HealthyGamerGG - My Goals are Impossible

Episode Date: August 14, 2022

Dr. K dives into feeling like your goals are impossible, insignificance and accomplishment, wondering what to do to be happy, the problem with ego, inferiority, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So what the ego does is it doesn't compare one person to one person. It compares you to the best aspects of a dozen people. So it's creating a situation in which you can never win. Hello, friend. Hello. Hi. Hi. How are you?

I'm doing fine. How are you doing, doctor? I'm doing well. Can you tell me what you go by, my friend? Yes. My name is Kami. Okay. Nice to meet you, Kami. Nice to meet you as well. And what's holding you back?

Well, what's holding me back is the fear of underachieving, basically in nowadays. Can you tell me? Not being able to, yeah. Not being able to reach my goals. Okay. And so can you help me understand why you're afraid that you'll underachieve? The goal, the end goal, the point that I'm. supposed to reach in my head is way high up above than what looks reachable.

I don't know if I made it understandable, but imagine you're climbing, let's say, a tree, but the tree, you cannot see the end of the tree. You cannot reach the top of the tree. So even looking at it just makes you want to stop, you know, why even try? There's no end point. Okay. So let me ask you a couple of questions. What makes you think that you're going to underachieve?

What makes you think you won't get to the top of the tree? Okay. Looking at it, my, okay, I should give a little background on myself. Please. I finished medical school. I'm a general practitioner right now. I've worked for a year. I decided I wanted to go into research to have a better, you know,

to have a better academy life. So I started looking at PhDs, so I found something that I really like as a research topic. I started getting into it, but I'm looking at the names that do research in that topic. And the difference between them and me just seems like unapproachable that their point is. So I'm 25. I've been studying for 19 years in my life. and it just feels like I'm just starting to get into it. So I've been doing this for 19 years.

What is the point? Where am I getting with this? Am I going to study for another 40 years? And at the end of those 40 years, what am I going to do? What's going to happen? Okay. Thank you so much for offering that context. Yes.

Sorry, I haven't made it clear at the beginning. No, no, no, I was very clear. Yeah. I was, you know, I, I, I, think you were pretty clear that let me just can I think for a second yes yes so what what makes you want to do research I basically want to do something that people haven't done I want to find something that nobody has ever found I just want to do something new I just want to add something why I want to have a impact I want to have a memory of myself after I die you want to be

remembered yeah I want to be remembered remembered. Okay. What makes you want to be remembered? I'm not the biggest person when it comes to believing in afterlife. So what we do here is going to be left here. So what do I do? Even, even, you know, studying in medicine, when you read the names, when you learn about people, I look at them and I see them as, let's say, guidance. Like, you see the name and you look at what they did and they're inspiring. I want to inspire. I can be like a, you know, little name somewhere, but even ten people can read it. And if it's inspiring to someone. Okay. Do you feel like, so do you, Kami, do you feel insignificant right now? I do feel insignificant. How long have you

felt that? I feel like I have, I mean, so far, always. you were six? I'd say mostly started around like elementary school, thinking about it, just looking at other kids. Because like what I always did was compare. That was the way that I looked at my own success. I compared myself to the other kids in class. My friends, for example, one of my closest friends was really good at gaming. I always compared my gaming skills to him.

One of my friends was really good at sports. I compared my sports skills to him. I always wanted to be better. I always wanted to be like the top. That's what I always tried to do. That just went on forever, even in medical school. I tried to do a lot of things. I just jumped from one branch to another branch,

but at the end of the day, I didn't finish anything. Okay. So now looking forward, just going forward, thinking about it, I'm just going to, if I get accepted to the PhD program, I don't think. I'm going to go to the PhD. What's going to happen after PhD? Maybe post-doctoral, maybe residency. I'm going to finish that.

Then what's going to happen? Maybe I'll do research. Maybe I'll do clinic. And then what's going to happen? Nothing is happening at the end. I don't see the end of the line. So I'm starting to work. I'm always trying to be better at something I'm doing.

That's the goal. I'm trying to be better at what I'm doing. I'm comparing myself to other people. I'm trying to see what's approachable. I'm trying to get better and better and better, but I don't see the end point. Am I just going to spend my whole life trying to be better at what I'm doing? Is this the goal?

