Goes Without Saying - how to be happy: toxic positivity walked so your misery could run

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

toxic positivity is over party!! this week we're cancelling fake happiness & questioning why we all feel an intense pressure to perform happiness at all time. is happiness political? (spoiler alert: ofc duh!). is happiness the pinnacle of success, or is there something more important? come spiral with us (sephy & wing) in this episode of Goes Without Saying! join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on instagram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay?

So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hey guys, and welcome back to Goes Without Saying with Sethi and Wing. This week we're talking about happiness, we're talking about how we can be happy what happiness is why do we all hate sadness why are we all so terrified of being sad is it possible to get true happiness blah blah blah blah oh this sounds good it sounds like i'm hosting a radio show sounds great it's all downhill from here i've just recorded it so i know it's not that good i'm joking it's great actually we get quite bleak we get quite existential it's a good time yeah it's great okay confession time i'm upset take it away sephie she's been squirming for 10 minutes off off cam off the record tell us

tell us what you've done i'm upset with myself i'm disappointed i forgot the fucking homework don't be because no one else cares no one else cares but I think we need to do it we're trying to run a show and when one of us hasn't done it well I have done it yeah I know that makes it worse that makes it way worse I was honestly say last night I thought right what have you done outside of your comfort zone forgot all about it went straight to sleep any any self-care thing that was what we asked you to do to do something extra for yourself push yourself out of your comfort zone and you know what it was about it was about looking at who you want to be your ideal self looking at your current self and thinking what could i do to close in that gap so if anything it's embarrassing that

i haven't done it and you thought i'm not fucking doing that i thought i'm already myself i'm already the best version you thought fuck that i fucking hate this i'm pissed off at myself the capricorn the capitalist all these things inside me can't handle i'm so i'm so upset i can't believe i haven't done it well because i was trying to run through things they're all disingenuous because yeah here we go who was your train of thought i watched it all i asked someone on a date is that out of my comfort zone no i do that all the fucking time i don't but so that was option one cancelled i wrote an essay some of you may have read it is that out of my comfort zone no no but you did do it and if you did read it good for you but if you didn't read it this is your homework go and read it but also

not out of the comfort zone i moved house is not out of the comfort zone. I moved house. Is that out of the comfort zone? No. I moved with all my friends. So it's not out of my comfort zone. I've done nothing. I've done nothing. I've done nothing.

I'm upset. What about you? Let's move on to you because... That's all right. We'll let you off. Don't let me off. No one let me off. Everyone message, say,

Sefi, do your homework. You look... The thing is, literally no one gives a fuck, but say seffy do your homework you look the thing is literally no one gives a fuck but you look genuinely upset so don't we're all just glad you had a good week but did i what have i done what have i got to show for it nothing it's quite existential i've done nothing that bridges the gap between who i want to be and myself but anyway what have you done well i thought to myself the other day i thought oh that's my homework after i'd done it i thought oh i've done my homework you'll kind of know what it is basically and i think i've spoken about this on the pod before well i'm kind of touching it all

the time but i've never been i'm basically i'm not someone who is confrontational and i don't look at my ideal self and think she's fucking confrontational because i don't want to be confrontational at all but But as of recent, there have been confrontations after confrontations after confrontations. She's in the big brother house. She really is. And now I'm in the diary room spilling my heart out.

You really are. And the old me would have very much not given my opinion, not said a word. This is stunning. Up to the people pleasing pleasing to the nines music to my ears and i'm really i'm just i think ever since i was like 17 i really was trying and now i'm trying more than ever i was just trying a lot when i was younger to be very palatable

i'm sure lots of you will relate to being super palatable but still like you didn't get anything from that there's no medal there's no monetary reward on that yeah and you don't get what you want from it you know your life isn't benefited really in any way because also you're not necessarily more secure either you're not necessarily safer because you kind of learn okay in order to survive and and to be safe i'll be quiet etc etc but actually your life's still gonna get fungged up in lots of different ways so recently and this week i've really been quite vocal about my feelings about my thoughts and opinions on myself on my rights on other people and their rights or lack of the

nerve that they have um not you know it's not about big argument vibes it's not big argument vibes it's just empowered owning the space vibes. I'm dominating the space because why wouldn't I? You're a dominatrix. I'm obsessed. I'm an absolute dominatrix. So yeah, and I hope you are too. I think I did this in the week before,

but I put up some furniture all by myself. That was your homework for last week. Was it? Was it not? Is that what I said? No, no, no. That was the homework for last week was it was it not is that what i said no no that was the homework for last week you can't double that up well i said what the homework was put some put some flat back furniture together wait was it it wasn't no because you're no yeah your thing was customs by leanne so what the fuck am i thinking about it was customs by leanne yeah exactly i think i just mentioned that to you i think you mentioned it on the pod i did i just kept mentioning it i'm very proud she was hammering i haven't stopped

