I am still very much at home without my other computer with the audio file, but I'm not going to sing this week because it was kind of embarrassing, but enjoy. And here we go. All right, welcome back to our tangled minds. Welcome to our tangled minds. I'm Harry Weidner. I'm Jack Weidner. Welcome back natto SCIAC Bagnato you'll get it. Welcome back to Episode 2120. Is that a lucky Happy New Year? Everyone? Happy New Year? I don't think 20 ones are lucky number two, Roberto Clemente is number three times seven. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. See? 21 is one of those numbers that you think would be prime, but it's not now. But seven and three are both prime. Yep. I don't know. That's interesting. At least to me. No, I mean, it's interesting. And it feels prime. It does feel prime. It's prime Jason. Yeah. Good. Because like 23 is prime. But I want 23 to be prime. You know, it makes sense. The 20 threes prime. What do you have against 23? I don't know. It's 23. Lucky number. I don't think so. Are only prime numbers. Lucky. I don't know. 13 is lucky in Italian. Like sevens the number of perfection but isn't 13 is isn't 13 Unlucky as well. In America, because I don't and other countries I don't know in what other countries? There's no 13th floor on my in my building. I guess. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, 13 is definitely unlucky in America. I don't know. We're all sort of unlucky. Brothers Happy New Year. Yeah. Everyone, listeners and to you, Harry. Yeah, thanks. What did you do for New Year's? I went to a friend's house. Nice. Me. Yeah, we played board games. I made lasagna. Did you make it through midnight? Yeah, I made it to like 3am my bedtime is midnight. Of course. I make it to midnight every night. Wow. I didn't know I called. I called mom at 1230. And I was like, I was Harry that. Dude, I was asleep at 930. That's about at 930 On New Year's. And it was awesome. That is awesome. Because I woke up and I ran and I went to the gym. And yeah, it was good. It was snowing a little bit like a gritty run, you know, one of those where I was at the track, and I was making noises and I could tell there were clearly people there who were like for New Year's resolutions. I haven't seen him since but. But they were there. And I was just like, beaten that was you? Yeah, it was making me wonder why they you did anything go back? If I saw you doing that? Oh my god. No, it was I was going nuts. Horrifying. So yeah, I didn't make it to New Year's Long story short, I don't think I need to, you know, the ball dropping. It's a day. I did have a weird conversation though. The day after New Year's about this guy. I don't know if I told you the story. There's this guy that is adjacent to my friend group. I just, he's fine. But I was just trying to be friendly. Because I never know how to talk to this guy. And I'm just like, Oh, Happy New Year. How was your new year? I think it was January 2, because I don't celebrate that. And the conversation was like, alright, okay. option. This is why I don't talk to you. That's what I it's like, Look, I get it. I'm a big it's a day thing. You people that have listened to the podcast know that I think time is completely relative. So, you know, like for me to celebrate New Years as if it is this momentous occasion. Right? Like, I don't do that. But when I go into my job and my daily life, I do have to put 2024 on there. Yeah, like it matters, right? Like at some point. See, here's the thing. We have picked an arbitrary day for when it has been a year since this since the Earth has revolved around the sun. We picked an arbitrary day. But is it completely arbitrary though? I feel like there has to be some there has to be some sort of reasonably I wouldn't say here's arbitrary. Here's my Well, no, but like it is completely arbitrary because even if you picked a reasoning behind it, I'm assuming it's one Western centric and based on a Western understanding of the seasons and the flow of time. Like it is the Southern Hemisphere summer. Yeah. You know, and like the New Year I think we think of the start of the rebirth. Conveniently, it's a Gregorian calendar by Pope Gregory. So it's centered around the life of Christ. So that is also arbitrary. Yeah. Like, yes, you could have symbolic reasonings for and that can be very sound, but in the big scheme of things, yeah. Okay. It's like, like Christ being born and Christmas is light and darkness. Yeah. And him being in him dying in spring is darkness within rebirth because it mirrors his own rebirth. You know, it's like, yeah, sure, that sound reasoning, but like, at the end of the day, you know, you're telling a story. It's pretty arbitrary. Yeah. Arbitrary. Okay. All right. Yeah, so sorry, your story about I just thought it was a weird, you know, it's like, I'm just trying to make conversation. Like if someone came up to me like, yeah, like, I don't make a big deal about New Year's, I will talk about this, but like, I'm, you know, I'm not a big like, let's reinvent my life kind of guy. No. And we're just trying to make conversation out of sobered that okay, that's Oh, yeah. I don't like that. That's a weird thing to say. And let's just like, do what like How interesting. Do you want me to find you? That, you know, you're just gonna let your like like, just say good. If you don't want to have a conversation say good. I want to ask any follow up. Yeah, it's not like it's not like Christmas where you like you literally don't celebrate Christmas. No, but here's the second part of it that I wasn't going to say he goes he goes today's mary mother of god, though. That'll celebrate. I was like, Oh, my Lord. You know, I would have walked away like that, you know, all celebrate Mary Mother God. Because that's, that's, that is much sounder than we're standing. Very Mother God, the New Year. Dude, if like, if we're gonna get into this, like, don't like my new year was in September, like don't ask us like, oh, my gosh. Anything else new going on? Interesting. I don't think so. I mean, no, right. I'm still at home. I I go back on Wednesday. And I will say, since the holiday season has passed, I have found myself more relaxed at home. Because there's less pressure to like, do and get done. And like, it's