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In this episode Joel and Antonia talk about the life lessons Antonia has learned on the eve of her 40th birthday.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Antonia’s turning 40!
- What are the biggest lessons she’s learned?
- Stop outsourcing your belief systems
- Life lessons are not static
- Stop handing yourself over to the conditioning of society
- Language in Thought and Action
- There are parts of us that we can’t outsource and there are parts that we regularly outsource.
- Get sophisticated enough to brainwash yourself to be who you want to be
- People will become upset if you decide to be loyal to yourself instead of everyone else
- Sometimes we turn responsibility over to others, so we aren’t to blame
- Black Mirror episode Nosedive
- Life is effectively a game, so we hand ourselves over to the scorekeepers of life.
- “I said something and a bunch of ppl didn’t like it, so I”m going to outsource what I said to group preference.”
- Instead, be willing to stand behind what you think and say.
- You need to have your finger on the pulse of who you are and the person you’re creating.
- Life is not about what I’m doing; it’s about who I’m becoming.
- Care about other people but don’t outsource yourself to them.
- “I’m not a human doing; I’m a human being.”
- Actually, we are human becomings.
- Direct the process of who you become over time.
- When we think life is a game we play to win then we tend to push life down the road.
- We have to stop kicking the can of life down the road
- Life has to be your daily experience.
- It doesn’t matter if you sit on your butt and do nothing. You are still going to become something different over time.
- So, guide the process and accept who you are right this second.
- If I know that I am who I want to be it doesn’t matter how I’m doing it because I am centered on who I want to become.
- Some people see life as a problem to solve.
- Others see it as an experience to optimize.
- In some religions, we defer life to the afterlife.
- There’s no one sitting in a board room planning your life for you. It’s up to you.
- Life isn’t going to magically happen without any effort on your part.
- Get yourself on the right trajectory.
- FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out
- We have so many options.
- The grass is greener on MY side because I make it green.
- I want every experience to be the most epic experience I can have at this moment.
- Pithy statement: You can’t want something more for someone else than they want it for themselves.
- What it may actually mean: Are you projecting onto someone else the things you know you need to work on?
- Everything that we experience in someone else that we find annoying is usually a reflection of something similar we carry within us.
- When we are the most frustrated with someone else, it is usually because we are avoiding having that conversation with ourself.
- Get to a place where you can have a relationship with your ego so you can notice when it is projecting.
- There’s nothing you can do that will substitute for having a good solid relationship with your ego.
- Recognize when you can do better.
- It’s going to be okay. There’s no death at the end of most roads. But the ego thinks there is.
- Don’t sweat the small stuff.
- This is a hard-won realization.
- Straightforward but not easy.
- Every time something makes you uncomfortable, don’t turn away from it. Embrace it and look for significance within you.
- Why is this making you uncomfortable?
- How are you part of the discomfort?
- Life’s a journey. A process. We are all at different paces and places.
- Make sure you’re on the right track and optimizing life so that you become the best version of yourself.
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5 comments
My life lesson at 24:
Whenever you go through a difficult path to acchive a goal: Enjoy the feeling of acchivement when you get there. But be ready for the feeling of going down. There is no “satying on top of the mountain”. After the top of the mountain you WILL have to go down to climb to the next mountain. Don’t ever think it’s over. And just because you didn’t stay “on top of the mountain” doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it… that’s just how it is!
I used to see life as a stair that I was climbing. Now I see it as a series of mountains and the movement is not always up.
I’m a 26 year old INTP, and I love the idea of sharing “life lessons” from all over this community and the possibility of helping someone else out there. So here are three of mine:
1) It is rarely about you. When another person is upset, frustrated, angry, irritated, and directs that towards you, it is rarely about you. Other peoples’ lives are just as chaotic and crazy as your own, and their attitude is usually a product of a million things going on, not just your presence or your personality or that one thing you said. If you try to remind yourself of that in the moment and believe it, it allows you to separate yourself from whatever they’re putting out there and actually have compassion for them, instead of lashing out or withdrawing.
2) Their ideas are just as important as yours. Just because another person’s words or ideas or thoughts seem insignificant or even stupid to you, it is just as important to them as your thoughts and ideas are to you. Belittling, demeaning or even just ignoring another person does not make you smarter, or make your ideas more important. And it’s important to not only show this outwardly, but to truly believe it within yourself, because it shows.
