only when you grow up

What It’s Like to lớn Grow Up

A friend of mine once described parenthood as, “Basically just following around a kid for a couple decades and making sure he doesn’t accidentally kill himself, and you’d be amazed how many ways a kid can find to lớn accidentally kill himself.”

One could say young children are always looking for new ways to lớn accidentally kill themselves because the driving force behind them is an innocent curiosity. Early in life, we are driven to lớn explore the world around us because our brains are collecting information on what pleases and harms us, what feels good and bad, what is worth pursuing further and what is worth avoiding.

But eventually, the exploratory phase exhausts itself. And not because we lập cập out of world to lớn explore. Quite the opposite, actually. The exploratory phase wraps up because, as we become older, we begin to lớn recognize that there’s too much world to lớn explore. It’s too much to lớn take in. You can’t touch and taste everything. You can’t meet all the people. You can’t see all the things. There’s too much potential experience and the sheer magnitude of our existence overwhelms us.

Therefore, our brain begins to lớn focus less on trying everything for ourselves and more on developing some rules to lớn help us navigate the endless complexity of the world before us. We adopt most of these rules from our parents and teachers. But many of them we figure out for ourselves. For instance, after fucking around near enough open flames, you develop a little mental rule that all flames are dangerous, not just that one on the stove. And after seeing your mom get pissed enough times, you begin to lớn figure out that stealing is always bad, not just when it’s ice cream.

As a result, some general principles begin to lớn emerge in our minds. Practice care around dangerous things sánh you won’t get hurt. Be honest with your parents and they’ll treat you well. Share with your siblings and they’ll share with you.

These new values are more sophisticated because they’re abstract. The little kid thinks, “Ice cream is awesome, therefore I want ice cream.” The adolescent thinks, “Ice cream is awesome, but stealing stuff pisses my parents off and I will get punished; therefore, I’m not going to lớn take the ice cream from the freezer.” The adolescent applies rules and principles to lớn her decision making in a way that a young child cannot.

As a result, an adolescent learns that strictly pursuing your own pleasure and avoiding pain can cause problems. Actions have consequences. You must negotiate your own desires with the desires of those around you. You must play by the rules of society and authority, and then you will, more often phàn nàn not, be rewarded.

This, quite literally, is maturity in action: developing higher-level and more abstract principles to lớn enhance decision making in a wider range of contexts. This is how you adjust to lớn the world, how you learn to lớn handle the seemingly infinite permutations of experience. It is a major cognitive leap for children and fundamental to lớn growing up in a healthy, happy way.¹

When we’re toddlers, we are learning to lớn see the world in terms of cause and effect. Of pleasure vs pain. Touching the hot stove causes pain in my hand. Therefore, it is bad. Stealing ice cream from the freezer causes my toàn thân to lớn feel pleasure, therefore it is good. Good is better phàn nàn bad.

This is why young kids are lượt thích little sociopaths. They cannot conceive of anything in life beyond what is immediately pleasurable or painful for them at any given moment. They cannot feel empathy. They cannot imagine what life is lượt thích in your shoes. They just want some fucking ice cream. NOW!

What happens when we get older is we begin to lớn understand that there are multiple consequences to lớn any single action and many of them affect us either indirectly or at some point in the future. General rules and trade-offs are understood as the way these consequences function. Mom and Dad get angry if I steal something; therefore, I will not steal, even if it feels good. My teacher will punish u if I talk in class; therefore, I will not talk, even if I want to.

The knowledge of pleasure and pain is still there in these older children. It’s just that pleasure and pain no longer direct most decision making. They are no longer the basis of our values. Older children weigh their personal feelings against their understanding of rules, trade-offs, and the social order around them to lớn plan and make decisions.

This is an improvement, but there’s still a weakness in this adolescent approach to lớn life. Everything is seen as a trade-off. Older children and adolescents (and a shocking number of adults) approach life as an endless series of bargains. I will bởi what my quấn says sánh I can get money. I will Hotline my mother sánh I don’t get yelled at. I will bởi my homework sánh I don’t fuck up my future. I will lie and pretend to lớn be nice sánh I don’t have to lớn khuyễn mãi giảm giá with conflict.