actually been kind of nice to be able to be home for a little bit. Yeah. And you have snow, which I'm super jealous about. I think I'm gonna go cross country skiing tomorrow. Oh, that'll be fun. I'm surprised. Well, I guess I was surprised you didn't go skiing already? Well, I don't. Okay. I don't know about oh, well downhill. Like, do I really want to go spend a day at Seven Springs, bumping into people crowded, like having fun, good skiing, but I would much rather go cross country skiing right now. Because it's like, I'm out in the woods. I'm alone. There's nobody bothering me. You don't have to deal with lines. And you know, you can just go as long as you want. So I'm going to kind of replace my run one of my runs this week with a good cross country ski. And that will give my ankle nice time to heal and it'll just be good. I'm really excited to go tomorrow. So cross country skiers actually have the highest vo two max on average. When tested the really? Yeah, that's good minds. minds. I think like 86th percentile right now. So I'm trying to boost it. Yeah, they're like nuts. Apparently. So. Well, I'll let you know how I feel tomorrow after I do it. Do I mean? No. I'm also really excited. Because I'm getting a physical tomorrow. And you that would scare you, but I'm, I'm I'm literally anxious, thinking about the fact that you are getting one. Um, as for me, I mean, I just I want to know, my cholesterol. I want to know my AYP, OB, I want to know my numbers. I want an EKG, I want to be able to read it like I want it all. I already want to stop talking about this. Okay, we can stop but I'm excited about it. So let's say yep. Um, you know, it's like, it's just to make sure I don't drop dead. When you're, you're so healthy. But that's what happens like some healthy people can have heart hidden cardiac issues and like, then you can drop that. And so I guess I don't want that to happen to me. So I'm pretty excited. Well, should we talk about New Year's? Let's talk about New Year's resolution. So I thought we should do New Year's resolutions because I wanted to encourage you to set New Year's goals or sort of set goals for the year for yourself because I don't Throw that that's something that you have ever done. No. And it's something I was going to do regardless. And I did do. And I just kind of this was my way of encouraging you to structure the next year of your life. And here we are good. And here we are. I made them. Good. Should we share them? Yeah, so do you want to share? Yeah, I want to talk with you about your history, your, uh, goals guy, right? Like you like, let's, let's, let's pretend for a second. So you have your life together? And I don't? Um, how long? Have you been making new year's resolutions? I don't know. I think much like you. I don't love the idea of New Year's resolutions. There's some sort of connotation about a New Year's resolution that people always sort of fail them. But I do set yearly goals. And that distinction in my head helps me be more driven about them. I was gonna say, I think that's an important distinction. Yeah, that you you are making the arbitrary, you are differentiating those in your mind. Because they're the same thing. Right? They're the exact same thing. But there's just the language and behaviors associated with quote unquote, New Year's resolutions, right, that people just don't follow through with them. I think if you call it a goal, you have taken a lot of classes. And I think our generation has been taught, you know, quote, unquote, SMART goals. And I think we have been taught to make better goals that are manageable and achievable. Rather than more arbitrary or abstract goals, or even easier to fail goals, where it's like, go to the gym every day. But it's like, that goal is kind of precarious, I think, in its phrasing and situation. So and then it's like, you can feel very easily defeated, whether where it's like, okay, if you make something where you start broad, and you say, I would like to work on my fitness this year, and then you can get more specific and say, Okay, well, I'd like to do these things, these things and these things, and then you'd like, you know, you can categorically break them down. So I think it might be like, I'm terrible at making goals. So I think that is definitely something where it's like, like I like look at I'm like, my new year's goal is I want to look better. And it's like that that goal. What does that mean? Right? Exactly. It's like attributed to weight loss. It's like genetics, it's like, I'd like to change my genetics and be like, you know, yeah, and that sort of all the goals that I set all sort of relate back to my personal mission statement and my kind of life strategy that I have scaffolded and the goals that I have set, contribute to that and make sure I'm aligning my actions with my values, in a way. So that's how I plan my goals in my life. But I want to hear what your goals are. Okay. So I've I have two types. And then I have goals that I'm didn't write on here, but they're like, be cleaner around my apartment. But that's not like, that's just like a jack Get your shit together. So I have tangible goals. One of them is to improve my Hebrew, I can, I think I read it less than a kindergarten level, I have the sound words out and like half an alphabet in front of me. So I would like to work on that. I'm doing like Duolingo. I'm listening to some things more I haven't turned my phone on to Hebrew, because that is just way past, but eventually, maybe make that a goal, like be able to turn your friend to Hebrew by the end of survive. Yeah, I don't know, we'll see. Contrasting that, I would like to be on my phone less, me to a lot less. I would like to read every day. I would like to write every day. And I would like to draw every day. And I know that I was giving like, I'd like to go to the gym every day. Reading and writing every day are things that I literally do every day, but because I'm on my phone, sometimes I will sit with a book on my lap and not read it. And I want to stop that. I'm just like, No, we're done. Because I can very easily read and write every day I did for years, and I stopped last year. And I would like to get back into that I have some abstract goals. I'd like to be