anything goes with emma chamberlain - advice session #11

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Answering more of your advice questions! Topics like figuring out if you should try to fix or just leave a toxic friendship, how to gain confidence with your personality and “attractiveness” regardless of what others may think ,if now is the time to focus on your career or relationships, ways to accept constructive criticism to improve parts of our lives, and many more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning everybody. Welcome back to anything goes. I'm Emma Chamberlain your host. I know I sound tired right now. It's because I am. I just moved for the past like week and I've been unpacking for a week. I'm still not fully unpacked. I forgot how terrible moving is. It is the worst thing on the entire planet. What's crazy about moving is that like I always anticipated to be stressful for sure, but it's always 50 times worse than I ever expect. And I have not been as stressed out as I am right now in probably over a year. Like, I can't find anything that I need.

There's clothes and shit everywhere all over my new place. I'm stressed out, but then I started thinking about it and I was like, Emma, everything's fine. Like your family's fine, your friends are fine, your cats are fine, everybody's happy and healthy. Stop freaking out over moving. You know what I'm saying? Like there's so many worse things that you could

be worried about, but you're lucky that you don't have to worry about those things. You're just worried about moving and moving is so not that big of a deal. But for whatever reason it kicked my ass. Let me tell you, it kicked my ass. I was extremely mentally unstable for the past week and a half before moving and after moving. And that is why I missed in episode last week because I literally have never been so stressed out. But I kept beating myself up over it because I was like, ah, but there's, you know, worst things going on in this world that I should be worried about. Not the fact that I'm moving and that my shit is everywhere and that I can't find anything and that I'm exhausted because unpacking stuff takes forever and is exhausting whatever like

there's much deeper larger problems in this world to worry about. But then I realize I'm like listen, it's not fair to yourself to invalidate your own stress or your own worry or your own pain. Like, even everybody always is going to have a larger stress or a larger pain, you know what I mean in this world. You're never going to be the person in the world with the most stress or the most pain. It's all relative to you and to your life and to your situation. And feeling those feelings, regardless of how big or small, are still their valid. And so I've been trying to teach myself that the last few days because I'm like,

angry at myself for being stressed out about something so stupid. But my God have I been stressed out. Anyway, you don't want to hear about me being stressed out. But anyway, that kind of explains the reason why my voice sounds like this. I am so tired. I also really have more clothes than I thought. And trying to figure out where to put them is literally ruining me. But anyway, enough of all that.

What are we doing today? Today we are doing an advice session. Advice sessions are where you guys tweet at me at AG Podcast. Situations that you want me to give you advice on. And then I give you advice. Even though like I might be a little bit too emotionally unstable to give advice right now, but I'm going to do my best because I think this could be good for both of us.

So if you want to participate in the next advice session, the Twitter is at AG podcast. And let's get into it. Somebody said, I'm friends with two people. They end up getting together and they've been dating till this day for nine years. It came out that the boy in the relationship cheated. And it was talked about and discussed and they eventually decided to stay together.

But the girl in the relationship doesn't know the whole story. At the time when this came out, the guy told the girl that it was just a one-time thing. So she gave him another chance. But he also had a four-year affair. Oh fuck, that's bad. Okay. Also, I recently just found out that the guy has cheated on her again with somebody else.

Do I tell the girl in the relationship about this or throw the guy in the relationship under the bus? Or do I keep quiet? In the past, I think I would have said staying your own lane, mind your own business, don't get involved. But here's the way I look at this. If you stay out of it, then you know, you have no involvement. That's great. You

get to stay out of it and mind your own business. That's nice. And I do think that there are moments when taking that route is good. But in this specific situation, there's clear, right and wrong going on. It's clearly wrong that the guy in this relationship is serial cheating on his girlfriend, and his girlfriend doesn't know about it. That's clearly wrong. There's nothing okay about that, right? So that's when I feel like there's the green light to kind of throw this

dude out of the bus because to be honest he deserves it. Imagine if rolls were reversed okay and you were dating a guy and he was cheating on you left and right and one of your good friends knew about it and didn't tell you. You would feel completely fucking blindsided are you kidding me? Like I would be so upset about that. I think you need a teller. And honestly, if you maybe ruin your relationship with that dude for a little bit who cares, this poor girl is being cheated on left and right, she deserves to know. End of story. I think that cheaters deserve no mercy. That is my opinion, but I just think like if you're cheating then you just shouldn't be in a relationship

period. Just be single. It's easy. Teller. You need a teller. Somebody said, so I'm 19 and I've been single for a while. I feel pretty lonely a lot of the time, but I just started a new job and I've been working 50 to 60 hour weeks. Should I download a dating app and pursue a relationship or should I continue to give my job my full attention? I should mention that it's a great job and I plan on staying and moving up in it. I'd really appreciate your input. You know, I think one of the mistakes I made when I was younger and I first started working

was that I tried to date at the same time. Seriously, a big mistake. I started working at around 16. And at around 17, I started dating people for like the first time. I didn't really date before that. And let me tell you, you know, I wasted a lot of valuable time, a lot of valuable time because these relationships just ended up ending. They ended up being bad for my mental health anyway. None of them were actually good. I mean, no relationship I had before the age of 18 and a half,

