[Music] hey fellow and tears those of us who like our spirituality with a Twist all right we are in the stretch run the final the final little furlongs here of things that can [...] up your life and we were doing this Dows Tex we'd like to do these little series and we are on numbers eight and nine that we thought were close enough uh that we kind of do them maybe as uh a tag team thing kind of handle them together I mean they're both kind of I like the fact that they have them both there there Daniel I don't know how you feel about that they are different in a way but they have the same underlying kind of themes behind them probably yeah yeah so we'll talk about those two kind of as a as a joint thing and and then I'm like as Daniel and I talked about pre-episode I'm going to turn to him for answers to my many queries and I have a magic eightball here ready to give you all of the answers yes we will pull out the iching and we will throw the coins uh uh and because I'm it's like at the end of this whole thing it's raising this interesting question to me is like what does really hold people back it's fascinating like I I wonder about this literally all the [...] time what what holds people back and uh then you know because it's so then you know it's related question that we always ask on this little podcast Endeavor of ours which is why do people live the lives that they live but anyway I guess we got to read them first right we do got to read them first so let's always do the you always do the honors so I do the I do the reading all right so again uh this is from the D of Health longevity and immortality the teachings of Immortals Chong and La translated by Eva Wong so uh eight and N I'll read them in succession you decide to cultivate in the morning but change your mind in the evening when you try to meditate you discover that you have lost your motivation you put off your cultiv because there is always something else to do you are enthusiastic in the beginning but lose your interest soon afterward being trapped by laziest by laziness and lack of motivation this is the eighth obstacle So reading that I have like actually way more thoughts now that we're we're doing this live in here but we'll get back to this in a second I'll read the next one and then we'll Circle back this the last one is you waste away the years of your life in the mon months years and days of the month hours of the day and that sentence is strange because that's how it's written not because I'm reading it incorrectly um in your youth you are a company occupied with fame and fortune in old age you are worried about grandchildren and and your other children each year you wait for the next year and each day you wait for the next day refusing to believe that what you practice today will help you tomorrow you complain in your old age that you cannot recapture your youth always waiting for the next month or the next year to cultivate this is the ninth obstacle so in both of these obstacles we're we're kind of talking about procrastination overall that's kind of the overall theme here I think we we we agreed on this so this is the sort of the general tone of what it is we're talking about kicking the can down the road if you will I also felt like we had done the previous episode on some of the psychology of avoidance which I thought was a kind of thing it was sort of Lincoln the number seven one which was like like I like intellectualization and rationalization and those kinds of things on that one I think we looked at you know more I'm being psychologically avoidant because there are things I don't have to see in myself so I I'll get to that you know at some point or maybe you start in the beginning but you don't really push it through as far as the day goes so I just wanted to call back to that one too because we did look right fears repression and those kinds of things and we did some episodes on that which I think we went deep diving enough where I thought that was good and now but you're you want to talk about procrastination specifically so I'll throw the floor over because you obviously got stuff you wanted to share about yeah so so from because you know some once in a while some magazines are good and psychology today has this stuff here I'm going to just read it so that people could have it but you could totally you know do a Google search of procrastination and then look and find it on psychology today it says why do I procrastinate it says procrastination is driven by a variety of thoughts and habits but fundamentally we avoid tasks or put them off because we do not believe that we will enjoy doing them and and want to avoid making ourselves unhappy or fear that we won't do them well people also May procrastinate when they are confused by the complexity of a task or when they are distracted or fatigued um and it says what are the what are the kind of roots the psychological roots of procrastination uh they mention low self-confidence anxiety lack of structure uh an inability to find motivation to do things that you don't necessarily want to do um procrastination is closely linked to rumination which we have talked about last time uh and specifically rumination on kind of negative thoughts also you know for other people who have this kind of a thing it's like a self-defeating Behavior often associated with people who have perfectionist Tendencies um we mentioned uh judgment by yourself right and judgment fear of judgment from other people uh and this kind of can lead to uh self I like this self- condemnation um so yeah that's pretty much what I wanted to say from this from this article just as a kind of some touch points you know I guess I didn't think about the self-esteem part of that you know that didn't occur to me when I was thinking about these things like the fear that you can't you can't accomplish things or that you'll struggle with something and it'll make you feel worse about yourself I hadn't thought about that like logically I thought about like I don't want to do this stuff because it'll force me to look at things I don't want to look at I think there's a that's a kind of a fear repression thing right yes but this is kind of a little bit different this has the flavor of like lack of confidence or something right yeah so we're taking a bit struggle and feel unconfident in myself yeah yeah we're taking a slight bit of a turn but I do want to come back to the text that we read just to kind of circle back on that but we can we can do this now or okay no no do it man and we'll we'll get to yeah okay so we'll we'll we'll we'll open up the because the the procrastination free and easy wandering as they say in China we're gonna we're GNA free and easy wander this well because the question that you asked to start the episode was like why do people do this and you want me to fix it you know I do yeah do this is ultimately what the qu you know so my answer to your question is it's because of procrastination right we're gonna take the positive route and then we just gave the underlying aspects of procrastination but before we get to the end we should do the I want to do the F the Fulfillment of the other two obstacles that we talked