Desire Or Programming?

We follow one question all the way down: what do we truly want when we strip away fear, approval-seeking, and the quiet pressure to fit in. We unpack how culture turns ordinary things into status symbols, then show a simple way to spot when “desire” is really just programming. 
• the gap between authentic desires and socially constructed desires 
• body mind dominance through survival needs fear and exhaustion 
• belonging and fitting in as a powerful driver of choice 
• how culture assigns meaning using wine as an example 
• ego class signals and the need to be seen as good 
• childhood conditioning and worth tied to others’ judgment 
• money as a survival tool versus money as a scorecard 
• symbols connotation and why status objects feel compelling 
• questions to ask to find the feeling behind a desire 
• choosing consciously instead of living by “should” 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

We are on the line.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

And today I'm excited about the weather.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Maybe I have a problem that I get so naturally attentive to the weather. But today is the first of three days of nice weather. That's if the weather reports are to be trusted.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

But it's warm today and the grass is growing and the water is down a whole inch and a half.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

It's almost below the dock now.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

And although I don't expect to swim today, the pool gets open today.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

And we won't go into that backstory. But to know that there's blue sky and wispy clouds and calm water and green grass and some nice sun shining through.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yeah, it's supposed to be like 20, I think. And everything.

The Real Question Behind Desire

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Beautiful. All right, now we've got the weather out of the way. You know, we've been really, I don't know what the right word to say, is challenged and at the same time excited about Brian's question about desires. And I think it gives us like an opportunity to really examine ourselves and figure out this great question, right? Which is what I really want. I think it's it is the challenge of our time. It is our the opportunity of our time as we see, you know, our world sort of falling into ridiculousness and our leaders coming under question and our values being really provoked. You know, I think that it's an invitation for us to say to ourselves and to the world, what do I want for my world? What kind of world do I want to live in? What kind of world do I want to create when I think more about my immediate world? Right? This is a huge opportunity, I think, that's going on right now. And I think it's really good to understand how and and why we have this concern that maybe what I desire, what I yearn for, isn't really mine. And I think that that's a huge awakening, right? It's a huge awakening to say, wait a second, why do I want that? Why is that the thing that I dream about having or doing or being? What is it? What's where are my genuine, uniquely mind, authentically mind desires, and what are my socially constructed desires? How do I find the difference? And you know, it's it's really easy, I think, for us to fool ourselves. It gives us comfort sometimes to just fool ourselves. It makes us feel better to just say, ah, well, you know, that's out of my control, right? Or, oh, you know, it is what it is, and I'm just going with the flow. And these are the kinds of times, I think, that don't happen often. That hidden inside them is the chance for us to look and ask ourselves, well, why is our world the way it is? Why do I get involved that way? But that's an examination of what do I want? What do I yearn for? What is it that's inside me? And some people will take the position, as Brian's friend, you know, that you have no unique desires. There's nothing that is uniquely yours. And I think that there can't be unless we see how our desires are shaped. Right. And so I really see that as the beginning. I see this as another series of podcasts where we sort of move through understanding towards those reframes and breaking through. So I told Hillary this morning, I want to stay with this topic because podcast every morning till we reach the point where we believe we've got there, where we've been led to the place where our communications are on what they should be. And so far, she's uh she's capitulating.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yes, I'll cut this part out, but I'm on um antibiotics right now and I'm not feeling too hot. So if I run less, we'll just keep talking.