talking about it but i was really hammering away and i thought i never want to let this hammer go kind of i'm thor i hope you all did your homework feedback if you haven't done it i'm gonna put a question box and i did that last time and i thought quite interesting to see what everyone did well now you've got the cheek to ask them i mean pointing with blood on your hands you look you look genuinely devastated so i'm not literally who gives a fuck no one they're skipping this bit you know that they're skipping forward they're like tap tap tap get me to the we don't give a shit about this new thing you've added anyway happiness wish i had some so we asked on the story very triggeringly are you happy which i mean don't feel bad if you said no don't feel good if you said yes because it's a mixing thing and you guys

were so split it was literally a full brexit situation 56 yes 44 no yeah that is pretty evenly split isn't it although i would kind of i would expect it to be pretty split i wouldn't on an instagram thing because i feel like everyone but yeah yeah on instagram but maybe people are being more real on our polls which is really nice yeah but i also think on instagram people like no no social media is quite mopey isn't it it's mopes mcgee that's not to say that yes is you're showing off and no is you're moping it's obviously like far more nuanced but i was thinking so if you answered yes yes i am happy lots of people actually came through into the question boxes and were spilling over saying but what is happiness and i was gonna say like can you how do you say yes i am happy what is happiness is it a feeling is it an experience yeah is happiness

something that you experience is happiness something that you feel i kind of view happiness happiness is kind of an umbrella term for many different things so there would be kind of joy a sense of overwhelming joy contentment um kind of validation would cause happiness laughter causes happiness blah blah blah it's kind of an umbrella term for all positive feelings so it's like i'm not exactly ecstatic every day laughing my absolute nut off going around town i'm so happy but you can have like a mild sense of contentment that's like more like slow burning i wonder where most people sit i don't know if we said this on the episode or if this was just us chatting talking about how like some

people i think there's a lot of pressure to like operate at kind of quite a plateau at a quite a happy level at like a 70 percent yeah at all times at any given moment you should be happy that should be your default and i i mean that's obviously not the experience and i think there's a pressure oh completely completely there's a huge pressure because it's it's quite ridiculous well it's massively ridiculous yeah there's definitely a pressure in society that you should if nothing's gone wrong for you you should be happy that day like there needs to be oh why are you sad what's gone wrong why are you feeling like that it's like there is no reason i also think people mask their own if we're saying sadness is the antonym of

is the absolute opposition opposite end of the spectrum to happiness i think a lot of people feel as though or we are made to feel that sadness in private is one thing but if you're sad openly or sad in public or sad and leaning on others you become a bit of a burden and it becomes quite um kind of like i can't be bothered to deal with you so it's like it's sadness do we only accept of sadness if it's in private completely if you were happy i'd think yeah great perfect i'm happy to be in your company if you were sad i'm like oh cheer up cheer up and why do we say that is it because I actually don't want you to be sad because is being sad really all that yeah bad after all who knows I guess we'll get into it but or am I telling you to cheer up because it's easier for me to be around you if you're not in a bad mood and rightly so

it's exhausting it's because it's unlikable it's not it's uncomfortable it's awkward when someone's sad what it reminded me of you saying that i don't know why well probably because we're talking about emotions have you seen the film inside out yes i love that film actually the character sadness in that played by voiced by phyllis from the office phyllis yeah very unlikable so unlikable whenever she's on the screen get off stop moping annoying annoying it's like actually someone being mopey getting in the way you're ruining everything ruined everything ron ronald i think she says yeah ronald you've ruined everything you spoiled everything oh spoiled yes ronald you spoiled everything ask me for someone else does and

not as a last resort. Last resort. So stunning. So stunning with her hair kind of falling down. It's great. Get up those stairs, girl. And he's like, they get mentors, they get older. Misogynist.

And Harry's like, what the fucking hell? Yeah. He's like, I've just been looking at Chell all night. Am I dealing with? I should have just fucking shook J.K. Malfoy's hand when I had the chance. I think I'm going to tell the wrong story for myself thanks obviously fucking not look at the drama honestly you fucked up there harry you could have been hanging in that common room you could have been having the dinner parties of the fucking century at the malfoys what a fool but no suck at the weasleys although f Fred and George say no more. It reminded you of sadness, Phyllis inside out.

Sadness, very unlikable. So unlikable. And I think there's something about someone being happy. It's like, okay, well, I'll hang out with them then because it's kind of contagious. Someone being a mope. It's kind of when we phone each other and we're like, sorry, am I draining you?

It's like, cause you know, it's contagious. We know that it's like, if you're walking around mopey, like people are just gonna be like, okay, well now i'll mope as well yeah it's an uncomfortable feeling so there's an ego in trying to stop other people from being sad because you're actually just trying to alleviate your own feelings of discomfort definitely interesting to think how it's gendered and racialized in the sense that a white woman's tears are kind of the most um luxurious good and yet a black woman i mean never, society would say. And just in the sense that women are not supposed to be sad.

