https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=e2KxKJvF5rs
We talk about quitting. This gets to another chapter called no plan B. And what I lay out as a concept there is not necessarily that you shouldn’t have plan Bs as defined as contingencies in your life. You should always have contingencies. But there’s a mindset where that contingency becomes a crutch. And I talk about this in terms of SEAL training called BUDS, Basic Underwater Demolition slash SEAL training. That’s the famous training that everybody’s familiar with, with Hell Week and the boats on your heads running miles and miles, getting wet and sandy and coming in and out of the cold Pacific Ocean. That’s BUDS. And if you go into BUDS with any other idea, then you will die before you quit, then you will probably quit because the contingency is pretty obvious. It’s warm coffee and donuts. If you just go ring the bell three times and you say you’ve quit, that’s your plan B. You will reduce your suffering to a minimum if you do that. But if that is truly an option for you in your head, then you’ll probably take it, especially in the face of great adversity, which this training certainly is. And so plan B doesn’t mean don’t have a backup plan. It does mean have a mindset where you’re going to aim higher, where you’re going to aim for your fundamental purpose. And quitting is a tricky word because really, you know, if you quit. Changing courses, as you mentioned, it’s not necessarily quitting. I point out, you think you want to be an artist, and this has been your dream for God knows how long, but honestly, you suck at it. And that is your talent just cannot catch up with your aspirations. And that’s a reality. And if you move to something else, does that make you a quitter? I’m not sure. I’m not so sure it does. Yeah, exactly. Well, then that’s just learning from experience. You know, and I was thinking when you were talking about no plan B, I thought, oh, yes, well, that’s marriage, you know, because the great psychologist Carl Jung, he thought, well, marriage has to be an unbreakable vow. Why? Because you have to be in 110%. And if you have a backup plan, which is well, if this doesn’t work out, I can always find someone else. It’s like when adversity comes, which it will, because you’re bound together with this person for life, and life is adversity, then if you have these lurking, this lurking way out, you’re not going to do the work necessary to struggle through what you have to struggle through to continue to forge the relationship with your wife. And so we even know this, I would say clinically in some real sense. So imagine there’s two competing hypotheses. One is, well, you have to learn to be married, and maybe you should give it a trial run. And so before you get married, which is this full 110% commitment with no plan B, you live together. Then you learn if you’re compatible, and if it works, you proceed to marriage. And in that case, if that theory is right, the people who live together before they got married would be less likely to be divorced. But they’re not. They’re more likely to be divorced. Really? Absolutely. And I think the reason for that is- Because they were testing it out the whole time. Well, it’s hard to say. Well, that’s one possibility is that people more likely to get divorced are also more likely to live together, right? So they just don’t have as much respect for the conventions. But the other possibility is, well, what are you saying when you live with someone? What are you really saying? And I know what you’re saying. I know what it is. It’s like, I find you acceptably attractive for now, but there’s some real possibility that I could do better. And maybe you could too. And if you’ll allow me the possibility that I can trade up, I’ll allow you that possibility. And in the meantime, we’ll just exploit each other and see how it goes. It’s like, well, how the hell are you going to forge a lasting relationship on that basis? You know, maybe it has to be something like, well, I’m pretty bloody thrilled to have you, given all my flaws. And hopefully you feel the same way about me if I’m fortunate. And let’s go all in on this. Like 100%. Knowing it’s going to be a catastrophe, because life is a catastrophe. We’re not going to step outside. We’re going to make the best of this. And we’re going to swear to do that, because that’ll give us the fortitude necessary to actually be desperate enough to make it work. And so that’s no plan B, man. And it doesn’t mean you should die if your marriage happens to, well, if your partner dies, for example. It doesn’t mean you’re obligated to end your life or anything like that. But there’s lots of games you can’t play if you’re not all in. It’s a great point on marriage. It’s funny because my wife and I, we took wedding photos on the Bud’s Grinder, which is sort of the central location of this hellish training that happens. And inscribed in a big plaque on one of the walls there is a famous seal quote, the only easy day was yesterday. It’s speaking to a major truth, I think, in combat and SEAL Teams, which is don’t rest on your laurels. Everything before you thought that was hard, just wait till what’s next. And it’s just mentally preparing you for it. And sort of tongue in cheek, we took a wedding photo in front of that sign, because it maybe applies the same way. Well, it does apply in the same way. I mean, the thing about being married to someone is that you face the worst of life with them. No, the best perhaps as well. And maybe that’s dependent on how well you face the worst. But if you have a mistress, it’s all parties and roses, you know, at least in principle, because you don’t have to do anything difficult with that person. You parse all the difficulty off to your poor wife, who has to bear the responsibility of the catastrophe of the children’s lives and the domestic economy and the fact that she has to live with you and all the things that go along with that. So she has all that burden and this other person is just a vacation. It’s like, well, that’s not a very good plan. And how in the world can you, you have to swear fealty to someone in order to abide by them when the catastrophes come to your door. And the thing is, man, the catastrophes are going to come to your door. And if you want to be alone and miserable when that happens, then I guess you’re going to find out what that’s like. But if you have that bond that won’t break, then maybe you can guide each other through the darkest places. I’m going to read something else you said here. And this is very, very much worth stressing. Why duty and how is that associated with happiness? Well, maybe we find our happiness in pursuing our highest duty. I was reading Exodus, did a seminar in Exodus in Miami last week, and I had great scholars there to help me walk through it. And one of the things that’s very interesting about Exodus is that when God tells the pharaonic tyrant to free the Israelites, he always uses the same phrase. And you only ever hear half the phrase. He has Moses say, Let my people go. Now you hear that phrase all the time, but you don’t hear the second half of the phrase, which is repeated, I think, nine times, one for each plague, perhaps 10 times, because there’s actually 10 plagues. If you count the devastation of the firstborns, that’s the 10th plague. God has Moses say, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. And that’s really interesting, because it’s not, and Dennis Prager pointed out that the word freedom isn’t used once in the Exodus narrative. And it’s because the freedom from tyranny isn’t hedonism. It’s not the blind pursuit of passions. It’s the servitude to a higher purpose. Proper freedom is servitude to a higher purpose, voluntarily accepted servitude to a higher purpose, perhaps the highest purpose, which is what God calls the Israelites to. And you say in your book here, purpose is meaning. That’s a hell of a thing if it’s true. Purpose is meaning, especially if you find purpose in duty and responsibility. And I think you genuinely do in sacrifice. I think that’s true, deeply true. Purpose is meaning, and meaning is happiness. We don’t think about happiness enough. And when we do, we do not necessarily think about it properly. Happiness is neither joy, nor entertainment. It is an ontological condition, fundamental to our existence as humans. It’s notable that when the founders drafted the Declaration of Independence, they listed up front three things to which we are all entitled, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.