What If My Designed Deep Life Is Bad?

00:00:00.000 | So we got a question from Michael. He's a 41 41 year old engineer from the UK. This is what he has to say

00:00:06.520 | I have worked hard to clarify ideas outside of my work that feel important to me. However, I still struggle for example

00:00:14.060 | Creating a garden is something I've always envisioned in my life for a long time

00:00:17.900 | But now that I'm doing it, it feels like endless drudgery labor and effort

00:00:22.420 | However, I've sunk so much effort and expense into getting here. I cannot just reset and walk away

00:00:27.600 | Is it normal to find conflict between one's cultivation of a deep life on paper and how it actually happens in the real world?

00:00:35.000 | That's an interesting question

00:00:38.680 | Let me give you a short answer in a long answer Michael. The short answer is stop gardening. I

00:00:42.560 | Won't tell anyone Jesse won't tell anyone

00:00:45.760 | You don't like it and I get it

00:00:48.420 | Like here in DC. Here's what I've learned

00:00:50.880 | It's often the season in which you'd be maintaining a garden or a yard

00:00:54.920 | It's often terrible outside and it's not that fun

00:00:57.800 | Because the humidity is roughly

00:01:01.540 | Whatever it is, I don't know how to measure humidity. I guess dew point the humidity is terrible. You're in a swamp. It's hot

00:01:08.920 | There's bugs and there's mosquitoes and you know, this is why God invented air conditioning. So I'm stop garden. You don't like it

00:01:14.420 | long answer

00:01:16.880 | and we talked about this last week to

00:01:18.880 | be wary about a

00:01:22.080 | Mental conception of the deep life that is too heavily focused on hobbies

00:01:26.120 | That is not going to be a successful recipe if all you think about is

00:01:31.640 | What do I do outside of work in terms of my leisure time? What's going to be like interesting and fulfilling to me?

00:01:37.500 | It's too self-focused

00:01:39.560 | That stuff matters, but it cannot be central to your conception of the deep life

00:01:44.480 | If you go back and think about the deep life bucket, so we're talking about craft

00:01:48.360 | community

00:01:50.440 | constitution contemplation and celebration

00:01:52.440 | what you talk about as hobbies is maybe just in

00:01:55.600 | Celebration. I mean, I don't know if you acted the Constitution maybe like there's some exercise you do that could be hobbyist sometimes in craft

00:02:05.080 | There could be something like you're really into an instrument. You might put that on their craft, but most of the deep life is more about

00:02:11.280 | Keeping your body in shape serving your community

00:02:16.880 | Engaging your brain in the world of ideas and philosophy and theology so that you can be a moral

00:02:21.240 | intellectual being so that you can follow

00:02:24.760 | Aristotle's theory that it is in deep thought that humans reach their

00:02:29.040 | Deepest potential it's craft. Okay. I'm spending my 80,000 hours in my life in a job

00:02:35.520 | Like what am I doing? Am I producing things of value?

00:02:38.160 | Am I am I a leader to other people and my a useful member my community a lot of that is not

00:02:44.320 | What's gonna make me, you know entertain me?

00:02:46.800 | What's going to be something that's kind of fun to do

00:02:49.600 | And so if you really go through those buckets one by one, the reason why this works is that the human brain is not

00:02:55.040 | So happy if all it thinks about is how do I make myself happy?

00:02:59.080 | You know, how do I be happy in the moment? Like that's important in

00:03:03.160 | moderation, but basically the history of ideas tells us that just the hedonic pursuit of

00:03:09.920 | What's going to be fun doesn't work as an organizing principle for life

00:03:14.140 | So when celebration is just this one part like having things you really enjoy doing then it's the stakes are lower

00:03:19.640 | You know

00:03:21.480 | You're doing other things that sacrifice and service and important and you're gonna be a lot more confident and fulfilled

00:03:27.440 | And then when it comes to that, let's say celebration bucket where it's like appreciating the things that makes life cool having gratitude

00:03:33.160 | Then I'm just going to suggest have a more experimental approach

00:03:36.240 | Don't dive in fully into something that you hope will be something you really like because you might not

00:03:41.760 | So garden, I don't know

00:03:44.360 | Let me get a garden box and see if I like that minimal impact if I really like it expand out with that bucket

00:03:50.640 | Larger and larger people who have these big all-consuming hobbies usually work their way incrementally. You have to discover what's the right fit for you

00:03:57.740 | So just don't go into it. Don't just say like I want to be a cinephile. I think that'd be cool

00:04:03.840 | I'm gonna sign up for this film course and start watching all these movies. You might not actually like movies that much

00:04:08.300 | you're right, but instead if you're like, I've always liked movies and

00:04:11.120 | I've started to study them a little more and I'm enjoying that

00:04:14.340 | So now let me ratchet up to like go watch this series at the local theater now

00:04:18.500 | I'm gonna sign up for this film class when things ratchet up in terms of self-directed autonomous non-instrumental hobbies

00:04:24.480 | That's how you figure out what you really like. Okay, so stop gardening. You don't like that experiment with other things

00:04:29.780 | but remember

00:04:30.500 | that is just one small piece out of many on what goes into making a deep life and most of what makes a deep life deep

00:04:35.740 | As much less about what is gonna make me happy tomorrow and more about what's gonna make my life feel more grounded

00:04:41.780 | What's gonna make my life feel more?

00:04:43.780 | centered and meaningful and important and that's a very different than

00:04:47.420 | enjoying pruning your roses

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What If My Designed Deep Life Is Bad?

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