I would say were at all useful for me. We ended up just breaking up and they just ended up causing more harm than good. Do I regret having relationships at those ages? No, but if I could go back, I probably wouldn't be in a relationship during the beginning of my career because I was extremely less productive when I was in these relationships. And the relationships were not necessarily the healthiest, so I was putting all of my energy into the relationship rather than,

you know, into my career or into my own self, which is so important as well during your teen years. I would say this is what you do. Focus on your career because that's going to last you a lot longer than a teenage relationship, most likely. Okay, I would say focus on the thing that is going to help you accomplish your long-term goals. You know what I'm saying? Dating somebody right now is probably going to end.

Like, you're not going to probably marry the person that you meet right now. It's possible. Don't get me wrong, but probably not. Whereas you putting time and effort into this job could secure you an amazing position at this company down the line. And you have your whole life to date. You have your whole life to find somebody that you're going to start a family with, Mary, whatever it may be.

You have your whole life to do that. So I would say, don't put any effort into trying to find somebody to date, but instead just be open-minded to it. You know what I mean? If something comes your way, don't say, no, I need to focus on my career. I'm not even gonna pursue this. If something comes up naturally, absolutely pursue it. But don't pursue it yourself.

Don't start that process yourself. Don't be the one who messages on the dating app. Don't even make an account on the dating app in the first place. Let the universe bring it to you if it may, but in the meantime, focus on yourself and focus on your career, because young relationships really get in the way

of productivity, in my opinion, and in my experience. And it's really unnecessary because you have your whole life to date. Once you're more settled in your job, then you can go crazy. Make the dating apps. Do the whole nine yards because you've already settled yourself in your career.

So you have more time and brain space to like branch out and do other things in your life, you know. But also if some person walks into the office one day while you're working and they're the most beautiful person you've ever seen and you want to marry them, then yeah, more the story is there's no need to rush into anything because you have so much time. You know, an interesting side note from that is that growing up, people always told me they were like, don't date when you're young.

There's no reason to date when you're young. It causes so much more harm than good. And I was always like, I don't think that that's true. You need to have experience in your younger years that when you grow up, you know, you're not just this like completely inexperienced baby when it comes to dating. And to a certain extent, I think that having dating experience is helpful, you know, when you get older and it's time to start looking for like a life partner, you know, I think it can be kind of helpful.

But I actually think that all the adults in my life were right in actually dating young caused more harm than good. Because here's what dating young did for me. It gave me trust issues. It fucked with my self-esteem, made me have terrible self-esteem for years. It made me not put 100% into my career

because I was so consumed by the relationship or the lack thereof that I could not focus on my career as well as I probably should have. And it caused hate in my heart, you know, at the end of the day. And all of that, I feel like I could have gone without that, It caused hate in my heart, you know, at the end of the day. And all of that, I feel like I could have gone without that, you know what I mean?

So to anybody who's out there who is young and who's like, oh my God, I need to have my first boyfriend, I need to have my first girlfriend, I need to have my first relationship. I thought that too, and I ended up getting very hurt in the process. And more harm came from it than good. And now that I'm a little bit older and I can have healthy relationships, and I know

what a healthy relationship looks like, not even based on experience as much as just based on maturity, now that I can have a healthy relationship successfully and create balance in one, I realized that I could have done that with or without my past relationships that caused me so much fucking hurt and pain. Like I could have had absolutely fine relationships in my later teens and 20s without the pain that was caused in my first few relationships.

I don't know. I just, I don't think that there's any rush and there's no way to know that until you experience it. But just trust me, there isn't as much of a timer on getting into relationships as you think. If you don't date in high school. There's nothing wrong with you You're actually probably saving yourself from a lot of trauma trust me

My dad always says that Teenagers dating is like Babies playing in the knife drawer Your bound to get hurt somebody is bound to get hurt It's almost inevitable and I think that's very true. And that's why I say focus on your career, focus on school, focus on developing yourself, focus on creating really good friendships. The relationship stuff will come with time. And honestly, the later you start the better. Obviously, you know, you don't want to start when you're 50. I mean, you could, fuck it, but I'm talking about, you know, maybe if you're in high school

or college. There's no rush, everybody. Don't stress yourself out over something that will work itself out eventually. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's no instruction manual when it comes to being an adult. Sometimes I lay away at night rehashing something I said earlier that day, or lay in bed at night thinking about what the future holds. I know I'm not the only one going through a lot of what ifs.