Sounds like it. How does that? What is to accomplish from this? You tell me, you're the one who wants it. What is my, yeah, what is my 60-year-old self going to look back and say, oh, I'm really glad I spent my last, like, 30, 35 to 40 years studying on this topic. Yeah, so, so, I mean, but you tell me, Kami, so when you're 60 years old and you've spent

your youth, your middle years, your entire life, and now they're going to name a disease after you. Kami's autoimmune encephalitis. And then all of the, all of the medical students after that will learn about Kami's autoimmune encephalitis. and your name will be in medical textbooks. How does that, if I tell you that that's what they're going to do, how would you feel about that? That makes me, that makes me feel a little bit accomplished.

I feel I did something. I can see that I did something at the end of the day. I provided something. Yeah, but let me ask you something. When they name a disease after you, what is your mind going to do? So thinking about it now, you're going to, you imagine you'll feel accomplished. But when you reach that point, do you think that's how you're going to feel? At this point, if you ask me, yes.

Okay, good. But when I reached that point, I cannot say for sure for now. Why are you a doctor? I wanted to do research. I wanted to do research. So I looked at in what topics I can do research. And I saw that medicine was the most interesting one for me. Okay. Do you feel accomplished in being a doctor?

Just being a general practitioner doesn't feel accomplishing. Okay. It feels like it's not enough. That's what I mean my underachieving. I finish medical school, but I don't feel enough. So here's, so let's understand. By the way, this is beautiful. I mean, I recognize you're suffering a lot, but I think it's beautiful how you're laying out what the challenges you face are. Is it okay for me to say that? Yeah, yeah, completely fine.

So I think the reason that you're underachieving is actually, it's kind of interesting because you call it under achievement, whereas you're actually achieving a lot, right? You're accomplishing a lot. It's just not satisfying for you. And so what I'm imagining is that when they name commies autoimmune encephalitis, what you're going to do is say, well, commie's autoimmune encephalitis only affects one in 10 million people. whereas this other person who has, let's say, you know, Bob's... Arthritis. Bob's arthritis, right? Bob's arthritis, Bob's auto-immune arthritis affects way more people.

And I just get one line in a textbook, whereas this other person's arthritis is on all the medical exams and is way more common, and they spend a whole day talking about it. Yeah. What do you think about that? Do you think that's a possibility that when you discover something, it won't be enough? Yeah, yeah, definitely. So. Definitely might not be enough, even whatever I do. That's the biggest fear.

The fear of not being enough, doing this much so far, still not be feeling enough. And I'm looking at the future, there's hopefully, if I'm lucky enough, I have 40, 50 more years to live. I'm scared that this will be... Unless you get comies autoimmune encephalitis. Yeah. Who knows? There are two ways to get diseases named after you, my friend. Yeah, true.

True. I can be the patient zero. Who knows? But yeah, looking at those 40-50 years in the future, will I feel accomplished eventually? Will it be enough? Is it going to be... Am I going to one day look in the mirror and be like, okay, you did good.

That's enough. Good job. What do you think? I feel that's my problem. I feel it's unachievable. I don't see that. Yeah. My father, my father is a neurosurgeon.

He's almost 60. He's been working his whole life. And when I talk to him, he's still like, oh, you know what? I'll work as long as my hands and my feet allow me to. As long as I can do my work, I'll work. And they seem so unbothered by it. How does your dad feel about having a, how does a neurosurgeon feel about having a general practitioner as a son?

He has a different approach than the most commonly seen one. Even when I was first getting into medical school, he told me to do whatever I want. He said that he'll support me, just pick what you want to do. be good at it and I'll support you. Okay. So now when I'm talking about research, he says the same thing. Pick something you're like and be good at it and I'll support you all you want.

So, Kami, let me ask you a different question. How does it feel being a general practitioner and having a neurosurgeon as a father? It comes with its, you know, toughnesses, I guess I can say, like hard parts. the military approach to life, being up at 5.30 every morning, eating breakfast, that six day in the morning. Okay, let me give you another example. For example, I wake up at like nine, I study, I get ready for something that I'm getting ready. It's like five, I spent my whole day studying for it. At five, I just lay back in my chair, I open up a game, I play a little games, I just talk to my friends. he comes and looks at me and he's like, huh, so you're, you didn't study at all? What did you do today?