wrong more. I would like to assume I'm right less. I'd like to center my day around learning and I'd like to ask more questions. And what did I write here? Oh, yeah. So I was talking to a friend And I was like thinking about this. And I basically like my abstract goals are all to turn my opinions into hypotheses and test them. That's like, my, those are my abstract goals. Yeah. Like, I want to be less sure about everything I say. And I'd like to challenge my own beliefs more. So, yeah, and that all sort of relates back to allowing yourself to be wrong more. I love that as a goal, because it lets you take risks. It lets me take risks. And then I people that I tell these goals to they say, Isn't that the same as assume I'm right, less? And I said, No, it goes hand in hand with that, because I'd like to talk less assuredly, about things that I think that I know about. Like, I would like to think, you know, like, I don't want to, like explain something. If I, I'd like to, like, have a barrier in my mind where I'm like, Am I sure about this? And then hopefully, talk less like an expert on different things that I, you know, might not be qualified to talk? Yeah. Cool. I like this. I like the headers. I mean, I think you can get all those those, all of those on there. I feel like they're, they're tangible. Mine, or I mean, the tangible, you'll hear the difference in our goals, I'm sure very immediately. I mean, I wrote them in pen on a notepad where I put two columns I wrote tangible, abstract. Yeah. So mine are go to three coffee chats with the dean, and attend at least one extra lecture or seminar a month. So three coffee chats with the dean, that really might be all they have, in my final semester at BU. So I'd like to go to all of them. And attend at least one extra lecture or seminar month, be you has the public lecture series. And I'd like to go to one of those a month, at least. So that is very measurable, I can know that I have done that. I'd like to fundraise $1,000 a month until the Boston Marathon. So hopefully I can reach out to enough people and collect enough support to get that done. I'd like to grow this podcast to 500 listeners per episode, how you changed it? I did it was 1000. And as much and I Well, that's the reach goal. You know, I 1000? No goals work apparently. Well, 1000 would be like, I would be thrilled if we got to 1000. And I would be very happy if we got to 500 May I ask a question of how you make goals? Do you make goals that you would be happy to attain? Or do you make goals that you will criticize yourself if you fail? And I feel like those are different things. There are two but that's two different kinds of goals. You know, you have your reach goal, right. Okay. You have your reach goal, which I would be thrilled again to have 1000 listeners per episode. But I would be distance yourself love and goal. Yeah. Disappointed. The the bottom limit, the floor would be 500 listeners per episode by the end. Oh. Okay. Wow. And that's a two way street with you and me. We're gonna have to work. And actually, probably it's a three way street where we share our podcast. Oh, guilt. Yeah. Guilt is good. Yeah. I mean, if you rate us rate us on Spotify, share it with your friend. Do tell people listen. Yeah. Can you rate us on the app? We really need to, I think yeah, I never thought about that. I never thought this is like a thing. I guess we do it twice a week we can I other people promote their own podcasts. Pretty avidly so yeah. So that is another one of my goals. Read at least one book per month and total 20 throughout the year. I think that that's achievable. One per month is because I'd like to at least do one a month. But okay, so you have a you have a disappointment and reach goal for you have like no, no, no disappointment would be if I didn't make it to 20 books throughout the year. Okay, but one per month just keeps me accountable every month. Okay, all right. Like I'm understanding how your brain works. And average fewer than three hours of screen time per day. So, like you said, be on my phone less. I turned that into a number and I said beyond this less than three hours a day. What are you at right now? Probably like five. Okay, that's where I'm at. I sometimes I'm about six. Yeah, and it sucks. I hate talking about how much screen time I have. Because it's embarrassing. It is a little well, I think if you looked at the average per Americans, I don't think it would be embarrassing. I think personally, it's embarrassing because you don't want to admit you spend that much a day of your day on your phone. No, I mean that that think about how much time that is. Yes. What do you mean think about how much that is? Six hours. It's crazy. Yeah, like That is so much time. Yeah. So those are my New Year's goals. So here's here's the thing about smartphones that I do. I am curious about, what if you're doing something productive? How do you differentiate that time? Yeah. I mean, there is time that I'm on my phone that I'm learning, whether that be through a podcast or an audio book, but I'm not on my phone during that time. How much time do you actually spend, like, on your phone doing something? I read this on my phone. And I Google a lot of stuff. That's why the majority of my time on my phone is me Doom, scrolling social media, making me feel worse about myself. I'm really good at feeling bad about myself. It's very easy. So why don't you offload that time spent on your phone and just read the news on your computer? Yeah, no, I guess I could. I guess I could. And then the paper on the weekends, you don't have a social media issue. Yeah, no, that's I deleted it. I don't have Instagram on my phone. And I just check Instagram on my computer. Now. I need to delete off my phone. Yeah. It's just so easy to scroll mindlessly. It is but that's how I think about life's problems. It's designed to do that. Yeah, no, I know. I know what they're doing is terrible. Yeah, but yeah. Ya. You said you were going to make a list of questions to ask me about Yeah, no, I have them. I'm just saying. Why don't we do it? I was thinking about, I'm thinking about, I'm just the just how years work. And like, I was so optimistic last year, I had a lot of big things planned. And some things in our