Nothing is done for its own sake. Everything is a calculated trade-off, usually made out of fear of the negative repercussions.

You can’t live your entire life this way, otherwise, you’re never actually living your life. You’re merely living out an aggregation of the desires of the people around you. To become an optimized and emotionally healthy individual, you must break out of this bargaining and come to lớn understand even higher and more abstract guiding principles.

How to lớn Be an Adult

When you google “how to lớn be an adult” most of the results that come back talk about preparing for job interviews, managing your finances, cleaning up after yourself, and not being a disrespectful asshole.

These things are all great, and indeed, they are all things that adults are expected to lớn bởi. But I would argue that they, by themselves, bởi not make you an adult. They simply prevent you from being a child, which is not the same thing as being an adult.

That’s because most people who bởi these things bởi them because they are rule- and transaction-based. You prepare well for a job interview because you want to lớn get a good job. You learn how to lớn clean your house because it has direct consequences on your health and what people think of you. You manage your finances because if you don’t, you will be royally fucked one day down the road.

Bargaining with rules and the social order allows us to lớn be functioning human beings in the world. But ideally, after some time, we will begin to lớn realize that the whole world cannot always be bargained with, nor should we subject every aspect of our life to lớn a series of transactions. You don’t want to lớn bargain with your father for love, or your friends for companionship, or your quấn for respect. Why? Because feeling lượt thích you have to lớn manipulate people into loving or respecting you feels shitty. It undermines the whole project. If you have to lớn convince someone to lớn love you, then they don’t love you. If you have to lớn cajole someone into respecting you, then they don’t respect you.

The most precious and important things in life cannot be bargained with. To try to lớn bởi sánh destroys them.

You cannot conspire for happiness. It is impossible. But often this is what people try to lớn bởi, especially when they seek out self-help and other personal development advice—they are essentially saying, “Show u the rules of the game I have to lớn play; and I’ll play it.” Not realizing that it’s the fact that they think there are rules to lớn happiness that’s actually preventing them from being happy.

While people who navigate the world through bargaining and rules can get far in the material world, they remain crippled and alone in their emotional world. This is because transactional values create toxic relationships—relationships that are built on manipulation. And toxic relationships, as I conclude in my Healthy Relationships Course in the Mark Manson Premium Subscription, are devoid of emotional nutrition and extremely difficult to lớn get out of.

When you achieve adulthood, you realize that viewing some relationships and pursuits as transactions guts them of all joy and meaning. That living in a world where everything is bargained for enslaves you to lớn other people’s thoughts and desires rather phàn nàn freeing you to lớn pursue your own. To stand on your own two feet, you must be willing to lớn sometimes stand alone.

Adulthood is the realization that sometimes an abstract principle is right and good for its own sake. The same way that the adolescent realizes there’s more to lớn the world phàn nàn the child’s pleasure or pain, the adult realizes that there’s more to lớn the world phàn nàn the adolescent’s constant bargaining for validation, approval, and satisfaction. The adult does what is right for the simple reason that it is right. End of discussion.

An adolescent will say that she values honesty—because she has learned that saying sánh produces good results—but when confronted with the difficult conversations, she will tell white lies, exaggerate the truth, and fail to lớn stand up for her own self-worth.

An adolescent will say he loves you. But his conception of love is that he gets something in return (probably sex), that love is merely an emotional swap meet, where you each bring everything you have to lớn offer and haggle with each other for the best khuyễn mãi giảm giá.

An adolescent says she is generous. But when she does favors and gives gifts, it’s always done conditionally, with the unspoken idea that she will receive something in return at some later date.

An adult will be honest for the simple sake that honesty is more important phàn nàn pleasure or pain. Honesty is more important phàn nàn getting what you want or achieving a goal. Honesty is inherently good and valuable, in and of itself. An adult will love freely without expecting anything in return because an adult understands that that is the only thing that can make love real. An adult will give without expectation, without seeking anything in return, because to lớn bởi sánh defeats the purpose of a gift in the first place.

So the little kid steals the ice cream because it feels good, oblivious to lớn the consequences. The older child stops himself from stealing it because he knows it will create worse consequences in the future. But his decision is ultimately part of a bargain with his future self: “I’ll forgo some pleasure now to lớn prevent greater future pain.”

