HealthyGamerGG - I feel like I wasn't raised

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

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And then it sort of becomes a positive spiral, where the more progress you make, the better you feel about yourself and the easier it is to find motivation. And then you'll start to pull yourself out of this. The good news about spirals is that they work both ways. And sometimes all you need is a break. I feel like I lost my parents mentally. What do I mean by this? They are so consumed by their blaming nature that I feel there is nothing more to them. Just today I got vaccinated. Now I have a slight fever. Their response is, you're sick because you let the wind. open all night, which is factually untrue. Plus, I literally have the same symptoms they had after getting the vaccine. I feel like all of my attempts to communicate with them ends with some pre-programmed responses, which I already write down as an algorithm, a pretty accurate one, so to say.

I can't imagine how they can function without comprehending new information. That's my rant for today. So I think sort of related to that. Actually, maybe this was the post. This was the, this was the other post. But anyway, so let's actually do this one. So anyone else feel like they weren't raised. My parents had a very hands-off approach in raising me. Ever since the age of eight or nine, when I got a laptop, I spent the majority of my free time alone on my computer in my room. They never talked to me, never taught me to drive or anything for that matter. Never took me anywhere, never showed affection. Even when I chose to drop out of high school due to depression and laziness, I was met with no resistance. Despite living in my parents' house my whole life, I feel like a stranger in their home.

I just feel like no effort was made to foster my development aside from providing basic food and shelter. Has anyone else been raised like this? And so this is really, really unfortunate, but this is actually a pretty common occurrence, right? So if we start, if we like look at the basics of becoming a parent, you don't have to take a class to become a parent. You don't have to pass a certification, you don't have to demonstrate some degree of competence. You know, all you really have to be able to do to become a parent is, you know, engage in sexual activity or maybe not even that. And so the challenge is that, you know, it's the barrier to becoming a parent is pretty low, but the responsibility of being a good parent and the difficulty of being a good parent is really,

really high. And so as a result, what we have is a lot of people out there who have parents kind of like this, right? And these are parents who don't take the time or effort or themselves they grew up in a particular way where they don't know how to take the time or effort to being like proactive and raising people. So some parents will kind of do this sort of thing where it's like if my kid isn't getting into trouble, like as long as they're not like burning the house down like I'm whatever. Like they're kind of self-sustaining. They're somewhat independent. They themselves were raised in a very hands-off way. so they end up raising their kids in a hands-off way, right?

So there's evidence that shows that the way that you were parented will in turn influence the way that you parent. So parents who are physically abused are more likely to physically abuse their kids. And so but this doesn't, even if this is true and it's sort of a sad truth, it doesn't fix the problem, right? So because like there's like millions of people out there

who had parents who like did not go through parents, parenting classes. And so what do you do if you're someone who is like playing this game of life without proper parenting? And so this is where, you know, my approach to this is going to start off by sort of like, let's talk a little bit about like what does proper parenting mean, right? When we think about the competencies of a parent, what kind of stuff are we talking about? And so let's take a look. Okay. So the first issue is that... So the first issue is that Dr. K doesn't know how to use technology.

Are trolling me now? Okay. The barriers to parenting are low. Right? This is issue number one. Not to say that that's a bad thing. Right? So we're not trying to apply a value judgment.

But... we still want to just acknowledge what there is. And being a good parent is hard. So what this means is that there's going to be a gap between, you know, let's say here's all of the people who have kids. And then like here's, let's say the people who are good parents. Let's even say that being a decent parent is not hard. But then we're still going to be left with this gap of people who don't have good parents but have parents. right? So they're parents that haven't really been very thoughtful about how to raise their kids.

