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You were looking at photographs from five years ago. Not
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old photographs. Five years. And the person in them felt
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like a stranger. And also like someone you miss. Not
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because your life is bad now. Your life is fine.
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The job is fine. The flat is fine. You didn't
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know what it was like to be a present candidate.
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You didn't know what it was like to be a
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present candidate for that presidential interview. You didn't know what
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it was like to be a presidential interview on that
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presidential day. The interview was all about confidence, confidence in body,
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confidence in blothe. And he was an amazing man. No caps,
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no records, no walls, no replicas, just a man who
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was living the present and not paying. And you tershed
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the breath again, and he just looked at you, and
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he was an amazing man. You didn't know what it
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was like to be a present candidate for that presidential interview.
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It wasn't your life. It was his life. The day
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that the tourists came to the States was the day
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you got president. The president told the back lines of
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the interview that they came to do now. And the
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vampire showed up in his bed, and he said something
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so clear. I've never seen this world so clearly before.
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I've never seen the president be a president to a
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presidential interview with a laser eye. The president told the
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vampire that he was a vampire no longer needed to
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worry about. I've never seen the president be a president
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to a presidential interview with a laser eye. And he
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just looked at you. And he was amazing man. And
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he watered me for two days. And he was amazing man.
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And he made me feel infinitely powerful. And he was
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amazing man. And he wanted me to see the world
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one more time. Whatever happens, know that one day, you'll
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eat with a vampire no longer needing to worry about.
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That was the problem. The tourist came to the States
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was the day the Tuntri needed to rebuild. The president
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told the back lines of the interview that they came
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to do now. And the vampire showed up in his bed.
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And he said something so clear. I've never seen the
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president be a president to a presidential interview with a
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laser eye. Fine is not the word you would have
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used five years ago for the life you wanted. Welcome
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to Before You Overthink It Again. I am Logan. Today
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we are talking about the strange feeling of not recognizing
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your own life and about the gaps that create it.
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Here's the question. Why can your life look right from
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the outside and feel wrong from the inside? Nothing is broken.
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No crisis has arrived. The job pays. The rent is paid.
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People who love you would say you're doing well. And
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yet there's a quiet feeling underneath the fine that says,
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this is not quite me. Not quite the life I imagined.
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Not quite the person I thought I would be. Where
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does that feeling come from, and what is it trying
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to tell you? Psychologists have a theory for this, and
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it is one of the most useful maps of the
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inner life ever drawn. It is called self-discrepancy theory, and
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it was developed by Torrey Higgins in the late 1980s.
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The theory says that we carry not one self, but three.
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There is the actual self, who you are right now.
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There is the ideal self, who you wish you were.
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And there is the ought self, who you feel you
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should be. And the feeling you are having the not-quite-me feeling,
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comes from the gaps between them, not from any one self,
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from the distances. And here's the part that makes the
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theory so useful. The two gaps feel different. The gap
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between who you are and who you wish you were,
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the actual ideal gap, produces a particular kind of ache, disappointment, sadness,
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a sense of something missing. The gap between who you
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are and who you feel you should be, the actual
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ought gap, produces a different ache, anxiety,
Load full transcript
guilt, a sense
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of being behind or judged or unsafe, they are not
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the same feeling, and they do not need the same response.
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Disappointment asks you to look at what you want. Anxiety
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asks you to look at whose rules you are following.
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And most people, when they feel the not-quite-me feeling, do
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not know which gap they are in, so they try
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to fix both at once, and they fix neither. There
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is a second layer here, and it is about how
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the selves move. The ideal self you are measuring yourself
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against may not be yours anymore. It may be an
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ideal from five years ago, from a version of you
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who wanted different things. At 25, the ideal was adventure
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and freedom and a life that looked nothing like a mortgage.
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At 30, the ideal might be stability and depth and
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a life that looks exactly like one. But if you
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never updated the ideal, you are measuring your present life
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against a wish that expired years ago and the gap
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will always feel large. because the target is one you
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no longer actually want. And the ought self has a
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similar problem. It is often borrowed. It is your parents' ought.