Like what if I get into a fender bender? Or what if my home gets broken into? But State Farm can help you with some of those big what ifs. They're available to answer your questions day or night. You can reach them 24-7 file a claim on the State Farm mobile app or simply call your agent to ask what's on your mind. Like you good neighbor, State Farm is there. Call or go to statefarm.com for a quote today. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is more than a website builder.

It's in all in one place to make an online space that's entirely your own. Their all in one platform allows you to customize everything from the fonts and color scheme to your domain name. All you have to do is choose from one of their beautifully designed templates as a starting off point. Then add whatever you need to show off your ideas to get your side hustle on. You've got all the tools you need to sell products, schedule appointments, and send email campaigns to your mailing list. Plus everything is optimized for mobile, so it looks just as good on a phone as it does on a desktop. Check out Squarespace.com for more features and inspiration

and when you're ready to build your site. Use the offer code Emma for 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Somebody said the situation is kind of general, but I feel like I always do more for my friends than what my friends would do for me. I go above and beyond and I don't know how to stop that. I do things that friends wouldn't do for me.

Friends weren't quotes, by the way. Advice. Growing up, I felt the same way. I, well, you know what, I'll give you an example. In middle school and high school, we would always decorate each other's lockers at school for birthdays.

And everybody would show up at like 6, 30 in the morning. School started at like 8. And we'd all decorate lockers for birthdays. We'd put, you know, treats in their locker. We'd wrap their whole locker and wrapping paper, like make them cute little signs, the whole nine yards. And it was actually really fun in retrospect, but I remember one year, it was my birthday,

and I had spent the whole year decorating all my friends' lockers. And my birthday was right before summer break because my birthday is in late May, May 22nd. And so I'm pretty much the last friend and the friend group to get my locker decorated because, well, my birthday is at the end of the school year. And I remember, it was my birthday in high school

and I, actually this happened to me in middle school and in high school, but more memorably in high school. I showed up to school and I'm so stoked because it's my birthday and I was like, oh my god, I've been decorating all my friends' lockers. Like, I hope my locker is decorated and show up to school and I look at my locker and it's empty. And I remember that feeling, like when I'm in, I was in the hallway and I could see my locker from across the, you know, hallway and I was like, oh my god, they didn't decorate my locker.

Immediately the pit in my stomach, I felt was like bigger than anything I've ever felt before. And I was devastated. It was like heartbroken. And I remember that day at lunchtime. I went into the gymnasium with a friend that was not in my friend group, but we were like friends in class, if that makes sense. Like, we didn't hang out really much outside of school, but we always hung out like in our classes together. You know friends like that where it's like,

they're kind of the best friendships really, where it's like there's no pressure because you guys don't hang out outside of school or work or whatever. You just hang out in the place of work. It's kind of amazing because there's just no pressure, but whatever. I remember I went into the gym with her and I told her I was like,

none of my friends decorated my locker. I couldn't believe it. And she was like, Emma, you know, I'm so sorry. And I started fucking crying. I was a high schooler. And I started crying because I was like, when is this going to end? Like, it was one of those moments where I realized my whole life I've been doing such nice things, going above and beyond for all of my friends. And this is how I'm treated.

And this is how I'm like, this is what I get in return. It seems so unfair to me at the time. But what I realized was, is that I just wasn't choosing the right friends. It was obvious. And from that point on, I made the decision that I wasn't going to go above and beyond for my friends anymore. I was going to redirect that energy in other directions. I was going to redirect that energy into myself

into growing my relationship with myself. I was going to redirect that energy towards trying to make new friendships, trying to pursue possibly new friendships while still keeping a friendship with these old friends, but just understanding, okay, I know now that I'm not going to get the same energy back from these people. I know that. So I'm just going to step back a little bit and not put

as much effort in. And that helped a lot because then I was rarely disappointed by them because I wasn't putting any effort in either. So it became a lot more chill. And in retrospect, that whole friend group was very toxic in high school. I mean, there were great memories, but we were all young and figuring things out. And so we were definitely kind of toxic with one another. And so I'm not surprised that what happened happened.