Parents who will give the kid a laptop at the age of eight or nine and then just let them like autopilot things, right, a kid that says, oh, I want to drop out of school and parents will be like, all right. So they're kind of super hands off. So now if you're kind of faced with this situation, there's a lot of stuff that, so you basically have like some catching up to do, right? And this can feel very, very overwhelming because you don't even really know what you have to catch up on. So the third thing that I tend to see for people in this group, right, is they start to think lowly of themselves. And why is that? So they look around at all the people who are parented well and they see these people like doing things, like finishing school,

getting a job, entering relationships, doing laundry, being able to cook for themselves, paying taxes. There's a bunch of people out there who do all this stuff, right? But, like you were never taught how to do any of that stuff. The challenge is that if you're this person over here, who was raised by these parents, there's a very, very high chance that you do not see that as a deficiency of teaching. You see that as a personal deficiency.

Right? So this is where like, as you look around at the rest of the world, that's able to relate to other human beings, make friends, form relationships, pay bills, go on vacation, all this kind of stuff, you start to just think about yourself as lazy, as incompetent, right? It's socially awkward. And we tend to like blame ourselves, right? Because we don't really know, like, so we've lived our whole life not recognizing what influences like we were given, right? So we don't really realize this, but like we queued up to this game of

life at a handicap. So before we even spawned, we like went into the options and we turned on like all these different handicaps. And so our parents never taught us these basic things like a work ethic, right? So this is where we don't realize this because we only had one set of parents so we don't see the comparison. All we see is the outcome of the comparison. But when I see someone who's, you know, in a happy relationship and has a good job and goes on vacation and I kind of see myself sitting at home, all I see is a cross-sectional comparison. I don't see all of the advantages that that person was given at the age of six months, nine months, one year, 15 months, 18 months, two years, three years, four years, five years, every day when the kid came home from school,

what did the parents do? What did the parents see about how the parents interact with each other? You know, when mom got sick, what did what did the kids see about how dad takes care of her? When dad gets sick, what does the kids see about how mom takes care of her? There's so much basic programming that gets set down in our minds as children. So we learn about basic things like how to walk and like how gravity works. And we also learn core things like, you know, do people work? Do people take care of each other when they're sick? How do they deal with arguments?

How do they meet new people? So did your parents take you to barbecues where like you didn't know anyone there and they didn't know anyone there? So did you see your parents overcome their social awkwardness and start to like relate to other people? So there's a lot of stuff that you only see your experience and you don't see all of the advantages that other people have. And so what the mind naturally concludes is that you are lazy and competent or socially awkward. Right? Whereas you're, I mean, those things may be cross-sectionally somewhat true. If you're defining laziness as like, I don't have a job, therefore I am lazy, that's fine, sort of.

but you're making a character judgment based on a lack of like an experience, right? Which is, I think, a very dangerous thing to do because this is not fixable. And instead, what I think that what we need to sort of start to do is to start to recognize that if you were not parented, it's unfortunate, right? Like, it's not fair to you that someone else got better parents. And we're not saying that your parents are like awful people, by the way. but like, you know, someone else got parents who taught them more things than you did. And at the same time, like, you're still in this situation. So you've got to figure out how to get out of it, right?

So what I'd like to do today is talk a little bit about like what are the basic things that parenting teaches us. Because if we understand what the basics of parenting are, then we can start to form a roadmap of how we need to catch up. And this is where a lot of people may respond to this and say like, oh my God, like I wasn't taught all these basic things. I'm screwed in life, right? Because I have so much catching up to do. It's going to be impossible. And that too, I would say, is actually a consequence of your parenting. So if your initial response to this is too much to handle,

that is actually part of your conditioning as well. So let me give you an example. So when your parents were faced with difficult tasks, how did they approach them? What was the basic thing that you learned? If something is not right in my life, what is the appropriate way, to deal with that, right? How do we develop a plan of action to fix things that we don't like?