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It is your culture's ought. It is the ought you
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absorbed from a feed full of people who seem further
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along than you. A borrowed ought produces a gap that
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no amount of effort can close, because the gap is
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not between you and your values. It is between you
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and someone else's. And there is a third layer, which
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is worth saying plainly, because it is easy to miss.
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A gap is not always a problem. A small gap
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between who you are and who you wish to be
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is what motivates growth. It is the reason you learn
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and change and try. The problem is not the gap.
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The problem is a large gap that has never been examined.
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A gap you are carrying without knowing which selves are
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involved or whose ideal you are chasing or whether the
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ideal is even still yours. An unexamined
gap feels like
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losing yourself. An examined gap feels like a direction. So
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what do people commonly misunderstand here? They think the feeling
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means their life is wrong. If I feel this way,
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the job must be wrong, or the city must be wrong,
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or the relationship must be wrong. But the feeling is
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information about a gap, not a verdict on the life.
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A gap can be closed in two directions. You can
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move toward the ideal, or you can update the ideal.
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And sometimes the right move is the second one. Letting
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go of a wish that no longer fits is not
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giving up. It is accuracy. And there is a second misunderstanding,
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which is that the answer is to go back to
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who you were. You cannot go back. The person in
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the photograph is not waiting for you. And you should
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not want them to be, because that person had not
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lived the five years you have lived. The task is
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not to rewind. It is to write the next version,
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in the present tense, with the information you have now.
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There is a distinction worth making between change and loss.
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Change is a fact. You are not the person in
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the photograph, and you should not be. Five years of
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living will do that. Loss is a story about the change.
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It says, I have lost myself. I have drifted. I
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have become someone I do not recognize. But the story
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assumes there was a fixed self to lose, and there
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never was. There was only a person changing the way
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people do. And there is a second distinction between the
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actual self and the performed self. Sometimes the gap is
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not between who you are and who you wish you were,
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It is between who you are and who you perform,
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for work, for family, for the world. And that gap
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has a different remedy, which is not a new life,
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but a smaller performance, and a little more room to
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be the person you already are when no one is watching.
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There is a practical
step here, and it is an audit.
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Write down the three selves, one sentence each. Who I
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am right now, who I wish I were, who I
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feel I should be. Just one sentence each. And then
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ask two questions about each gap. Whose ideal is this?
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And is it still mine? If the ideal belongs to
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someone else, or to a version of you from five
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years ago, then the gap is not a failure. It
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is an outdated map. And then ask a third question.
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What is one degree of movement? Not an overhaul. Not
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a new life. One small, concrete step toward the ideal,
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if the ideal is still yours. A class. A conversation.
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A morning spent differently. Or, if the ideal is not
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yours anymore... One small act of letting go. A wish, released,
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with thanks, for the years it gave you a direction.
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Here's the sentence I want you to keep from this episode,
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because it is short enough to use the next time
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you look at a photograph and feel like a stranger.
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You have not lost yourself. You have outgrown a photograph.
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The person in the picture was real, and they mattered,
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and they are not coming back, because you have lived
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five years since then, and living changes people. That is
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not a loss. It is the evidence that you are
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still here, still changing, still becoming. And the next version
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of you is not something to find in an old photograph.
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It is something to write, now, with the information you have. So,
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back to the photographs. Five years ago. The stranger who
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is also someone you miss. Your life is fine. The
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job is fine. The flat is fine. And fine is
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not the word you would have used five years ago
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for the life you wanted. The feeling underneath the fine
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is a gap, and the gap has a shape, and
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the shape has a name, and the name is a
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distance between who you are and who you wish you were,
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or who you feel you should be. Measure it. Ask
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whose it is. Ask whether it is still yours. And
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then move one degree in either direction, toward the ideal
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or away from an outdated one. The person in the
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photograph is not someone you lost. They are someone you were.
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and the person you are becoming is still unwritten, which
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is not a problem. It is the whole point.