3) You have time. All my life I’ve felt late to everything, late to the party late to the experience late to whatever everyone else has already done. And something about turning 25 just hit me, maybe the realization that my next big transition age would be 30 and what a huge milestone that feels like. Truly saying goodbye to my teenage youth and realizing I am a living breathing human being in this world with responsibilities and mistakes and “life lessons” and all of it. Realizing that it’s not a race, you don’t win anything by getting there first, and it’s ok to take a different route than everyone else. Taking my time and looking around, that has been a major ‘aha’ for me, trying to live in the moment and not think about all the things I might have missed on the way there.
Maybe these will seem ridiculously obvious and juvenile to some, but it’s taken me 26 years to put them into practice and if someone else can benefit from hearing about it then that’s reason enough for me. Thank you for creating this community to speak freely about this, very much appreciated!
Excellent content here. My life lesson is that perspective changes as one grows older. At forty, I was in a hurry to achieve certain things, as if time was running out. Now, in my mid-fifties, I’m more relaxed, having chosen what I want to keep on with and what isn’t important. I heard a lovely analogy once that illustrates this: In the first half of life, you’re running towards a goal, but in the second half of life it’s as if you’re heading back the way you came, happy to watch those who started later flying past. You’re still on the same route but now you have time to notice everything and turn it into stories.
Happy belated birthdays to both of you! I really enjoy your podcast.
I am an American ENFP female who will be turning 20 in a few months. Currently, I’m a sophomore at a smallish liberal arts college. My major is in history and my minor is in Spanish. I would love to get a PhD someday and be a college professor. Sadly, I know the job prospects are not good. However, I think that I might as well try.
Here are the major lessons in life I have learned up until this point. Of course, I’m still very much a work in progress, and I don’t always perfectly adhere to these. But if I had to sit down and tell someone the things I have found most important, this is what I would say (in no particular order).
1. In order to solve a problem, you have to first admit that there is a problem.
The wording for this life lesson came from my dad. About a decade or so ago, he helped run a support group for recovering addicts, which he decided to do based on a family history where addiction runs rampant. Evidently, this is what they would tell people. When I was in high school, my dad shared this with me. I don’t have any specific stories to attach to it, but it’s something I tell other people when they are struggling and come to me for advice. If you can admit there is a problem, then you’ve gone through the first step to solving it. I use this as encouragement at times to let others know they are on the right path to improving their lives.
I strive to be a person who recognizes problems in her own life instead of ignoring them.
2. You cannot control how others act and show up to the world.
Systems thinking has really helped me grasp this lesson! So, thanks for introducing me to it.
I have a strained relationship with members of my family who are not my parents. I suppose, I’m also on good terms with my cousins in the regard that I don’t know them all too well. My main problem seems to be with some of my aunts and uncles and my three surviving grandparents who are in their late 80s and early 90s. Particularly, I have a difficult relationship with my maternal grandmother who has blatantly made it clear that I am her least favorite grandchild.
I was talking to my mom’s younger sister about this once, and I was surprised that she had great insight into the situation. She said, “I think your grandma’s problem is with your mom and not you.” That’s when it struck me. The poor/frankly nonexistent relationships I have with the others have emerged from a system that is out of anyone’s control. It was going to happen this way regardless. My parents both had bad childhoods. They grew up in poverty. While none of my grandparents were either abusive and I do think they genuinely love their children, they were not good parents and provided little to no guidance. There’s also a lot of toxicity in the family. My mom and dad distanced themselves from that to improve their lives, even though it caused a definite rift between them. Some members of my dad’s family see him as a rebellious, troublemaker and a non-Catholic heathen who shouldn’t be informed about important events. And my mom has gained the reputation of essentially being a snob and thinking she is too good for the others. These are both completely warped misinterpretations of my parents (except for the non-Catholic part, that is absolutely true).
Most of my relatives only really knew me as a little girl. While that is okay, they do not show interest in learning about the woman I have become. I do not feel that I can fully express myself around them.
I can’t control the family dynamic I have. There is no reason for me to be jealous of others’ strong connections with their families. I don’t have that outside of my parents, but that wasn’t meant to be. Honestly, I think it’s better with the way things are,
And, in the end, perhaps my extended family is what I get for lucking out in the parental lottery and getting the mom and dad I have. They’re awesome people and I admire them.