I mean, men obviously are told really that they can't cry and et cetera, et cetera. But in the way that women cannot be seen as hysterical or can't hold a high power in office, for example, for being too emotional. Emotional, hysterical woman. Lack of self-control. And I think just being british anyway being brought up in the uk you're very much raised to kind of i think it makes you quite dishonest yeah i think it makes for quite a disingenuous society life i think we're breaking that generationally but i

think don't you think the older generations like i can't i mean the older generations i can't see listening to a podcast or let alone recording a podcast talking about happiness what is that and do I have it and blah blah blah there's like a real detachment there completely like the real cognitive dissonance of what that actually means yeah you can definitely see that when you engage in conversations for example with like grandparents or whoever's older figures in your life and you're a snowflake yeah and it's like oh god our generation never had dealt with things like this it's like well that's your problem that's on you yeah and it's like oh god our generation never had dealt with things like this it's like well that's your problem that's on you yeah and it looks like you're not handling it very well no you're not i do think i kind of have this theory about quite a lot of older people that i

know definitely there's a vibe within older the older people i know that are very kind of conservative in my life with a big big uppercase c yeah um big fat tories basically could also stand for yeah cunts they yeah there is an element of oh boys wearing a dress boys wearing moisturizer boys wearing makeup how ridiculous not in my day boys wearing moisturizer fucking hell all right dry skin that was one that was a specific example yeah exactly and i was like i would love a boy to moisturize have you seen harry styles stunning because i was talking about timothy chalamet actually that's how this conversation came up yeah and i have a theory that they're fucking jealous out of their mind of our of our generation well you would be you are so angry at boys wearing makeup you wanted to wear makeup absolutely all

the rules you had to live by you were told all these rules and you just you just went along with it that's a shame don't lie that you want to wear a dress you want to wear by. You were told all these rules and you just went along with it. That's a shame. Don't lie that you want to wear a dress. You want to wear a skirt. That's why you're so angry at Harry Styles. You're so jealous and you fancy him. Don't lie. Don't lie to me, you cunt.

I've been thinking a lot about Harry Styles recently, as one does. But more specifically thinking about... And I know people have been speaking about this on the internet anyway. And I know we've said it before. And I spoke about it actually in reference to taylor swift i think ages ago when her documentary first came out this is pre-folklore if you can believe that oh my god a whole different world a world without folklore who knew i was just thinking i wanted to ask you do you think do you think we all just love harry styles a bit too much let me absorb that in just love harry styles a bit too much let me absorb that in do we love him too much cut him too much slack or give him too much credit or i'm not normally one to say we're giving someone too

much credit because i do think it's not that someone is getting too much credit i think there's enough credit to go around and we should just it's not about taking their credit away but giving the credit where credit is due but there are lots of but here a white man does what he wants is that remarkable don't get me wrong harry styles is a remarkable man to me my instinct is to go what the fuck are you talking about no we do not give him too much credit he doesn't get enough look at him he doesn't get enough he doesn't get enough credit yeah that's my instinct as someone that sometimes i didn't even grow up loving one directionction, but I do love. No, not at all. I do love a man in a dress, clearly. But I do love that vibe. So my instinct is to defend the king. But I do agree. I do agree. There is an element of white man with eyeliner on. Is it that remarkable? No. Men have been doing it for years. It's actually not that powerful of a

statement. It's sad that is a powerful statement. black men have been doing it for years exactly it's sad that it seems so revolutionary i was thinking it because i was thinking is this kind of the laziest way to support gender fluidity or to be to quote unquote be an ally when people think about how they're do you know what i mean how they're presenting themselves as like really virtuous and kind of pious and like for the causes yeah you're not a cunt yeah you're a decent like you wouldn't not you but one if one is decent they're not gonna think uh take that dress off harry start like no you don't care obviously is it just nice guy syndrome of like oh my god he's doing actually the bare minimum he has liberal he presents as having liberal politics he He seems kind of a cool guy.

And we're like, wow, we stand, we stand, we stand. But it's like, actually, that is kind of the bare minimum. It's just because everyone else is so shit. Well, it's great what he's doing. He is being powerful, but Prince was being powerful and there were consequences.

Yeah. Todrick Hall is being powerful and there's consequences. And really, what are the consequences for Harry Styles? I know there are, what are the consequences for Harry Styles? I know there are, but are the ramifications, do they compare? And I just wonder how we all gravitate to him. And I know it's because he's stunning and so charming and X, Y, and Z, talented, whatever.

I could go on. Say no more. I get that. But I think it's really easy to lean into that. But I think it's, I just think, think you know could we do more yeah yes we could we always could i guess happiness anyway what brings you happiness harry styles apart from harry styles harry harry harry so what brings you happiness what brings me happiness so we asked on the story is it little things or is it big things that make you happy because we knew that you'd all

be saying little little little little little, little, little, little. And you're right, little things and also big things. But when you actually break it down of things that bring you, for example, I would say if you distill happiness, the purest form is like joy. It's not just like a contentment. It's not like I'm safe, I'm secure. It's like a joyful feeling. It's actively positive.

It's like very instinctual stuff. For example, family. Being, I sort of sound like I'm going to cry'm gonna cry getting checked out kind of being around family family voice crack it's actually just i've drunk way too much of this like ginger tea you're doing the cinnamon challenge do you mind if i just quickly stop this podcast and do a challenge? Just have this cool new challenge. Family, friends, animals. When I'm taking care of myself, when I feel like I'm on top of it, I'm like creatively engaged in some way. Laughing a lot.

