Should You Settle In Your Love Life? [Video]

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

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dating has
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in
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a way that is so
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counter-intuitive
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become harder it should by all rights be
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so much easier we have technology on our
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side we have so many tools
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to meet people we can meet people
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without even leaving the house so not
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only can we meet people we can meet as
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many people as we like there are
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thousands and thousands and thousands
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for us to swipe through and if you can’t
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find them on one app just jump on
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another app and there you go again and
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yet it’s gotten so much harder now part
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of that is inevitably that when we are
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presented with so much choice
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we get overwhelmed
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paradox of choice makes choosing so much
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more difficult and of course increases
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the likelihood that even once we have
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chosen we’re just thinking about all of
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the things we didn’t choose and did we
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really make the right choice so there’s
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a lack of decision there i also believe
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strongly that the the buffet-like nature
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of dating today where you can access so
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many different options
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creates lower investment because instead
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of meeting someone and thinking you know
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what i rarely ever have the chance to
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meet anybody living on this small farm
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in idaho so
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this person’s the only prospect i’ve got
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right now let’s see what it could be
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right the extreme of that of course
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that’s
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institutionalized is
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uh uh arranged marriage arranged
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marriage is this is your person now go
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for it obviously there are a whole bunch
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of philosophical problems and
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potentially ethical problems to debate
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about that but the logic of this is your
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person now make it as good as you can be
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is one that is increasingly lost on us
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as we have
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seemingly endless choice we are less
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inclined to truly invest in any one
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person
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because of the amount of options we now
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have i’m divvying up my attention
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amongst all of these
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potentials until i find
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something that really works and then
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that thing will get all of my attention
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by the way you may or may not have
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noticed this is going to be a video very
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much aimed at both men and women some
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people may watch this video and decide
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that in parts it’s much more the men
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that need to hear the messages of this
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video we can discuss this
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in the comments
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[Music]
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oliver berkman in his recent book 4000
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weeks
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is which is a beautiful book i would
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encourage people to read talks about
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time management as it relates to
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essentially a fear of death existential
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dread it’s not really a time management
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book it’s more a book about how we live
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our lives and why we find it so hard to
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enjoy our life with the amount of fomo
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we have the amount we try to cram into
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our lives and what he talks about is
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this idea that the reason we’re trying
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to cram so much into our lives is
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because we’re living with the fantasy
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that we are going to do it all and the
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fantasy that we’re going to do it all is
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a lack of acknowledgement of our own
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death of how little time we have we are
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essentially
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not going to be able to do
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most things in life life is so
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insanely short
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that
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we are only going to do a tiny tiny tiny
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amount of what life has to offer
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and that one of the things that allows
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us to enjoy life maybe the biggest thing
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that allows us to enjoy life is instead
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of trying to do it all instead of
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cramming everything in
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recognizing you’re not gonna cram it all
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in you’re not gonna do most things
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you’re gonna have to pick a tiny handful
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of things to do in your life and then
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resolve to enjoy those as much as
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possible and he talks about the fact
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that striving at something investing in
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something is actually the thing that
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creates maximum enjoyment not trying to
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do it all
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it was hard for me to read this book
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without drawing the obvious parallels
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for our
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love lives the desire to experience it
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all in love the desire to have it
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exactly our way the desire to
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uh live as many different
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love lives over the course of our lives
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makes it so hard to make a decision to
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actually just
