid who's always been able to get things done faster than everyone else every time you have that thought every time you make that observation you feed the act of the the sort of beast of potential now you failed I don't think that you think very often that I've always been able to do things faster than everyone else right so you've stopped feeding that echo you start stopped feeding that beast of potential but an echo remains it's not the original sound it's just the like you know it's the after-effects or the shadow of that potential which is gonna still be bouncing around in your head for a while the main issue is whether you continue to feed it or not if you don't feed it it's gonna die down on its own like you'll start to accept that like you know you should I mean hopefully what you'll do is start to accept that like you shouldn't plan your life based on what you think you should do or what you're capable of but you'll start to devote yourself towards like doing things that you care about and not really like worrying about whether you do a good enough job you know I think if you have a love for science you should pursue science but you shouldn't get bogged down and getting a PhD does that mean you will get a PhD yeah sure why not but it doesn't mean that getting a PhD is the goal like the PhD is just because otherwise like it's gonna be hard to do science if it's like kind of this rigorous rat race kind of stuff you're gonna like learn whatever skills you want to or learn sign so then you can go work in industry or you can be an academic like whatever it doesn't matter but like if your goal is a love for science then that's what you should pursue and don't worry about potential now the interesting thing is that you're also feeding another beast which is sort of the the beast of like lack of self-worth and this is the thing that sort of says that because I fail I am a bad person like there's a difference between family like it this beast is the one that confuses failing at a task with being a failure so for you to be able to take a step back and realize that like once again if you didn't do well in a ph.d program and you were exactly what your P I told you to do like how on earth is at your fault mm-hmm sure if you're like a fifth year grad student and you've got autonomy to design your own experiments like if you're working in experimental design and then the the experiment doesn't work that's different but it sounds like you didn't do anything the experimental design you were given you were like hey monkey go ahead and perform this dance for me and then do it again every day for ten hours a day and you were dancing the way they told you to and it didn't work out so I don't really think that that's your fault but you don't see that right and this is where I think that there's there's a lot here where like you kept on using phrases like stressed out and overwhelmed but that's not really those are indicators of amplitude they're not like indicators of like direction or quality does that make sense like overwhelmed is quantity it's not quality so what is the quality of what you are feeling are you dealing with shame probably are you dealing with fear are you dealing with anger right so shame I'm sure we can all accept like that we've seen pretty clearly that you are a failure but are you afraid I mean I was I was mostly angry that like my P I wasn't taking anything that I was saying seriously and I was like I wasn't in control of the situation my input and why I was taken there wasn't valued and I was mad about that and I was mad that things were going the way they were are you still mad I wasn't able to do anything yes how mad are you yeah not like crazy super mad but like it's like it frustrated like Oh stupid okay good no so now the question becomes how mad are you and how suppress as your anger question I don't feel like it's that surprised I don't know okay okay well trusty right so it's good that you you noticed the question it sounds like you actually did some exploration there's a good for you are you afraid afraid of what you tell me see everyone thinks that I make I help people but I don't help people I don't make your lives harm wants to come on in be on stream I don't think you guys realize how heavy this is recession this is definitely different than I was expecting different being in the hot seat isn't it it's it's it's really different even when you're from the even you're sitting there you're like oh how would I react if he asked me these questions like you usually come up with something then you sit and seat you're like dude I got nothing like yeah so are you afraid Zak I'm afraid that if I try to branch out of my comfort zone I can't roll it down if I if I try to like I spent my whole life in science and engineering and chemistry and like these are the things that I've always been good at I'm afraid that if I try to go outside of that that it won't and well I'm afraid that I mean again living up to expectations I'm afraid that I'll I won't meet anyone's expectations or what I think will be good won't be good to anyone else and that that will affect me I'm afraid that I won't be able to break out of the cycle that I'm in right now yeah I'm afraid that whatever I end up doing is gonna fail fairness right so now let's just think about that for a second so first of all as you say those things do you feel fear yes are you an observer kind of right answer right so I think you feel the fear but I think your acknowledgment of them so when you're feeling the fear fully and it takes over your mind you can't articulate it does that make sense mm-hmm your capacity to articulate only comes with distance right so I asked you a question are you afraid and then you didn't know how to answer it and then a few seconds later then we talked for a moment about how hard it is to answer questions and then you went