Watching simple things like watching movies, going to the cinema. Things I love kind of like you watch School of Rock again. You remember how much you love School of Rock. You fall in love with Jack Black. You go down a rabbit hole of Jack black all over again like the first time things like that that's what brings me intense joy what about you well i was going to ask do you think at the end of it are you saying me a trap no no no i'm not a word trap a web of word lies no i'm not saying you're a trap but i almost think it's an interesting

question because i i don't know the answer for myself well okay i don't care how i'm gonna pray i don't know what how the fuck i'm gonna phrase this but i'm just gonna start the sentence and see where it goes michael scott style do you think you at some point would need other people for your own happiness yeah so kind of if you were on a desert island well desert island is quite traumatic experience but for whatever reason why you were living in the absence of others yeah you'd be guts i'm sure you could be happy on your own but at some point i'm sure you could have moments of happiness on your own you you would you would miss out on the happiness of other people i really have thought about this for so long because i hate the feeling of being dependent

on people in any way i've got a preoccupation with weakness some may say stephy got told that we were codependent the other day and i freaked out and thought this cannot happen cut this bitch off she's gonna go she's gonna cancel the podcast i had to fight for it we're joking we're not going anywhere no we can't we're codependent yeah just the feeling of dependency freaks me out basically some would call it commitment issues but it's like i don't want to ever feel like i need other people i want to be completely content on my own it's kind of my backwards old school feminism coming in so i definitely think that i would have an element of me that's like no no one else contributes to my happiness it's all on me but i think that's a complete ego ego lie it's not true egomania ego fucking mania

in here i think yeah you'll have a lot of my happiness comes from other people and i think that is part of being human we're pack animals blah blah blah you want to go for the biology but also it's like actually connection is one of the best things in life yeah so you can't fight it what about you my famous philosophy the only thing that's real in life is love it's so fucking true it's true everything ultimately oh my god is it going to be one of those episodes where we end up a bit high in the sky i'm always in that kind of whimsical mood but i do think it's true everything comes down to love and if you feel like you don't have love you still have the love of yourself you're still here yeah exactly and they also love oh my god you put this on the story and it was so great it was

justin firstman justin firstman is that how you say it jordan jordan funny because he always says why do you all call me justin fuck you blah blah blah he honestly looks like he's called justin so much i think it's because i think his username is jt firstman and so you would think jt justin yeah it's got justin britain all over it justin dimplek he's so he's so adjusting but you put this on the story and it's so fucking great acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay.

These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world.

The animal kingdom is queer, and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com. He was saying that... Oh my god, yes. I know exactly what it was.

His first love. Like, art is something that will never love you back. And you can love it. I think there's something really amazing in acknowledging that not all love is with humans. Love can be inanimate it's like a spiritual thing like you can have a love for for example school of rock random that will never love you back you're never gonna be in that classroom that actually older you can sing you're not

hardcore whatever but they'll never love you does it never love you back because it is also there it's always there for you but it it has no capacity if anything school of rock is far more reliable than me i could i could dip out at any moment because the because jack black doesn't know i exist i agree though i mean i put it on the story i completely agree yes it's not secure your love for your art your love for the things that you're pouring your energy into will never love you back which is one of the most amazing things so you have to keep doing it for your own love all the money but things we we pour ourselves into for example we pour ourselves into this podcast constantly it can never love us back like sure we can love each other back cute and i'm like squirming as i say it i'm gonna screen

record that i'm like i am not dependent on you you are not dependent on me we must be individuals get away from me but like you listening right now you can have relationships with us and you can love us in some capacity but the podcast in itself a thing that sits on spotify can never love us back it's it's we we have love for something that is inanimate and i think that is powerful agreed and i also think it's the thing of we have love for something that is inanimate and i think that is powerful agreed and i also think it's the thing of setting or thinking placing happiness basically on unattainable goals or goals that once you have attained them you realize they didn't bring you happiness at all because i know for a fact if i look around the things that i have now i wished and wished and

wished for them and rightly so like i love it but it doesn't no matter it's just the classic you'll choose you'll find the evidence for what you choose to believe yeah and it's like yeah if you want to believe that your life is meaningless and you just should be sad then you'll find the evidence for it and it's easy to think that things are going to validate you but when you have them they don't they don't they don't mean anything we've had this before where not major things but if one of us has had some sort of, like, some sort of compliment, even, and the other one doesn't,

we don't because we're, you wouldn't believe the communication and you wouldn't believe the empowered vibes. I'm sure you do believe it, but. I was like, they wouldn't believe it. Like, I actually need you to believe that, though. I, like, need to make sure that you understand that we're really smart, though.