life changed. Yep. Wrap it, you know, like, a lot of stuff happened last year. And it just took it out of me. Yeah. And I didn't do I think I probably accomplish, like, 1% of what I wanted to accomplish. Wow. And the thought of, like, I did some I did stuff, you know, like, like, um, you know, people post on social media, that it's like, the fact that you've gone through the year is a lot. And I agree with that. I just think it's very hard to. And maybe you're not like this, because I think you're very motivated. But it's like, after a year like that, you know, you say like, what if this goes wrong, that goes wrong. And I know you can think about that, but like, how do you dust yourself up? Or Dust yourself off? Get up and just be like, Okay, well, I'll try again this year. And it's like, what, you know, eventually, like since 20, I just feel like as a species, as people, but speaking generally, things have not gone great. And, you know, to stay with that. Let's keep pushing forward mindset. I just think in sometimes is too much. I mean, it is nuts. Yeah. That's funny. Why do I do scroll? Because I sometimes I just can't deal with it. Yeah, I think it's interesting that you said that because I was doing my yearly reflection toward the end of last year. And I really think 2023 was the most productive and fulfilling of my life. I overshot all of my New Year's goals. I sort of maintain stability throughout all the chaos of the year. And I didn't let it defeat me. instead. I let it drive me to do more. Like I use I really did a lot last year. You did you had I did so much and thinking about that. I was really proud of how I handled last year. You should be I'm proud of you. I mean, you compost a lot. We started a podcast that was 90% you. We started the podcast. I read a ton. I learned a lot. I did well really you started reading it like we've had conversations about books. I year two. I did the med school application thing. I'm going through that process like I did a lot I started the ultimate MCAT guide. I worked my job and you know hopefully did well there. And I just think last year was a great year for me. So that sort of motivated me to say what can I get done this year with this 2020 For heaven's store. I'm at the other end of this Bactrim Yeah, I'm like trying to quit you were talking about that. It surprised me. Well, what I mean, I think I think I'm prone to be harder on myself. Not that you are not you are you hold yourself to an incredibly high standard and you meet those standards. I don't I don't meet my own standards, which probably means I should lower them. And maybe I do, I don't know, I just think I'm incredibly hard on myself, you know, you got something in your head. I think like, this is, you know, 2024, I was so scared to do resolutions, resolutions, goals, whatever. I'm scared of goals. Because I don't want I just don't want to fail that. It's like the same reason that I don't tell people when I'm going up because like, I anticipate the failure, which is the mindset that you should not have to accomplish a goal, right, you have to go in being like, I will succeed. That is not how I approach goals. It is I, you know, it's like, how do you how do you how do you motivate, it's just like trying to break a cycle. And that, for me has been the hardest thing about this yearly transition, where it's like, on one hand, we wake up, the calendar has changed. On the other hand, all of the problems that were existing in my life existing in the world on December 31. Were there Jen are still there, January, January 1. Yeah, we don't have this. It's not like a restart at a level, you know, we have this idea of the restart mentality where you can have a fresh start, but that Fresh Start is as artificial as anything else. Yeah, they called him he literally called that the Fresh Start effect in psychology. Okay. See? Yeah. And it's, it's kind of the phenomenon where people set their goals based on temporal events. Yeah. And for someone that you need to lean more into that, though I don't, I don't care about the Fresh Start effect. But you need to lean into the Fresh Start effect, and say, No, because I know it's not true. I can't make myself believe something I completely look at time. It's not even like, I don't look at time is something that is structured like it time is a measurement. And it is as abstract as other things in my mind like it, yes. You know, it's like, I'm going to live my life, I have to live my life linear, because that is how I live my life. But like, I'm aware that what is behind me is still there, like it's not gone. You have the option to ignore it. Yeah, I got option exhibits, that it's very real. But to me that's insincere. Why? Because it's not acknowledging the full complexity of the life in which we all live. Like a like a realistic goal, I think would be to properly grieve deed as death. That is a realistic goal for me that I don't know how to begin, I don't know how time will allow me to process that that is a goal that I think will help me move on with my life. But to do these, that isn't necessarily productive, that would be productive for me, that is not going to advance my career, this that the other thing so people don't make those goals. I think that that would be a very real goal process, like, allow myself to feel that grief. However, how do you allow yourself to grieve with in a temporal frame? How do you allow like a year? How do you how do you hit goals with something as abstract as grief? Because it's not like you can say, Okay, well, I'd like to hit stage. I'd like to finish stage one by March. And then I'd like to be pissed off until May. And then I'd like to be you know, it's like that's it because grief itself, the stages are not linear. So yeah, but what you can do jack is set a weekly time goal to really think about grief. Sure, you know, you don't need to quantify how far along in the grieving process you are. rather give yourself time to be allowed to grieve and not think about anything else. You know, it's you can you can make the goal different. Make the way you achieve the goal differently and define the goal differently. So say, say you want to do nothing, literally put everything away for two hours a week. Just to focus on