often you gave like half a dozen specific fears that you have that's progress that's what you're here for right so now you know that these are things that you carry with you right these are the different debuffs and you've got to think a little bit about each of these D buffs and how you want a gear in response to those Big D buffs so it sounds like you fought and we haven't really talked about this but I'm sure other people have subconsciously pieced this together that he's thought about a career outside of science he's thought about maybe doing something else right and because he shared with us that he has a fear that he's not going to be successful elsewhere that's a specific fear so that's kind of like okay and so then like if you have a like if you have a debuff that increases your your vulnerability to fire you have to like gear up with like fire resistance gear right and so as you move in as you explore other career options just be aware that you're gonna feel less confident than you do in science which is gonna be bizarre in a second because you don't feel confidence in science anyway but that like that's an additional fear that you have to account for now that fear is not reality like in general I think you're gonna be fine outside of science I don't think people have a talent for chemistry like I think what you're good at is probably some amount of hard work analytical capability experimental design like all that I mean you could be a strategic consultant and all that stuff is going to apply you could go into finance if you cared about it and like analyze financial models like in run experiments I saw a really cool video from three blue one you guys should check it out about simulating pandemics it's like a YouTube channel that's very cool so he does like statistical analyses and he just like simulates like so he has one about simulating pandemics and different kinds of interventions and stuff like that I think that the things that make you good at science are gonna apply to a bunch of fields you could even go into like marketing and branding if you want to and just be heavily metric and analytic focus like that's fine I think what makes you good at being you is like not content specific so I'm good at being a psychiatrist I'm also good at like corporate consulting but my take on corporate consulting is I tend to be like an observer of human behavior an observer of people and I try to teach people about themselves so I'm a pretty good teacher I'm a pretty good psychiatrist I'm a pretty good meditation teacher and I'm also pretty good consultant but it's like it that's because I don't define myself by a particular profession I define myself by like a particular kind of skill Sattar interest and in your case I think you'll do fine outside of science provided that you get to do that which you really enjoy which is like learning about things and figuring things out right so like in strategic consulting for example you know there'll be a company that will go to like McKinsey or Bane or whatever and they'll say like hey we're thinking about opening up a power plant in Southeast Asia which country should we open it in and so what they do is like they just take a bunch of information try to analyze it and then try to give someone a recommendation we think you should open it in Thailand here are reasons a B C and D if you want to open it in Cambodia here are the things that are different and this is why we think you should do Thailand it's done in Cambodia something tells me is act that you would be good at a lot of different stuff besides science and chemistry what do you think I mean yeah I can agree I do rent the situation of when I look at various jobs and I you know maybe yet maybe I can apply my skillset to this then I don't meet the stupid requirements and I can't apply anyways but sure right so I wouldn't let not meeting the requirements prevent you from applying so not to say that you should apply for a bunch of jobs where you don't meet the requirements but if there's something you're genuinely interested I think you should write a good cover letter and send it off I have master's like a master's in chemistry is pretty respectable like no matter where you end up I think you should get your masters by the way cuz that's just that'll be something but anyway maybe not but the so the first thing is to understand that you have different fears and that as you think about how to move forward just acknowledge those fears because those fears are part of what's keeping you at home playing runescape does that make sense what else is keeping you at home hmm virus sure I was saying that there's probably another fear which is that whatever I do it'll end up the same way that was that was one of the things that's really I was conflicted with when I was thinking about what to do I'm did you drop out or not cuz I was like I mean I just had like a severe depressive episode and I haven't fully recovered with it and if I keep going I'm worried that I'll just fall right back in again are you still in mental health treatment not right now no okay so I'd consider getting back into mental health treatment but I think that that too now you have a some scar if you you're familiar with some scars weird the word a thousand times nice so that everybody needs so so what it is is sort of like a ball of undigested emotion that kind of lingers with you and like colors your vision about the future you can also think about it like an unprocessed trauma so this entire experience has been traumatic for you and so as you move forward as long as that trauma is there like you know if you have if you get married to someone and you have an abusive husband or wife and they beat you even after you like leave them you're gonna have the fear that the next is gonna turn out that way and even the more sicker thing about the human mind is you