about so first one it said being trapped by laziness and lack of motivation so what I found interesting about this passage and again this passage was the one that said cultivating in the morning but changing your mind in the evening you meditate you discover you lost your motivation you put off your cultivation because there's something else to do you're enthusiastic in the beginning but losing your interest uh soon afterward laziness lack of motivation so again procrastination involved in there there but what I find interesting about this one in particular is that this is one of the few that actually mentioned meditation right and so the other one doesn't mention meditation they talked they mentioned specifically cultivation which is a which is similar but not the same thing so I am going to take again we've talked at length about differences in translations in things and so you know we've both um looked at numerous books by Eva Wong she's good in what she does I believe she's intentional with choosing the words that she's choosing so I'm going to just lay out the weakness in my argument to begin with in order to help people understand that I understand that there is a weakness in it that I am taking her words as if she chose them intentionally so when she mentions meditation and then later on says cultivation that those two things are different okay so leave that there because she is mentioning itation in this particular passage then I look at this through the mind of a meditator which how you want to describe me or describe us whether we are meditate ORS we are at least people who meditate so can give some content right on this particular subject matter so when she's talking about this there are certain things that are traps in meditation that we have talked to that we've talked about relatively recently I don't remember the name of the episode off the top of my head but if I can find it by the end of the the episode I I'll make mention of it so it says you discover you have lost motivation so this is one of the things that definitely comes up and they also talk about this at the end of the paragraph being trapped by laziness so those two things lack of lack of motivation and laziness this we could say could be fatigue or mind wandering or something like this like you're losing your focus and this is definitely one of the things that causes people to have issues when they're meditating they'll get tired their mind will wander like they're not able to stick with whatever it is that they're sticking with and so then it becomes even more taxing because they're having to use so much mental energy just to say as they use in school on task right and so it's draining when you're already tired so my um evidence for this is my teacher Andre when he you know he's always telling people to go to the monastery that he's a part of in Nepal and take a part take part in Long retreats to two months 3 months four months longer and he will say for most western people that they are going to need two to three weeks of just sleeping resting and sleeping eat sleep rest eat sleep rest don't worry about practice you want to do a little bit no problem you want to journal a little bit yeah you're good but like rest only sleep until you can no longer sleep and when you're filled back up then you can begin your pra now you can begin your practice because we're so exhausted overworked over sck simulated over caffeinated over whatever that our tanks are low so she is talking about I'm sorry don't me interrupt that Daniel like that's pretty fascinating that he says that I didn't want to I didn't want to go let that go past like uncommented on you know that's like not something you hear said too often it's not it's not I had another client of mine who met some uh Korean monk re within the last month month month and a half maybe in June sorry we're in August now time goes by so fast um and she said that she asked what kind of meditation should she be doing and he said just take take for right now take that time and just get a little extra rest he said Western people are very overworked and it's hard for them to focus because they're so exhausted so don't beat yourself up from for taking intentional rest not just extra sleep like get out of your bed go in your meditation space lay down breathe don't worry about it you know just start there to me because um you I got a couple reactions to it um yeah I know it's fascinating to think that these Asian people are saying this when you would imagine those Asian cultures were pretty hard living stereotypically yes but they're not they're saying the opposite of what you would think you know they're not saying oh yeah we were we were living in this tough agrarian environment where we're working our asses off we were all tired and taxed a lot of times in Chinese medicine they use the word taxation you know that that word they're saying the opposite and maybe that's what you master Wong my TCM you know uh teacher Mentor was talking about when he got here he was just like goddamn these people are depressed and overworked and exhausted I think he did feel that way you know and that's I think a shocking thing for a western person to hear you know someone else comes to America from some other place and they like Jesus Christ these people are like unhappy and exhausted and stressed out and whatever um on the Zen thing they would say Zen takes some effort you know so it's not like you know when you're sick or you're tired and stuff you have to kind of understand that this does take effort yes guess the other thing I would say and I feel like fortunate I got this back in my 20s because it was a lot of this as we talked about before calini breathing sometimes they call it inner fire breathing these deep breath things where you concentrate on your abdomen right you kind of focus on that there are major acupuncture points down there right that are kind of good to focus on for acupuncture folks who might be listening this is like Ren four and ren six or you can imagine it more towards the back you know and you get into that like the kind of the acupuncture channels in the back but you're trying to build up like a lot of fire right and sometimes you can do a visualization where there's a little flame BL burning right in your your visualization and it tries to build a lot of energy right to get over some of the fatigue things right and then there's this whole thing of like feeling like some of the word that popped into my head was will right and in Chinese medicine we use this term Jer right so especially for the person like you get hyped in the beginning of the day but by the end of the day you're like I lost my will you know [...] it I just I give up you know and it's really true in the sense that if you've like we use Chinese medical jargon if you've lost your Chi for the day your mind will get crappy right Chi going down will make it just get worse it's harder to focus it's harder to hold your it's harder to deal with your moods and stuff too your Chi goes down you get more Moody don't you think yeah you lose patience because your bandwidth to absorb things is gone yeah yeah yeah so that the chi goes down you might