Body Mind Versus Higher Mind

Needs Belonging And The Power Of Should

Social Construction Through Wine Culture

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah, which is unfortunately one of those things I'm good at. So I guess, you know, when we when we want to contrast that idea of unique desires, genuinely my desires, those authentically mind desires. I think there's so you know, we we talked, you know, basically yesterday in a in a hypnosis approach kind of way, that there's a difference between the body-mind and the higher mind. And that we live in a world where the body-mind dominates. And fear and needs in that most human way tend to rise to the surface and really yeah, use up all our time. We we we find ourselves giving up hours and hours in a week. If we're lucky, you know, it's it's only 40 hours. But for many people, it's much more than 40 hours to acquire what they need to survive. And then it's hours and hours of time of trying to make our home and those other aspects of our life the way we think they quote unquote should be. Right. And all those shoulds are really, they're really compelling, right? Thinking about the way life should be. And next thing you know, you know, you're getting up in the morning filled with concerns and worries, and you're trying to be who you think you're supposed to be, and you're trying to live in a way that you think you're supposed to live within a system, and you're just mostly exhausted, and you're not even a little bit open to those inspirations that might come to you. In fact, you might even have developed really good habits of dismissing your inspirations, right? Your inspiration, inspirations to travel, your inspirations to create, your inspirations to explore, you know, that to me is the beginning of it all. Is those inspirations that come to us that cause us to want to ask questions, you know. Like Brian sending this text, you know, I I wanna I want to consider this, you know. In his text, he says, I I want I want to discuss this, I want to consider this, I want to think about this. Anyway, what I feel sort of driven to talk about today is along the lines of what we talked about yesterday. Yesterday we talked about, you know, the humanist psychologists and the idea of having needs and human motivation flowing from needs that are lower needs that are immediate and survival-oriented, that once they're satisfied, we can move up to the higher needs, which are to feel like we are becoming who we're meant to be. We are doing the things we are meant to do, all the way up to that sort of self-actualization idea. And understanding that as humans, we have all those needs, right? There's not just our physical needs and our sense of belonging, which has become really, really important and in many respects enhanced by the way our social milieu exists, right? We've been sort of driven to think that belonging is probably fitting in is probably, you know, being like others is probably the most important thing we can do. And it certainly strategically helps us live our lives. So when we think about what's my genuine desire, what's my uniquely mind impulse, it gets masked, first of all, and dismissed after all, to become focused on that sense of belonging. Now, for me, you know, I'm always thinking about programming, right? What's my programming? As a hypnotist, that's the word I use. Because in many respects, we are truly programmed on almost every dimension of our bill, our ability to make choices. We're programmed. And so I've come to think of things through the lens of a book I read like a gazillion years ago, called The Social Construction of Reality. And for me, it was a really great lens because what it did was it let me see how my uniqueness, my authenticity has been shaped, even to the point where I think my authenticity is coming to life, that I think my compliance, my cooperation, my commitment to a society at large is actually my own choice, my own desire. And in this book, they simply talk about how social phenomena, and you can think about any cultural thing. You know, think of your favorite cultural thing, the movies and books, you know, think about those things. And that we've reached a point today where, let's say, you like going to the movies, where movies are and have become really formulaic. And we're getting told constantly by critics. I mean, there's a whole industry of critics telling you what you should and shouldn't like, what's good and what's bad. And we've come to the place where we listen to the critics and we wait for the award seasons and we let that choose what movies we want to go see. And all of this becomes the right way to do it. You know, another really good one that I think has a whole social meaning is wine. Wine is grapes allowed to ferment, it has a little capacity to make us feel woozy, to lighten us up, and it has a wide variety of flavors and experiences. And for most people, at some point they had their first glass of wine, and for most people, they didn't like it. They had a glass of wine and went, mm. And then we as a society have this whole culture around wine and the meaning that wines. You have a country like France where they have laws around wines and how you make them and how you classify them. And you're not allowed to violate those rules. It's it's a big deal. And if you ever look at French wines, they have special things on their labels, and they're very, very committed to the processes and the labeling and the culture of wines. And there are ways to consume wines, and there are ways to appreciate wines, and it never changes the fact that it's just grapes allowed to ferment in a cask. But what it does is it puts all other kinds of meaning. And it's not just the meaning of the wines, now it becomes the meaning of who I am in relation to this particular wine. And my ability to appreciate fine wines versus not so fine wines is a statement of my cultural sophistication. It's a statement of my worth. So that now I'm going to invest money. I mean, I know people that invest in wines and they have wine cellars and they have wine collections, and these things have to be stored and kept in under very, very specific conditions. And it becomes a possession that they're very, very proud of. And it takes on a meaning of its own. And this is socially reinforced, socially constructed, socially valued, and we ourselves feel like this if I embrace this understanding, this meaning for wines, then I'm in a position to consider myself a better person, a higher class person, a more sophisticated person, a person who appreciates the true things of life. It changes how we view ourselves. And then that gets reinforced. Now we don't want anybody coming around saying, you know, it's just wine, right? Have a gulp. It tastes good. Let's get drunk and have fun. And there's a there is a resistance to other people interpreting wines differently. Now, this is just an example of how we culturally create an idea. And then that idea, that expression, somebody making some wine gets in in the social construction of reality. They talk about the externalization, right? We take something that we did and we put it out in front of ourselves and we observe it and say, this is good, and then it becomes a thing. And then the fact that it's a thing becomes internalized in our values and beliefs. And then we're committed to it. Now it's internalized, and now we're committed to this idea. And even if you don't participate in this culture, even if you're not participating in wines, even if that's not a thing for you, you're aware that it's a thing. And you start to have your own meanings. So I think it's valuable to observe that and observe how that influences me and my mind and my desires. And I had a period of time in my life where I was really, really engaged in learning about wines. And I was really engaged in having different kinds of wine and understanding the differences. I even had a bit of a mentor. And I was really excited about it until I reached a point when I realized it it didn't really matter that much to me. In fact, for me, the quest became how can I find a bottle of wine that's ten dollars or less and is fantastic?

