תעתיק 🔗
WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:03.089
You were looking at photographs from five years ago. Not
2
00:00:03.209 --> 00:00:07.089
old photographs. Five years. And the person in them felt
3
00:00:07.129 --> 00:00:10.570
like a stranger. And also like someone you miss. Not
4
00:00:10.609 --> 00:00:13.380
because your life is bad now. Your life is fine.
5
00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:17.719
The job is fine. The flat is fine. You didn't
6
00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:19.640
know what it was like to be a present candidate.
7
00:00:20.140 --> 00:00:21.460
You didn't know what it was like to be a
8
00:00:21.500 --> 00:00:25.199
present candidate for that presidential interview. You didn't know what
9
00:00:25.219 --> 00:00:27.269
it was like to be a presidential interview on that
10
00:00:27.339 --> 00:00:32.210
presidential day. The interview was all about confidence, confidence in body,
11
00:00:32.649 --> 00:00:36.710
confidence in blothe. And he was an amazing man. No caps,
12
00:00:37.149 --> 00:00:41.359
no records, no walls, no replicas, just a man who
13
00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:44.740
was living the present and not paying. And you tershed
14
00:00:44.799 --> 00:00:47.700
the breath again, and he just looked at you, and
15
00:00:47.740 --> 00:00:50.100
he was an amazing man. You didn't know what it
16
00:00:50.140 --> 00:00:53.130
was like to be a present candidate for that presidential interview.
17
00:00:53.909 --> 00:00:57.409
It wasn't your life. It was his life. The day
18
00:00:57.439 --> 00:00:59.399
that the tourists came to the States was the day
19
00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:02.619
you got president. The president told the back lines of
20
00:01:02.659 --> 00:01:05.099
the interview that they came to do now. And the
21
00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:07.959
vampire showed up in his bed, and he said something
22
00:01:08.060 --> 00:01:11.719
so clear. I've never seen this world so clearly before.
23
00:01:12.629 --> 00:01:14.870
I've never seen the president be a president to a
24
00:01:14.950 --> 00:01:18.709
presidential interview with a laser eye. The president told the
25
00:01:18.750 --> 00:01:21.290
vampire that he was a vampire no longer needed to
26
00:01:21.329 --> 00:01:24.620
worry about. I've never seen the president be a president
27
00:01:24.680 --> 00:01:28.000
to a presidential interview with a laser eye. And he
28
00:01:28.049 --> 00:01:31.469
just looked at you. And he was amazing man. And
29
00:01:31.510 --> 00:01:34.709
he watered me for two days. And he was amazing man.
30
00:01:35.349 --> 00:01:38.370
And he made me feel infinitely powerful. And he was
31
00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:41.370
amazing man. And he wanted me to see the world
32
00:01:41.510 --> 00:01:45.989
one more time. Whatever happens, know that one day, you'll
33
00:01:46.069 --> 00:01:48.569
eat with a vampire no longer needing to worry about.
34
00:01:49.329 --> 00:01:52.379
That was the problem. The tourist came to the States
35
00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:55.549
was the day the Tuntri needed to rebuild. The president
36
00:01:55.629 --> 00:01:57.750
told the back lines of the interview that they came
37
00:01:57.790 --> 00:02:00.870
to do now. And the vampire showed up in his bed.
38
00:02:01.450 --> 00:02:04.469
And he said something so clear. I've never seen the
39
00:02:04.510 --> 00:02:07.489
president be a president to a presidential interview with a
40
00:02:07.530 --> 00:02:10.509
laser eye. Fine is not the word you would have
41
00:02:10.669 --> 00:02:14.349
used five years ago for the life you wanted. Welcome
42
00:02:14.370 --> 00:02:17.949
to Before You Overthink It Again. I am Logan. Today
43
00:02:18.009 --> 00:02:20.569
we are talking about the strange feeling of not recognizing
44
00:02:20.610 --> 00:02:23.069
your own life and about the gaps that create it.