And I'm like, yeah, I studied. This is my like chill time. I'm just taking like an hour or two off. You know, I can just chill for a while. And he's like, yeah, yeah, sure. And just walks away. Now, he doesn't mean it as a condescending way or he means it as a comical, as a joke way. But when you think about it, is it, it gives, you know, I can never be sure.

Well, but. Okay. Yeah. I mean, when I talk about my dad, I always see the same thing. He always supported. He always said, do whatever you want to do. I'll support. And so far, I guess it worked out good.

Does it sound like it worked out good? I'm just looking at like an outdoor. perspective. I had it easier compared to a lot of people when you think about it. Okay. So, I mean, you don't sound, you don't sound happy, Kami. What do you define as happiness, though? How do you define the happy state? Is it being happy with your life? In what context, am I happy? Happy with my life? Are you happy? Not right now. There's a lot of uncertainties. Have you ever been happy with your life?

I mean, sure, in elementary school and maybe high school. During medical school, I was happy for like two, three years. Help me understand that. How are you happy in medical school? I liked what I was doing. I enjoyed going to classes. I enjoyed learning new things. I enjoyed my time in medical school.

Okay. So, but did they name any diseases after you in medical? school? No, not really. So help me understand that. How could you be happy in medical school and also not be accomplished? You were a student. Yeah. I mean, it was more like, okay, think about it this way. There's six years. And the point to panic, to self-realization, comes after the fourth grade. In here, in my country, medical school is six years, and we finish it and then we go directly into residency.

So the first three years, I was happy. I didn't even know what I was doing there. I was completely lost. I was like, okay, this class, and then this class, oh, let me just learn about this a little more. This looks interesting. After fourth grade, you come into the realization of, okay, what's next?

Okay. I'm going to end this. So let me ask you something. So I'm going to use your analogy of climbing a tree. All right? So for the first couple of years of medical school,

you were really looking at like the tree almost at the level that you were on or you're looking at the next branch above you, right? You can see like

where you're supposed to put your hand. But essentially you're looking at the level of the tree that you're at. And the dread sets in when after year four

you looked up and you couldn't see. You could see all the hand holds that you've been climbing. Yeah. And you were okay, like climbing one handheld hold at a time. You were happy. Yeah.

And then the moment you look up and you realize, oh, crap, like, this tree doesn't end. Exactly. That's when you became unhappy. Exactly. That's when it hit me. So. I guess I can see. I know it sounds kind of weird, but like, if you want to be happy, what should you do?

That's the problem I'm having. I cannot, I cannot figure out what? Should I just keep on climbing? Should I just stop and go down? I know how the floor was. Let me toss something out. How about stop looking up? So just keep on climbing?

Yeah. Don't question it that much. Sure. How does that feel? It feels, it makes me uneasy to not think what's ahead. Okay. And why is that? Good.

Because it's always been like that. You look at the goal. You have a goal that you have to reach, but I don't see a goal anymore. I see that the goal, I see goals, let's say call it that. I see a lot of goals to achieve. But I don't see an ending of these goals. I've achieved some goals. I look at my CV and I look at myself.

I'm like, okay, I did this and this and this. I know that I did these. I'm going up. I'm setting goals still. I'm setting a goal right now for myself to get into a PhD. Next goal is going to be finished that PhD. I'm still looking at the goals. The problem is taking a step back and looking at all that's ahead of me.

Now, I feel uneasy without a goal because I don't know what I'm doing then. I don't know where I'm going. Okay. It's like shooting my hand up in the air, not knowing if I'm going to reach that branch. Can I think for a second coming? Yeah. Are you proud of yourself? I am proud of myself.

Help me understand that? When I think to myself, if I did a good job so far, getting to this point, I did a good job so far. I think to myself, yes, could I have done more? Of course I could have done more. There's always more that I could have done. But so far, I did good. I didn't do bad. I finished medical school.