But it’s only the adult who doesn’t steal for the simple principle that stealing is wrong. And to lớn steal—even if they got away with it!—would make them feel worse about themselves.

If Only There Were More Adults in the World

Now, I know what you’re saying, “Geez Mark, by your definition, most of the people walking around in the world are shit-brained adolescents, or worse, a bunch of over-sized children.”

Well… yeah. Have you talked to lớn any humans lately? By and large, they kind of suck.²

Here’s a sad fact: few ever make it to lớn adulthood. And fewer manage to lớn stay there. Why is that?

When we are little kids, the way we learn to lớn transcend the pleasure/pain values (“ice cream is good,” “hot stoves are bad”) is by pursuing those values and seeing how they fail us. We steal the ice cream, mom gets pissed and punishes us. Suddenly, “ice cream is good,” doesn’t seem as straightforward as it used to—there are all sorts of other factors to lớn consider. I lượt thích ice cream. And I lượt thích mom. But taking the ice cream will upset mom. What bởi I do? Eventually, the child is forced to lớn reckon with the fact that there are unintended consequences from pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.

This is essentially what good early parenting boils down to: implementing the correct consequences for a child’s pleasure/pain-driven behavior. Punish them for stealing ice cream. Reward them for sitting quietly in a restaurant. You are, quite literally, helping them to lớn understand that life is far more complicated phàn nàn simply pursuing one’s pleasure and avoiding one’s pain.³

Parents who fail to lớn bởi this fail their children in an incredibly fundamental way because, as children grow up, they will experience the shocking realization that the world does not cater to lớn their whims. This will be incredibly painful for them, far more painful phàn nàn it would have been had they learned the lesson when they were younger. And as a result, by having to lớn learn this lesson at an older age, they will be socially punished by their peers for not understanding it.

Nobody wants to lớn be friends with a selfish brat. Nobody wants to lớn work with someone who doesn’t consider others’ feelings or appreciate rules. The un-taught child will be shunned and ridiculed for their behavior in the real world, resulting in even more pain and suffering.

Parents can also fail their children in another way: they can abuse them. A young child who is abused also does not develop beyond their pain/pleasure-driven values because their punishment follows no logical pattern and doesn’t reinforce deeper, more thoughtful values. It’s just random and cruel. Stealing ice cream sometimes results in harsh pain. Other times it results in nothing. Therefore, no lesson is learned. No higher values are produced. And the child never learns to lớn control her own behavior. This is why children who are abused and children who are neglected often over up with the same problems as adults: they remain stuck in their childhood value system.

Even worse, if the abuse is extreme enough (or if the child is particularly sensitive) this constant pain can become baked into their psyche going forward. Their normal day-to-day existence will be a state of distrust and fear, and they will compulsively seek pleasure to lớn assuage that underlying pain. This is where addiction and compulsion are born. Alcohol, sex, drugs, gambling, Instagram—as they grow older they will be compulsively sucked into these activities because it allows them to lớn become distracted from themselves, to lớn momentarily forget who they are and what they feel.

More significantly, many abused children will subconsciously seek out further abuse in their adult relationships for the simple reason that abuse is the only thing that makes sense to lớn them. It becomes an identity for them. They need it to lớn feel whole.

People get stuck on the second adolescent stage of values for similar reasons, although the results are less severe. Some people are incredibly good at playing the bargaining game. They are charming and charismatic. They are naturally able to lớn sense what other people want of them and they are adept at filling that role. Put bluntly: they’re too good at manipulating people to lớn get what they want. And because their manipulation rarely fails them in any meaningful way, they come to lớn believe that this is simply how the whole world operates. Everyone is lượt thích this. Everyone is manipulative and controlling. Love is bullshit. Trust is a sign of weakness.

It requires good parents and teachers to lớn not allow themselves to lớn succumb to lớn the adolescent’s bargains. It is their responsibility to lớn point out to lớn the adolescent that this sort of behavior is a never-ending treadmill, that you can only get sánh much from the world by bargaining with it, that the only things in life of real value and meaning are achieved without conditions, without transactions. The best way to lớn bởi this is through example. The best way to lớn teach an adolescent to lớn trust is to lớn trust them. The best way to lớn teach an adolescent to lớn respect is to lớn respect them. The best way to lớn teach someone to lớn love is by loving them.