Because the truth is that there are a lot of parents out there who will like sort of just take it, right? Like they won't, they won't advocate for themselves. They won't try to change their circumstances. They won't, they'll just sort of be like, okay, if things are too hard, like, you know, people are like, oh, the world is going to hell. There's no point in trying. The world is an unfixable place and we're all victims here. Right. So some parents will have a victimhood mentality, which then they will condition their kids with. And so when we talk to these kids, and so I've worked with some of these kids, this is where, you know, it's kind of an unfair term, but back when I was working in the Massachusetts General Hospital emergency room, sometimes we'd have kids come in with like four or

five diagnoses. And then like, you know, so it's like a 16 year old kid who's got five diagnoses. OCD, ODD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, and substance use. They've got six, right? So like, you look at this medical history and you're like, does this person have? six separate biological illnesses that they're, you know, they busted in six ways. And you go and you talk to them and there was this awesome nurse practitioner who worked in the emergency room. Maybe she still does. Just brilliant woman. I learned so much from her. And then like, you know, I'd ask him, what do you think is going on with this patient? She explained to me that, well, this kid's got shit life syndrome. That's what she called it.

And like, this is an experience of life where like they just didn't have good parents, didn't have good role models, were in and out of foster care. And so as a real, you know, as a result like at any given point in time they'll get you know they'll see a doctor and the doctor will like check a couple of boxes and give them a diagnosis but that's not actually what's wrong with them maybe a couple of those things are going on and we're not saying that they can't get benefit from some treatment for those things but at the core of it this is a kid who is just like has shit life syndrome right and so as i work with these kids i started to realize that like sure this person may need some kind of medication to deal with their behavioral outbursts, but like really what they need

in psychotherapy is like not to talk about, you know, their edible complex, but just to like, they need to be taught how to interact with other people, like what's okay and what's not okay. Like, hey man, like, I understand that, you know, you've got stuff going on, but we have an appointment and like, I have a life too. And so the way that you relate to me, the way that you treat me like impacts me as a person. It's like super basic stuff. The good news is that this stuff can actually be learned pretty easily. So the good news is that while we sort of automatically learn a lot of this stuff from our parents and you may be at a disadvantage, the cool thing is that with like intent behind our learning, you can catch up like very easily. And the best example, I've used

this example once or twice recently. So I speak a couple of different languages, right? So like, who Gujarati bowl. So he who a modot

that's my my Gujarati shikramed that. And at the same time, like,

even though I grew up speaking it, right? So it was very easy for me. Like,

someone else can learn, like, a language in like six months to a year.

So what I sort of like picked up over the course of 15, 18, 20 years of growing up,

like, you can actually go to a class for, you know, you can go to college for like one year

and become like pretty proficient in this, right? So, I learn the Zhongwen at the judge or dashue. Right? So, like, you can pick stuff up. I don't even know

if that was grammatically correct or not, because it's been decades since I spoke Mandarin properly. But, like, you know, like, I could learn stuff. So the cool thing is that even if you think that this is like super, super hard to learn, is it an uphill battle? Absolutely. And can you do it? Absolutely. Okay? So let's talk about a couple of these competencies.

So the first is, like, let's just So we're going to go through a bunch of different categories. And I want you all to think about your own parenting. And even if you had good parents who taught you a lot of this stuff, no parent is perfect. And there's a chance that you can benefit from intentional learning of some of these other things. Okay. So the first thing is going to be work ethic.

So what did your parents, like, not teach you, but what was the way in which they worked? Right? So like, what did you learn about, like, how people work? So I'll give you guys an example. So I'll talk a little bit about my own life. So my dad used to like leave home around 8 o'clock and then he would come home around like 9 p.m. So he was a doctor and he worked really hard.

He traveled to two different cities. He had clinics in two different cities and he saw patients at like three or four hospitals. So every day like he worked a lot. Right. So he like worked 12, 14 hours a day. He would also oftentimes see patients over the weekend. So like he would work half days at least one weekend day. So he'd like leave around 10 and he'd come back around like four or five, which is a half day for him,

which is still like a seven hour work day, right? So I grew up with this idea that like a half work day is taking it easy at work is like seven hours on the weekend. So this is also where like my mom also was a practicing physician, but her day was different, right? So she would like get to her office around 9 or 9.30. She would drop me off at school. She would work until about 4 o'clock and then she would come home and then she would She would do like house stuff, right? So I'd see her home around 530 or six.