may select for those kinds of people which which is sort of like because sometimes our mind prefers and this is sort of this goes back to our conversation with your mom and your parents where like it would sometimes almost be easier if they just called you a up to your face because at least that makes sense to you if they have faith and hope and who you are and your possibility of success how does that make you feel yeah it's like it's just why yeah right so like like oddly enough so like now this is that now we can understand why of people who have been abused seek out abusive partners because when someone treats them genuinely they're like what the this is a lie and then someone treats them the letters like no like ah this is a game I know how to play and so bizarrely our mind prefers that which we know to that which is good for us and you've got to be really really careful because you're not a have you failed sure but like you failed because of a combination of circumstance and an experience it's not you aren't a failure but have you failed absolutely and that's okay and so going forward you've got to be really careful about that in this too I think your your your answer is gonna be to certain degree in observation right so you have to notice that there's gonna be a part of your mind that's gonna tell you that I'm gonna fail at everything I've done but like by the way did you finish second grade second grade yeah like like elementary school sex right yes there died succeeded at it I I got through it what about third grade yes fourth grade you know fifth grade where you're saying like got through it and succeeded right yeah yes okay so you have succeeded at stuff you graduated from high school yes you graduated from college yep but I thought you were gonna fail at everything you do do you like okay yeah what do you feel no tell me well like its let me know if you need help yeah yeah I need help so those don't count right yeah is that what you're thinking like it doesn't count yeah yeah it's it's it was stuff that happened earlier it was easier just it doesn't count it doesn't count it doesn't count right is that how you feel yes yeah so let's just think about that for a second your mind is coming up with all kinds of reasons why it doesn't count as second grade who fails second grade sometimes people do it doesn't count so just now see what kind of look at what rigged ass game your brain is playing with you it's funny cuz you say that and like yeah my brains rigged my princess ring you're talking about like so tell me how is the game ranked very good now you're growing what am I saying I'm saying the game's rigged I I'm taking one single event and I fixating on it ends yeah and what are you doing to all of the other data points ignoring them absolutely right I'm gonna run an experiment Zack and I'm going to say that feeding a plant with beer is better than feeding it with water and I'm gonna take a dozen plants and I'm gonna give him 11 of them water and I'm gonna give one up a beer and after two months I have 11 healthy plants and I have one kind of stunted plant and what I'm essentially doing is taking my 11 doh the healthy plants I'm saying this I'm gonna dump him in the trash and there's my beer plant see I was right all along it's the only one that's growing the game is rigged because your discarding data all the time this is what how a cognitive bias works and this all comes from your emotion because that's like it's irrational so it's coming from your emotion fine you can't convince it otherwise and when I pointed out to you rationally even your rational mind is like yeah the game is rigged but then the other part of you that's what does that part saying that parts is like of course it's not rigged this is like everything else doesn't count this is you know this is what happens this sucks and this is the way it is yeah right so just see that about yourself right and let's like laugh at it that's kind of up yeah yeah right but that's that's how it is so when we have our emotions aren't rational so we can't expect them to be rational understand that there's a part of yourself that is hurt and there's a part of yourself that has lost confidence now the real challenge is is in your struggle with that part I wouldn't say you should try to fight it or overcome it because that doesn't really work too well what I'd say is you should take it with you just take it with you right like every everything that you do take this failure with you and say there's a decent chance like this part of me is saying like there's a logical part of my mind that says that actually I'm not really a family or in this part of is like no you you are a failure nothing you could do is right and then you're like okay treat it like a you know like a eccentric uncle who comes to all of your family gatherings and you can't get rid of him like eleven people are dressed normally and he's wearing you know underwear over his pants because he feels like he's a superhero and like he's just gonna be who he's gonna be like the part of you that feels that you're a failure is gonna feel like it's a failure and it's gonna take time for you to comfort and reassure that part and for him to kind of calm down it's like a dog that has gotten like riled up and is afraid that like someone's in his intruder you just have to smell you can't take the dog out the dog is gonna be with you your failure is gonna be with you so carry it with you let it be with you and then also don't let it control you does that make sense yeah easier said than done but absolutely so how do we make it easier to do what do you think yeah I got nothing so dad I'm trying to come up with so I think this is where as you deal with each of the deep as we identify things they become easier to deal with that's number one so if you're saying I'm stressed and I'm overwhelmed you can't do