When parents and teachers fail to lớn bởi this, it’s usually because they themselves are stuck at an adolescent level of value judgments. They, too, see the world in transactional terms. They, too, bargain love for sex, loyalty for affection, respect for obedience. In fact, they likely bargain with their kids for affection, love, or respect. They think it’s normal, sánh the kid grows up thinking it’s normal. And the shitty, shallow, transactional parent/child relationship is then replicated when the kid begins forming romantic relationships.⁴

Some adolescents become stuck at the second stage for the same reason others are stuck at the first: abuse and trauma. Victims of bullying are a particularly notable example. A person who has been bullied in their younger years will move through the world with an assumed understanding that no one will ever lượt thích or respect them unconditionally, that all affection must be hard-won through a series of practiced conversation and canned actions. You must dress a certain way. You must speak a certain way. You must act a certain way. Or else.

As adults, they will move through the world assuming all human relationships are a never-ending tit-for-tat trade agreement. That intimacy is no more phàn nàn a feigned sense of knowing one another for each person’s mutual benefit. Again, this is because, in the transactional world of high schools, this person was mistreated and abused for doing those transactions poorly. They didn’t dress the right way. They weren’t a “cool” kid. They got bad grades or had a learning disability or were scrawny and awkward.

As a result, they are psychologically punished for decades, as they live the rest of their life in constant fear of ever fucking up a transactional relationship ever again. And instead of recognizing that the problem is the transactional approach to lớn the world itself, they assume the problem is that it took them sánh long to lớn bởi the transactions appropriately.

It’s probably an overstatement to lớn say that Marilyn Manson saved my life. But he might have saved my maturity. When I was 13, I was kicked out of my school and lost almost all of my friends. My parents divorced a few months later, and not long after, my brother moved out of the house. To get u away from the bad influences around u, my parents sent u to lớn a Christian school in suburban Texas⁵ where I knew no one. I was an atheist and unathletic geek in a state that worships football and Jesus, in that order.

For a while, it wasn’t pretty. I got shoved into some lockers. I got laughed off the football field. It took u almost two years to lớn make any friends. It sucked. I felt the compulsion to lớn try and fit in, to lớn buy into the transactional nature of the high school social life, to lớn “fake it to lớn make it.” But, at the same time, it was those very behaviors everyone expected from u that I hated sánh much.

Xem thêm: lại là em oh hae young

Marilyn Manson was an inspiration to lớn u around this time because through his music and in his interviews, he vocally pushed a message of self-empowerment, especially to lớn disillusioned teens lượt thích u. It was he who first suggested that I get to lớn decide what is cool and not cool, that people shame non-conformists because they are afraid of not conforming themselves, and that daring to lớn not conform and empowering yourself to lớn be who you want to lớn be is what gave others permission to lớn bởi the same.

Today, Marilyn is often remembered for his cheesy makeup and his shock rock outfits on stage. People don’t realize how in-touch he was with the disaffected suburban youth of the 90s. There’s a reason he shocked people with his intelligent interviews as much as he did for his stage antics. That’s because there was always a message beneath his madness: that you don’t have to lớn buy into the transactional game if you don’t want to lớn. You are always không tính phí to lớn choose. And not only are you không tính phí to lớn choose, but you are obliged to lớn choose who you are going to lớn be, whether you realize it or not.

The only question is: bởi you have the courage to lớn bởi it? Do you have the courage to lớn be an adult? Do you have the courage to lớn decide for yourself what your values are?

What Level Are Your Values On?

The problem with writing about any sort of hierarchy lượt thích this is that every reader tends to lớn immediately imagine themselves on the top rung rinh, taking discreet pleasure in judging the masses of poor, unfortunate souls stuck on the rungs below them.

The fact of the matter is that if you are reading this, most of your values are likely in the pleasure/pain stage or the transactional stage. I know this for the simple reason that the majority of the population is still floundering in these stages most of the time (myself included). And let’s be real: this is a personal development site—you wouldn’t have come here if things weren’t a little bit fucked up already.