She would oftentimes stop by the bank on the way home. She would stop by to get groceries. So even in that situation, like I sort of learned a couple of things internally. So there's a lot to learn there. One is that like sometimes there's a division of labor within a relationship, right? So we'll get to relationships in a second. I also learned that there are like two ways to work, but that even if you work a full seven or eight hour day, like there's still going to be other stuff you have to do in terms of going

to the bank, getting groceries, all this kind of stuff. Right. And I also sort of learned that like, you know, a half day that according to my dad is like a seven hour work day, right? So I grew up with some of these principles around a work ethic. The interesting thing is that like I never saw anyone studying. They didn't really emphasize studying. So they just sort of like did this automatically. And so they assumed I would do it automatically as well. So my grandfather, for example, also worked like 14 hours a day. So he was a farmer and then tried to start a shoe store. So he would like open his shoe store around 9 a.m. and he would come home around 8 p.m. So my dad grew up with this sort of idea that like your dad

works all day, right? And that's just what you do. So my dad never really thought a little bit about or I mean, I don't know. I've never talked to him about this. But you know, he just sort of like worked hard and that was sort of the assumption. And so growing up, you know, I didn't see anyone in school. So I slacked off in school. But once I started working like it was interesting, I just worked a lot. right? So like, I had a private practice. I did moonlighting shifts overnight, working in the emergency room because we needed money. I mean, I guess in a sense, we didn't need money, but in my mind, like, we needed money, right? I was going to have kids. And so, like, if I have kids, like, I need to be able to provide for them in a certain way. And if a personal sacrifice is what it takes,

like, that's what you do. You man up, right? So these, this is the work ethic I was taught. Even translates to today, where now it's like I still, you know, I could take time off if I want to, but I don't because I have a responsibility to y'all. I have responsibility to, like, all kinds of things to taking care of my family. So what did you learn about your work ethic? And this is the key thing is like if you did not, so like I want you to think about what did your parents like demonstrate or show about how work is done. And if they didn't show a whole lot, then like you need to cut yourself a break for being lazy.

Right? Like, because this isn't, it's not that you're lazy. It's that you weren't like, it wasn't in great. You weren't conditioned to work is the other way to put it. Okay. So second thing is relationships. So what did you learn about relationships, right? So how were you like taught to interact with other human beings?

So I'm going to share with you all another story. So when I was growing up, my family had, was friends with a bunch of other families. And every weekend, we would get together at a different person's house. And that's just like what we did. There was a bunch of Indian people. It was like the 80s, right? So like in early 90s, which is like when there wasn't a whole lot of vegetarian food available, like, we couldn't really go to barbecues because people couldn't really eat a whole lot of stuff there and things like that. So like a bunch of Indian people got together and we sort of like felt culturally comfortable with each other.

No one smoked. Right. So and then like people would ask me questions. So I still have this really strong memory to this day, which I realize is like very helpful now. So sometimes they would drink, or not sometimes, all the, some people would drink all the time, like every weekend. So that's sort of what I grew up with is like people just kind of like, my parents never drank, right? So I never really drank. And still dislike alcohol to this day.

But then like they would, and then every time I would walk by, they'd be hanging out in the garage, right? Because this is Texas. And so I can say it's like the weather's nice. They're hanging out in the garage. They're drinking. And so I'd be playing outside. I'd be playing like basketball with my friends. And sometimes I would walk by.

And then like some people would always ask me these like stupid. questions. Like, they'd ask me questions like, which parent do you like more? Do you love your mom more or do you love your dad more? Who do you want to be more like? Do you want to be like your mom or do you want to be like your dad? So they asked me these questions which like don't have any right answers, right? And it'll like a little bit tipsy and stuff. And then like I noticed, I remember being like seven. I have these memories quite vividly because it happened every weekend. So I'd be like sitting there and then be like eight people, men drinking and they'd ask me this question. Right. And then like I could tell that everyone was like paying attention to my answer, but I didn't know like what the hell,

what kind of answer? Like, what's the right answer there? And so I realized that like over time, so I, you know, a couple times I must have tried things like, I don't know. And then like, I could see that they were sort of like disappointed, right? And like that wasn't a good answer. And so over time, like I was put on the spot. I felt uncomfortable. I'd say dad, I'd say mom and like that wasn't the right answer. And then I like, I realized what they're doing is they're being dicks to me, right? They're being smart asses. So like that's when I learned how to be a smart ass. And so I started being smart asses to them, which was the right answer. And so, like, I'd start to say things like, why are you asking me?