anything with that people don't just wake up one day and say I'm on overwhelmed now done right so if we think about like you know something like therapy what happens is we help people identify the reasons that they're overwhelmed and then it's like we've I've used this analogy before it's like detection in a game right like you have invisible things that are attacking you and that's overwhelmed because remember it's not like quality you don't know what it is all you know is you're taking a shitload of damage every round like I can't see it I don't know I'm overwhelmed but just the dps is through the roof and then once you identify it then you can start to actually like do something like oh there's like this like mob that's here that's attacking me let me like move over this way and then like its effect on you lesson so identification is the first thing noticing is the second thing and this is where we come back to the observer so the more that you can act from the observer the less powerful all of this stuff becomes and so this is where if you can develop a meditative practice go for it I think you should consider getting back into mental health treatment if it's an option that'll help you for it then also give yourself some time I think three three months of playing like runescape is not that bad I mean not to say that you know it's good or that it's unacceptable I'm sure there are people who have been playing group scared for seven years and I'm an accomplished anything and you know comparison and stuff is bad but I'm just saying like give yourself some time and cut yourself some slack it's April kovat is going on anyway like you're not gonna finish your semester I'd say take some time to take care of yourself and work work on yourself like your goal is to like repair damage between now and the fall of next year if you need to apply for something consider applying for something but basically take care of yourself get get rid of the depression you know or handle that try to grow the observer try to notice your fears and then try to you know get get yourself ready by like August if you want to I mean I'm tempted that I'm actually tempted to start writing letters to people is a psychiatrist to let them just play video games for like a month at home like just give them just like a you know burn out Eve thoughts questions [Music] yes I mean I'm still feeling like I don't want to go back it's fine so I'm sort of in a state of like okay what do I do about that I got you so you don't do anything about that right now okay right so you don't have to make that decision today and you don't even have to make it a month from now like you make it and if it's too late and you missed the deadline then you miss the deadline whatever what I'm saying is that like you're it's gonna be really hard for you to make so like do you acknowledge that your mind is irrational right now so do you want to be making decisions with this mind no there you go that's why I'm saying like for a couple months just focus on yourself and like try to heal and try to get into a better place and then though the answers about what you do with your career and stuff like that like this is the big problem if you plan like they say like okay should I go back to school should I switch careers like to forget all of that that's all that sheet isn't unimportant actually right now the important thing is that your instrument is miscalibrated you're a scientist and if you don't like tear your scale at the beginning like how are all of your experiments gonna be pretty exactly it's the first thing that you should do is just tear your scale right tear is ta re by the way it's calibrate so you've got a calibrate first and then we don't think about it this way we don't give ourselves time to heal we don't give ourselves we just say like oh I'm a failure like yeah so like deal with your emotional you know aftermath first and give yourself some time to heal play some ruse or enscape man go for it you know but like don't just do runescape for 18 hours a day like find a therapist spend some time meditating you know it sounds like you watch the marked streams and stuff so continue doing that I'd consider reading in your case meditations by Mark sir alias have you ever rabbit do you like to read yes so read meditations by Marcus Aurelius right there it's like a 99 cent thing you can get on Amazon I like to read hard copies of stuff it's free because it was written like five thousand years ago or something or like a thousand or two thousand years ago so it's in the public domain but you know read a little bit and learn a little bit and grow a little bit and give yourself time to like heal from the damage and understand that your instrument is not calibrated or healthy right now so any of the decisions this is where people like this is the problem as they get into this self-fulfilling prophecy if you you try to move forward and you it up because you're just not ready to move you've got two broken legs and you try to get up and you fall down again and then it reinforces the idea that you're a failure and then you try to get up again and then you still fall down because your legs are broken and then you try again and you try again and the more you try the more it becomes true that you were a failure and then you wind up stuck because at this point instead of one incident you have a dozen instruments in you have a dozen data points and then your mind which believes that wants to discard good data now now it's it's one thing for you to be able to see okay I have 12 years of successes in one year of failure but once you have 12 years of successes in 12 years for failure of failure that becomes a way harder battle to win even rationally so give yourself time to heal first because otherwise you're gonna convince yourself and you're gonna be true you're gonna be right that you are a failure