45
00:02:23.569 --> 00:02:26.289
Here's the question. Why can your life look right from
46
00:02:26.310 --> 00:02:30.069
the outside and feel wrong from the inside? Nothing is broken.
47
00:02:30.530 --> 00:02:33.789
No crisis has arrived. The job pays. The rent is paid.
48
00:02:34.330 --> 00:02:36.949
People who love you would say you're doing well. And
49
00:02:36.990 --> 00:02:39.900
yet there's a quiet feeling underneath the fine that says,
50
00:02:40.469 --> 00:02:43.740
this is not quite me. Not quite the life I imagined.
51
00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:47.139
Not quite the person I thought I would be. Where
52
00:02:47.159 --> 00:02:49.430
does that feeling come from, and what is it trying
53
00:02:49.469 --> 00:02:52.650
to tell you? Psychologists have a theory for this, and
54
00:02:52.669 --> 00:02:54.330
it is one of the most useful maps of the
55
00:02:54.370 --> 00:02:58.569
inner life ever drawn. It is called self-discrepancy theory, and
56
00:02:58.590 --> 00:03:01.229
it was developed by Torrey Higgins in the late 1980s.
57
00:03:02.009 --> 00:03:05.120
The theory says that we carry not one self, but three.
58
00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:08.219
There is the actual self, who you are right now.
59
00:03:08.919 --> 00:03:11.419
There is the ideal self, who you wish you were.
60
00:03:12.139 --> 00:03:14.659
And there is the ought self, who you feel you
61
00:03:14.719 --> 00:03:18.840
should be. And the feeling you are having the not-quite-me feeling,
62
00:03:19.409 --> 00:03:22.710
comes from the gaps between them, not from any one self,
63
00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:25.889
from the distances. And here's the part that makes the
64
00:03:25.949 --> 00:03:29.789
theory so useful. The two gaps feel different. The gap
65
00:03:29.810 --> 00:03:31.710
between who you are and who you wish you were,
66
00:03:32.090 --> 00:03:37.810
the actual ideal gap, produces a particular kind of ache, disappointment, sadness,
67
00:03:38.490 --> 00:03:41.490
a sense of something missing. The gap between who you
68
00:03:41.650 --> 00:03:44.349
are and who you feel you should be, the actual
69
00:03:44.469 --> 00:03:49.560
ought gap, produces a different ache, anxiety,
Load full transcript
guilt, a sense
70
00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:53.020
of being behind or judged or unsafe, they are not
71
00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:55.840
the same feeling, and they do not need the same response.
72
00:03:56.639 --> 00:03:59.919
Disappointment asks you to look at what you want. Anxiety
73
00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:02.030
asks you to look at whose rules you are following.
74
00:04:02.710 --> 00:04:06.189
And most people, when they feel the not-quite-me feeling, do
75
00:04:06.250 --> 00:04:08.590
not know which gap they are in, so they try
76
00:04:08.629 --> 00:04:11.750
to fix both at once, and they fix neither. There
77
00:04:11.789 --> 00:04:14.009
is a second layer here, and it is about how
78
00:04:14.050 --> 00:04:17.240
the selves move. The ideal self you are measuring yourself
79
00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:20.170
against may not be yours anymore. It may be an
80
00:04:20.250 --> 00:04:22.790
ideal from five years ago, from a version of you
81
00:04:22.850 --> 00:04:26.769
who wanted different things. At 25, the ideal was adventure
82
00:04:27.029 --> 00:04:29.930
and freedom and a life that looked nothing like a mortgage.
83
00:04:30.790 --> 00:04:34.519
At 30, the ideal might be stability and depth and
84
00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:37.240
a life that looks exactly like one. But if you
85
00:04:37.259 --> 00:04:40.360
never updated the ideal, you are measuring your present life
86
00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.480
against a wish that expired years ago and the gap
87
00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:46.300
will always feel large. because the target is one you
88
00:04:46.329 --> 00:04:49.399
no longer actually want. And the ought self has a
89
00:04:49.459 --> 00:04:53.379
similar problem. It is often borrowed. It is your parents' ought.