grieving that can be a way to allow yourself to grieve within a timeframe and feel okay about working toward grieving. As a process, right. And I think that though, is hindered by the yearly, my by this idea of the year beginning and ending with intrinsics. About days. Why I think because because I don't like yeah, so you can set you can say for a year, but that okay, what I'm saying is that idea goes against the SMART goals that I was talking about beforehand. So I think I basically what I'm saying is I think goals need to take their needs, there can be SMART goals. And then I think we need some sort of, like, you know, kind of touchstones about more abstract goals. Yeah, that don't necessarily fit into productivity standards in our everyday life. It all comes down to what works for you, and what makes you feel motivated to do the things that you want to do. And, yeah, and that motivation, I think, is tricky. It's super personal. Like, I I'm one of those people who, if I say it's going to get done, it just gets done. And there's no bullshit no fucking around. Like, I just do it. And that's been, it takes a lot of hard your whole life. Yeah, my whole life. But I don't wake up in the morning and I and I run seven to 14 miles. Because I like it. I do it because it's in my calendar to run that much. And it's going to get done. Yeah, it's not like yesterday in the snow. It was fun toward the end, but the first six miles hurt. It was weird that it was fun when you were spraining your ankle. There was it was cool, because it was snowing. But so bad. I mean, you just have to you have to figure out things that, like, allow you to enjoy it. Yeah. But it's all very personal. And I've sort of offloaded the touchy feely aspect. And if if I say it's gonna get done, it's just gonna get done. But I think it comes down to like, your life strategy. And like, how do I define a great life? What's my life's purpose? What's my life's vision? I guess, how do you you have those worked out? How do you find something like that? A lot of time thinking. It's taken years and years and years and years for me to like, really piece it all together? And it's, it's not a concrete? Document? It's, it's amendable. It's fluid. Yeah. And then like, in in your reflections, whether that be daily, weekly, or monthly, or yearly? Like, how am I aligning my actions with my values? And what I've defined as my my life and like, what, what does my great life look like? See, it's so annoying when you talk like that? It's not because I think it's great, like you have it in a very healthy way. I'm someone who reflects a lot. As well, not to sound You know, I just spend a lot of time thinking about things. And I think the way you approach goals is how I approach, let's say, living life, or lead and let's framework it in the front in the understanding of religion, like, people, I surround myself with a lot of Christians and they're like, aren't you concerned about the afterlife? And I say no, because I will do whatever is in my power each day, to live a life that is authentic, and good, based on my understanding of what is good in the world. And whatever happens after I die will happen. And I think that I can do, because, you know, we, I have my own moral compass. But I can't apply that within a year, or within a quantifiable that within quantifiable measurements, like I can't do that with quantities, or an Excel sheet. And I think that's very hard for, for me because, like, you know, it's like, my, my, my goal as a person, like you have a mission statement, and I'd like to think that I do have a mission statement. I just, I it's a it's so I struggle with that kind of mechanical thinking. And it makes times like this times, like the year really hard. It's so hard, I think in the new year when I want to be productive. And I go two days, and I'm reading and I'm thinking I'm annotating again, I'm like thinking about all this stuff and writing poems again. And then I get to my desk job that takes away all my energy. It's and then I'm just like, I hate this. And it throws me completely out of whatever, like, productivity I was having. It's done, dad and then I go weak self loathing because like, that's where I am. And it's allowing it's me allowing outside things to affect me. Yeah. But it's also kind of trying to just work within my circumstances. And that's very hard. This is a very deep episode of podcasts, but I hate I hate New Year. I have always hated New Year's that I don't even have. I literally hate New Year's so much. I have an academic calendar, because I can't think about the year beginning and ending in January. This like summer vacation is like a good time where like summer vacation is this kind of like liminal space where nothing matters still in this like life? And then I can start in September, September still in my brain is like a time where I'm like, Alright, let's get some work done. Wow. Yeah, it's funny, because I'm still very much on the academic calendar. And I live my Oh, I know you are I live my life in yours. I am a calendar year person. I think you could benefit from thinking about what your places with work and your relationship is with work this year. Yeah. See, okay, so this is my thing. People when I people like me, maybe there aren't people like me, maybe people are listening to this me like Jackson saying, Jack has, you know, whatever. I think when I talk to people that have this incredible growth mindset, they say, start by thinking what the fuck do you think I did? Not you? Yeah, just like people. It's like, Oh, I do. I do start by thinking. And then I don't know, like, it's like, is it a thought loop? Is it? And then it's, it's there's this idea that when you say well do you have to start by analyzing what you're like, I know, my relationship with work is unhealthy. And I know that I need to change it. But I think for, at least in my mind, I would describe it as being on a treadmill where you cannot turn it off. So it's like, okay, I could, I could take a second. And readjust if I could turn the treadmill off. But I haven't had enough time to turn that treadmill off. So it's like I'm running for my life. But you don't know what you were, you're running. Exactly. Because they that's where like we're funneled