You know what I'm saying? But I think it was really good for me to step back and kind of focus on myself and focusing on pursuing other potential friendships that could fulfill me so much more because the thing is you're gonna go through a lot of friends in your life and you're gonna make a lot of friends. You're gonna lose a lot of friends.

It takes a really long time to find people in this world that actually match your energy and that like put the same effort in as you do. It's possible, but it and it will happen. But you just have to be patient. And in the meantime, you pursue new friendships and you focus on yourself. Somebody said, I have this friend who is nice when she wants to be, but we've gotten into beef in the past about her being a toxic friend and we didn't talk for a while. She said that she's changed and now she's back in my life and we've been hanging out a lot lately. However, she's starting to be rude again.

She calls me rude names. She talks shit. She tells me how I should live my life, et cetera. Do I address the comments that she makes, ignore them, and hope that she'll stop eventually, or should I stop being friends with her altogether? Any advice would be great. I had a very similar situation in middle school in high school where I had this friend on and off for probably six, seven years. And it was the exact same thing. We'd be good for like a few months, maybe a year, and then she would start to get really toxic.

Same thing. Just super controlling really kind of judgmental and mean. Just not a fun person to be around, would kind of insult me and say things that were hurtful to me. And so we'd have it falling out and we wouldn't talk for a few months, even a year sometimes. And then we'd become friends again. In this process, Encycl continued for years, years, okay? And what I think is to be learned from my experience is that you can't expect somebody to change, okay?

If she is the way she is, then she is the way that she is. Most likely that's not gonna change. I think that people will grow and evolve, but I think that it takes a long time, and I think that sometimes it takes losing a friendship, even, to learn something about yourself. And I think she clearly needs to do that. So my recommendation would be, end this cycle now because it's toxic and it's going to

continue. It will happen again. And it will continue to happen again. The only way that I think that you guys could be friends in a way that's healthy is if you guys take like a solid three years apart. You guys both grow a lot, evolve a lot, learn a lot about yourselves, maybe even five years.

I'm not kidding, like that long. That's how long it takes for somebody to really evolve, okay? Then maybe you guys can try to be friends again, but for right now, I can almost assure you that this will just continue. This toxic and then fun, and then toxic and then fun cycle. We'll just continue for ever, unless you end it. You have to prove a point to her. You have to prove a point to her that she can't treat people like this. You know? Because

right now you're still friends with her even though she's toxic, right? So how is she supposed to learn? You know, because she's not being punished for her behavior, if you will. If you end this friendship, she's going to learn a lot from it and you are going to be relieved from a toxic relationship. It's a win-win. It's not going to be easy. It's definitely going to be uncomfortable, but it's going to be worth it. Somebody said, I've always hated my name and when I was in high school, my friend called me a nickname that I really liked. But when I would tell people I liked being called that, they would make fun of me. And now I'm 20, I feel like I'd get made fun of even more if I changed my socials to that name, etc. Any advice? You know

what I've learned about all this, okay? If there is something that you want to do that harms nobody and benefits you, you do it. Be a little bit selfish here for a second. Think only about yourself for a second. What's going to make you the most happy? Is it changing your name? If that's the case, then do it. And guess what? People always have something to say about everything, okay?

There's always going to be somebody judging you for something. There's always going to be somebody hating on you for something If you do something for yourself that affects absolutely nobody else Technically nobody really has the right to say anything about it in my opinion This has only to this only has to do with you. It's your name, it's your life. Also I feel like I'm 20 as well and I'm in my, and I'm, you know, friends with people who are in their above, especially, don't give a fuck about what other,

like if one of my friends decided to change their name, tomorrow I would be like, okay, cool, I don't care. Like, you know, I don't care. It has nothing to do with me. I feel like young people like teens, you know, maybe in high school, whatever. Kids are more ruthless. There are a lot less down to earth maybe in kind,

I would say, because being a teenager is hard, okay? You're trying to figure out your identity and you're lost and you're trying to figure out your identity and you're lost and you're kind of restless feeling and you're probably an asshole sometimes It's what being a teenager is, okay, there's like this level of attitude and like You know rebelliousness that comes out of you during that time and so you're more likely to judge what other people are doing and say mean things about what other people are doing because you just have no sense of self

and it's just part of being a teen. Like when you're a teenager, you, I don't know how to explain it, but you're just a lot more concerned about what other people are doing. And you haven't learned how toxic that is. You know what I mean? You're still learning about what you should put your energy towards and what you shouldn't.

Okay, but when you start to get into your 20s, I feel like that's when people stop caring. You know what I mean? They're like, you know, I wear adults now, who cares? I'm gonna mind my own business. There it is. And maybe that's not true for everybody, but I would say in my experience that is.