Like, why don't we go get your son and ask him who he likes more? And then everyone else starts laughing, right? It's like, let's go ask your kid. Like, why are you asking me? Right? And so what I realized in that moment is that, like, there's conditioning going on. So as I grew older and I started to get bullied and stuff, like, I learned how to fight back, right? So even though I got bullied and it was.

was bad, right? I learned how to a certain degree, like, hold my own, which in a sense, like, only made the bullying worse, right? Because you're not going to lay down and take it. Like, you know. And so there's a lot that I learned about being under fire, like being under pressure. And even now, like, speaking publicly is not so much, I'm an introvert. In a sense, I used to be shy. But, like, now it kind of doesn't bother me, right? Because I've been under scrutiny and, like, people have been smart asses to me and, like, I kind of practice this. So that's, like, one example of, like, social conditioning that I had. which I'm sort of grateful for, even though I don't necessarily think it was the nicest thing.

It was kind of toxic in some ways. But, you know, all as well, that ends well. And I even found that I'll do some of that stuff to my kids, too. Right. So I'll kind of like, and they're learning how to be diplomatic. So I'm not as smart ass to my older kid, but sometimes I'll ask her, just because I'm curious, right? So I'm trying to figure out how to be a parent. I'll ask her like, who do you like more, mom or dad?

And then she's like learned how to be very diplomatic. So she's like, I actually like both of you. I don't have to like one of you more than the other, right? because she's like learned how to question assumptions and stuff. And I love that answer. So now she's learned if there's a question that's kind of a trap like how to dodge. So she's great. Right.

So hopefully I'm not scarring her for life, but, you know, someone can interview her 30 years later and we'll see. So the key thing, though, is how do you view relationships, right? What was the standard in your relationship? How did people care for each other, right? How do they demonstrate like affection, if at all? You know, like there are other kinds of things like holiday gifts, right? There's like little things. Like, how do you maintain a relationship with someone who's not a family member?

How do you manage conflict? Did your parents argue? Did they yell? Did they like just start drinking after a fight? Did like mom or dad just get in the car and drive away and come back the next day? Like, what happened? How do you manage conflict? And depending on what you were shown, right?

You're going to have like a leg up on people who are not. not shown those things. So, for example, you know, I had to learn a lot about gift giving. So, like, my mom would sort of have a super generic idea about, like, how to give gifts. So she would be like, there is like a formula in her mind where if someone is like this kind of thing, then you get this kind of gift. Whereas, you know, I learned a lot about gift giving actually for my wife, because I think she's like, does a better job at giving gifts. They're like super thoughtful. So, so it's kind of funny. I hope I'm not, I love my mom and she's a wonderful person, but I'm about to say something that's a little bit, you know, critical. So, you know, there's the saying that it's the

thought that counts, right? And so there are two ways to interpret this. One is that you should spend a lot of time thinking about your gift because that's the important thing. The other way to interpret this is that the price tag really is unimportant, right? So you don't have to get expensive gifts for people, which is true. It's one interpretation, but it's like it's the thought that's the important part of the gift. So in terms of relationships, if you're socially awkward, you know, you should think about these things. What did your, what kind of like, and this is the way I describe it as like, what kind of like starting zone were you in? Like what, what, what skills could you develop in your starting zone, right? So if we're like playing an MMORPG,