On top of that, these high-level, adult values are the definition of what we consider to lớn be noble and virtuous. It’s the CEO who takes the blame for an employee’s fuck up. It’s the teacher who sacrifices her vacation days to lớn help tutor a struggling student. It’s a friend who risks the friendship by telling you that your partying has gotten out of control.

We all know and revere these stories. And the reason we know and revere them is that they’re uncommon. Because we rarely, if ever, are able to lớn bởi these things ourselves. Most of us, most of the time, are stuck at the level of bargaining, of asking ourselves, “Yeah, but what’s in it for me ?” or worse, at the level of childish pleasure, screaming, “GIMME THAT, I WANT IT!”

The truth is, it’s hard to lớn detect what level our values are on. This is because we tell ourselves all sorts of elaborate stories to lớn justify what we want. A gambling addict will compulsively pursue the thrills of making and losing money, but in his head, he’s invented a convincing story about how he’s going to lớn win everything back and show everyone he’s not a loser (adolescent bargaining) or that he’s actually doing this for the good of his family (adult virtue).

This is bullshit, of course. He simply can’t help himself.

It’s clear, then, that we can’t trust our own interpretations of our actions. There’s a small mountain of psychological evidence to lớn tư vấn this: we feel something first, then we justify it later with some story we tell ourselves. And that story is usually highly biased and vastly overestimates how noble and selfless we were.⁶

Therefore, we must learn to lớn distrust our thoughts. We must become skeptical of the interpretations of our own actions. Instead, we must focus on the actions themselves.

Thoughts can lie. Interpretations can be changed or forgotten. But actions are permanent.

Therefore, the only way to lớn get at your values—to truly understand what you value and what you bởi not—is to lớn observe your actions.

If you say you want to lớn go back to lớn school and get your degree, but it’s 12 years later and you’re on excuse number 57, then no, you don’t actually want to lớn go back. What you want is to lớn feel lượt thích you want to lớn go back. And that is completely different.

If you say you value honesty in your relationship above all else, yet regularly hide your actions and behaviors from your partner, actively question their motivations and where they’ve been, and snoop into their text messages when they’re sleeping, then, no, you don’t value honesty. You say you bởi to lớn justify your lower-level values.

Chances are you’re good at adhering to lớn higher-level values in some contexts and not others. There are people who are great friends but shitty parents. There are people who are great parents but shitty professionals. There are people who are just shitty people but holy fuck, are they productive. We all have our areas of maturity and immaturity.

Most recurring emotional problems people experience are simply first- and second-level value systems that are being held onto despite the fact that they are failing. A mother who fights with her children constantly because they don’t Hotline her with a certain regularity is holding onto a transactional approach to lớn love—the idea that love can be quantified and measured. A friend who tells you white lies probably does sánh because he doesn’t want to lớn threaten whatever he’s getting from you. A co-worker who steals your work and calls it their own is indulging in a compulsive desire for pleasure (or, in this case, success).

The only way to lớn get clear about our own values is by learning to lớn observe our own actions and observing them dispassionately as if we were neutral bystanders:

• Actions that consistently hurt yourself or others, that you find yourself excusing repeatedly and/or lying to lớn hide, probably indicate you have a low-level compulsive pleasure/pain driven value. Lying is inherently selfish and designed to lớn make way for our most selfish desires. If I lie to lớn my wife about where I was last night, then it signifies, by definition, that I am acting selfishly and compulsively. Generally, the more lying, the more compulsive we probably are.⁷

• Actions that are premeditated with the desire to lớn get a certain result out of someone or something, are bargaining/transactional values. There’s a difference between telling someone you’re interested in them because that’s what you think they want to lớn hear, and simply telling someone you’re interested in them because you’re freely expressing yourself. The latter is honesty, the former is manipulation. And the line between the two is blurry for a lot of people.⁸

• Actions motivated by deeper ethical principles that you’re willing to lớn suffer for because you believe they are right in all contexts, regardless of the specific outcome to lớn yourself, are representative of higher-level adult values.