90
00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:56.339
It is your culture's ought. It is the ought you
91
00:04:56.399 --> 00:04:58.839
absorbed from a feed full of people who seem further
92
00:04:58.879 --> 00:05:01.939
along than you. A borrowed ought produces a gap that
93
00:05:02.019 --> 00:05:04.689
no amount of effort can close, because the gap is
94
00:05:04.750 --> 00:05:07.610
not between you and your values. It is between you
95
00:05:07.709 --> 00:05:10.470
and someone else's. And there is a third layer, which
96
00:05:10.529 --> 00:05:12.930
is worth saying plainly, because it is easy to miss.
97
00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:16.540
A gap is not always a problem. A small gap
98
00:05:16.579 --> 00:05:18.439
between who you are and who you wish to be
99
00:05:18.899 --> 00:05:21.860
is what motivates growth. It is the reason you learn
100
00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:25.310
and change and try. The problem is not the gap.
101
00:05:25.870 --> 00:05:28.389
The problem is a large gap that has never been examined.
102
00:05:28.970 --> 00:05:31.389
A gap you are carrying without knowing which selves are
103
00:05:31.410 --> 00:05:35.029
involved or whose ideal you are chasing or whether the
104
00:05:35.110 --> 00:05:39.009
ideal is even still yours. An unexamined
gap feels like
105
00:05:39.089 --> 00:05:43.480
losing yourself. An examined gap feels like a direction. So
106
00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:47.139
what do people commonly misunderstand here? They think the feeling
107
00:05:47.180 --> 00:05:49.819
means their life is wrong. If I feel this way,
108
00:05:49.879 --> 00:05:52.160
the job must be wrong, or the city must be wrong,
109
00:05:52.279 --> 00:05:55.079
or the relationship must be wrong. But the feeling is
110
00:05:55.170 --> 00:05:57.930
information about a gap, not a verdict on the life.
111
00:05:58.689 --> 00:06:01.290
A gap can be closed in two directions. You can
112
00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:04.029
move toward the ideal, or you can update the ideal.
113
00:06:04.750 --> 00:06:07.750
And sometimes the right move is the second one. Letting
114
00:06:07.769 --> 00:06:09.740
go of a wish that no longer fits is not
115
00:06:09.819 --> 00:06:13.839
giving up. It is accuracy. And there is a second misunderstanding,
116
00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:15.639
which is that the answer is to go back to
117
00:06:15.689 --> 00:06:18.990
who you were. You cannot go back. The person in
118
00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:21.569
the photograph is not waiting for you. And you should
119
00:06:21.589 --> 00:06:24.089
not want them to be, because that person had not
120
00:06:24.170 --> 00:06:27.069
lived the five years you have lived. The task is
121
00:06:27.129 --> 00:06:29.850
not to rewind. It is to write the next version,
122
00:06:30.170 --> 00:06:32.970
in the present tense, with the information you have now.
123
00:06:33.550 --> 00:06:36.350
There is a distinction worth making between change and loss.
124
00:06:37.110 --> 00:06:39.670
Change is a fact. You are not the person in
125
00:06:39.689 --> 00:06:42.709
the photograph, and you should not be. Five years of
126
00:06:42.769 --> 00:06:46.240
living will do that. Loss is a story about the change.
127
00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:50.040
It says, I have lost myself. I have drifted. I
128
00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:53.360
have become someone I do not recognize. But the story
129
00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:56.199
assumes there was a fixed self to lose, and there
130
00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:59.639
never was. There was only a person changing the way
131
00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:02.819
people do. And there is a second distinction between the
132
00:07:02.939 --> 00:07:06.839
actual self and the performed self. Sometimes the gap is
133
00:07:06.899 --> 00:07:09.180
not between who you are and who you wish you were,
134
00:07:09.980 --> 00:07:12.160
It is between who you are and who you perform,
135
00:07:12.439 --> 00:07:16.220
for work, for family, for the world. And that gap
136
00:07:16.259 --> 00:07:18.459
has a different remedy, which is not a new life,
137
00:07:18.990 --> 00:07:21.750
but a smaller performance, and a little more room to
138
00:07:21.790 --> 00:07:24.290
be the person you already are when no one is watching.