say with the kind of little fire thing going on your will goes down your yang goes down if you want to think you young and so they made a big deal of learning that so maybe a little different than what Andre is saying maybe a little bit different from what that Korean monk was saying but you know a similar kind of thing to talk about where you're going to need a lot of chi you're gonna need a lot of Yang to do this now in the Zen Vibe which I think translated a little bit into the Tibetan bu world for me ultimately where I am now and in the places in between uh there was this thing of like well we know life is going to be difficult we're just we're going to acknowledge that up front so you're going to need a lot of will you're going to need a lot of energy a lot of and drive to just do these things so that's just it you know and part of that was we're going to use this training because probably on some level as we're talking about now your life is going to [...] you up and you're gonna need a certain amount of drive and will to go through these things as long as doing your spiritual practice so I think they were aware of those problems and as far as it goes with Solutions it's just a different kind of solution I mean one type of solution is what Andre is saying well just okay fine just recoup yourself right um but maybe another way of thinking about it is well maybe there's these practices like what we've shared in different times on this where you're like no also do the other thing where you build up the will right and the school I was in had a kind of a samurai Vibe right it came out of that tradition you know the swordsmanship samurai Vibe tradition and so it had it had that thing of like well you never know when you're gonna have to go into battle you know you might not be that well rested on that day or something right I mean you were a soldier you know better than than I do from that kind of thing right you never know when something's going to happen and you need to get in the zone of doing this you know so I guess I'm grateful for that part and if that helps anybody out you know if you want to like you know we've done things on this before again I don't know the specific episodes where we've talked about these kinds of breathing techniques but we can do other stuff on it as we go forward yeah totally and then maybe that's a way that you start trying to do this yeah all right anyways I had a couple of reactions I wanted to share because you don't he too often I think that's pretty profound actually yeah yeah yeah so the other one so that's that's kind of like we'll call it fatigue and there therefore lack of motivation right with that then they also mentioned um you put off your cultivation now she says cultivation not meditation but I'm going to put it in a meditation sense um because there's always something else to do so we're going to call this distraction okay people are always distracted right and distracted from what well I mean from everything this is kind of like I want to say it a way in which you can keep yourself still in in motion but just off the ball so you're doing something you're not doing nothing because we want to be a productive Society right we're trying to be more efficient so you're doing something but you're not doing what you you know quote unquote should be doing you're not on you're not on task and so you can call it a form of procrastination but it doesn't it doesn't include um laziness because you're doing something you're just doing something else and for you know for an example on this it would be like oh you know what I really need to do my homework but I can't do it with my room so dirty I really got to get things cleaned up now on some level yes it's nice to have a clean space an organized space or whatever but the time to organize was not now was it was many Nows previous so this kind of like distraction and then rationalization why you're continuing to do it when right now is not the opportune time is definitely what I is what I'm thinking is what they're they're saying here is that there's always something else to do there's always thing you know avoidant aspect to that too in this case they they say something about I didn't read this one before we recorded this episode I probably should have but they say something about you think the thing isn't going to be pleasant or something right that was oh that was in the research article that was in the psych correct yeah you think oh man writing this paper is gonna suck so I'll I'll clean the gutters instead which will also suck but suck less it will suck less and I can get that done sooner so you know what I'll feel good about myself I'll feel good about myself but I didn't do the thing I was supposed to do anyways well you know as far as that distraction thing goes is I was thinking about these ones well what's going to distract you well these other [...] things oh totally yeah that will [...] up your light okay I would want to meditate but you know I got the drama with my kid or I want to meditate but I got the drama with my partner or I want to meditate and like you know my mom and my cousin are causing me problems or my family this [...] happens all the time you know we work with people all the [...] time you know or there's something for my job or whatever it is and that's all fair actually on some level we got it but these are the things that can [...] your [...] up that's why this list exists so it's kind of like the other things on the list especially those beginning ones my nervousness about my security you know my anxieties about myself and then like my family of origin my family and partner life or Partners life to be fair to our poly people um uh and we're get more poly guests on been making those arrangements um my work you know all those things right yeah those are things every ones are going to [...] you up yeah so so I took this as like so some of it's that some of it is like there are distractions throughout the day but I haven't cleaned my life up enough yeah so I took these as not only distractions that are common throughout the day but these are distractions also as you're in meditation and these are the ones that are classically discussed yeah yeah avoiding the practice even though you're there to practice it getting attached to to certain things that might come up in your meditation that you now have to deal with your checklist your whatever it is in your mind that's that's there that's I have to deal with this right now you know I gotta I gotta work this problem out it's too too too important you know you don't stop me you don't stop meditating but you don't also like get up and do it you just think about it you're just engaged with it you know talk about that all the time yeah y they're sitting there and they're like okay I'm gonna do this thing and a lot of the stuff we're talking about like our meditations that actually have like content and steps to them like it's not just freestyle yeah you or free form there are things that but you don't do it instead the person's thinking well you know at my work you know Sarah's really high maintenance and I work with a Sarah I'm not talking about Sarah that