it's like, I can level up my herbalism because there's lots of plants around. But I can't level up my fishing because, oh, I can't level up my fishing because there's, you know, no, there's no, there's nowhere to fish. And so that's like skill number two, right? And so in that way, we're going to have, your individual spawn is going to have particular things that you had opportunities to learn and opportunities to not learn. Next thing is self-care, right? And this sort of breaks down into physical and emotional health. So what was your conditioning around taking care of yourself physically. Like, did you have parents who exercised or not exercise? So before you call yourself lazy for not going to the gym, like think a little bit about what you were taught

about the importance of exercise. Did you have parents who like, you know, threw around the football with you, taught you how to play soccer? Did y'all go swimming together? Like, did you all have a pool in the backyard? Did you all go to a friend's pool? Did you all visit the lake? Did you guys go climbing? What kind of vacations did you take? Did you go to all inclusive resorts that were about buffets or did you go like hiking in the mountains? There's all kinds of stuff about physical self-care that you may or may not have been taught. Once again, if you're out of shape, this may not be your fault, right? If you're socially awkward, this may not be your fault. It's absolutely something that you need to improve on, but it doesn't mean that you're

like characterologically a messed up person. It just means you weren't given opportunities to learn. What about emotional self-care? This one is huge. So also being from the Indian diaspora, we see this a lot in, you know, non-developed countries where, like, emotional self-care was not something that was actively done, right? It was sort of like passively done through, like, going to the temple every now and then and kind of taking walks and stuff like that. But we never, like, talked about our emotions when I was growing up. Like, no one ever asked me, like, why I was upset. As I continued to fail class after class after class, what I got was, like, direction, direction, direction. no attempt at understanding, right?

So no one asked me, like, how do you feel and why is this happening? They just told me, you need to do this differently. You need to do this differently. You need to do this differently. Let's try it this way. Let's try it that way. So even that prescriptive approach as opposed to a diagnostic approach was something that I was like kind of conditioned to.

So I was like a big, big problem solver. How do I solve my problems? How do I solve my problems? How do I solve my problems? And so for years, even like when I was failing out of school and stuff, I would like look at a lot of self-help crap, right? because I was like, I need to fix this. I need to fix this. I need to fix this. But instead, what I needed to do was like understand things. And that's why we like propagate this view, right?

That's the structure of this lecture is let's break this down and understand it first. Next thing is creative pursuits. There's all kinds of other stuff here too. Like, you know, did you go to the dentist? Right. Did you go see doctors? Right. There's all sorts of other stuff. Like what was substance use like in your home. So we'll talk about substance use in a second. So then describe creative pursuit. So this is something that I realized like was missing from my life. So I had, and this also goes is probably somewhat historic. So my dad was super into singing was actually like at one point won some kind of award at school and like my grandmother proceeded to smash his trophy. And she was like you need to be studying. Like don't waste your time singing. And so it was sort of

a powerful moment in his life. And so as a result like they weren't into creative pursuits. right? It was about studying and getting grades. And so growing up, my parents did what any good Indian parents do is they signed me up for piano, but they didn't really care about it. They just like, they're like, okay, so, you know, like, this is something that's good for you to do. You need to be, like, well-rounded. So they signed me up for it. And then really, like, invest in it. And after years of saying, I didn't want to go, they kind of let me quit. And why is that? They sent me to this class. But then, like, they never played an instrument. They never sang. Like, I never saw it at home. So it was sort of just something that they tried to do. I don't blame them from doing it.

doing it. I think they did a wonderful job of parenting. I'm really grateful. But what did you, what are your parents teach you about creative pursuits? Like when you have an idea for something, like, you know, is work for money, right? Or can you be creative? Like, can you be creative and make money at the same time? You know, is it creativity versus money? Or can you pay your bills through being creative? So a lot of what we hear is that's not a real job. when it comes to creative pursuits, right? This concept of a real job. So how did your parents teach you about creative work?

Did your parents paint? Did they write? Did they, you know, color? Did they play music? Did they sing? Like, what did you learn about creative pursuits? Is it a hobby? Like, were they a professional musician?