But either way, it doesn't matter. It doesn't actually matter. Because this is something that you're doing for you and you need to put yourself first. I would say change your name. If people have shit to say about it, who cares? They'll get over it in a week. People are way more concerned with themselves, okay? So if you want to change your name, they might have some snarky comment to say about it in the moment, but I can guarantee they'll get over it. But even, I almost doubt people are even gonna have anything to say.

I really, really highly doubt that. Like, I would be really shocked because it's such an innocent thing to do, change your name. It's so innocent, you know, I say you do it. This episode is brought to you by LiquidIV. You might think that hydration is only necessary after intense crazy activities like working out. But if you think about it, running errands is still running. That's why LiquidIV powder hydrates you two times faster than water alone with three times the electrolytes of traditional sports drinks.

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IVs hydration multiplier, you can hydrate two times faster than water alone and get three times the electrolytes as leading sports drinks. I have been drinking liquid IV actually for many years now. And I've used liquid IV for so many different things. When I'm hungover, after a long plane ride, when I'm really dehydrated, when I have a headache, sometimes I'll sip on liquid IV and it can really help when I'm sick. When I just need a little boost, liquid IV is almost always in my bag, almost always. And my favorite flavor, if anyone is wondering, watermelon and passion fruit, although there are

a lot of great flavors, but those are my most commonly consumed. And the interesting thing about liquid IV is that my preferred way to drink it is to pour it into a water bottle with lukewarm water and chug it. So not sure what that says about me. Grab your liquid IV in bulk nationwide at Costco or you can get 20% off when you go to liquidiv.com and use code anything at checkout. That's 20% off anything when you shop better hydration today using promo code anything at liquidiv.com. Somebody said, I'm currently 16 and I blame my features for not getting any mail attention because I think that I'm not attractive enough. I totally understand this because when I was in high school, I was somebody who

went through puberty late. I always looked really young. I had very immature features. I had no boobs, no butt, like whatever. But here's a thing about attraction. Attraction to other people is so much more about what's on the inside than what's on the outside. I would argue it's 90% was on the inside, 10% was on the outside, because I would be lying if I said that like appearance had absolutely nothing to do with attraction.

That's not true. That's biologically false. You could look into the biology of that. I'm pretty sure there's a reason why other human beings physically attractive. It's a biological thing. It's the way that we were created. It's necessary for reproduction. But the thing that I've learned is that attractiveness is flexible. It's not set in stone. Okay. For example, let's

say you meet somebody and upon meeting them, they don't necessarily strike you as attractive, right? You're not immediately like, oh, they're so hot. Okay, you have a really good conversation with this person. And 30 minutes in, all of a sudden, you start to think that they're attractive. You're like, wait, I actually really like this person. Has that ever happened to you?

Because it's happened to me hundreds of times. Now let me tell you, that is because attractiveness is not just one thing. It's very abstract and it can evolve as you get to know somebody, you know? Another example would be, have you ever met somebody who is really hot? Like, just like stereotypically hot.

And you're like, oh, they're so hot. Then you have a conversation with them and you're like, huh, you. Like, they suck ass. Like, I don't care that they're hot anymore. Now they're ugly to me. That has happened to me thousands of times, actually. Thousands. And that just proves, like,

yeah, sure, like physical attractiveness plays a part in dating and stuff like that for sure, but it all really comes down to your personal connection with the person and whether or not they're a good person and whether or not they have a charming personality to you. And all of this is very personal, you know? One person might think that somebody is the funniest, most beautiful person in the world. The next person might think that they're not really that great looking and not really that funny. That's the beautiful thing about being a human being

is that we all are so different in what we have to offer. And we all find beautiful things differently in other people. That's a very awesome thing. Now to tie it back to your question or your situation here, you are 16. When I was 16, absolutely no guys were giving me any attention. And the reason for that was because I didn't show them my personality at all. So they were basically all they had to judge me on was my outward appearance. That's not enough. You know what I mean? At 16 years old or at 30, you need more. So, the thing is, you are absolutely beautiful on the inside and out. No matter if you're getting attention from males or not, trust me, okay. Most of the time, guys at 16

aren't really necessarily thinking so deeply about what they're looking for in a girl, you know. I don't think they're developed enough at that point to even know what the fuck they're doing in the dating space. So basically everything that they can, everything that they do should not be taken personally. Okay. The worst thing that you can do for yourself is convince yourself that this is something