just came out no not not not you Sarah that Sarah might be might be different pronunciation and quite easy to work with uhuh um but you go through and you're like you know whatever Tina is really difficult and I know we got this project and you know she's gonna give me a hard time that I didn't didn't do it this way like people stink all that [...] that happens all the time people will talk yeah it's very real y yep and so those are and so that that's what I'm talking right it's it's it's it's in a meditative state but it's also in real it's also in real life because your ability to stay in communion with somebody in connection with them in conversation with them not drifting off so much you know actually being able to be present hold space like you know be engaged without like immediately going to a response if somebody is telling you something that you don't particularly dislike if if if you particularly dislike what you're what they're saying you're going to craft your response even before they're done speaking so how much are you actually even listening to what they're saying or conversely if you like what they're saying you want to add on to what they're saying with with another anecdote from your own mind shut the [...] up you know like do do what they uh listen to what let them finish and then God forbid you take a breath before you speak you know observe a moment of silence so that we could at least think you're listening actively before you like give us another volley back and forth so um these things even though they're we're referencing them in a meditative state that State penetrates your entire existence it's not something and we mention this regularly it's not something that only exists on your meditation cushion or in your you know wherever wherever you do your your little practice at so anyways I wanted to I wanted to to to me start start with that piece give illumination on that on that particular piece they're basically saying like you want to take those same mindsets and those same awarenesses out into other parts of the life which because that's the purpose and that becomes cultivation as opposed just meditation yes yeah and the same and the same things that get in your way there will'll get in your way in real life you know fatigue lack of motivation distraction avoidance just like we talked about last week again are going to come into play outside of life in your meditation practice or in your creative practice or in your relationship whatever it is your work you know they're they're going to come up back there as they're going to come up into your life as well yeah so in that sense like sitting in the meditative state will give you a a snap this everyone knows this they'll give you a snapshot of what your mind is like anyways yes and now you're really looking like it's like that okay yep yep totally totally okay and then the last one here um is uh you waste away years of your life the months of the years days of the month hours of the day in your youth you're occupied with frame and fortune in old age you're worried about your grandchildren every day you wait for the next day next year next month all this other stuff um so they're they're doing in my opinion they're doing two different things here one it's a continuation of procrastination from the one before but it's very similar so why the difference why the difference and for me the reference is to impermanence and time because that really hasn't been discussed that much before yeah the other one you're going on a day byday basis almost right my [...] goes up and down day by day one day I'm in the zone okay I got it the next day okay that was kind of crappy I'm GNA skip this I stopped doing this for a week they're talking more about like that kind of thing right where this is more like I'm gonna get to this next year next decade next lifetime maybe the one after that it keeps getting you like push back or something right and even in the sentences this one says you decide to cult number eight you decide to cultivate in the morning but change your mind in the evening now it's you waste away the years of your life yeah there's something poetical about that yeah when they do they're kind of like hey remember that thing in number eight here's the longer version of that here's the longer version of that right understand now you and you know so you can have more days but you're not going to have many more years yeah or you know like there's that whole metaphor in the Tibetan Book of the Dead every day is like a little lifetime or something right so here it is in the Life In The Daily scale yes what's life on the lifetime scale you know you know the every little day is a miniature shot of the whole and now you're putting it off to the end of your life and things like that it's interesting you know I always think about like one one of Bob Thurman's lectures Bobby T beloved Bobby T he does talk about that thing and I I could never tell if he was talking about himself and I don't want to know if he was talking about I mean I would be curious if he was talking about himself I don't want to assume he's talking about himself but he does two he talks about that thing I'll get this done and then that well and once all that's set then I'll go to menla and I'll do a retreat you know I'll get this part done and that one and then once that's set up I'll be I'll be on this like you know a duck on the June bug you know and uh you know there's some old professional wrestler that used to say that the duck on the June bug I don't know what that crossed my mind now um eye of the tiger um but you know it's like always this postponing thing right yeah yeah yeah okay so okay share more Daniel what do you what do you make of it it's a life so it's it's referencing time and impermanence which you know we've been talking about this and I think our Book of the Dead episode is coming up very soon Eric I believe as soon as I can get it organiz yes that's subtle pressure but it's all good um and so that is one of the things that will come up but it's it's a reference of impermanence and it's a reference of the the preciousness of human life uh the certainty of death this type of thing that like your your days are going to pass by and you're going to kick the can down the road during the day via procrastination as a microcosm of other things happening in the background could be distraction AKA avoidance fatigue lack of motivation lack of self-esteem all those other things right but then that as a microcosmic pattern extrapolated over longer periods of time ends up being just a bigger problem and now you're running a race and you're getting closer to the finish line and that's a bigger issue because you're not going to have like I said you're going to have less days as the year goes by as the years go by and so they really they talk about that you know uh in the months of the years days of the month hours in the day in your youth you're occupied with Fame and Fortune old age you're worried about children and grandchildren so you're you're you are being distracted to the things that have come before and you're still kicking the can down the road the your um habitual