thoughts questions before we wrap up that make sense yeah that makes perfect sense I'm sorry I couldn't transform your life but that doesn't really happen yeah it makes sense okay well good luck man yeah thank you you have any assistly any clothes I don't mean to end things abruptly but that's sort of my schpeel no I mean we touched on everything that I want to touch on since yeah it was it's helpful it's all let's meditate actually oh yeah yeah so sorry go ahead it's the things we do here isn't it yeah it's it's good to talk about it again and yeah last thing last concrete thing that you should do is have a conversation with your parents that's gonna be emotionally hard right but you need to ask them I would ask them because I think the reason you don't have the conversation is because you're afraid of what they're gonna say there's a part of you that knows that until you talk to even though you believe that they think you're a piece of there's a part of you that's holding on to hope that they're gonna say something hopeful and there's a part of you that it's I don't know how else to describe this but it's so hard to hear their positivity towards you right now that's yeah that's almost exactly I was gonna say is like there's the part that does it wants to hear though yeah but you've got to do that right so like it can be a simple conversation I wouldn't have a drink while you're doing it but you can just say you know what do you guys what do you guys think about this last year I'd love to get your thoughts and then you can share with them like this is how the suit last year is gone for me and then they're gonna always look forward don't worry about looking forward or have you found a job are you applying for a job just to ask them like what they think about your situation you'll be surprised if you can get the ball rolling it's gonna like the conversations gonna go on its own getting it started is really the hardest part but and that too is like it's hard to do so you just think about that a little bit but I think right now you're you're trying to make decisions and move forward when you've got all this like you're encumbered so you've got on burden all that and then becomes way easier you'll be back to where you are as a key okay okay your meditation let's think have you seen triphasic breathing yeah okay so let's do that so I'm gonna teach you how to breathe so I want you to sit up straight okay and [Music] okay so I want you to first observe the breath in your chest and now I want you to focus on your stomach and as you breathe in I want you to push your stomach out like expand your stomach and suck the air down into your abdomen and notice that as you breathe out huh sorry I have a focus being stupid in my head Oh be stupid in your head go for him let the focus go and then as you breathe out notice that your stomach contracts pulls in so you can just focus on the sensation of belly moving out and belly moving in or you can visualize your belly button or navel moving away from your spine during inhalation and then pulling towards your spine during exhalation you can really push it all the way out kind of drastically pull it all the way and like suck in your spine to where you can sort of where people would be able to see your rib cages and now what I want you to do is as you belly breathe try to keep your chest somewhat still so there may be an inclination to expand everything when you breathe it breathe in belly in chest try to focus the expansion on your belly during inhalation and exhalation let your chest remain still so this is the first phase of breathing focusing on the abdomen and now we're gonna add the second phase as you breathe in and with a full belly of air then I want you to forcibly expand your chest or sort of intentionally expand your chest afterward and breathe in just a little bit more so phase one is abdomen and phase two breathe in with a full chest of air and then out abdominal breathing chest breathing and out abdomen chest and out and do one more breath and now we'll add phase three so abdomen chest and then raise your shoulders a little bit spike up your shoulders raise your clavicles and breathe just a little bit more and then out it's not going to be very much in that last phase just five percent in with the belly in with the chest and then up with the shoulders and out in with the belly expand the chest raise the shoulders and out now do three breaths just like that let them flow together let your breath be slow if you begin to feel dizziness or lightheaded let your breath pause after the exhalation just sit and then as your respiratory drive awakens breathe again practice for about another minute now go ahead and finish the breath that you're on let your eyes remain closed just feel the person that you are you may have a feeling of failure you may have fear anger shame you notice that those are just pieces of you either underneath that all or even encompassing all those feelings is the real you that all of the fluctuations of the mind and the self happen within the space of you and now sort of feel the outline of your physical form feel your head your shoulders your arms almost like a tracing and notice that the fear and the shame and the anger the failure they exist somewhere within your belly somewhat within your chest somewhere within your throat possibly your head but they mostly live in the torso or the abdomen and now notice for a moment that that is not the whole you that you have arms you have shoulders you have feet you have legs there's no fear or shame there there's no anger or failure but you were not those things and sit with that sensation in the world may victimize you may take advantage of you circumstances could change your job applications could be rejected you may have a grade on your transcript but that none of those things can take you away from this