that's your fault or it's because you're not attractive enough or whatever. That's the worst thing you can do because it's so incredibly not true. Putting weight on the opinion of 16 year old boys will get you nowhere. Trust me. Try to find that appreciation for yourself from yourself, from within yourself. I'm still looking working on that because I've always been somebody that really needed male validation to feel attractive always. And it's because I've always been very insecure of my attractiveness to guys since I was younger because I put all this weight on the opinions of other high school boys when I was in high school and all of them would make fun of me for having no boobs

and then go and, you know, make out with my friend, okay? So like that really fucked me up, right? And you just can't put weight on these guys' opinions. They're dumb, trust me. Everybody's still so young and does not know what's best for them. So don't put so much weight on anything that anybody does when you're in high school. Your friends, your potential partners, people that you're attracted to, don't put any weight on their opinions because everybody's a loose cannon

in high school. Okay? Finding confidence within yourself will not only solve this problem or at least make it easier, but it'll also benefit you long term. It's an incredibly good tool to have, and I wish I would have done it when I was in high school. I wish I would have stopped paying attention to what the boys in my grade thought about me, because guess what? It just didn't end up mattering.

And I, yeah, I didn't date in high school, but I'm glad I didn't. The later that you start the better, I'm glad I started a little later. Somebody said, why are high school girls always so problematic? You know, I think it's just simply because it's such a transformative part of your life, okay? Being in high school is like this transition

between childhood and adulthood. And there's a lot of turmoil that goes on. Whether it's with dating for the first time, whether it's with you know, experimenting with partying for the first time. Like it's such a transformative time of life. And there are so many hormones rushing through your body, there are, it's chaos. Being a high schooler is chaos. A lot of times in high school, people start budding heads with their family because they're going through a slightly rebellious phase.

There's so many reasons why. Being a high school student is turbulent, okay? I think a big part of this crazy transition between childhood and adulthood is that girls, especially I've noticed, start to get really competitive with one another, you know? And it might be a hormonal thing, I don't know how it works, that could be totally not true,

but I just noticed that a lot of high school girls are very competitive with one another, and it's because they're trying to find their identity. When I was in high school, I had absolutely no identity. I was trying to figure it out, right? And so that comes with a lot of insecurity, trying to figure out who you are. And high school girls are in that shit.

And I think it can make them competitive with one another and caddy with one another because it's a combination of jealousy and wanting to be the most popular girl and wanting to be well liked and trying to figure out who they are, it's messy. And so I just think that that's simply why high school girls can be so problematic is because they're going through this extreme transition and there's so much

going on and a lot of it can take a huge toll on yourself a steam and then it just makes girls competitive and weird, but I can promise that a lot of girls grow out of it. I know I've grown out of it, it's so nice. Like occasionally I'll meet girls A lot of girls grow out of it. I know I've grown out of it. It's so nice. Occasionally I'll meet girls that are competitive and weird and still kind of have that maybe more immature mentality.

But for the most part, I feel like girls kind of grow out of it. And it's just like, girls start to find their own place in the world and find their own identity and find peace in that. And then they kind of start to mind their own business and just wanna have fun. Somebody said, hi, am I any tips I'm focusing on needs instead of wants? Like when I need to buy a shirt

and I really wanna buy a book, I tend to buy what I want instead of what I need, and I can't help myself. Here's my simple solution for this. Give yourself a plan, give yourself a strategy, give yourself some guidelines, set something up. I'll give you an example strategy here. Okay, you say, every month, I'm going to buy myself as many

needs as I need, right? Food, something for work, something for school, whatever. Rent, whatever it may be. I'm going to let myself have freedom with my needs. I can buy anything that I need at any time. But for wants, I'm only gonna allow myself to buy two things that I want per month. The reason why this is so great is because you're gonna be a little bit more strategic about what wants you wanna buy. Because in the back of your head, you know, okay, I can only buy two things that I want this month.

So let's say you are at a clothing store and you see a really cute shirt. You're more likely to weigh the pros and cons when you have a strategy laid out for yourself. Because if you're just going on a case-by-case basis and you're like, oh, I want this so bad. But you don't have any guidelines for yourself set up. Then you're just gonna buy it and then you're gonna fuck yourself over later in the month

when you need to buy groceries and you're like, fuck, I'm kind of like in an uncomfortable spot now because I bought that shirt. Whereas if you're like, okay, I'm only allowing myself to want this month, then you're gonna look at that shirt and you're gonna be like, do you know what, I'm actually gonna save this want for later on the month because I know that later on the month, I'm gonna go out to dinner with my friends,

for my friends birthday, and I'm gonna be paying. So I'm actually going to not buy this shirt and save this money for later. And so it forces you to be a little bit more strategic with your spending and then there you go, problem solved. And it also becomes a little bit more fun that way. I think you end up appreciating the wants that you end up purchasing more

because you put more thought into them and that's good. Somebody said, I've been burnt out of life for the longest time and although I talked to my friends and family a lot, I still feel this numbness that I can't explain. You know, I have been feeling the exact same way and I don't have advice for this because I have not figured it out. I am in the exact same boat. I have been struggling with this a lot. I Have felt so numb for like months and you know