into this. We're all sprinting somewhere, we have to do XYZ things. And when do you have with like, I can think like, Oh, my God, oh, my God, my relationship with work is terrible. I should stop. I have unhealthy working habits. But it's like I develop those in school where we were, you know, like, I was always doing schoolwork. And then you know, I got into college. And I was like, 110% in college. And then it's like, I'm at work. And it's like, oh, you're just supposed to work until you die, you're going to have retirement. It's like, how do you stop this treadmill? Well, if I were to, if I were to ask, what direction do you want your life to go? What would your answer be towards education? more concrete? I don't I just You see, I don't know. Like I that's what you need. I had a North Star. Well, here's the thing. Work is changing as well. I had a North Star, I wanted to be a professor, that is a less realistic possibility. That is not necessarily a stable job choice. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. That is not a stable job choice. You know, and it's like, oh, how do you see yourself some days I see myself as an artist, a failure, but an artist. And it's like, what does that mean? How do you? They're not It's not like it's a concrete goal. So I say education. I would have loved to be a professor. Now. I think it's high school. How do I transition to that is a complicated thing. So here's another added complicated thing. To I contribute to a retirement fund, which I never thought I do. And there's the end you can take this out of the podcast, but just like explaining it to you. High School when does when does high school start August, right? If I were to work at my job booths until August, I would not get any of them My matched 401 K for that year, because it can't it's they match it on December 31. So then I'd have to work until December 31 To get my matched 401k From my retirement, or lose all of that money, but then how do you start in August? Those I don't know, those are conversations that you'd have to have. I know, it's just hard. And it's like, but I think it's, I think it's easier than you think. Probably, I think that I think it should, I'm not saying that it's not difficult. But how about this, it's probably easier than you are making it out to be. I will say this, I think it's hard, it's easier, it's definitely easier than I make it out to be, right. Because I'm some I can get trapped in my head very easily. I also think sometimes it is harder for some people than you then grow grind set people make it out to be as well. Yeah, I can understand that. But I lack some sympathy for people who will not just get out there and work their ass off to make it happen. You know, like, it's not, nothing I do is easy. You know, and I don't, I don't want to come off as an ass here. But like, I do work extremely hard in every aspect of my life to make things happen. You are one of the hardest working people I've ever met. And it's it's it's not easy. And so when I'll use the running example, like, it is hard to do that, that is a difficult thing. Yeah. But it gets done because it has to get done. And, you know, if I start my day doing something hard, the rest of my day can be spent doing equally hard things. It's it's like, hard work. And oh, man. So it's growing your anterior mid cingulate cortex. And that's the part of your brain that that grows when you do something that you truly don't want to do. And it's like a muscle. And so your capacity to do hard work increases when you do more hard work. So it's like, it's always forcing myself to work hard. And that might make me come off as insensitive. I don't think I think I come off as a crybaby in this episode, I don't think you come off as insensitive. But just like, I think that you tend to get stuck in your head. Rather than in this, this is nothing we haven't talked about before. But you get stuck in your head instead of the world of like, this is what I want to do. And this is how I'm going to get there. Like if, if you know not what port you're sailing to, no wind is useful. So if you don't know what direction you're trying to go, nothing that you can do is getting you there because you have no clue where you're going. And if you sail into a hurricane, you're fucked. Right? So I think spending time and reflecting on like, the direction you want your life to head this calendar. Sure. Like, I think just throw out all of all of the the notions that you have about the calendar year and just submit to it. Just completely submit to it and say, What do I want my life to look like, by the end of this year? And how can I make that happen? I think that's really good advice. I'm going to try. I will try well, which is why I'm even glad you have something fucking written down for that as far as that I usually get right. You know? Yeah. I think it's hard to get, you know, yeah, sure. Maybe there's the excuse of getting lost in the shuffle, when you may be allowing yourself a little bit to be picked up by it. Yeah. Like you, you will get through this year. And I don't want unwilling, I don't want you to look back and say there are all of these things that I wanted to do that I didn't do. Sure. I mean, those have been mounting up for a while. Right. But yes. And I mean, what will your life look like? If you just keep doing that year after year after year? Wait, I know The answer. suburban dad, no, just kidding. No. It won't look anything like you want it to look. Yeah. So my answer stance. So and this was this was why I chose the road trip over the 10 week shadowing experience. I was just thinking about this before my next move reading that one, you had regretted that in a singular sentence a few weeks ago. What did I regretted my road trip? Yeah, no, I will never regret my road trip. Oh, I think you had said something where you were like, that road trip cost me a lot of shadowing experience did marketing in the med school? It did. I mean, I'm sorry. I think I foisted myself upon you. When you said that. I was like, oh, Harry's regretting his No, no, just that was, that was just very matter of fact, like, I didn't do this 10 week shadowing experience, because I wanted to go on my road trip. But if I'm sitting on my deathbed, and I'm thinking about my life, and the decisions that I've made, I 100% 10 times out of 10. And glad that I did that road trip. And the ability for me to say that makes me know that I made the right decision. Whether or not that affects my, my application for medical school, I don't really care. I that I try to make decisions again. And it all goes back to my life strategy. And my mission statement like I would much rather have been personally fulfilled by that road trip than professionally fulfilled by the stupid 10 week shadowing program that everyone hears about. But ya know, I'll never forget that road trip. It was incredible. So, but that's how I make the decision by my my deathbed. However many years in the future, it's like, what decision would I rather have made? It's a fun way to live. Living by a deathbed decision. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I fear the death. But that's why I would rather just dropped that. No, don't fear it. I reflect not dying all the time. I would not like to reflect while dying. But that's when you will reflect the most dude, I know. That's why I don't want to deal with well, then you just need to sit with it. What? You asked me earlier in the episode, where am I running away? And maybe, maybe that's a start to stop. Yeah, like, it's like, it's just stop doing? Yeah. Just stopped doing it. We're like the, we're like the therapist and the patient, or not the therapist and the patient. That's it. Now, because I think therapists were like, I don't even know. It's just it's that like classic like thing you see on social media where it's like, people are like, or like the kid comes up. And he's like, this hurts when I do this. And he like, twist his arm one way. And the moms just like, why don't you not do that? Yeah. And then people are like, well, it's not that simple. That it just goes back and forth. It's like chicken in the egg. Um, so because I didn't get to my questions I read, we actually addressed some of the questions. Like, how do you make a year manageable? was one. How do you work within a week time set of when you are both working doing school? Like how do you multitask in a day? Yeah, I can answer that one pretty easily. Like, okay, I have. I have a, this is a spreadsheet of how many hours I will spend doing everything every week. Wow. So you're done by I have allocated the weekly waking hours. I have it right here. I keep it open. And it's all on this. I've my entire life map, sort of in one dashboard page. I feel like I need to figure out how to live like you within my means. Like I was talking to a professor the other day. And he said, It's good to be uncomfortable at home. Meaning like, maybe find your center of where you can work and then push those bounds but don't try to be in someone else's home. And you know, so like when I say home, I mean like we're fit look where you're uncomfortable, right? Like some people are very comfortable doing the nine to five. You're very comfortable with spreadsheets. I'm not comfortable with a nine to five or spreadsheets. Yeah. So I think I need to figure out where I'm comfortable. And then I can push myself further from there, right? Maybe that should be my goal. You need to define it a little better. Sorry, sounds like you have your spreadsheets in. How big is it? There are 112 waking hours. And the week I have class homework playing guitar, brainstorming, my my job, reading, writing, working out running. And that pretty much like cooking and eating. That's all in there. And you divide the time between them. Yeah. Do you how important is your calendar to you? And I know the answer to this, but like, what kind of calendar do you use? Just my online calendar? And I use the online calendar because allows me to be flexible? I do I have flexibility built into my life. It's not all very rigid. But you schedule you're flexible. I schedule my flexibility. And that that works for me. Yeah, it works really well for me. kind of love it. Actually thinking, thinking about it, like virtually half. It's almost like something some people look forward to. Yeah, no, I scheduled this in. Yeah. And I love I have designed my life to be completely motivated by things that I enjoy. And so like my journaling, I've integrated the minus two to plus two scale of the day with different variables, like what I did during that day. And I also that's the quantitative aspect. And then I have the qualitative aspect where I'm reflecting and asking myself questions and answering those questions. But the fact that I can run logistic regressions on the positive or negative outcomes of my days, like all that gets me going. And the smile on your face. It's, it's good, it's good. And I've, I've dropped those little easter eggs into my life, so that I continue doing the hard things that I don't necessarily want to do. Yeah, you're almost like Pav? Like you're like dog training yourself? I mean, I guess here's a here's a little treat. Yeah, right. I give myself a little treat sloth treat. But that's not to go back to like your original question. Yeah. How do you balance everything? I have a spreadsheet. There's 112 waking hours in a week. How do I? How do I fill them all? And that's how you balance it? Yeah. Like you can't overbook those things? And then, okay, so my last one was? How do you look at things I'm trying to I kind of just wrote down like, it basically has to do with integrating the emotional into a productivity mindset. So we talked a little bit about grief, which is what brought up this question. Just like, I think a lot of people, Is it as simple as just saying, if I work on processing emotions, that makes me X amount of more conventionally productive? Is it just saying that that is productive time? Do you spend a lot of time like processing, let's say grief, or understanding your anger towards something or sympathy or sadness, sadness, or like, dwelling on this? I worry about getting to existential about it, like you're worrying about like World War Three, but like, processing the fact that let's say in Boston, you drive down that stretch of, you know, the the homeless population, you know, like, how do you try to do your due diligence, do the due diligence as a future med medicine provider, and one