obligations or commitments or whatever and not even in a bad way but just in the way that you've built up the karma in your life are pulling you away from the moment are taking you away from what it is that you are also could be building at the same time but again because of your procrastination distraction like we just had mentioned you have you haven't done those things and so now the fruits of your labor are not very much and so then they say like you um you believe uh you refusing to believe that what you're practice today will help you tomorrow you complain on your old age that you cannot recapture your youth but what was your youth but a just a younger version of yourself at the moment so part of the issue is that you know as life goes on and and you know Eric you and I have this kind of conversation on a regular basis on like what goes with you after this lifetime it definitely ain't your body I can tell you for sure it's not your money you know I'm fortunate to have you know some not myself but some you know friends and people who are you know well to do in this lifetime and and it's it's nice to see success you know for sure Danel always gets really good tickets to things yeah and sometimes they even hook you up on occasion so you know much love appreciate it shared sometimes those tickets Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeahs like me it's good to do but I tell you man those people they take their health extremely seriously because they are fully aware by you know at least that the ones who who have uh a spine um that they they earned their money they earned their success on with the help of society and so fortunately they give back uh we can mention one one guy who I'm thinking of Pete Cadence who was on the podcast some years ago who would be he said he'd be willing to come on again because he has a new uh Venture um you know he gives lots and lots of money and has numerous organizations that are doing charitable things I mean he even ran StreetWise that that Homeless um newspaper that they you know a lot of the Cities yeah yeah for like eight years he was their CEO you know and so like he's not making money on doing that job he's a terrible he's a terrible he's a terrible guy yeah but but he's very F him him in particular but other people as well other clients they're very focused on their health because they're they're aware that like this is a gift and it ain't going because when you're gone it don't matter how much money you have it's going to get divvied up to the vultures who are remaining you know and it's not coming with you to the next life so what what then does go with you to the next life Eric I'll let you give the uh answer okay so the thing that is so interesting is like uh I had a student who who texted me about like is this what you mean by LM and it was some episode we did way back in the day right so we've done these episodes on this thing called stages of the path LM yeah and this is like it's we it's interesting because it starts off exactly with this it starts off saying your human life is really valuable so there's a positive thing that comes right out the gate right take advantage of your human life because you can do a lot with it so it's not negative or defeatist right it's actually kind of like hyping you up right and then it goes but it's gonna end and then you know it depends on how deep they do it sometimes they'll have you go like contemplate the end of your life and think about about what that's really going to be and how you're going to feel about it they make you really kind of imagine that in a deep way and then this quote like from nine things that will [...] up your life is like describing it for you right you know it can feel this way and then they go through and they make you think well what will actually go with me well exactly what you're saying Daniel well it's not going to be my material accomplishments and it's not going to be my body in a weird and I mean obviously potentially like not potentially sad way it can be like even the loved ones are not going to go with you you know you have those bonds with them in this lifetime they're beautiful but those are going to end too from this perspective right and what's going to go on with you is basically like your spirit is going to continue on and whatever you've built up into the potentials of your spirit over the course of the Lifetime right it's what's going to continue on with you you know that's going to be your the things are going to be the seeds of that you've planted within your Shen right that will go on forward right that's it I talked to my kids pretty honestly about that you know my son had a little mini existential crisis about his chess where some and he goes through it occasionally where he'll say what's the point of playing this game you know and there's one of the famous chess players he just played me the video yesterday Bano karanu I have to know all these chess players so um and you know Fabby is there and he's saying well you know chess is pointless on some level he's like the second best chess player in the world so my son was listening to it and he was like well you know it's it's a game and I'm a grownup playing a game and so you my son sometimes gets in those moods and I was trying to tell him something else I'm trying to tell him it's not like those seeds to think in those ways to develop your mind in those ways are powerful when you're planting those things and it's not just for chess then you're building up aspects of your character you know and you're building these things up and that's what goes with you you know what I mean so I was trying to like we've talked about it and at times that feels good to him you know the same way like the ability to love when you're in a like you know my son and I love each other right so that ability to love to know how to love that's a talent right that's going to travel with you right these things that you're building up are going to go and and and travel right they travel right if you do them well and that becomes like the spiritual core of who you are you know does that get to the does that speak to you in terms of the answer this thing too yeah yes the these kind of like intrinsic things that you develop with your lifetime are said to go with you to the next one yeah yeah that's the idea right and so what but what you're saying is that like the the culmination of your practices build right and that's what this thing is saying right um refusing to believe what you practice today will help you tomorrow you can plan in your old age that you cannot recapture your youth and my argument is there was nothing to capture in your youth you were just young you know you had more energy more Vigor more optimism your Runway was longer you could procrastinate even more when you were young less when you were old of course you know life catches up to you get more injuries Health you know whatever your bodies are doing what they're doing but the body's going to do that regardless so that's kind of like at least in my mind that's part of the plea of this thing it's like it's happening it's happening and based on the previous paragraph it's happening