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go for something and even if we say no i
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don’t want to live many different love
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lives i i just want one really
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magnificent love life even that emphasis
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creates a problem because it does raise
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the stakes of the decision so
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high
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so now we find ourselves trying to
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optimize in the choosing process but
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there comes a point where optimization
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in the choosing process becomes
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counterproductive i i look at it this
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way there are certain fundamentals
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that make someone
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a potentially wonderful partner to build
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a life with and we could break up what
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are the fundamentals into universal
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fundamentals and personal fundamentals
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the universal fundamentals would be
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things like
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teamwork um kindness compassion
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the ability to
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argue well the ability to communicate
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effectively the
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showing up for each other in difficult
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times
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or the
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compassion to make space for each
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other’s flaws
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these it would be hard to argue aren’t
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just universally appealing in any
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relationship despite the
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idiosyncrasies of different kinds of
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people
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but then there’s the personal
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fundamentals so for me for example
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i grew up in a very affectionate family
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physically
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physical affection is extremely
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important to me it’s just in my bones i
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want to be close to the person that i’m
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with touch is really important to me so
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i could never be in a relationship where
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that personal fundamental
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need for physical affection wasn’t met
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that for me is not a nice to have it’s a
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must-have if i am to feel happy in a
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relationship now that’s not necessarily
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true of everybody else for some people
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physical affection isn’t that important
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if two people like that find each other
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it’s not going to be a thing that
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creates long-term unhappiness for them
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so our ideal relationship or
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i have to lose that language even in the
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context of this video the relationship
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that we have the potential to be
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incredibly happy in
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is going to be one that fulfills
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universal fundamentals and our personal
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fundamentals
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the danger of course in life is that we
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can go through life
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mistaking
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nice to have
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things for our personal fundamentals you
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might be a man going through this world
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looking for a woman with a very specific
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body shape thinking that that’s gonna be
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the thing
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that’s the fundamental or it’s at least
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one of the fundamentals you need you
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might be a woman on a dating app
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consistently disqualifying men who
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aren’t quite the right height thinking
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that that’s one of your personal
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fundamentals when in fact that’s not
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going to be a thing that matters to you
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down the line
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and what’s interesting is when we say
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down the line
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we almost have to look at a before and
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after of a long-term relationship
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there’s before you have a really deep
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bond with someone that goes beyond the
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superficial and there’s after that point
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and i think about about it like this a
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lot of things that we convince ourselves
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matter to us all the way up until that
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moment of that real deep bond and love
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and care and kindness and
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and connection
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dissolve at that point
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and you move into a stage where these
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things look it may not be that they
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never bother you again
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but
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they’re not actually the things that
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occupy your thoughts about this person
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what occupies your thoughts are the
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things you truly treasure about this
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relationship
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and the danger for all of us is that
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we never reach the other side
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of that
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line
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because
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we have ever every time we get the
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chance to maybe invest in someone to the
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point of going beyond that
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we
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find a way to disqualify them
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so we never really know how we might
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feel about those things on the other
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side of that and i hopefully for a lot
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of us part of evolving as as people part
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of growing
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is realizing
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what things i had convinced myself
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i couldn’t live without what things i
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had convinced myself had to be a certain
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way were actually