But it's easy for, it's easy for the other one and this goes for anything this is not specific to us in this situation you in your life now it's easy to look at what other people are getting and think god you couldn't be sad if you had that you can never feel bad about yourself if you had that but that person who has that it didn't mean anything to them yeah like if i get a compliment it's like well that didn't make me feel any better so it shouldn't make you feel worse exactly literally means nothing to either of us i think there's a lot of people who feel shit and we don't i think we're like 10 steps ahead is this going in yeah that we're 10 steps ahead of everyone not everyone but i think the fact that we communicate and blah blah blah is like if literally you could be the fucking queen of i mean queen of england a bit different but whatever anything could happen to you and yeah liz literally the worst example i could have ever given it's

just i'm watching the crown but anything could happen and i wouldn't feel negatively and i think i think it's so that's not because i'm so strong and i'm so blah blah blah and i'm so this and that and blah blah it's because a we worked through it b we were really honest about it before it even fucking happened when we were speaking into a void and we had zero followers we were saying they're gonna say one of you is this one of you is that blah blah blah and we have to be ready for it i've been prepared i've been communicating i've been so on it and and open and honest that it's not we were prepared to be a slaughtered yeah yeah i don't know what we thought we were getting into yeah and so now i'm saying this because it's like i'm not i don't feel this way

because i'm special i don't feel this way because i'm ultra secure and confident and blah blah blah i feel this way because i had to really work and push myself out of my comfort zone and get to grips with the reality that you can't you can't have everything and you don't want everything and that you'd find the evidence for what you choose to believe yeah i hope that makes sense i hope i don't sound like a dick there but i'm sure you get what i mean and at the end of the day it goes without fucking saying doesn't it it goes without saying if you don't get me get fucked make your own podcast yeah i think it's a powerful lesson when you learn that the validation that comes from like something being final or the validation from someone else coming to you is nothing i wish i

could go back to before we started and say it's never happened that sephi would get a compliment and you would feel bad that's never happened i think we live in so much fear yeah and then you're again it's like the shame sorry i'm really fucking ranting but it's the same thing that we said in the other episode about if you're jealous of someone or whatever happens you can't even be honest about your own jealousy because you feel so bad about it and it's the shame then that is worse than the jealousy because if it was just jealousy you could have spoken about it and got to the other side about it with it blah blah blah but the shame will cripple you into being so silent and so paralyzed that you're completely fucked that only you're literally choosing to have resentment and i think that is what brings a lot

of happiness because it brings security that's why the podcast brings us happiness and we pour and pour and pour into it okay i have a question if we're talking about happiness and security can you be well we both know actually can okay let's unpack this can you be secure and unhappy because you need maslow's hierarchy of needs you need some sort of security to have happiness. But actually, and I was going to say, literally, as soon as the words came out of my mouth, can you have security and be unhappy? Yes, of course you can. But so immediately the mind goes to kind of long lost housewife who picked kind of the man from her kind of like arranged marriage and he hates her and he cheats on her and blah, blah, blah. and she lives a miserable life because she never got to become a fucking ballerina her name's

fatima she's the girl from that um remember that ah you know fatima needs to get a job in cyber oh my god yeah yeah yeah from that weird advert yeah yeah i remember the ballerina that was a really niche reference if you got it without me explaining it congrats because heavy didn't no um we think of like oh you've got you're really really secure but you're miserable but then is she secure because that to me seems very insecure actually and very fragile even though most people would look at it and think that's very stable yeah of course you can be unhappy whilst you're being secure because yeah you literally have to look at anyone that has money because you immediately think of financial security and

family security I think yeah and then kind of security of people around you health security like security in your health and your safety and all of this stuff and then you've got kind of all the things on paper i mean that's just life people that get to the top then realize oh it wasn't even about any of this stuff it was all about scrapping it right back down to the bottom and it's about kind of walking your dogs and blah blah blah all the things that people wrote in on the stories it's about the basic things and also big life events but the way that society structures it has all the emphasis on big life events you got this amazing job you got engaged you got blah blah blah blah blah and you tick all those boxes off tick tick

tick tick following a formula for someone else's life and you didn't live completely i mean we and we raise women for that reason you raise girls i think we raise if we're doing a really binary sense raising boys and girls differently girls i think you're raised and encouraged to be secure yes whereas boys i think you're raised and encouraged to be happy totally there's more freedom well there's an an idea that well for example if you even look at like a day in the life of a classic boy and a classic girl, for example. The boy kind of before school, for example. We always bring him back to school, so what do we do before school?

Boy rolls out of bed, goes out, kind of gets on his bike, blah, blah, blah, before he knows it, he's at school. In that period of that time, he's eaten some cereal, blah, blah, blah, done all the stuff that you need to do to get to school. A girl in that time has, she's woken up, she's kind of put on her makeup she straightened her hair she fed her little brother cared for everyone else and she's kind of been very aware of how she's presenting in order to maintain the relationships at school i.e she'll be aware that if she wears this skirt she'll stay in the popular group she'll maintain that thing over there that boy will fancy her over there and that's not to say that boys don't do these things too but the level of performance there is for women is based on stability not happiness whereas boys it's kind of you're allowed to step into kind of joy in a more