and it's happening day by day month by month year by year it's happening it's interesting in the sense that it is Health longevity immortality is the title of the book so that little part we're doing close read right so that little part is a reference to the idea if you were building this stuff up over the Decades of your life yes your 50s 60s 70s are going to look better than if you're not mhm because you're actually going to probably be in better physical health psychological health psychospiritual health it's making that case and then like they are kind of given a hard time in a in a kind way you know to say hey you didn't do these things before right and now you're going oh [...] why didn't I take care of these things you didn't you know but if you would have the momentum will be built I do think about this because and we've said it on the podcast before when I really got serious about this was right as I was finishing undergrad so like kind of like your early 20s kind of time right and I had some health problems when I was younger so I probably didn't finish my undergrad until I was getting to be like 23 24 um but then it was like okay I gotta do this Zen now because if I don't do this now I'm not gonna get the like what they're talking about I had that thought maybe it was a little D Karma thing you know floating around I thought if I don't do this now then I'm not GNA get the benefit of this going forward right yes better pull the trigger on this now and not procrastinate this to the later you know what I mean and that had a big impact on me because I just spent the three years just doing Zen you know that's what I did for three straight years right work support myself a little bit I was still a lay person but it was like you know I was Trucking along you know and I built up those Tendencies and habits that a lot of that still has carried me through to now but that you that's one of the things you can think about start where you are obviously you know but if you start wherever you're at you're going to build these things up and they'll start to they'll Translate they'll carry they'll become more habituated into who you are right once you start building them in yeah it's it's a it's a tough love right yes it's a tough love and that's the same thing with precious of human life certainty of death and do you build up the karmic like tendencies in you that are positive or you like you let the opportunities to build up that stuff kind of pass that's a tough love part it's interesting when they close read now that you're doing it Daniel that they also mention the other things it's the closer mhm right but they then reference back oh you're thinking about your career your Fame and Fortune you're thinking about your family you're thinking about your kids all those things are dominating in the way that you never get around to doing this psychospiritual thing right and so it never happens so they're referencing the nine the nine other things it's one of the rare ones that does that but it's capping it out it's saying hey think about this now we told you these nine other things you spent your whole life you didn't do it yeah this should be the compendium to this yeah yeah yeah but you know the thing about it is also if you think about it kind of deep and this is what they call analytic meditation in the way right a lot of g&t is analytic meditation you're talk your way through the meditation right have moments of realization if you do this when you're younger then you'll have this [...] to pass on with your kids yes if you do this when you're younger you'll have this to pass on with your partner partner right all of them when you're younger every single one the whole managerie of Partners that's right or just the one yeah uh um you know if you do this now it'll carry into your work in a way that will be different and maybe even make you make different choices of what that work would be yeah if you get to it and like again start where we are right we start where we are that's it but that's kind of the pitch on it right it's saying okay if you get the gears turning you're going to have other things to offer and if you contemplate that kind of deeply you can realize that that's true you know but it can be another source of of motivation I have something different you know to share with those people that I love actually you might even choose the people that you love differently to be honest right if you're really honest about you might say you know what that I I that person could be a good partner but maybe this is more of a partner that will help me build more of the things I'm doing I have more to share with them I mean that might change too right yeah it's deep yeah so okay yeah go ahead yeah yeah yeah know so that's the kind of that's the Capper right yeah well I got like for the just just for the for the nine obst for the obstacles that's the end of that particular thing and then I was going to do the kind of wrap it with the with the procrastination piece to it but if you want to do something before say about this what I was thinking about a lot as I was wondering why don't people do this and if you want to save it for episode 10 the the the the culmination episode of all this because you want to look at like what it means to find a path for yourself right and whether or not you really do I was thinking well why don't people do this or why don't people pursue this in more serious ways and I was thinking about the people I know uh and like you know we're clinicians and observers of human nature right right so I was looking at this and I was like well it has a lot to do with kind of like what you believe too you know and the idea that you have to believe that there's possibilities and maybe this is too big of an episode now maybe we have to come back to it or maybe we do it in episode 10 a preview but you know the idea like you have to like really believe that this is going to convert your life and transform you you have to really believe that there's more possibilities in you and maybe that does mean finding a path so maybe we come on back right because we so so let's just talk about it let's just talk about it then from a procrastination standpoint because that's maybe a little on the self-esteem thing and then we'll yeah yeah no totally we could definitely do that so again okay you're you're you're we're more narrowly focused for this one and we'll pop out for the next one yeah yeah totally for for the wrapup episode yeah yeah yeah so we got okay again referencing to some earlier procrastination driven by a variety of thought and again it's from Psychology today procrastination is driven by a variety of thoughts and habits but fundamentally we avoid tasks because we do not believe we'll enjoy doing them and want to want to avoid making ourselves unhappy or fear that we won't do them well uh they might be too complex a task um or people could be like fatigued distracted want to avoid them uh have a difficulty with low self-esteem anxiety inability to find motivation for stuff because probably you don't want to do it in the first place excess ruination often linked to negative thoughts um which then can lead to