- When we think about our life, we usually think about
it in a form of a story. (slow music) First we were born and
then we did some things and made some memories and now we're here and we work at our job or whatever. But in the future we plan
on doing more things, seeing the world maybe
and saving up enough money for a enjoyable retirement. We all tend to view our lives in a sort of narrative
structure like this, with the beginning, a
middle and an eventual end. Which kinda makes sense because
by reflecting on the past, it helps us make sense of where we are now and by having hopes and
dreams for the future, it gives us something to look forward to, something to plan towards and if we currently don't
like our present situation, we can place our pains and
frustrations on the hope of a better tomorrow. But if you think about what it feels like to actually live life,
like what it feels like on a day to day basis, it
feels completely different. We kinda just wake up,
we feel kinda groggy, we stumble downstairs, get the coffee, hop in the shower, you
get dressed before getting in the car to get that bread. And after you get that bread, you get more bread at McDonald's because you have an addiction and then you come home,
usually pretty tired and you veg out and watch
Netflix or whatever you do until you go to bed. This is what living
life usually feels like to most people most of the time. Life in general is usually pretty normal. You do the things that you do everyday, you kinda have a routine
or a pattern you stick to and life usually isn't super
inspiring or mind-blowing, it's just sort of the
day to day experience. But is there anything wrong with that? I mean, social media has us thinking that everyone's hanging
out on yachts all the time, going on crazy adventures, trying out the 2,000 different
bananas in southeast Asia and everyone's getting married to the person of their dreams, popping out the most beautiful babies. But that's not life,
that's a highlight reel. And these highlights
that we constantly absorb by the people we follow on
Instagram or the movies we watch on Netflix, these highlights start to really influence the
story we tell ourselves about our own lives. We start viewing our
lives, at least our lives lived to it's fullest potential as a life with as many of these highlights in it as possible, so the
days when these awesome, crazy things aren't happening, we view that as somehow suboptimal. Our amazing days become the expectation and our normal days become
boring, like we're wasting our potential, we're
wasting our lives away. But this story we tell
ourselves, this adventure life, no one's life is like this, not Dwayne Johnson, not Elon Musk. Sure, these guys are
doing some really cool, important things more often than we are but still the majority of their lives, they just sort of wake up,
they do a bunch of things they don't wanna do,
they're grinding it out, they're working hard, they're
often really frustrated or stressed out. They still poop, they still have to eat. Most of their lives exist in this sort of day to day monotony. They're experiencing life in the exact same way that you are, except when Elon Musk is fantasizing about escaping the day to day
grind and taking a vacation, instead of the Bahamas,
he's thinking Mars. Assuming you get eight
hours of sleep every night, which I'm sure you do, you only
have about 16 hours to live because you only experience
life one day at a time. That little section of time
between lifting your head off the pillow and
putting it back down again and all that stuff in between
that seems kind of normal and kinda inconsequential,
that's all life is, it's just that thing over
and over and over again. And this can sound super
depressing or super inspiring, depending on how you look at it. It can be depressing,
obviously if you don't like those 16 hours, usually,
a lot of us are slaves to our bad habits. We do things we don't want to do. We work jobs we don't really like and we're put in certain
financial or social situations that we really don't like being in. So every single day, day after day is something we generally
don't like doing. Which is why we fantasize
about the future so much. We're still waiting to live our real lives and if this is all there is, then that's obviously super depressing. But there's a silver lining because changing your entire life isn't as big of a feat
as you might think it is. Since life is lived in
these little 16 hour little mini episodes, that's
a very manageable amount of time to perfect. We can start to build habits
that we actually enjoy doing and that are good for us and we can train ourselves to make choices that are actually aligned with our values and will help us be the person we want to be every single day. Because a good life is just
a serious of good days, not necessarily days where
everything went our way and nothing was difficult or stressful but days where our system was running. We gave life a good shot, we
made choices that are aligned with our values and we
did the little things that make us happy. Maybe that's having a good
conversation with a friend or putting a little extra
effort into cooking, so you eat something kinda memorable and that you're proud of, maybe that's developing one
positive habit at a time so that the things that
keep you grounded and happy and your mood elevated, start to become things
that you do automatically. Viewing life on a micro scale like this also adds clarity to the little choices we make throughout the day. If you've always wanted to
be a more social person, then that means saying yes
to beers with the boys today, when you get the invitation. And if you're constantly fantasizing about being a more fit person, that means going to the gym today. Because your life is
today, that's all it is. It's just today repeated. A big thank you to Skillshare
for sponsoring this video. One problem you might encounter when trying to start a new habit is that when you try to go from something like watching YouTube videos
obsessively every single day to trying to replace that
habit with reading a book, you're going from something
that's super stimulating to something that's a lot
slower paced and harder to do. So the transition can be pretty jarring and you might quit right
away, unfortunately. A great way to counteract this problem is to take smaller steps, so go from something super
stimulating, like watching videos to watching just better videos. A great example of this is to
utilize today's video sponsor, Skillshare, which is an
online learning platform with thousands of classes
covering dozens of topics that'll help you learn real world skills and just make you smarter in general. Simon Sinek even has a class on Skillshare where he teaches you about how
to give better presentations which is the class I'm
currently diving into. Skillshare is offering better
idea viewers two months of Skillshare premium absolutely free which means that right now
when you click the link in the description, you have access to every single class on Skillshare, including Simon Sinek's
awesome presentation class and after your free trial expires, Skillshare is still super affordable. If you choose their annual membership, the monthly hit is less than $10 a month. So kind of a no brainer,
so click that link below and get access to the thousands of classes that are on Skillshare, expand your mind, make yourself smarter
and have a great time. If you like this video,
make sure to hit like, 'cause when you hit like, the algorithm does fancy things and my bald head appears in people's homepages and if
they're struggling through life or there's something they wanna work on, sometimes my videos motivate
them to make a positive change. So it's kinda win-win for everybody. If you're lurking here and
this is the millionth time you've seen my face or
seen one of my videos, what are you doing, just
hit that subscribe button and hit the bell icon so that
you don't miss future videos. You'll actually get notified and be part of the notification army. Also I just relaunched my Instagram. The minute we hit 10,000 followers is the minute I give away
a whole bunch of Kindles so that you guys have absolutely no excuse not to read the books I recommend. So hit the link in the description, follow me on Instagram. I know this is kinda ironic because I just said, oh
we're influenced by Instagram and all these people on yachts and stuff, but I can assure you, I'm almost, actually I've never been on a yacht and I live a really normally life. So delete all those travel pages, unfollow them, follow me instead because I'll probably make you feel really good about your life. Yeah, other than that,
thank you for watching and we'll catch you in the next video.
Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king— And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.
No, billionaires lives are not "just like ours". Yes, instagram lives are fake. Yes, you are wasting your life, at work. Most of the best, most productive hours of your lives will be spent at work, draining your energy for someone else's future.
Great video, and absolutely true. I do think that Elon Musk's 16 hours are a bit more entertaining than mine, though.
My rule on self help material is that it needs 20 years past the creators death to be taken seriously. If it survives that length of time there might be something more than "bro you really should exercise and read more".
Anyways, read Man's Search for Meaning.
But they at least have that highlight reel haha.
everyone life is, at some point!
F. Sinatra: “That’s life”
Thanks bro this helped my day to be a little more productive than sitting in bed all day watching YouTube
huh what a weird insecure dude.