Like, so there's all kinds of things that will influence you about creativity. Next thing that I'm going to talk about is general adulting. So there's like a bunch of stuff that, that we get shaped. in terms of like laundry. So like, how was laundry done at home? Was it done? You know, did everyone clean? Like, what was hygiene like?

Right? So I feel dirty if I kind of like don't shave every other day at a minimum. And my dad was the same. He would shave like every single day. And like he would use the same after shave. And like so he started his day off like that. And now even today like it's really hard for me to work unless like I shower and shave at the very beginning of the day.

And like I kind of feel clean and fresh and it helps. Right. So how did they make? manage personal finances, right? How do you approach personal finances? Like, there's so much stuff here about basic adulting. Like, you know, what, what would happen when you got a flat tire? Right? So, there's like so much stuff here. Did you call someone? Did you have AAA? Or did like someone, like, did you change the tire yourself? Like, you know, and someone's saying, what tire? Yeah. So, like, did you even have a car? So here you are as an adult. You're getting your first car and you don't

know how to change a tire because you feel incompetent. You're like, oh, I should know how to change a tire, but your parents grew up taking public transport. Or you walked. So you don't even know how to change a tire, right? And then you feel incompetent because of something about your conditioning. Next thing is cooking. Who cooked at home? Did anyone cook at home? Was it frozen meals? Was it pre-prepared stuff? Was it mom always cooking in the kitchen? Did dad sometimes cook? Right? So I grew up in a household where like mom and grandmother did most of the cooking, women did a lot of the cooking, and then like men would cook on occasion and would be kind of a mess. And so like that's something that through intentional effort we can change, right? So now nowadays, for example, I cook dinner

more than my wife does. And so then the question kind of becomes like, okay, so like, what do we do about this stuff? And this is where like the answers are, and by the way, I would make a very good Indian wife. I just heard her outside. I wonder if that was her. But because I'm, I'm good. I'm very obedient wife. So, yeah. So like, and this is where people are sort of saying, like, you know, men don't do chores around the house. And like, I didn't see my dad do chores around the house. But then again, I didn't really see him at home, right? Because he was working all day. So like, but my mom didn't have a daughter. If she had a daughter, I'm sure the daughter would have helped her out a lot more. but she had a younger son and an older son.

So guess who got to help out in the kitchen way more, the younger son, right? So then if you're approaching the situation and you haven't been parented properly, the first thing to understand is like, okay, like, where are you deficient? And then like, don't lose, if you're like, I don't know any of this stuff,

let me throw my hands up and give up. Don't do that. That's part of your conditioning, too. Right? Because the truth of the matter is you can fix any of these things like with a relatively small amount of time. I'm not saying it's a low effort, but like,

example, let's just pick hygiene, laundry, and cooking. When in the span of one week, you can learn how to do laundry, learn how to shave, go get a haircut, or cut your own hair, and like learn how to cook two meals. That's all it takes is one week. And I want you to just think about yourself for a second. Like if you're someone who doesn't know how to cook and like is unkempt or whatever, like imagine how awesome it would be like this is where you are, right? You're someone who doesn't do laundry, is not hygienic, doesn't know how to cook. One week. from now, you can make significant progress in all three of those things. Just one week.

You're like, I'm going to learn how to make pasta. I'm going to learn how to make vegetable soup. I'm going to cook these two things twice over the next week. You're going to look up some recipes. You're going to go to the grocery store. You're going to buy some stuff. Come back, right? And like, follow the recipes and do it.

It won't taste great. Maybe. Maybe it'll taste delicious because, you know, sometimes you can actually make things really tasty. with very little effort and very little experience. And then you can learn how to do laundry, like you can have folded clothing, right? I don't know how to fold clothing.

I still don't know how to fold t-shirts. But you can look at a guide online and learn how to fold clothing. And then you can have like an organized closet. You can be groomed and you can cook two meals one week. Right? Theoretically even two days, like 72 hours, really, is all you need. And then you can say, but what about these other things?