3. You are not responsible for saving everyone.
I’m still working on this one. I genuinely want to help people. I have a knack for detecting people’s strengths and talents, and I want to help them reach these goals (to my understanding, this seems to be a common trait among ENFPs).
I am the kind of person who offers someone a ride home when they open their first can of beer. They haven’t even taken a sip, and I’m offering them a ride. Sometimes this can be a bit awkward. Once, someone reminded me, “You do know we both walked here, right? We live in the same building.” Oops. Well, at least I care and want to prevent drunk driving.
My high school marching band director always said, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” I think this is such a valuable quote. I find myself saying it a lot. I can offer help to people, but I can’t make them do anything.
Sometimes events are out of our control too. When I was 13, I went to visit a good friend of mine in the hospital (she had just had surgery). I saw her dad sneak some of her pain medications, which I knew were potentially highly addictive substances. I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. While I know what I would do now, I was only 13 years old then. No one ever told me how to react in this situation, so I didn’t know.
Long story short, my friend’s dad ended up being an addict and had a lot of mental health problems due to the drugs he was addicted to (which had steroids in them, really dangerous stuff to mess with). When I was about 16, he killed himself.
When I heard this, my brain automatically went back to the day three years prior in the hospital. I blamed myself for what had happened. At the funeral, the pastor said something (I can’t remember what) that made me realize that I didn’t have to, and shouldn’t, feel that way. Even though I could have reacted differently to what I saw three years prior, my action was just a small part of everything that had led up to the death of my friend’s dad.
4. Treat everyone with respect.
This is something I was raised to do. I would have once stated it as “treat everyone equally.” However, at one point I heard someone make the argument that no one truly treats everyone equally. We adjust our mannerisms and speech when interacting with different people. Generally, someone is not going to speak to their boss the same way they would speak to their best friend. Thus, we do not treat people “equally.” For some reason, this really resonated with me, so I needed to find a better way to phrase it.
Another way is “Treat others how you want to be treated.” It also frequently involves “being the better person.”
I try to approach everyone with kindness and respect. We all have good and bad inside of us, and some people are unfortunately consumed by the bad. However, I always assume that a person has not fallen to their quote-unquote “dark side.” In my worldview, a person is good until they absolutely prove otherwise. This can be a slippery slope at times, but I think I’ve found a good balance. This way of thinking keeps me positive and allows me to connect with more people in a positive manner. Sometimes I think I find the idea of people more pleasing than actual people. However, I do really like humanity in general at the end of the day. I am fascinated by other people’s worldviews and stories. How did they get to this point? What are their dreams? What can they teach me about the world? What could I teach them? Without this lesson, I couldn’t discover the answers to these questions because I would be paranoid and immediately dislike nearly everyone. At one point in my life (middle school), I was like that. And I never want to feel that way again.
I think the world also just generally needs more respect. I could provide examples, but I won’t ask I don’t believe they are hard to think of. But I think, to make a better world, we have to start somewhere. In my opinion, that somewhere is respect for others. I think that the world also needs more open-mindedness too, but that ties into respect. I find I respect people because I do have an open mind. To my understanding, I think my Ne comes into play in moments like this. I can connect with all sorts of people because of my open-minded nature, empathy, and ability to respect people regardless of whether I necessarily agree with them. I once an article about how social media feeds of people tend to be narrowly focused and only express one opinion. Interestingly, I find that my Facebook is a mash of every single opinion you can think of. That’s probably because I’ve developed such a versatile nature. I’ve often felt a bit like a metaphorical chameleon floating around among places and groups of people. Thus, I’ve acquired friends and acquaintances of a diverse array of beliefs. Even if I disagree with them on an issue vehemently, I will still respect and care about them because I acknowledge and appreciate their good qualities (though I suppose there are extreme cases where I would lose respect like if someone turned into a Neo-Nazi or something). Sometimes people have expressed genuine shock at the sheer variety of people that I get along with in life.
5. Don’t live your life in fear.
I’ve suffered from pretty terrible anxiety all my life (though it’s been much better in the last few years).
When I was a kid, I decided I would never leave the house again. I don’t remember exactly why, but it was either because of terrorists or mass shooters.