It's hard because I Found I don't even really look forward to things anymore like I Have a really hard time Getting excited about really anything anymore. Like even a vacation. Like I'm going on vacation today. I'm actually going on a trip today with all my friends and we haven't done this forever. And don't get me wrong, I'm excited. But I don't feel this like overwhelming sense of joy like I normally would.

And I feel guilty about it. I am excited, don't get me wrong. But I also feel the sense of numbness. I'm like, oh, but I just, I weirdly don't care about anything anymore. It's so bizarre. And I think that what it is for all of us is, I think that this is just a natural response

to our current situation. I think a lot of people are feeling very numb and very weird because we just had such a traumatic year and we've all been stuck at home having virtually no fun being stripped of all enjoyable things in life. We were stripped of everything. I mean at certain points we couldn't even go to the grocery store. We couldn't see our family. We couldn't see our friends. Like we were stripped of everything that made us human for over a year. Okay. Of course we feel fucking weird. I don't think any of us anticipated the mental health effects that this would have had,

but I don't think that people are talking about it enough. I mean, I can speak for myself. You know, I feel weird, like weird. This let, I mean, in my friends feel weird, like weird. This, I mean, in my friends feel weird, and you know what, you know, people had it even harder, way harder than I did. I can't even imagine however, you know, like this is fucked up so many people

on so many different levels. Don't be hard on yourself for feeling weird and feeling numb. I think it's gonna go away, I think it's going to pass. But we just went through something very traumatic. And we're kind of on the other side of it. But I think we all kind of have trust issues in a sense, too. We're like, OK, yeah, things are kind of getting back to normal.

But we don't trust it because we're like, for how long? Go easy on yourself because we're all feeling this way. Somebody said, some of my friends tell me drama slash T that associates with my other friends, and it's kind of awkward because I'm in between them, if that makes sense. They ran to me and I'm not sure how to respond because I don't want to take sides. What should I do? What I do in these situations is I remain as neutral as possible. I will give you a simple rule. Don't add. Just listen. You see what I'm saying? Don't add to the conversation. Don't add in your own opinion. Don't add anything. Just listen.

Just simply listen. You know what I'm saying? That way, you know, you stay out of it, but you're also, you know, listening and letting your friend vent. The problem is, is when you start to get involved, you know what I mean? You start adding to the gossip. You start saying, oh my God, yeah, but have you heard about when she did this? That's when you're gonna start feeling like shit and you're really gonna start getting in the weeds of the drama. If you just stay neutral and unbiased and you just listen, you can't get hurt.

And if it ever gets back to your friend, or one of your other friends that's being talked shit about, you can be like, listen, I just sat there and listened to it. Like I didn't get involved whatever. You can proudly say that you did not get involved in the conversation. Obviously, you could always stick out for your friends. Don't get me wrong, you could.

But I know that that's not easy, and I don't even do that. So, I mean, sometimes, but like most of the time I don't. Most of the time I just stay neutral. I let people gossip, I have an open ear, and I am just a listener, you know? Somebody said, how do you deal with accepting constructive criticism without taking it personally? I always get so sensitive about being criticized, even when people's intentions are good and harmless.

I totally used to be like this too. And what I started doing was, I started almost training myself to respond in the way that I wanted to respond. I'll give an example. So my dad always corrects my grammar, always. And when I was younger, I used to get so pissed because it was just a slap to my ego when he would try to fix my grammar.

And it made me feel embarrassed almost. Because even though it was helpful and constructive, it was a blow to my ego. But as I got older, I started to realize, okay, actually, my dad giving me these grammar corrections are actually helpful. And I actually appreciate it. And so I started kind of training myself to respond in the way that I wanted to respond. Like instead of getting an attitude when he would correct my grammar, I would literally actively force myself to be like, oh thank you, I appreciate it.

Even though that was kind of unnatural, because my gut reaction was to be like, stop. Like, I'm trying to tell a story. Like, I don't want to hear a grammar correction right now. Stop, leave me alone. Like, that used to be my reaction. But I trained myself to be like, thank you. I appreciate it. And then to move on.