These are things you come to lớn understand about yourself because you question not only your actions but your interpretations of your own actions. You must sit and think critically about yourself and about what you’ve chosen to lớn care about, not through word, but through deed.

Ultimately, this is what it means to lớn “know thyself”—to know your own values, to lớn have a clear understanding of your actions and what motivates them, to lớn understand what level of maturity you’re operating on.

Any time you sit down with a therapist or coach or friend, this is the process that is happening. You are describing your actions and your interpretation of those actions. With the guided assistance of the therapist/coach/friend person, you then sit there and pick apart whether or not your interpretations of your actions actually make sense. Or are you just deluding yourself? Do your actions reflect what you think is important? If not, where is the disconnect?

It’s this process of aligning your self-interpretation with your actions that gives you control over your life and your actions. It’s this alignment that allows you to lớn feel a sense of meaning and fulfillment in your life. To become happy and healthy. It’s this alignment that allows you to lớn grow up.

Our Culture’s Maturity Crisis

Modern democracy was basically invented under the assumption that the average human being is a selfish delusional piece of shit. The belief went that the only way to lớn protect us from ourselves is to lớn create systems sánh interlocking and interdependent that no one person or group can completely hose the rest of the population at any given time.

Put another way, the founders and Enlightenment thinkers understood that the games of politics and statecraft are inevitably played at the level of bargaining and transactional relationships, and therefore systems need to lớn be constructed in such a way that no one person (or organization) can win too much, too often.

Most politicians make their names and their livings by existing in a vast trang web of transactional relationships. They bargain with their voters and donors. They bargain with each other to lớn build coalitions and alliances. They bargain with other branches of government and political parties to lớn jockey for prominence and position. Politics is a transactional and selfish game, and democracy is the best system thus far for the sole reason that it’s the only system that openly admits that.

There’s only one way to lớn threaten a democratic system: by demanding one’s own desires and pleasures are more important phàn nàn anyone else’s. That is, by being childish.

This is what extremists are: childish. They’re a bunch of fucking babies. Because extremists are intractable and impossible to lớn bargain with, extremists are, by definition, childish. They want the world to lớn be a certain way and they refuse to lớn acknowledge any interests or values other phàn nàn their own. They refuse to lớn bargain. They refuse to lớn appeal to lớn a higher virtue or principle above their own selfish desires. Therefore, they ruin everything around them.

Extremists are dangerous because they know how to lớn dress up their childish values in the language of transaction or universal principle. A right-wing extremist will claim he desires “freedom” above all else and that he’s willing to lớn make sacrifices for that freedom. But what he really means is that he wants freedom from any other values. He wants freedom from having to lớn khuyễn mãi giảm giá with change or the marginalization of other people. He wants the freedom to lớn pursue his own impulses and desires.

Extremists on the left play the same game, the only thing that changes is the language. A leftie extremist will say that she wants “equality” for all. And that she will give up anything for it. But what she really means is that she never wants to lớn feel inferior or harmed. That she never wants to lớn feel threatened or unsafe. Essentially, that she never wants to lớn feel pain. And demanding that everyone be treated equally at all times, in all circumstances, is one way of running away from that pain.

Extremism, on both the right and the left, has undeniably risen in the past few decades. There are likely many complicated and overlapping reasons for this. But I’ll throw out one idea: that the maturity of the voting population is deteriorating. American culture is based on the indulgence of pleasure and avoidance of pain. American consumerism has become sánh good at indulging these childish impulses that much of the population has come to lớn see them as rights. Extremists on the right respond to lớn the fact that they believe climate change is a hoax or evolution is nhái with the claim that they have the right to lớn believe anything they want to. Extremists on the left respond to lớn the fact that people are inherently unequal, and a không tính phí, functioning society requires there to lớn be winners and losers by claiming they have a right to lớn whatever treatment someone else has.

These are childish views. They deny reality. And when you deny reality, bad things happen.