raw way whereas a girl kind of going to school without makeup and her hair like blah blah she shoves some cereal she got milk spilled down her fucking school uniform it's unpalatable it's unacceptable she's gonna lose um stuff for that it's two things first thing we had a troll this morning commenting on boys will be boys and they said uh boys will be boys isn't about rape it's about boys getting muddy and it's like right so even you think that boys are encouraged to get muddy and do you think the same for girls no anyway no one says girls will be girls when you're running around with mud on you because you've been playing out in the garden having fun anyway my god that's so annoying i didn't see that that's fucking

mortifying fuck off you've just confirmed the patriarchy back at us and you think you're so smart for it second thing same thing that we always say is that yeah if a girl can have joy too she just needs to have 45 minutes notice so that she can take care of everything and make sure that she straightened her hair and can get there safely on time whereas a boy can literally just roll up straight out of bed he'll find a lift or he'll just bike it there she's got to make oh shit i'm gonna be walking back in the dark that means that i have to leave 45 minutes early girls have to have organized fun yeah girls have to have responsible fun boys can have free fun raw fun spontaneous fun new fun you bleaked me to my core that is so true that's so true it's like yeah

girls can have fun too they just need to be planned for it yeah girls can have fun too they just need to be organized when they do it you need to make every arrangement possible so that you are a looking good and b not compromising your safety and c not having too much fun that you're not going to be seen as promiscuous and kind of loose still respectable or even like a weirdo like even kind of you can have say for example um you're going on a night out you're kind of going on a night out of your friends it's going to be fun blah blah oh my god okay this kind of literally sums this fucking up so it's a real life example because i just saw it all flash before your eyes real life example it flashed before my fucking eyes so this was a few years ago i was

with a group of boys i wasn't going out with them i wasn't going out on the night with them i was obviously not going out with any of them you were dating them all i was going out with all of them it was a group it was my harem of boyfriends they were going on a night out no fuck i was going out but i was going with a group of girls later they were going group of boys earlier okay wait so you're going out but I was going with a group of girls later. They were going group of boys earlier. Okay, wait, wait, wait. So you're going out. There's a group of people going out. I'm going with a group of girls.

They're going later. Group of boys. Are going now and you're with them now. Are going earlier. They're going to like the pub before or something. We're going to meet them later but we're in the same house now. The boys before they went out. One of them sat and ate a plate of onion barges. Walked straight out the house.

Walked straight out the house. Didn't think about it. Literally was not mentioned. They all had like curry and things like that. Plate of onion barges walked straight out the house walked straight out the house didn't think about it literally was not mentioned they all had like curry and things like that plate of onion barges i remember this guy would you see that happen in a group of girls before they go out no no no i agree i agree but i also think there's an added layer because you would see me eat a plate of onion barges before i go out and why would i because i know i'm not kissing anyone if my boyfriend's not going to be there and so yes there's this whole performance but it's also even more bleak because you're doing that ultimately with the intention that you're going to have to impress and kiss a boy tonight yeah so true but the thing is it's like it's that

he will be kissing a girl tonight and he doesn't have to give a fuck yeah exactly yeah and he doesn't matter whereas a girl would be so aware of the performance of herself down to every last breath or kind of like i don't want to eat a big heavy meal because i want to be skinny blah blah it's like no they're gonna order a curry they're gonna go out it's not even a big deal you're thinking from the day before oh well i'm gonna wash my hair that day that morning because i don't want it to be yeah it's like there's just a level of planning that i think that boys really don't realize or it's passed off as like girls being vain or girls being stupid but it's like no this is something we've been taught to do this. I think this is why it's so hard for people to understand anything that isn't within their own experience because like happiness it's all about the little things and it's all

about the nuances of life and if you haven't experienced those nuances they seem very ridiculous. Yeah completely. Very hard to grasp and I just think why would a white man or whoever life and if you haven't experienced those nuances they seem very ridiculous yeah completely very hard to grasp and i just think why would a white man or whoever it was on that night but i'm sure it was a white man yeah have any scope of what that means exactly you wouldn't think twice no you wouldn't think and it's not offensive or anything it's not anything it's kind of like yeah everyone should be able to eat whatever they want and go out and not think about it absolutely but it's just it's the stark difference i think it's because it was two groups a girl group and a boy group kind of separately getting ready kind of we're in the 1940s kind of night before the wedding honestly night before the wedding the boys are all going on their stag day

kind of mamma mia and you can't see the bride in her dress no no no but i think it was just very obvious to me like oh okay here's an example of the patriarchy at work of how boys are just able to kind of have fun be laughing blah just like walk out kind of keys in hand i'm not really thinking about it the guy's like are you booking the uber are you doing this are you it's like the ingrained level of prep for a woman to exist yeah it doesn't allow for the freedom of fun so much. I wonder if, since we asked on the Instagram talking about what makes someone happy, blah, blah, blah, and so many people said security and stability

and contentment and not having to worry. I do, and we have, our audience on the Instagram is 96% female at the moment, which is obviously, I think there's a lot more to it than that. But we have largely an audience that identifies as predominantly young girls too or as young as us i think we're pretty young in the grand scheme of life and yeah i wonder what it would look like by contrast to ask a page of young boys as in are they happy what they think is fun what