My dad told me this, “If you live your life in fear, then those kind of people win.”
Ever since then, I try to live my life by this code. It doesn’t always work, but I know that I have to live the fullest life possible even if there are bad people in the world. If I don’t embrace life to the fullest, they win. After every massive tragedy, I find myself reflecting back on this and I’ve often said it to people.
6. Learn to embrace your positive qualities.
For the longest time, I couldn’t see the good in myself. Lately, I’ve started to realize my own strengths as I have grown as a person.
I’m intelligent. Because of some toxic friends I had and some other circumstances, I refused to believe this for the longest time. This year I’ve started to realize that I am smart. I don’t claim to be a genius nor do I think this quality makes me superior to others.
Apparently, I am a hard-worker. It feels like more of a matter of common sense to me. If I’m supposed to do something, I will do it unless I absolutely cannot (and, even then, I will work to find the best solution). But I have been praised for my work ethic.
I’ve always been known for being wise beyond my years in some respects.
I make people feel better about themselves. A lot of the time, I don’t purposely do it. I just have a knack for making people’s days better. It draws people to me.
I’m accepting of people’s differences.
I’m great at pinpointing people’s strengths. Many times, I find that people don’t recognize their own strengths (including me apparently). I try to help the people around me realize these strengths, or at least give them a compliment. This has led to people flat out telling me that my compliment is wrong (which irritates me, just accept it), but I’ve often found that these people will admit that I know a thing or two.
In the world, I bring a sincere drive to improve the world. I want to do something important with my life. I’m not quite sure what “important” entails, but I want to make an impact.
I’m not sure how I’ve gotten to the point where I am in life. I went from a baby with weak muscles who the doctors said might never walk to a person who is embarrassingly un-athletic yet not handicapped. I’ve gone from being a special education student because of the aforementioned physical limitations to a college student in an honors program with an extremely high GPA. I’ve been I was a completely anxious, unfocused individual who wasn’t allowed in the gifted program because her IQ was slightly too low and was given flak for it by people I thought were my closest friends. My second grade teacher told my parents that I was destined to fail. When I reveal these truths about my past, people can’t believe it because I’m not a person who is typically thought of in those regards. And I don’t know why I overcame each of those obstacles, I just did. So, I might as well make the most of my life because I’m here.
I certainly had a lot to say. I tend to ramble, but I think the things I’ve learned in my two decades on this earth have value.
Hi,
So I’m 21.
ENTP.
I just moved to Berlin amongst the hustle and bustle of finding a flat and learning German and teaching myself how to program and preparing for Uni here.
Here it goes:
1. Accept Confusion and Move Forward.
It’s a human thing, and very much an ENTP thing to be miraculously talented at distraction. I always felt like I had a better map than most people of a given situation so I could lead them astray to wherever I wanted them to be without losing track of where I was. Where I led them was usually not as important as what I was avoiding which was usually either confusion or boredom or pain. What I knew was true and important somehow never showed up on the map but if it did, would likely be located somewhere nearby confusion, boredom and pain. But, what you avoid has a way of coming back to you until you face it. So now I’m trying to slowly accept everything, and not map it out immediately but rather give it the space to surface and trust myself enough to navigate it when it does.2. You Can’t Tell Someone a Truth That You Haven’t Accepted Yet.
I was embarrassingly in love with this guy for years. My friends were tired of hearing about him. I didn’t know myself around him; I lost my way with words; I wanted so badly to impress him but usually ended up just saying things that were too confusing to take much out of. But also, I couldn’t admit to myself how I felt. I didn’t trust my own feelings, or even really understand them. A time came where I grew tired of just thinking about him so I called him and asked him out. When the day came, it was awkward and anticlimactic because I didn’t even know what I wanted to say, but I know the feeling is just gonna hang out until it can finally be recognized.
3. You Have Just As Much Power To Create As Those Who Came Before You.
This is, I think, a belief I was born with but it’s worth repeating. I see people all around me who immediately seek the comfort of social context. Like someone else being annoyed by something is definite proof that the content in question is terrible, but oftentimes that judgement is arbitrary at best or painfully untrue at worst. Giving yourself the freedom to make your own decisions and even create things without referencing the map of the external social context is precisely when you’ll surprise yourself. Especially now, the world is not stagnate. The line between history and the future is a blurry one.