The problem is that the truyền thông (again, both on the right and the left) has discovered that reinforcing the childish wishes of extremists on each side is good for business. That’s because extremists, lượt thích children, are compulsive. They don’t know how to lớn stop. They are addicts for their cause. They throw their lives away for it. And because they will throw their lives away for an imagined cause, they make for the most impassioned audience. And with the mạng internet squeezing the media’s business models dry, they’ve slowly had to lớn resort to lớn pandering to lớn the most reactive and virulent people out there: the childish extremes. The extremes get the most attention. They get the most clicks. And they cause the most controversy. So they dictate the media’s discourse.

Welcome to lớn 2018. Let’s hope we all survive.

How to lớn Grow Up

Step 1: Fail

Chances are, if you’re reading this, and you’re still stuck organizing your life around pleasure/pain values, or transactional/rule-based values, you probably don’t need u to lớn explain why they cause problems—your life is already a fucking mess.

But just in case you bởi, here you go:

• Pleasure/pain values fail for the simple reason that pleasure and pain are bad long-term predictors of health, growth, and happiness. OK, yeah, touching a hot stove sucks and you shouldn’t bởi that anymore. But what about lying to lớn a friend? Or waking up early for work? Or, lượt thích, not doing heroin. Those are just a few of the millions of examples where pursuing pleasure/pain values will lead you astray.⁹

• Transactional/rule-based values rob you of the trust, intimacy, and love necessary to lớn remain an emotionally healthy and happy human being. This is because, when you view all relationships and actions as a means to lớn an over, you will suspect an ulterior motive in everything that happens and everything anyone ever does to lớn you.

Before you can move on and learn from these flawed value systems, you must experience the pain of them failing. That means not denying that they are failing. That means not avoiding the pain of that failure. That means facing that failure head on and admitting what is plain to lớn see: that you fucked up, and there’s gotta be a better way.

Step 2: Skin in the Game

People operating on a childish pleasure/pain values derive their self-esteem from how much pleasure or pain they feel. Therefore, when they feel good, they feel good about themselves, and when they feel bad, they feel bad about themselves. So when a person at this level fucks up big-time, their first explanation is likely going to lớn be, “I’m a piece of shit. I’m a horrible person. What was I thinking?”

This is harmful. This likely makes the problem worse. The problem is not you. The problem is what you’re choosing to lớn value, how you’re choosing to lớn see the world and the way in which it operates. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with pain either. It’s the reason each occurs that makes them right or wrong.

Recognizing this truth is what gently shoves your value-system into a more mature bargaining/transactional level. You didn’t fuck up because you caused pain. You fucked up because you caused pain for bad reasons. The reason a drunk driver hitting another xế hộp is sánh unethical is not because people got hurt—it’s because the drunk driver is far more culpable phàn nàn the other person—i.e., the transaction was unfair.

A lot of people try to lớn “fix” those who suffer from compulsive actions and are stuck in the pleasure/pain value system by bringing them straight up to lớn adulthood. They want to lớn teach alcoholics the virtue of honesty. They want to lớn convince violent abusers of the importance of generosity and patience.

But you can’t bởi that. You can’t skip stages. That’s lượt thích skipping algebra and going straight to lớn calculus. You can’t go from a child to lớn an adult without being an adolescent in between.

People stuck at compulsion need to lớn first learn to lớn think of things in transactional terms. Alcoholism isn’t bad because your toàn thân is a temple and self-harm is intrinsically wrong—those are adult values.

No, alcoholism is bad because it’s a bad trade-off. It hurts people. People who don’t deserve it. People you love and want to lớn help. It fucks up other life plans. It destroys families, finances, and fidelity. It’s essentially giving up a mountain for a molehill.

Addicts and criminals often overcome this by latching onto some transactional value. For some, it’s religion. But for most, it’s usually a loved one. I once spoke to lớn a recovered drug addict who said the only thing that got him through was his daughter. He didn’t give a shit about himself. But the thought of her losing out on the opportunity to lớn have a father, when she had done nothing to lớn deserve it, brought him to lớn his knees and eventually got him sober.

Addicts often talk about “hitting rock bottom.” Rock bottom is a place that is sánh destructive, sánh painful, that they are no longer able to lớn avoid the simple fact that their behaviors are destroying their own lives and the lives of others. It’s only with this intensely painful realization that the addict is confronted with the transactional nature of life. That their choices have consequences, not just for their future self, but for others. And those consequences must be managed.