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pretty superficial
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in the scheme of what would make me
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happy in a relationship to me what this
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means is that
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optimization is only relevant at the
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front end of choosing someone to the
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extent
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that it
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secures the fundamentals for us
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after that optimization
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becomes a very dangerous game because
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it’s no longer a point of leverage if
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you take that japanese term kaizen
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which is about never-ending improvement
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something i learned back in business
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studies in high school the idea of
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never-ending improvement in business
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that is a wonderful principle as applied
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to a relationship
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it’s a very dangerous principle as
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applied to the choosing process the
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selection process
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because if you go for never-ending
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improvement in choosing someone every
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time you meet someone that has a lot of
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things right with them you look for the
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one thing that’s wrong the one thing
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they don’t have and then you tell
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yourself oh an improvement would be if i
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could find another person with all of
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these wonderful things that this person
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has plus
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that one thing
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that’s missing
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and so we go in search of the fantasy
10:42
partner not recognizing that we end up
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trading one
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sub-optimal thing in this person for a
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different sub-optimal thing in another
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person which is inevitably the case
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because
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that ultimate fantasy of someone who on
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every level ticks every box we have
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does not exist
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[Music]
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incidentally i do think part of the
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problem is us having a culture of having
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things exactly the way we like them we
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have gotten used to that that’s too hot
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that’s too cold i want it delivered
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exactly this way to my door i want to
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travel in exactly this way even burger
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king now a multinational fast food chain
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has a slogan tell us how you like it
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about their burger jamison have you ever
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have you ever realistically gone into a
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burger king and thought you could tell
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them how you like your burger it’s never
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been a realistic possibility but that’s
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how they sell it because we have a
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culture obsessed with having things
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exactly to our
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tastes
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but
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people aren’t
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customizable
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in that way
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and that’s not where the rewards are
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going to come the rewards are going to
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come from us
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being with a person and all of the small
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graces and spaces that
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that we afford to allow for another
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human being an autonomous
12:07
human being in our life that we coexist
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with the result being not just that we
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each bring value to each other but our
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combined value is greater than each of
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us separate from each other here’s
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what i’d like to offer as an idea today
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when we find someone that has
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good fundamentals
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not someone who’s perfect
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but someone who has good fundamentals
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we change our
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paradigm
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about this decision
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from
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the idea that we’re settling for someone
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to the notion that we are settling
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on
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someone
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settling for someone implies that we
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have
12:57
in some way shortchanged ourselves that
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we have made a sub-optimal decision that
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we’ve thrown in the towel that we’ve
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gone for the easy result that we’ve sold
13:08
ourselves short we have not
13:11
self-actualized in this area but to me
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the choosing part is literally
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it’s phase one
13:20
the real self-actualization
13:23
and the combined self-actualization is
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two people realizing the true potential
13:29
of a relationship by what they bring to
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it that’s the part we should
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really put our pride in is what we make
13:38
the relationship don’t forget one of the
13:39
fundamentals is teamwork and finding a
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good teammate so you can’t do this on
13:44
your own this isn’t a this video isn’t a
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mandate for those of you who are in a
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masochistic sense
13:50
trying and trying and trying to make a
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relationship great with someone who
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isn’t trying that’s not respecting the
13:57
fundamentals you need but settling for
14:00
implies this horrible kind of i’ve given
14:03
up settling on
14:06
is about saying as berkman says i’m
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going to do a very very tiny amount of
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what is on offer in this life
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and my love life is no different there
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may be many people with whom i could
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build a relationship
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what imbues this relationship with so
14:25
much meaning
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is not that this person
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is the one
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but i have chosen to make them the one