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Yeah.

Childhood Approval And Being Good

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Right? Not so much that I want a collection of these fine wines that are worth hundreds of dollars a bottle, but how can I find on the shelf the thing that is really good, but is not going to cost me a lot. And even to the point where, after a few years of that quest, I realized on a genuine basis, I don't really care. I don't really care that much. Every once in a while, I'll have a little half glass of wine now, and I don't really care. And as all of this sort of became apparent to me that this is an enormous aspect of culture that is socially created, and that the magic point is when I take it on and make it my own. Now it's being reinforced to me by me. Now it's genuinely my program. So when some will say, I, you know, my desire is to find a really great bottle of wine. Well, the question starts to become, well, why? What what are you hoping to accomplish?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah. So I'm wondering if this is, I mean, I kind of have an idea of what it is, but uh, I I wrote down, you know, is this program or ego? You know, a program that the ego likes based on social class. And then our ego is sort of built up from our childhood. So I mean, and then you can get into like all the, you know, the the deservings of class or or wine or anything, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

There you just struggle with. You've just isolated all the layers, right? All the layers upon layers upon layers to the point where we don't even know why we care about wine. We're not even we we don't even know why that matters. It just matters, and of course it matters. It's not even should it matter? It's of course it matters. And I think that it's just a tiny dimension, a tiny example of the way our values and our beliefs are socially constructed. An idea becomes a thing, and the thing takes on a life of its own, and then we are trained to take it on ourselves, and then we own it, and it becomes something we fight for. Right. And I'm not saying that this is bad, I'm saying this is how it happens, and that it's just one example of the thousands of things that we take on that then shape what we think we want.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah. Yeah. And I think asking yourself, like I like I said yesterday, sort of this these deathbed questions to ourselves. I know it's pretty morbid, but it sort of puts things into perspective, I find at least, is asking, well, would I be re regretting not having that bottle of wine when I look back? Or you know, how would I how would I feel about all that? I mean, you could do it with anything really, but where is that that coming from? And maybe, you know, that's and maybe that's just my own version of it, and someone else might regret not having that bottle of wine, right? Like so I can't I can't paint with a wide brush here and say that you know that everything where was that going like everything looking back, if it's ego-based, then you're not you're not gonna regret regret it, right? So yeah, I think I think that it's gonna be different for everybody, but it's worth asking yourself.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

To step back from it and say this isn't bad for me, it's about being conscious.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Right.