We move beyond our childish values when we realize that we have skin in the game—that there are repercussions for our actions beyond our immediate self.

This is why research has found that the most effective ways to lớn break any bad habit is to—you guessed it—to bargain for it. Try this: write your best friend a kiểm tra for $3,000 and tell him if you ever smoke another cigarette, he can go cash it. It’s shocking how effective this is. Create consequences for yourself. Create accountability.

Step 3: Be Willing to lớn Die for Something

Getting a solid footing on transactional/bargaining values will make you a functioning human being. But it won’t make you a mature adult. You’ll still suffer from transactional, toxic relationships and crises of meaning in your day-to-day life.

The key difference between an adolescent and an adult is that the adolescent is scared to lớn bởi anything unless they feel confident that they’ll get something in return for it:

• They don’t want to lớn risk quitting their job unless they know they’ll be happier somewhere else.
• They don’t want to lớn tell someone they have feelings for them unless they can guarantee a satisfying relationship will occur.
• They don’t want to lớn risk sharing their ideas unless they know they will win the approval of others.

To an adolescent, the way they feel about themselves is determined by how well they’re able to lớn bargain with the world. And if they fail to lớn bargain with the world, then they will blame themselves. For this reason, the adolescent is scared to lớn death of rejection or failure. To them, to lớn fail or be rejected is a sort of death because everything they want from the world—all meaning, all purpose—will be denied them.

It’s this willingness to lớn die that leads to lớn adulthood. Adulthood occurs when one realizes that the only way to lớn conquer suffering is to lớn become unmoved by suffering. Adulthood occurs when one realizes that it’s better to lớn suffer for the right reasons phàn nàn to lớn feel pleasure for the wrong reasons. Adulthood occurs when one realizes that it’s better to lớn love and lose phàn nàn to lớn never love at all.

• An adult looks at that career change and says, “I’d rather be dead phàn nàn a zombie who sleepwalks through a life not his own.” And he quits.
• An adult looks at that person they have fallen for and says, “I’d rather be dead phàn nàn to lớn hide my heart from the world.” And she speaks.
• An adult looks at their ideas and says, “I’d rather be dead phàn nàn to lớn suppress my own talent and potential.” And then she acts.

An adult accepts that there are some ways of living life that are worse phàn nàn not living at all. And because they recognize this, they are able to lớn act boldly in the face of their own shame or fears.

In my book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck , I relate a number of painful and traumatic experiences from my adolescence: the dissolution of my family, painful social rejections, the loss of my first romantic relationship, the death of a friend.

Because I experienced sánh much hurt in my relationships when I was younger, for much of my early adulthood, I approached relationships in algorithmic terms: I studied books on relating to lớn people and learned how to lớn present myself in ways that minimized rejection, that gave u more influence over people’s perceptions of u. I pursued sex relentlessly, in an attempt to lớn làm đẹp for the depth of my emotional pain with superficial, hollow relationships. For many years of my life, I saw friendships simply in terms of utility: I bởi this for someone sánh I can get something in return. And the moment a relationship began to lớn cause u pain, I would find a way to lớn escape it.

I was very successful at this for many years. I created and then escaped from—literally, I traveled the world to lớn get away—dozens of relationships with otherwise good people, some of whom really cared about u, but who I was not mature enough to lớn handle.

But this escapism was a solution that was as painful as the problem. The only thing more painful phàn nàn losing a significant relationship is not having a significant relationship. And it slowly began to lớn dawn on u that happiness was not the point—pain was. That the same way the struggle and challenge in my professional life made my accomplishments more meaningful, the willingness to lớn face pain and discomfort was actually what made relationships feel meaningful. Not the sexiness or excitement or satisfaction.

And sánh, at the ripe old age of 30, I finally came to lớn understand what it meant to lớn live my life as an adult. That it’s the ability to lớn choose: what pleasure is worthwhile, what pain is worthwhile, to lớn pursue and love unconditionally, without judgment or shame. So I chose to lớn celebrate. Me and eight of my closest friends went to lớn Las Vegas and drank about $1,000 of alcohol in one night. And it was wonderful.

Xem thêm: sinbad phiêu lưu ký