all those things may be true but they are not this and that this is your birthright to be in this place and that this is who you are and you carry this person with you all the time it's not about finding it's about returning now I'll let yourself come back it's April 1st world is falling apart and how do you feel today Zach do anything that day looks kind of chill good kind of chill do you feel like playing runescape oh yeah I noticed that too right notice that desire that impulse don't become attached to it quite yet but notice it's there do not just the negativity anyway any thoughts or questions for you wrap up for the day man no awesome dude I feel better now listen man good luck I really wish you all the best take care of man thank you alrighty oh there we go we forgot to ask him about his um yeah go ahead play runescape we're gonna have to wrap up so we're at our time for today I know people are asking questions and stuff ah how do you get rid of the potential version so that's why I like that's a whole like that's a whole hour about how to deal with potential and how to understand so how do you deal with major life setbacks I think so let's let's answer that question okay so how do you deal with major life setbacks so you recognize that it's a setback you recognize it's a failure that's okay it's not the end of the world that you survive failure and you also notice the damage of the failure so you've got to figure out like where did you take damage and whether they be emotions whether they be you know the house of cards coming down senses of failure being able to unable to move forward you start by identifying all of the ways in which you've taken damage and then you recognize that like all of those problems that you face or all that damage that you've taken is gonna make it so that your mind does not function properly and so then you like even if you try to move forward this is the hard thing is that people who face setbacks they try so hard to rebuild their lives that like you guys know this right you guys actually try really hard you struggle very very hard to like not plays runescape it's not that you're not trying it's just that you're not succeeding and you don't no one sees the effort but you feel the effort like in moments you feel the effort so intensely so intensely and so the problem is not one of lack of trying it's not that you guys are actually lazy it's just that you guys are using an instrument that like is not functioning properly so the way to deal with a setback is not like positive thinking you can do it buddy know it's to recognize okay what what within me is broken what within me is busted what have I learned from this experience like am I scared of ever trying so be it recognize that see that be like okay how do I deal with that like let me just see that thing and let me carry it with me when you go to the job applicant for a job interview for example and you feel like you're not gonna get it you don't like suppress that part you don't say like Oh like there's no use in going because if you suppress it that's what happens it actually takes control it takes control through suppression it exerts its influence in the subconscious and then prevents you from acting so you got to bring it to the conscious notice it and then like say you to it right you say okay fine you don't say you can say you say okay you're a dog that has been really really frustrated with my whole situation fine you think we're gonna be a failure maybe you're right maybe you're wrong I'm gonna let you be where you are and I'm gonna go ahead and go to the job interview anyway and I'm gonna do the best job that I can do it let it be with you accept it and move forward don't let it control you and you say like oh just don't let it control me like how do you not let it control you you let it not control you by accepting it because so far you haven't accepted it and it controls you all the time acceptance leads to freedom so Alcoholics Anonymous is the most is the best evidence-based treatment to get rid of alcoholism there's a great meta-analysis about this recently I think from the Cochrane Collaboration in the first law I mean I don't agree with everything around Alcoholics Anonymous I think I don't really I do a different kind of thing and I tend to be pretty effective but their first thing is that they acknowledge that they're powerless in the face of alcohol it's like how on earth does that work like even if you don't agree with Alcoholics Anonymous or you think there are different ways to do it their first step is to acknowledge that they're powerless in this in the face of this so they cede control and thereby get success she's really weird but there's like actually scientific data that suggests that that psychological principle which by the way is what would though has been teaching or taught a couple thousand years ago but this started teaching it a couple thousand years ago even before but the so like what those teachers were essentially Yogi's right so if you call that Hinduism or not that's up to you I think Hinduism is sort of a Western construct but people have been saying that like in India and China for thousands of years and along comes and even Christianity says that an a a sort of encapsulate that concept and then people take like this neurobiological addiction to alcohol and there's somehow a are able to overcome it through that concept so acceptance of the thing actually leads to liberation outcome absolutely

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 214,081

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, psychiatrist, failure, dealing with failure, i am a failure, graduate school, grad school, graduate student, grad student, higher education, grad life, graduate school stress

Id: hzkgIOzBP7w

Length: 115min 54sec (6954 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2020