Money As Survival Versus Scorecard

SPEAKER_00 20:49

I think that for someone to say, I've examined this, and I see it as just a social construction, and I see it as having a life of its own, and I see it as, you know, maybe a little bit over the top, a little too much, a little pretentious, yeah. But in the end, I have found in my life that I enjoy wine, and that I have discovered that there are wines that are better than others that I like better than others.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

But sometimes you have a$10 bottle and you've you enjoy it more than the$150 bottle, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Like the point is to me, is that you can choose. You're allowed to choose. If you consciously say, I'm buying into this one, then that's okay. It's when you've been programmed into it and you don't even realize it that I think it becomes a problem. And it becomes a problem because it takes on a life of its own. And this is what they talk about. I think their names are Luckman and Berger, who wrote. The social construction of reality is that the process of externalizing it, that we we put it out there as a thing, and then people together socially construct the thing. Well, it includes this and it includes that, and what about that? And it needs to have this. And people add their own touches to this thing, this cultural aspect of us. And then we take it back on and in as a thing that is part of me. You know, there are so many of these. You know, I get up in the morning and I say, I want to watch the hockey game tonight. You want to talk about a socially constructed thing. So deeply embedded in our culture is hockey in Canada and other countries. There are other countries where like that. Finland are like that, Sweden's like that. Hockey is a thing. And it is a thing that even if you don't play, even if you've never played, it's still a thing. And it has a life of its own and it has a meaning. We are meaning-creating beings. We like to find meaning in things. And mostly we like the meaning that it makes me better. It makes me one of the great ones. It makes me on the right side of things. It makes me good. It makes me a good person. It makes me a good Canadian.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

What do you think when because what comes to mind is I don't think, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I know I've struggled with this during my life. I say struggle. But um do people really walk around like imagining themselves as better because they've got something, or they're they uh desire something, or they're that they've taken on something as them. So I I I'm sure some do, but when you ask was it cleaning from really yeah, yeah.

Symbols Connotation And Status Desires

SPEAKER_00 24:07

When you ask that question, I think there's something that happens to us, and it happens to us very, very young. And it plays into Maslow's hierarchy. Maslow's high hierarchy starts with survival. We want to survive, we want to live. And when you are a baby, you don't need to be told that you're completely dependent on your parents. You know that. Yeah, right, and you learn early, early on what a good little boy is, what a good little girl is, and what a bad little boy is, and what a bad little girl. And what happens when we are being good is that gets reinforced, and we are allowed to feel good about ourselves. This is one of those things that I think is really deep in the human experience, is that we think our worth is determined by others and their judgment of our behavior. And when you're really young and you experience these extremes of that's a good little girl, oh, that's wonderful, aren't you beautiful, aren't you wonderful when you do certain things? And then you experience the contrast of that's bad, you're being bad. This is unacceptable. And you feel that anger that comes from your mother, you feel that threat that call comes from your parent, and you feel afraid, you learn to seek out that that's a good little person. And then that impulse is inside you, right? And it's very much about belonging, right? Remember that if I am gonna be, you know, a good person, a high-class person, a sophisticated person, one of the social elites, well, I'm gonna need to know something about wines. And if I'm gonna be a good Canadian, I need to have my hockey jersey in the closet to put on when the time comes to be a cheerleader for the hockey. And I need to understand the game. I need to understand what's going on. That makes me a good Canadian because Canadians know that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Yeah.

Questions To Find Authentic Wants

SPEAKER_00 26:24

And I'm not trying to be critical of it, I'm trying to point out how it happens. When somebody says to Brian, how can you have your own desires? I think that's what they're pointing out, right? If I am a guy who's holding, you know, dinner parties before the hockey game, right? There's things that I serve to have a good party, right? To be a good guy, to be everybody's buddy, to be everybody's, you know, friend. And I think these things happen really, really young. And it's not that I'm kicking at parents or that I'm telling us that we're crazy. I'm trying to point out how our mind gets shaped to the point where we're facing this problem, I think. And the problem is for most people, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want out of life. I don't know what I'm meant to do. And because I'm having the pleasure, really, it is, it's a pleasure for me to be just deconstructing my mind now that I am so interested in hypnosis, so interested in programming, so interested in the mind, and I'm retired. And I am with other people at the gym who are retired. And when we're quiet and we spend time together, it's amazing how we're honest with ourselves saying, why did I spend so much time on the things I spent time on? Why was I so concerned about these ideas that just don't work anymore? Why am I teaching my kids to do this when it doesn't work in our world? Right? And I believe that the answer to that is that we were all innocently and genuinely programmed to fit in, and that our perception of our own worth is based on our ability to fit in, but not just fit in, be a little bit better. And not really better, although we use that term, just better at. And of course, the big one, of course, is money. And so it's beautiful that Brian's the one asking this question, right? Because he's the one who for us really he teaches about money. And if you visit our school, you'll see that's Brian's incredible desire and focus to help people understand their own programming around money.

