All right, one last question, family and friend related, comes from Evend, who says, "How do you explain a shift to the deep life to friends and family? I am a law student from Norway, and your books and ideas have really helped me in answering some big questions regarding my life and career.

My friends and family don't really seem to understand my shift in focus. I live with my three best friends, and they still enjoy the reckless responsibility-free lifestyle the early 20s are renowned for. I did too, but now me and my friends' ambitions don't align anymore. They plan a lot of activities during the day, which is when I want to work.

I still hang out with them almost every evening, but when I now say no to their daytime activities or want to go read a book in the evening, they bug me about working too much, and I feel bad. Also my father expects me to just kind of hang out in the living room when I am home for Christmas and gets annoyed when I want to go for a walk on my own, reflect, or go to my room and create a small video for a couple of hours.

As you've explained, the deep life is radical and demands that you are comfortable with missing out on other things. However, I'm finding it hard to steer my life in a different direction than my friends and family and to miss out on some of their experiences. Well I think you're going through a well-known developmental phrase right now, and I believe the Latin description of this developmental phrase is "you're growing the hell up." That's all that's happening here with your friends.

You're growing up. They're still in that student mode. You are transitioning to more of an adult mode, where your identity is now largely separated from a group dynamic and is much more individuated. You have autonomy over your time as well as responsibility. Now it's kind of up to me to take care of myself and make money and pay the bills with responsibility, but you also have autonomy.

Socializing becomes more something that is compartmentalized. I want to spend time with you. Let's make a time to do this. We're going to work out together. We're going to go to a movie together, but it becomes a much more scheduled, less of this sort of background ongoing hum that you would see in a group dynamic.

You're becoming an adult. This happens at different times for different people. Just watch any Judd Apatow movie from 15 years ago and you will see for some people it comes kind of late. Other people, they get there earlier. You basically are the knocked up character after Katherine Heigl has the baby, not before.

That's sort of what's happening here. And I think it's good. Everyone goes through this. You're just starting to go through it now. You got to focus on work, get a job with opportunities, be so good they can't ignore you, build rare and valuable skills, build up a little bit more income, have your own place, some more responsibility, gain some more sense of efficacy.

This is the standard stuff of growing up in your twenties. Your relationship with your friends are going to change. Some of those friends are going to go away as you find more adult friends. Some of those friends will grow up and will remain your friends. That's just all natural.

Your relationship with your family is going to change as you become more of an adult. It's not a father son relationship. It becomes more of a peer relationship. And then you realize, you know, if I'm home for a few days for Christmas, you know, I'm here to be around him and socialize with my family.

I can do my deep work structured reflection on my own time. And maybe I cut my trip a little bit shorter, but what if I'm there, maybe I want to be there for, what does this guy need? Right now, suddenly it's a different relationship. You're interacting with peers. You're actually thinking, what does this person need from me?

It's more maturity. Anyways, it's all great. I love being an adult. I was an adult early. I was impatient. I was about halfway through college where I was ready to be on my own and doing this type of thing. So it's good what you're going through. Live on your own, start building your own way in the world.

Let the ideas of the deep life structure this pursuit from day one. That will keep you on the right track. But as you move farther down this track with structure to your forward momentum, life is going to get deeper and more interesting. So you're just starting event and it's going to get deeper and deeper.

And yeah, it's painful at first. Your friends aren't there. They'll get there, but you're going to hell up. And I think that's a good thing. going to hell up. And I think that's a good thing. going to hell up. And I think that's a good thing. (upbeat music) ♪ ♪