self-defeating Behavior like procrastination so we've now fully come back to the to the uh word that we're using to define the word that we want to Define you know think that's called a taty but okay we're gonna let that there go yeah but you know once in a while okay we did it once one taty in four years give me a break um and then um and then and then other in other ones people who are like overly kind of obsessive with with uh perfectionism they can't do it unless unless it's going to be done the right way I can't I just I just could never do it you know and this is kind of like self-judgment right [Music] um yeah so so that's it or there's one more here oh okay it says that they'll people are concerned that if they do it if they do something now the the cost of doing it they'll have to pay for it later so they'd rather not H what does that mean I'm not sure that's just what it says and I wanted to read it because I didn't read it earlier but I find that to be a different take on it so we've had a lot of like internal psychological things but when I this I feel like it has to do with our the way in which we deal with ourselves our own sort of like internal deal making you know like when you're you know you have kids Eric uh when they were younger you had probably had to be like all right well you got to eat your vegetables and if you don't eat your vegetables uh you're not going to be able to drink this two liter of RC Cola you know so painting oh the memories you know that SC yeah yeah so like the I guess internal uh internal psychological games internal psychological gam psychological games okay yeah that goes back to the defense mechanism [...] we were talking about last week too or laste yeah the self-esteem thing is interesting I just thought it was like to throw out like there's a psychologist alred oddler and we like to do a little of psychology you know obviously in this oh you know the way I see a list like that Daniel before I do that when I was listening to you go through it I think the purpose of hearing a list like that is it gives you a chance to screen those things out in yourself yes and see which ones actually like hit on target for you so I mean it's good that that gets read you kind okay here's the whole thing what's the purpose of listening to that to my mind the purpose of listening those things is to go oh those are the two or three those are the ones that got that get me you know and then it'll be different ones for different folks right yeah yeah yeah well I guess the oddler thing is just more like until you go through he says the way to deal with the self-esteem things is to set reasonable goals for yourself M and then as you achieve those reasonable goals you're going to feel better about yourself and maybe that's an add take in this too right set reasonable meditative goals and as you achieve them it'll start to feel more it'll feel good to you that you did it right yes positive feedback you won't like self- recriminate if you set a goal that's too high that you don't make this is all this approach is also used with people who have who are afflicted by like add is that you shrink down the to-dos into very small pieces so that it doesn't so the project doesn't seem like it's these huge swats of energetic or psychological expenditure but they're actually like a bunch of little steps that you could just do this and then do this and then do this and you could take a break whatever you feel like you know or you know whatever but you're not obligated to do all these things so it's much of the same way is that you set small snackable meditations as our friend uh what his name is conu Conor shout out to Miguel in his book um but yeah that you get to put them on top of each other you know and and lay it out more like a scenes in a movie reel it's a better strategy right you can go kind of Step by Step Right Kind build your endurance for a thing as you go right and then you know um but you do need goals yes right so as far as this stuff goes you can start to set goals what struck me too and we guess we'll probably do more of it in a little Capper episode is like this overriding goal of like psychospiritual Improvement or Enlightenment whether we get there or not but that ideal of seeking that has always felt really good to me you know so there's a long goal right and then times in my life when maybe things are sad and or you know life goes through its ups and downs I can always return back to that space and feel that long-term goal and it feels really good you know to like I always have this underlying flow in what I'm doing you know even if things go up and down in other parts of life this is still the underlying current of like who I am and that feels good to have that longterm goal right because that just feels psychologically and existentially good you know yeah yeah I think so so we've kind of you know like when there people are confused by the complexity of a task when they have low you know uh lower kind of self-esteem we talked about how to get over if you're overly distracted or fatigued again you shrink the things down um one of them here that I think that's important is that we avoid it because we don't think we're going to enjoy doing it and we want to deeply not do things that are going to make us unhappy or discomfort the problem I mean and this is true I believe that to be true right I think why would I want to do that that sounds terrible I'm not doing it you know but you have to or else it's not procrastinating if you don't have to do it it's not procrastinating you're just not doing it like no big deal but procrastination comes in when is when you believe you would or should be able to right and so looking at this the the weird part is that as you're avoiding something that you should do but that you believe to be uncomfortable for you you're actually in it longer because now that thing is residing even if you're not thinking about it it's still in your mind somewhere it's still in there somewhere and every time that you're reminded of doing it it brings you discomfort so in an act of self-preservation from my perspective it's better to do it from the from the aspects of this the the book is trying to make mention of that your time is limited and then things are impermanent and that there's a definite end and you can't kick the road down forever because months turn into weeks turn into or months turn into weeks turns into you know what I'm saying years and all that [...] years and decades yeah yeah yeah and all that [...] yeah that like it is better to do it now because you end up building that habit of oh I got it later oh it'll be there later oh it'll be there later and you're actually it's interesting because your being your Shen your spirit you know using the Chinese thing it'll remember it'll remember if you build the things in deep enough it'll hold and it'll remember right the thing that like struck me I was like you know again in the original question in the episode like why don't people do this like what is it and maybe we'll talk about some of this bleeding over into the last one but some of this is tough love right and there's a tough love part and I was thinking