139
00:07:24.870 --> 00:07:27.470
There is a practical
step here, and it is an audit.
140
00:07:28.189 --> 00:07:31.389
Write down the three selves, one sentence each. Who I
141
00:07:31.449 --> 00:07:34.259
am right now, who I wish I were, who I
142
00:07:34.339 --> 00:07:37.779
feel I should be. Just one sentence each. And then
143
00:07:37.839 --> 00:07:41.089
ask two questions about each gap. Whose ideal is this?
144
00:07:41.649 --> 00:07:44.269
And is it still mine? If the ideal belongs to
145
00:07:44.329 --> 00:07:46.709
someone else, or to a version of you from five
146
00:07:46.730 --> 00:07:49.589
years ago, then the gap is not a failure. It
147
00:07:49.629 --> 00:07:52.670
is an outdated map. And then ask a third question.
148
00:07:53.290 --> 00:07:56.680
What is one degree of movement? Not an overhaul. Not
149
00:07:56.720 --> 00:08:00.379
a new life. One small, concrete step toward the ideal,
150
00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:04.459
if the ideal is still yours. A class. A conversation.
151
00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:08.040
A morning spent differently. Or, if the ideal is not
152
00:08:08.079 --> 00:08:12.670
yours anymore... One small act of letting go. A wish, released,
153
00:08:13.029 --> 00:08:15.569
with thanks, for the years it gave you a direction.
154
00:08:16.129 --> 00:08:18.329
Here's the sentence I want you to keep from this episode,
155
00:08:18.629 --> 00:08:20.459
because it is short enough to use the next time
156
00:08:20.500 --> 00:08:22.620
you look at a photograph and feel like a stranger.
157
00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:26.740
You have not lost yourself. You have outgrown a photograph.
158
00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:29.860
The person in the picture was real, and they mattered,
159
00:08:30.420 --> 00:08:32.750
and they are not coming back, because you have lived
160
00:08:32.870 --> 00:08:36.750
five years since then, and living changes people. That is
161
00:08:36.789 --> 00:08:39.100
not a loss. It is the evidence that you are
162
00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:43.519
still here, still changing, still becoming. And the next version
163
00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:46.159
of you is not something to find in an old photograph.
164
00:08:46.860 --> 00:08:51.120
It is something to write, now, with the information you have. So,
165
00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:55.029
back to the photographs. Five years ago. The stranger who
166
00:08:55.090 --> 00:08:58.610
is also someone you miss. Your life is fine. The
167
00:08:58.649 --> 00:09:02.129
job is fine. The flat is fine. And fine is
168
00:09:02.210 --> 00:09:04.230
not the word you would have used five years ago
169
00:09:04.330 --> 00:09:07.529
for the life you wanted. The feeling underneath the fine
170
00:09:07.649 --> 00:09:10.450
is a gap, and the gap has a shape, and
171
00:09:10.470 --> 00:09:12.850
the shape has a name, and the name is a
172
00:09:12.909 --> 00:09:15.799
distance between who you are and who you wish you were,
173
00:09:16.419 --> 00:09:19.799
or who you feel you should be. Measure it. Ask
174
00:09:19.860 --> 00:09:23.419
whose it is. Ask whether it is still yours. And
175
00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:27.340
then move one degree in either direction, toward the ideal
176
00:09:27.779 --> 00:09:30.629
or away from an outdated one. The person in the
177
00:09:30.669 --> 00:09:34.049
photograph is not someone you lost. They are someone you were.
178
00:09:34.879 --> 00:09:37.909
and the person you are becoming is still unwritten, which
179
00:09:37.970 --> 00:09:40.200
is not a problem. It is the whole point.