Like, that's easy, but, you know, like, what about physical health? Like, I wasn't taught to be, like, you know, go and exercise. I don't even, even now, you know, so growing up, I was told like, oh, that's like not, our people don't do that kind of work for certain kinds of physical labor, right? Not by my parents, but by some people close to me. And so I don't agree with that now, right? So, like, that was something that I was sort of conditioned to, like, we didn't do that sort of stuff, but now I've learned how to do things like unclogged toilets and stuff like that,

because in my house, we would always call someone because labor is cheap in Indian, people sort of specialize. And like, that's just how it works. So now I can change my, I water my own plants, I unclogged my own toilets. You know, it's been a while since I've changed a tire, getting rusty there. You know, change it out of water filter to my house recently. Like, you can learn all this kind of stuff. So physically, too, like you can start somewhere, right? you can start by going for a walk, five pushups, five squats. If you can't do a single pushup, no big deal, right? You don't have to have, you can do push up using your knees.

So you can lift up the backs of your legs, and that tends to be a little bit easier. So you can start somewhere. So emotional stuff, like you can start by like doing a little bit of journaling, right? And is it fair that you have to learn how to do all these things yourself? No. But the good news is that in one week, you can do. do all this crap, right? You can get started. Now, this is where things like work ethic and relationships become a little bit more complicated. This is where you also need to be a little bit more careful

with your diagnosis, right, your internal diagnostic process. So what is lazy? Like, what was it? What were you taught? What were you taught? This is going to be very kind of specific. So were you taught that people don't work? Were you taught that some people work and some people don't work? Like, there's a lot of stuff here that, you know, we try to teach people about relationships, about work ethic, about motivation. So you've got to learn these things because you weren't conditioned to them. And so at the end of the day,

it's very unfortunate that some people were not parented well. Right? Like some people, because it's really easy to have kids, but it's really hard to raise them. And sure, you can sort of blame your parents if you want to, but that's neither here nor there in my book. Like, you just have to acknowledge

that this is where you are. You know, the blame and stuff, but that doesn't blame doesn't help you at all. It can be useful from sort of emotional processing. But generally speaking, if you're in this situation, the good news is that you can fix it. It's not going to be easy. You may automatically be conditioned to say,

oh my God, this is too much to handle. But that in turn may have been the way that you were taught to handle things, right? How did your parents handle difficult situations? Do they throw their hands up and say, I'm powerless to deal with it? Or, what are they like, you know, Maybe they were a little bit more proactive and like, okay, you know, you have to break a difficult, you climb a mountain one step at a time, break a difficult task into a hundred pieces.

And you can work on this stuff. And it comes down to a couple of basic things. So when I think about what basically what parents are there for is they're there to teach us about work ethic. They're to teach us about relationships. They're there to teach us about self-care and health, right? They're there to teach us about creative pursuits. They're there to teach us about some basic adult. things like paying taxes and doing laundry and like being a grownup, right? And so even if you don't

know those things, you haven't been formally taught those things. You can learn those things. So this is a cool thing is like the internet is full of resources. And you can start to make progress like today, right? You can cook one meal today. You can even if it's like instant ramen, like if all you make is ramen, like buy some vegetables and throw that crap in there, buy some mushrooms, buy some spinach, make a boiled egg, like toss that in there. And you have, upgraded your culinary skill from like one to two. You may have 98 more points to grind, but at least you've made a little bit of progress. And the really awesome thing is that as you start to make these changes in your life, your view of yourself, right? So remember that the challenge

here is that we start to make judgments about ourselves based on the lack of experience that we have. So we make a character logic judgment that is actually due to inexperience, right? It's not that we're low level. It's like confusing having low stats with being low level. Oh, like I'm, you know, so like be careful about that. And as you start to make progress, hopefully you will start to think about yourself in a different way. And then it sort of becomes a positive spiral where the more progress you make, the better you feel about yourself and the easier it is to find motivation. And then you'll start to pull yourself out of this.

The good news about spirals is that they work both ways. And sometimes all you need is a break.