they think is fun oh what they prioritize more than happiness what yeah what is happiness well what makes you happy yeah stability i can't imagine loads of them saying stability i actually really wonder yeah do you know what i mean security i can't see loads of young boys being like what's happiness oh it's security yeah it's friendship it's family it's the classic it's my job when it goes well it's my hobbies and women are like making sure i don't have to worry about money and my own safety jesus we knew this would be a bit am i depping the vibes we knew this would be a bit of a bleak app because it's kind of like supposed to be happy thing is was it supposed to be happy because i know

the topic is happiness are we gonna call this like how to be happy that's fucking ridiculous oh yeah we probably are we knew it wouldn't be this is the happy show blah blah blah but i think it's real it's like this stuff is political it is gendered blah blah blah blah blah like of course it's not going to be the happy show also are we a bit bummed today i can't really tell we've just been on here for fucking hours we've been here for hours but i also think we're not if you wouldn't come here and think you're getting the happy show i would hate the happy show that sounds awful oh don't take me there do not take me out and also if it is a happy show i'm thinking that's fake okay yeah exactly here's a question do we want other people's happiness

why does other people's happiness make us sad it depends who they are though take it away it depends who they are i think if you've seen authenticity and like a journey from someone and kind of you followed the the struggle the grit yeah exactly when you when you're being authentic with someone you blah blah blah i think you do want their happiness i definitely with people that i know intimately in like in a strong way i i feel like i really genuinely want so much their happiness to see them thriving for them or because it's easier for us to be around people when they're happy no i think for i think for them genuinely for them easier for us to be around people when they're happy? No, I think for them. Genuinely for them.

I want them to be living happily with authenticity, with joy, egoless lives. Yeah. But definitely, definitely, definitely there is internalised misogyny. There's jealousy. All of these things that come in when you see someone that you don't like, that you think is just like breeze through life, succeeding. It's like, oh, fuck you. How dare you be happy?

I think there's like an element of, oh, fuck you. How dare you be happy? I think there's like an element of, oh, why do I want you to be happy? But it's weird how we feel entitled to see the bad parts of somebody else's life. Yeah. In the way that it's like, yeah, if I saw your grit and I saw your rise to happiness, then I'm happy for you.

But it's like, but what if you only see the happiness? Then we don't like it. No. Why do we? Because it seems ingenuine. Do you know what i mean we demand to see the sadness of people it seems disingenuine it's like the ariana grande thing that you're talking about a few episodes back that's like you like ariana grande apparently

i always say grande weird as well you like ari because you've seen her at the the pits of despair bad things happening to her and you've seen her rise and every time she seems to get a win it's like yes love that for her yeah it's not human to see someone without fault if you see someone that's on their a game every single time it's like well what do i believe in you then like what what am i rooting for um so on the story we asked about happiness and we asked what gets in the way of your happiness and i know we say all the time you all say the same things but i was literally just scrolling through thinking fucking hell breaking record you lot however one that i picked out they were really great and i'm really grateful but one that i just picked out that i thought was quite interesting and i think it's quite common

is that somebody said feeling guilty gets in the way of their happiness oh wow we haven't really touched on that people People feeling like... Guilt. Yeah, that they shouldn't be happy. Guilt is such a horrible emotion. It's such an absolutely horrible thing. I think it's a really dangerous emotion. I think guilt actually not just gets in the way of your happiness,

it's really self-destructive. Like, God knows what you're capable of when you're feeling guilty. It's worse than sadness. A sadness is kind of quite forgivable. As as dislike it's unlikable it's uncomfortable and all this stuff nothing is more uncomfortable than feeling a dislike for yourself in that guilt way like i know i've done something wrong and i'm gonna let that kind of eat at me or like i feel as if i've overstepped or i shouldn't have something that i do have like that is just so so so painful it's quite a Scorpio feeling guilt interesting any Scorpios out there feeling a lot of guilt I hope

you're feeling seen right now and also quite terrified do you feel guilty a lot or is that like an emotion you feel that you feel a lot I don't feel guilty a lot which is probably because I'm a bit of a cunt maybe but i think i feel well my thing with guilt is that i think it's dangerous because i think it really diminishes your own understanding of your right to be here and i think if you're feeling a lot of guilt and a lot of shame i think you'll find a lot of a lot of weapons to beat yourself with i think you'll find a lot of reasons as to why you should remove yourself from a group or a situation or blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't think I feel guilt as such a lot. But then I wonder if I feel, if I feel it and I just don't call it that.