unknown 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

And we have this illusion, right? That's I hope it's being busted right now. I hope that we are we are truly, genuinely looking at what's going on in the world and realizing being rich doesn't make you a better person. In fact, some of the awful things going on in the world today are people's unreasonable and illogical and deep programming around hoarding money. You know, I used to say to my students, you know, most of us use money as a survival mechanism.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

We we pay our bills so we can have the things we want in life. We buy our food, right? We buy our place to live. Most of us use money as a survival mechanism, but there are people who use it as a scorecard. And there's an inherent view in our world that you should want more money, that you should take your time and spend it trying to pursue money in terms of having it, in terms of growing it, in terms of being a better person by having more. And these are social constructions. And we're getting the chance right now in the world to examine that. We're getting the chance to say, wait a second. I saw that as a phenomenon. I externalized it, I added my own views to it, and then I re-internalized it as mine, and now I don't know what I want because I've pursued those things and they have not made me happy. They've not brought me joy.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Right. So it becomes well, what do I want? Right. And what meaning do I put on things? I think that's an important idea again, as we deconstruct this idea of having desires, right? And we try to get back to that authentic, genuine me and what we talk about all the time, my curiosity and my creativity and my desires. When we want to find that, I believe it's about deconstructing how we got where we are. We are meaning-making beings. And again, I'm gonna uh this thing that I was exposed to so many years ago, a guy named Roland Bartz wrote a book called Semiology. And semiology is the study of symbols, symbolism. And symbolism is about meanings that go beyond the actual thing. So, to continue our analysis of wine, using wine as an example, wine is fermented grapes. It's a drink. We just squeeze some juice. And you know what? It doesn't have to be grapes. That's one of the things that shocks people. You can do it with apples, you can do it with blueberries, you can do it with just about anything. Dandelions, for Pete's sake. You can take the sugars that naturally exist inside anything and turn that into an alcohol drink. You can turn it into wine, right? But wine has a meaning, and you will find people who are into wine when they hear about you know apple wine, they're like, oh, stop it, right? Don't do that. That's not supposed to be. That's outside of what wine really is, the meaning they put on wine, the meaning we put on a meal sitting around the table with a glass of wine, right? The discussion we'll have about a glass of wine. This is the meaning, and the meaning about me, there's a feeling that I want, and it's that feeling of approval, it's that feeling of I'm good. Not only am I good, I'm a little bit better, right? I there's a concept called illusory superiority, and I think that there's there's an element of that here. But what we do is we trick ourselves with our meanings, right? In Symology, Roland Barth talks about denotation and connotation. A denotation is what a thing is, a connotation is what the thing means. When the connotation becomes more important than the denotation, it hits us in a deeper cultural symbolic way. And so if I'm writing a story, for example, right, and I want to symbolize a solution. I've got a problem, I need a solution, right? I create an ointment. My ointment in my story is the soothing, calming, healing thing that saves my painful feelings. And it's a symbol. Now, an ointment's just you know, cream I put on my skin, right? But if what it becomes in my story is a solution to a problem, I'm using the connotations around ointments of feeling better and solving problems and soothing irritations, right? I use that symbolism, that's the power of my choice of writing a story. If I'm making a movie, I'm playing on symbolism, right? Things are not what they are, they are what they mean.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Can you link that back for my brain to what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_00 34:59

So I might get up in the morning, having been fully programmed in my world, right. And have decided that the most important thing for me is to get out there and show my intelligence by manipulating my investments so that they make me more money than other people, so that I have more money than other people. And I go and buy myself a Ferrari because that means I'm of the elite. And I only drink wines that are of this caliber and this cost and from this region with this particular grape. And I only wear clothes that have this label and this brand. And I can tell everybody it's what I want. And the real question is, is it? Because every single thing you say you want flows out of a society that says that's what you should have. That's what a good person has. That's what the great people do and have. And so you're saying the things are symbols for the All these things are just a big pack of socially constructed symbols that I think I should. Remember, the word should is programming right off the bat. The instant I use the word should, I'm saying that there's a rule and it's in my mind. It's now mine, it's not somebody else's. They've successfully put it inside me, and I should do this. And the fact that I say I should do this suggests that I have resistance to it. And if I have resistance to it, then it's probably not genuinely mine. It's probably not aligned with what would be authentically me.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