Even if I'd feel that little burning in my chest of a blow to my ego, I would just respond short, polite, and sweet and move on. And eventually, I train myself to respond to constructive criticism like that permanently. Sometimes with social situations, you have to train yourself how to act in the best way possible. It's weird because it sounds unnatural and kind of wrong, but sometimes you have to act. Do you know what I'm saying? Like sometimes you have to train yourself

and there might be a period of time where it means that you're being in a sense kind of fake or artificial, but eventually you will evolve into behaving naturally the way that you are training to, if that makes sense. Somebody said, do you have any advice on being comfortable in a healthy relationship after being in very emotionally abusive relationships in the past? I'm having a hard time believing that it's real and just allowing myself to be happy without

worrying about what might happen. You know, I think that unfortunately the only advice I have for this is to be patient because I know that I have trust issues and they're bad, like pretty bad. They're very overwhelming. And I think the best thing you can do is be patient with yourself and let time and let life experience prove you wrong. Because it will. If you're in a healthy relationship, time will show you that it's possible. You know what I mean? Because it's like

a year into a healthy relationship, you're going to be like, damn, I just did that for a whole year. No cheating, no lying, no emotional abuse. It's possible. I just did it for a year. Then two years will go by and you're like, oh my god, it's still possible. Like we've been doing it for this long, you know, it's like the only way you can realize it is to experience it sometimes. And I mean, I wish I knew a way to just turn it off, but I don't know if that's possible. I think you have to relearn. And I think that the best way to relearn is to be in new healthy relationship and to let the universe prove to you that it is possible.

The more time that goes by that you're in a healthy relationship, the more you're going to realize that it is beyond possible. Somebody said, how do I convince myself that I'm enough and not everything has to be perfect in life? You know what I have to remind myself every few weeks? But how do I convince myself that I'm enough and not everything has to be perfect in life? You know what I have to remind myself every few weeks? I have to have a moment where I sit down and I stare at a blank wall and I remind myself, okay, nothing is that serious.

You live one life as far as we know. We are little tiny specks on the planet. We all have our own individual experience and individual outlook on life. Like there's so many people in this world and everybody has a different experience. And at the end of the day, like most of the things that we are so concerned about won't matter. I think about being on my deathbed, kind of a lot actually, and I think about what's going to matter in that moment. Like what's going to matter in that moment. Like what's gonna matter in that moment? Is it gonna be getting an A on my next math test?

Is it gonna be buying myself this nice thing? Is it gonna be whatever? No. At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is making life as pleasant as possible. That should be the goal, is just to make life as enjoyable as possible. Because life is not easy, and sweating about the small stuff does not make life more enjoyable. It makes life a lot worse.

And at the end of the day, and when you're on your deathbed, you're not going to care about your math test. You're not going to care about the small shit. The small shit doesn't matter. You have to look at the bigger picture. I have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture sometimes. And I think that if you take maybe a few minutes, every few days to do that, it really helps.

Because I feel like as humans, we get so wrapped up in the tiny details of life. You know, we get so wrapped up in the day to day that we forget the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that none of this really actually matters, you know? Like the best thing that you can do is have a life that was enjoyable and fulfilling and that you're proud of. And that has nothing to do with these small little day-to-day

stresses, you know what I mean? Like, it's a bigger picture. Remind yourself as much as you can that it's a bigger picture. Anyway, that's all I have for today. I hope you enjoyed. I enjoyed spending the morning with you. I don't know what time it is when you're listening to this, but I'm recording this in bed.

I literally woke up and pressed record. That is what we did this morning. It was very fun, but sorry if I sounded tired. I'm just in a very chill, not chill. That's definitely not the right word to use for it. I'm very tired and kind of just going with the flow at this point. I'm definitely a little bit stressed out, but again, it was actually helpful for me to just talk about the whole, you know, bigger picture concept because that just put into

perspective how pointless it is that I'm stressing out about moving. You know, I mean, it's a valid stress and I, you know, I'm not being hard on myself or stressing about it, but I'm going to allow myself to release that stress because there's a bigger picture going on and it's fine and everything's going to be fine. In life's too short to stress about the fucking small stuff, okay? Anyway, I love hanging out with you guys today and if you enjoyed today's episode, give us a little five stars on Apple Podcasts. I really appreciate your guys' reviews and I read them and they make me feel very warm and fuzzy. If you want to follow us on Twitter, the Twitter is at AG Podcasts.

You can subscribe to anything goes on any place, any platform, any place or platform that you listen to podcasts. And I love you all very much and appreciate you all very much. And I mean, I guess I'll see you next week. Bye guys. Love you all. Bye guys! Love you all!