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and of course by by investing in that
14:38
relationship and by cultivating it and
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make it as beautiful as it can be it
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brings into existence
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something that didn’t exist before
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that’s alchemy isn’t it so i literally
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take something that didn’t exist and i
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make something beautiful and now that
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relationship exists and it is
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one of a kind i can now retroactively
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say that this person is the one for me
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but it’s not because they came as the
15:10
one it’s because we created that
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together we made something that didn’t
15:16
exist before and now you’re right it
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couldn’t have been anyone else that’s
15:21
what it is to settle on and to think
15:24
that we are just going to discover
15:26
the perfect person
15:29
is to disqualify and discount all of the
15:32
investment that goes into
15:35
creating something of value we value
15:37
what we invest in meaning and
15:39
fulfillment flows where our investment
15:42
goes when we invest in something we
15:44
value it and of course history can only
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be made by something we spend time on
15:49
when we spend time with someone we
15:50
create history with them that history
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now becomes part of the fabric the value
15:55
of the relationship
15:57
[Music]
15:58
i was on a delivery service the other
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day post mates is the one near me i was
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ordering food and i was starving
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starving hungry i was grumpy i couldn’t
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wait to eat and i was confronted as we
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always are when we go on these apps with
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10 different cuisines that i enjoy
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no adore all of them on some level if
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someone just showed up with any one of
16:22
those cuisines to my house i would have
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been absolutely happy but because i was
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confronted with all of them at the same
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time
16:30
i quickly made myself unhappy trying to
16:33
figure out which was the perfect
16:36
one for tonight as if any of them were
16:38
the perfect one now the point is any one
16:41
of those cuisines could have made me
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really happy that night and within those
16:45
cuisines there are at least five
16:47
different restaurants in every category
16:49
that could have made me happy
16:51
but i was convinced in that moment
16:55
that there was one
16:57
that was going to be
16:59
absolutely objectively the one that made
17:03
me the happiest that satisfied my hunger
17:06
the best but we can’t enjoy every meal
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on the same night we can’t get full on
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10 different cuisines in the same night
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we have to choose something that’s gonna
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satiate our hunger
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and and enjoyment lies in focusing on
17:23
that meal because as i said earlier the
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danger is we go for that meal and then
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we still think about the ones we didn’t
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go for now finding an attractive mate
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you might say is not as easy as finding
17:34
a delicious pizza online to get to your
17:37
house and that’s true
17:39
however
17:40
the idea of the fomo associated with it
17:43
is the same and this isn’t limited to
17:46
people who are single it extends to
17:48
people who are in relationships who are
17:50
fantasizing about what life could be
17:53
like with someone else the moment
17:55
there’s any dissatisfaction in the
17:57
relationship or someone does something
17:59
to annoy them upset them something they
18:02
don’t find very attractive or they get
18:05
bored of something
18:06
they start imagining or can be prone to
18:09
imagining what is on the outside of the
18:13
relationship but that doesn’t mean that
18:15
anything better is on the outside of
18:17
that relationship there might be and
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again i’m not talking about abusive
18:20
situations or situations where genuinely
18:22
two people have just gone very very
18:24
wrong and it’s not salvageable but there
18:27
are an enormous number of relationships
18:29
that end because someone has simply
18:31
convinced themselves that there’s some
18:33
fantasy that’s going to come true on the
18:35
outside of that relationship and what
18:37
they will find much of the time is that
18:40
they don’t get an upgrade in person all
18:42
they get is a temporary change in state
18:46
they may get the short-term excitement
18:48
they’re looking for just the change just
18:50
the energy of getting out of stasis but
18:54
of course in a new relationship if they
18:57
genuinely haven’t found something that’s
18:59
more compatible with themselves that
19:01
stasis will come to meet them yet again
19:04
[Music]
19:07
this is worth bearing in mind if you’re
19:08
in a relationship right now i’m
19:10
wondering if you have settled which also
19:13
i think gives us a recipe to say okay if
19:15
i’m worried that the fundamentals in my
19:17
long-term relationship aren’t there
19:19
reclassify what are the fundamentals to
19:21
me and can i help bring them out in this
19:23
relationship at the very least if you
19:25
work on doing that with your partner and
19:27
then they still aren’t there you can
19:29
have a bit more clarity about leaving if
19:32
you’re single and watching this video it
19:35
may be worth
19:36
looking at the way that you’re going on
19:38
dates right now and asking yourself on
19:41
what basis am i disqualifying people are
19:44
my tests are my disqualification
19:47
criteria making it impossible for me to
19:50
ever invest enough to care about anyone
19:53
enough to where those things don’t
19:55
actually matter to me we should also
19:58
have the humble awareness that we
20:00
ourselves aren’t going to pass every
20:01
single one of somebody else’s tests and
20:03
we better hope that the person we’re sat
20:06
across from on a date drops a few of
20:09
their tests
20:10
of their disqualification criteria a few
20:13
of their
20:14
fundamentals that aren’t really
20:16
fundamentals and would be disqualifying
20:18
us for none other than a fairly
20:20
superficial reason we only have to think
20:22
of a friend we have that we know and
20:24
love that we have history with that we
20:26
see
20:27
as this amazing beautiful person but we
20:30
also kind of know that if we introduce
20:32
that friend to somebody that other
20:35
person might not get it
20:37
they might not get
20:39
why we think this friend is so awesome
20:41
have you ever had that experience you’ve
20:43
got a friend that you love to pieces but
20:45
if you introduce that friend to somebody
20:47
else that somebody else is quite likely
20:49
to be underwhelmed but you internally
20:51
know no i love this friend so much
20:53
they’re so wonderful you just don’t see
20:55
them for all all that they are you don’t
20:57
know their history you don’t know where
20:58
they’ve come from you don’t know what’s
21:00
made them who they are today and just
21:02
how much they’ve overcome and what makes
21:03
them a unique and beautiful and rich
21:06
person you know that because that’s a
21:08
friend you’ve invested in over time and
21:11
what are our friends except
21:13
human beings that we began investing in
21:16
one day until the point where we
21:18
genuinely began to see the beauty and
21:21
richness in them and cared about them
21:24
that’s what our love life can be too
21:27
i’m not advocating the idea that anybody
21:31
could be someone worth settling on for
21:35
you but that many more people
21:37
are capable of being the person that we
21:40
can settle on
21:42
and build something extraordinarily
21:44
beautiful
21:45
with and while some of the beauty to be
21:48
found
21:49
is in the simple discovery of that human
21:51
being the most profound beauty is to be
21:55
created in what we build with that human
21:58
being
21:59
[Music]
22:01
i hope you enjoyed this video leave me a
22:02
comment let me know what you think add
22:04
to it whatever wisdom you want to give
22:06
to the rest of us as well and if you
22:08
like this video check out this video i
22:11
think you’re really going to love it if
22:12
you want to check out my new website we
22:14
just launched a brand new website and if
22:16
your love life is a priority you’ll find
22:17
lots of solutions there that’s right
22:19
here and before you go please like this
22:22
video share it subscribe and click the
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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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