Podcasts Ruined my Life
Listening to Lex Fridman, Sam Parr, Andrew Huberman, and Chase Chewning slowly ruined my life. Here’s how I fixed it.
Optimization, entrepreneurship, emotionalism, connectedness, and the endless pursuit of excellence: each of these tenants are fundamental to me and probably you too!
To stumble upon these guys is a Godsend. The words they and their guests breathe can dramatically shift your perspective on numerous topics and each host does so with their own distinct cadence, sound, and demeanor.
Lex: melding of scientific rigor, compassion, empathy, and child-like curiosity and hope.
Sam: happy-go-lucky, yet driven and passionate entrepreneur seeking opportunity like a prowling jungle-cat
Andrew: insight into the mind of a practitioner, proclaimer, and professor of all things cutting edge and how to most potently apply to your life with a little bit of punk rocker and tumultuous underdog upbringing.
Chase: endless exploration, experimentation, and pursuit of everything self-care, self-actualization, and focusing on the truly important aspects of living a fulfilled life
You’ve probably experienced what I have.
Thoughtfully preparing your morning coffee while eagerly awaiting the podcast to download for your run, commute, or existence.
You did it! You hacked the system.
You transformed into that idealized dream of a person who enjoys long cardio, lifting, or just not despising your commute. To top it off, you get to factually saturate every wrinkle in your brain. Your brain that was convinced it was becoming increasingly attuned to your weaknesses, improving them, and bursting through next obstacles. You’re going to conquer the world!
Weeks, months, years pass, and you’re a bit better at whatever activity you’ve chosen. You’ve probably burned through numerous pairs of shoes and purchased some more secure headphones for your runs to ensure you don’t miss a single utterance of a Fridman phrase. You’re now getting 5-10 minutes of sunlight after waking up to optimize your circadian rhythm. You prolong your caffeine intake, fast for 16 hours, don’t eat within 2 hours of sleep, keep your eyes open for arbitrage opportunities in the market… the list continues indefinitely.
Life is great! I mean, how can it not be? You’ve been exposed to philosophy, cutting-edge genomics, hormonal optimization, copywriting, micro dosing psilocybin for and its anxiolytic effects, dietary and training approaches for longevity, how to best market to your audience, how to create an audience, the importance of sleep, cryptocurrency and all its promise, flaws, schemes, and scams.
- How to be focused
- How to start your morning
- What to eat
- When to sleep
- When to wake up
- What temperature you should sleep at
- Which muscles to target
- Which compound lifts are most potent
- How long should I be able to dead-hang for
- How to bulletproof your knees
- How to bulletproof your coffee
…
I think you get it
Seemingly, out of nowhere, and yet slowly, you began to feel uneasy. Your finely tuned routines and habits were fine. You hadn’t abruptly changed anything. You’d just carefully sewn and injected most of what you’d been learning from your “peers” into your cramped daily routine. Life was good though if you were consuming more high-density information.
You’d queue as many podcasts as possible to listen to throughout the day. You couldn’t imagine walking the dog, going to the mailbox, corralling yourself to the kitchen, stumbling down the hall, without one or both of your headphones playing someone’s melodious facts and voice into your skull.
Your mind was perpetually churning with the incessant life optimization schemas. Schemas that if you didn’t follow, your life would return to shambles. You’d be in tattered rags, unfulfilled, non-optimal… anything but great and definitely not excellent.
You’d be eternal confused and pursuing everything.
You feel like your addicted to podcasts and information curation in general. But that’s not possible, is it? Addictions are for people with problems. Addictions are detrimental. How can learning to be a better person 100% of the time be an addiction? You rationalize, move on with your day, and silence the uncomfortable itch that maybe something isn’t quite right.
For months, you failed to pinpoint the source of the muted yet screaming voice emanating from somewhere within as to why EXACTLY you aren’t as content as you should be. You’ve got so much going right for you. Where is this discomfort coming from? Why can’t I quite my mind anymore and just relax?
Because it isn’t exactly coming from within you in the first place.
It is reinforced day-in and day-out through recognition of the short fallings in your life and the life that you are supposed to be executing according to all the brilliant information you intentionally consume.
After all, how can you be presented with the truth and then actively turn away from it? How could you viscerally connect with these phenoms of humans only to disregard their evidence-based practices that will help you have a better life?
Lex, Sam, Chase, and Andrew would never recommend this all-or-nothing approach. Of course, they don’t expect perfection or disciple-like compliance with their recommendations, thoughts, and opinions.
So, what can you do about it? How could you possibly escape the gravitron wheel of self-betterment, performance optimization, mental clarity, entrepreneurship, while trying to lead a fulfilled and meaningful life?
It’s incredibly simple, but it is incredibly uncomfortable.
Be with yourself. Be with your thoughts. Be someone who thinks deeply without the incessant external stimulus of thought-leaders.
Instead of listening to these people day-in and day-out, pause between their words. Let them simmer. Much like any stressor, lifting weights, learning a foreign language, getting better at a new job… it’s tough. It requires bouts of resistance and bouts of recovery. You shouldn’t treat your mind any differently. It needs deep rest. It needs moments of solitude to refine the tremendous stimulus you subject it to.
Give it a try. Let yourself get lost within your own thoughts. Let your mind wonder as you wander.
Something that I can guarantee is that you will be astounded by the mental clarification that occurs when you begin to pay attention to the spaces in between words of wisdom. When you let them crystalize and intentionally thread them into your own thought patterns instead of conforming to someone else’s.