But I have lost my ability to know what is authentically me. And so it's really easy for Brian's friend to say to him, You have no desires. Your desires are completely constructive. And you can see that. But where we sit today as we finish off this podcast for today is okay, well, if I'm aware that as a physical being, I have needs, and those needs have been shaped by the society I'm in. And if I'm aware that as a being, I seek approval. I want to be told I'm okay. And as a being in a world, I've been shaped to want the same stuff everybody else wants, which should be evidence enough to tell me that's not about me. That's not me. That's not genuinely me. So now we step back and we say, well, what would be genuinely me? How do I find what is genuinely me?

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

And I think that, you know, it starts with a couple of questions. The first question is, what am I trying to get from this? Whatever it is you say you want, whatever you say you desire, whatever it is you say you want to pursue, you know, what do I want to get from this? What is this thing? How does it serve me? What is it that I want from it? And then look closer at what that is. You know, is it a feeling?

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

What feeling would I get from attaining that, accomplishing that, obtaining that? What feeling would I get? That's what you want. You want that feeling. And if that feeling is, I want to be a good person, it's time to look at your programming.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

What defines a good person?

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

What makes this allow me to be a better person? And so you see certain uniqueness in the world of people pursuing things that are not mainstream, and you start to see the uniqueness in their desires, something that you would use the word genuine or authentic.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Anyway, you know, Hilary not feeling her best today, so she just let me run with it. And then for better or worse, I ran with it.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

But my hope is that not that you condemn everything up to this point you thought you wanted, only that you ask yourself, why did I want that? How do I find my way to my own genuine, authentic, my desire?

SPEAKER_03 39:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

And ask that question, what would I want? And I do believe in my heart that if we as people saw the truth of how we are constructed, how we are shaped, how we are programmed, and just got a little more selective about what in that realm we want to keep, and what in that realm we don't want to keep, then that points us at the kinds of questions, which is, you know, what what do I genuinely want? What am I seeking?

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

What am I compelled with?

SPEAKER_01 40:06

I think to end off the podcast, um, as you're speaking, just going through my life like chapter by chapter, and how I've often got myself in hot water by and when I think back, I do I do put a lot of worth on what people would say of me or how I might feel saying, oh, I'm this, right? And so for a lot of my life, that wrapped around my career. I, you know, at one point, I even, you know, I wanted to be a lawyer because my dad would think, oh, you know, how how great. You know, because he's a lawyer. And I let that go pretty quick. But, you know, I always wanted these jobs that people would go, wow, that's cool, or you know, it was always about what other people thought. And and you know, from being a glaciologist to which I went to school for as well, for like it didn't last very long either, but to a car designer. Because I felt like when I if I would say those words out loud to somebody, they'd be like, wow, that's amazing. You're amazing, you know. And so that though got me into some pretty hot water emotionally, soulfully. When your ego, I find, drives the narrative in a bad way. I know that the ego can work for us too. But my God, I mean, it it can it can tear your life down, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Well, these kinds of dilemmas, I think, are the at the heart of this question. You know, we we throw it out there in past podcasts. What do I want? Right? It sounds like a very life-changing question, almost, almost an inviting question until we start to give it the meaning of being selfish and being uncooperative and being ostracized and being excluded from our closest people that we love. Yeah, right. And then we have that dilemma. Well, if I thought about it, I haven't a clue. I don't know what I want. But your life is fundamentally a creation, and it is completely and totally yours. And so, you know, maybe we'll pick up on this story tomorrow, but I remember the day, I remember the moment, I remember who was around me when it clicked for me, that my life belonged to me, and it was never going to be anything more than what I made it. And maybe some people are having that click right now.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Good talk. Everyone, thank you for uh hanging out today, and uh yeah, we will see you tomorrow.