Because really all of these feelings, quote unquote, is down to language anyway. Like a feeling could exist in English that doesn't exist anywhere like in another language. Which is the most stunning topic of all time. I love that fucking topic of like like a concept doesn't exist in this language yeah but don't you think yeah it's so true it's like a baby you have your brain's not but you have no words to yeah and also happiness is only we're talking about happiness right now because happy and happiness coined by pharrell 2014 um but happy is like such a I mean it's like buzzword from the minute you're born you're talking about happy happy happy but happy sadly happy and sad smiley face sad face

blah blah blah blah your happy meal happy happy happy that I think we we how could we not have this huge awareness and thus later such a pressure to be happy yeah when if we were talking so much about jealousy are you feeling jealous are you jealous when you're like two years old jealousy jealousy jealousy you can imagine what type of person that creates too guilt i obviously feel guilty in my life but i remember my friend once one of my closest friends saying that she feels guilty so much of the time and i remember thinking what what's she feeling guilty about like it kind of blew my mind well that's what i said she was like just everything i thought what the fuck it makes me suspicious me too what have you been up to it's like uh what have you been doing that you feel guilty she's probably listening right now and she won't recognize that it's her probably but i remember thinking like wow i i think i feel

like a reasonable amount of guilt for a human being that makes a reasonable amount of mistakes but i know that a lot of people well i was shocked to discover that a lot of people live with quite a lot of guilt and shame in their day-to-day well there's a lot of shame around um like relaxation for example like we were talking about self-care i understand that there is a huge amount of guilt placed on someone for example things that make you happy are not things that intertwine that easily with capitalism in the way that things that are supposed to bring you joy and happiness are um or validation are promotion like drinks after work you know you're doing like kind of things that look great on paper like things that kind of people that are successful do you're making big money moves but actually what we find what we found from our polls and our questions on the story was that it's the sunrise kind of little cup of tea a little biscuit

over here a little chat over here private moments kind of i look in the mirror i like what i see i read something that really inspires me all these tiny tiny tiny minuscule moments that actually bring happiness and there i see how there would be guilt around oh i'm gonna watch a tv show i like i'm gonna eat a meal i'm gonna drink hot chocolate whatever you like whatever the millions of things people wrote in they don't intertwine with capitalism so you would have guilt i see how you would have guilt yeah because you've been told that those are lazy those are wrong those aren't honorable things to be doing it's not a good way to spend your life definitely but it is a good way to spend your life i completely agree i remember i remember i said to you this a few weeks ago i'd been so busy busy busy busy busy literally like the busiest and someone said to me what have you

been up to you've been busy and i still felt like i had to lie my immediate reaction was oh my god yeah and i thought you have been busy you freak you've been so busy but you still felt like it wasn't good enough why is the pressure also yeah one horrendous to the pressure on busyness i mean we have spoken about this time and time again we'll probably do a whole episode on it yeah maybe we should do an episode on busy maybe that's our next because it's kind of that girl boss thing or kind of just like the intense capitalism of what have you been doing can you name three things now that you've been doing what is like actually chill out did you enjoy any of those things what have you been

feeling recently how have you been yeah not what have you done how have you actually been oh my god can that be homework you ask someone how are you and they say i'm fine you say no how have you actually been or when someone says to you how are you you give an actual considered response because i never do that do you no i always say fine even to you i say yeah i'm fine and then i get on the phone for three hours and give you the truth but when someone says oh you're right you just say yeah i'm fine fine yeah and i think obviously like if it's just a fucking the postman maybe not but if it's like you could ask someone though if you say to the postman how have you been and they go yeah all right go like how are you actually are

you actually okay he's terrified he's like please can i change my room listen i'm just trying to deliver some post someone else do that house in future please it's a pandemic get away from me but definitely it's too easy to just say yes i'm happy and brush everything under the carpet when actually authentic stuff and you know we live some authentic communication i mean this is the whole point do i ever the whole point of this yeah it's so stunning that's really fun that's quite a good homework maybe you won't forget this week oh it's easy it's tangible it's easy where's some words you can make it up oh i'm still annoyed i was just getting over it joking well now i've got to do two because i will talk to myself and i've got to do two now i've got to do something out of my comfort zone thing is i don't really know comfort zone is really difficult because it's like well we all managed it i feel

like i have quite a big comfort zone though i've got an abnormally big comfort zone guys yeah yeah that's true we have been going on dates since well not going on dates but you've been up anyway anyway anyway we'll see we'll see you've been busy no one gives a fuck to be honest i can't find it anyway well let's all go and ask someone how they are or tell someone our deep darkest secrets yeah what's that thing a problem shared is a problem halved halved if you listen to an old story i told on the podcast it was a really old one it was a q a one mrs whitney do you remember her i do how could i forget mrs whitney who used to sing me yellow submarine it's funny because i was thinking about doing a q a recently this morning i was thinking i would love to do a q a soon busyness q a we've

got things in the works guys but mrs whitney used to say problem shared is a problem halved and i'm she's fucking right boy was she right boy is, is she right once again. Once again. Miss Whitney strikes again. Take me back to folk singing with Miss Whitney. Oh boy, was it fun. That sounds dreamy. It does. Right. See you all next week then, guys.

I sure hope it does. Yeah. Okay, cool. That was a really niche reference. I think that was a Vine. I sure hope it does. The world works ahead. I sure hope it does.

Anyway, anyway, anyway. I used to hate Vine. Bye. See ya. Fucking guess. anyway anyway i used to hate vine right bye i used to hate vine just open a new topic should we analyze old social medias now pixo hey i don't know what that is you never had pixo no bibo had that it's a bit before your time. Right, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Bye, bye, bye.