well that's kind of like this you know there's the carrot and the stick right and so that's like the stick you know this is the yielding of the stick say okay look at this from the point of view of like the tough love and the stick but like the thing that struck me is I was you know I was doing my work day and I had to do some commuting and I was thinking about the episode we were going to record kind of like internally brainstorming it and I was and and actually just thinking about my life and people that I know and love and care about and I look at how they live and I'm like I wonder why they don't do this more you know and I think like like we don't like there's the carrot part you know the part that's like the pleasant part and I was thinking if I reflect on my own psychology which we tried to do at the end of each episode maybe a little bit and it'll beat over maybe into the next one too but I was thinking okay I'm going through the ups and downs of my life there are some things that are making me sad other things that are making me happy that's life right but in a kind of a very intense way there are things that are like that's pretty sad this is pretty cheery so I'm one of those kinds of times in my life right that's really nice this sucks you know there's a real there's a real dichotomy and contrast going on I was think well how do I reenter myself in all of this and I was thinking you know a lot of this spirituality stuff for me I went back to that as my home base like we were talking about and I went a lot of this is like not sticks it's carrots you know and maybe we continue about when we talk about finding the path but I'll just give my own little mental list as I was going through it's a joy to feel authentic it's a joy to find yourself and feel that you're authentic feels great it's a carrot it's a joy to feel that deeper feelings of love and creativity right that we talked about when you tap your spiritual root in your yourself that feels wonderful right it's a joy to feel the Bliss of meditation the Bliss of spiritual accomplishment the Bliss of transforming yourself into something better those are Blissful experiences right some of the best experiences you'll ever have uh to feel that you know who you are I guess that's authenticity but like I was thinking in the yian sense to really know all the aspects of who you are to really fully understand yourself to feel your connection with the whole universe around you you know in that deep way like it's carrots it's a whole bunch of carrots but to understand to feel like you understand the universe yeah on some level in some way that feeling of knowledge save the rest of it for episode 10 but I just want to throw it out there yeah you know there's a tough love feeling to a lot of this and I was thinking yeah I get it there is that part of it yeah you know but there's also like the Bliss of this and I guess that's what I was wondering about to be continued next episode maybe that's like the realization of look at all the Bliss in this and then that was the question why not Chase those blisses because they're some of the best blisses you're going to get right the entirety of your existence and I I think that's how I think g&t should be on some level in that way balanced out where we talk okay here's the problems got it we'll be honest not [...] around we're being honest about it but the other hand there's a bliss to be found right so I I think in in that you know and that we'll we'll wrap it up but the looking at procrastination we talked earlier before we were recording about turning turning something into something else you know yeah and like so yes all of these reasons are why we procrastinate the fear of failure the fear of success the lack of motivate all the stuff that we've mentioned okay but the part that is where is the part that has value and usually we procrastinate with things that are probably important or El it would matter right otherwise ain't gonna matter exactly so I guess what I'm what I'm giving as the Capper for this you know before we would do the the next one is like be allow yourself to be curious enough on who you are to sit with in whatever way that is means for you and examine the impetus or lack of impetus depending on how you look at it that is keeping you stuck in this particular place and see if the depth of whatever it is that you are avoiding what's there for you what does that hold for you because ultimately doing the task yeah we could take it into shorter bits and make it more palatable so that you can execute it and get through things but that in itself is a lesson to what take smaller bites assimilate things in little in more little pieces little bit at a time don't gobble the whole of the situation all at once but slowly digest things probably metaphorical for how we eat and metaphorical for how we learn right you don't get a final on day one like you got to build up all the little pieces along the way and so in this way this you know quote unquote Obstacle of procrastination can seem as something that might be ins mountable for some folks which is totally understandable given all the background information that we have up until this point however if you are taking the path of inquiry then continue to do that here too and say okay what's here for me why is this so difficult yes with everything in the background but like maybe on a grander scale why am I not allowing myself to do something that I either want or need to do but it is important enough for me to procrastinate but also important enough that I can't just get rid of it I can't just remove this task from my to-do list I have to do it and yet I'm not so there's an energy there and what does that energy hold probably something of value that's my that's my assertion at the end of all of this yeah it's kind of like a a an episode that like um um flitted around to all the different things around this I you have a theme in procrastination right I also feel like okay there's like all these little Snippets Within in this that are very interesting right continued yeah yeah that's correct that's correct Eric thank you so much for do doing the damn thing uh audience thank you for listening we appreciate all the uh the the love and respect and and all the the good things leave leave a like comment subscribe share our work hit us up Jin and Tantra gmail.com hit us up on the on the Graham at the Jin and Tantra podcast um you know if you got us on Facebook my name is here Daniel DNE Eric is Eric Baker you know feel free to shoot us a message you might respond that way but email probably email or Instagram is probably the best ways if you want to uh hit us up and uh you know show us some love or if you're interested in a particular topic we have gotten stuff uh we have received stuff from audience members and so uh we always try and to take those into consideration as this is a you know a live thing a real thing we are you know human beings to the best of our knowledge and uh we'll continue doing what we do until uh until we can no longer speak um so you know we appreciate everything from everybody so thank you so much Eric thank you everybody much gracias UMO peace [Music]