who is a good human? And also like, stay within this American productivity mindset? Like, how do you how do you measure it? I mean, it's no secret that I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing things. You're not analyzing it. I schedule my journaling time, and I scheduled my reflections. So that's, that's when you do that kind of stuff. Yeah. Like I have. I have a this is another spreadsheet that I have. It's a spreadsheet of the journaling prompts that are all categorized. And and so when I need to explore something, I go to that category, I look at all the questions that I've compiled for it. And I answer those questions. And that sort of gives me structure in thinking about life and what's going on and what I need to think about what directions I want to go and how I need to handle it. Okay, yeah. And it works for me is compart, right now is compartmentalizing. And I'm terrible at compartmentalizing. So that makes sense why I would not have just assumed it was during your journaling. Because I can't put away dishes without thinking about some things. Yeah, don't have to do with dishes. And I'm not kidding, if I am doing something throughout the day that I know that I need to reflect on I will put a note in for myself, and then address it when I have time to reflect on it. I don't let it sort of throw off my day, and my daily balance. But I put it off and say this is something I need to spend time thinking about. And then I'll think about it at that time. So say I'm reading an article, and I see something that I need to explore. I'll put it off to the side. And I'll say, check this out later. Think about it. I want to do it right then I it's just I know that I can't, I can't afford to take three hours out of my data, like, go into this one thing. There's this great quote, by a poet and I think she's talking about how, you know, when a poem when she feels a poem coming on, she doesn't believe that it come it comes almost from externally and then enters her. And if she gets it, it's hers. So she was outside. And she felt a poem coming on. And she was hanging laundry. And then she had the run inside. And by the time she got the notepad, the poem had left her and went on to someone else. And I think that hearing that at a young age, I don't know if it's psychologically like me, but I feel like that, like if I have an idea, and I would be like this in school, you know, if I had an idea, it would enter like, like a line I had I had and I have to write it down. It would be gone. And I'd have to deal with it then and I'd have to think about it then and it would be this kind of almost all consuming thing. Yeah. And that I don't think is a good like, I'm like having this like reflection of like, yeah, like that's probably not a good way. It just depends on again, how you want to live your life and how you feel like your, your time is best structured. I think a lot for me, which is annoying, is as much as I will give you shit for going into the mythos of the quote like the I'll say the tech founder mythos. But like this, like genius entrepreneur, I think you buy into that mythos. And I give you a lot of shit for it. But I have fully bought in since I was a kid into this, like, our artistic mythos. And at some point, I started working like, I don't know when, but like, I think I have to believe that there was a part of that, that I wanted to be a little chaotic, became I was always chaotic, but I think like, I was like, Oh, I identify with chaos. I can you know, people live like that. Or, uh, you know, like, people work at night. Oh, I work at night. You know, like, I'm spontaneous. I'm this that the other thing. And I think like with all things, there has to be this kind of mix. And there's a middle ground where it's like, okay, yeah, I work a little bit like that. I'm a little spontaneous. But I can sit and digest things. Like when I write poetry now that that overwhelming feeling will be one line, and it might be the initial line, but I found that it's better if I marinate on it. Yeah. And that is something that I think maybe yeah, that's that's interesting. My my goal being deconstructing this mythos that I have. Maybe maybe the idea of character that I wanted to find myself in has been inhibitory for me. And maybe that is a way of working outside of it. Yeah. It's all very individual. Like my the way that I live my life has been very trial and error. I've tried it all. I've done everything that I can. And I've just found what works well for me. Yeah, mine has been an error. Yeah, well, but that's okay. Because you'll find something that works, but setting it up We'll loop it back to the beginning of what you fail more often. Yeah, you know, try things that you wouldn't otherwise try. And maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised in how it works for your life. I do wonder, like, you seem to fit into a cultural norms of like waking up early. We're an early society here. I wonder how you would do in a society that stayed up later and work later and had a different understanding of productivity? Probably not as well. I wonder if we have a different conversation? Yeah. And I think it's easy for me to sit here and say that I wouldn't let it bother me. But am I? Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting to me. Yeah. Well, should we wrap it? Yeah, let's wrap it. All right. Anything else? You want to say? We good? No. Okay, people. Thank you so much for listening. Where were you talking about? Oh, yeah. Like, like us on Spotify portrayed us kindly. on Spotify, share the pod talk to your friends. Um, I don't know if you have any episode ideas. If you want to hear more or less of something. Email us at our tangled minds@gmail.com I'll read them and then forward it to Harry. Um, yeah, I think that's it. But thank you so much for sticking around and seeing how this mess unravels. We'll see you in two weeks. And Harun are going to talk about possibly doing a live stream marathon for him to get some money for the marathon. Yeah, and if you if you can, and are willing, please donate. I would really appreciate it. The human fund the human fund at Harry Weidner sock? No, that's a no no, no, no, no joke. Joke joke. All right. All right. I'm gonna stop this