I worked a little. I wanted to get in research. so I did some research. Okay. And I'm still setting my goals. I'm going there. Kami, so I, um, thank you so much for sharing everything. Anything, I have a couple of thoughts and we can do a little bit more back and forth,

but anything that, uh, you'd like to add or anything that you feel like needs more explanation or anything that we've talked about that frustrates you? No, not really. I mean, I can just continue like after you basically. Okay. So I think there are a couple of important things here. So I think that the challenge, the biggest challenge that I see that you face is that a lot of different things are being conflated. So if I tell you, for example, so we know that you've been happy before, right?

And when you've been happy before is when you've basically been like oblivious and ignorant to what's going on. Exactly. Right? So if I tell you, okay, so if you're unhappy, Kami, then. just become oblivious again. Stop looking up. And while that may work sort of, it's a very unsatisfying answer because like how are you going to plan your life if you're just like lost in the moment?

Exactly. Right? So, so I think there are a couple of different things that are being conflated. And, and my sense of this situation is that these things need to be. teased apart and kind of worked on individually. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So the first thing is it sounds to me like you're in an early life crisis.

Have you heard the phrase midlife crisis? Yeah, yeah. What's your understanding of what a midlife crisis is? Basically the realization of the age moving forward and then being scared that the younger days are not going to come back. Yep. And does it sort of make sense that you're kind of in an early life crisis? Is it like having the mid-life crisis a little bit too early?

Yeah, right? So you've been grinding for 19 years, as you put it, and you wake up at the age of 25, and you have accomplishments behind you. And somewhere along the way you thought that those accomplishments would make you happy. But you're not happy. In fact, you're terrified. Yeah. And so, like, you're not sure.

And basically what I think that what I think of is an early life crisis. midlife crisis is you play the game of life with a particular strategy, assuming that that strategy will be successful. And then you hit some point where you realize, like, wait a minute, the strategy is not accomplishing what I want. And then you feel terrified because have I been using the wrong strategy and is it too late? Like if I basically screwed up. And then you're really confused because do I continue using the strategy going forward? Or do I change my strategy? But if I change, my strategy, what if that doesn't work? How do I know what I should do?

Because you're telling me, like, what if I spend the next 40 years doing research and like, what if that's not enough? What if these other researchers are more brilliant than I am? So, like, does that feel like it fits? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand. Okay, so I think there are two or three different things to understand. The first is what is the nature of happiness? The second is how to plan your life.

And the third is ego. Okay? So let's start with a third. an ego. So why do human beings want to be remembered? Because they feel insignificant. So I could argue with you if I wanted to. I don't know how useful it would be. But for example, like, I don't think that general practitioners are insignificant. I think you sort of talk about, you know, being remembered because nothing happens after death, whatever. That's totally fine. But like, you know, I think general practitioners are some of the most impactful and memorable people because there are really

human lives that you are altering the course of, you know, this person's life, which in turn is going to alter the course of all of their family members. You know, if you find like, let's say, like, you know, a shallow depth melanoma in someone where you can do a surgical extraction, never, you know, they never get past stage one cancer, you've altered the course of that person's life in a very permanent and meaningful way. Yeah. What do you think about that? Okay.

The problem I have with that one is it's going to be still talking about my ego. It's going to be me being egoist about myself. But the way I look at it is if I'm not, let's say I diagnose and I treat and I change the course of that person's life. But if it wasn't me, if it was someone else, it would have had the same outcome. Most likely, they would still get diagnosed by someone else. They would still get treated by someone else. My problem here with this one is, what can I do that will set me aside from the herd? Okay.

What can I accomplish that the other people cannot? So as expected, I mean, clearly you don't find significance or meaning in that because if you did, we wouldn't be having this conversation about being a researcher, right? So that makes sense that you. or that doesn't work for you. So that's totally fine. So I'm not going to argue with you about trying to convince you that you're successful. We could go back and forth, right?

So for example, some GPs miss things. So if you caught something like maybe if they saw another GP, like they would have missed it. And then you'll have a counter to that. And we can go back and forth about me trying to convince you that you can be significant as a GP. It's not going to get anywhere. Fair? Yeah, fair. Okay.

So the first thing to understand is that, so a lot of this I think does have to do with ego, but that's not really your fault or anything. But let's just understand a couple of other aspects of ego. So another is in comparison. So the tricky thing that the ego does is that it makes unfair comparisons. So what you're sort of doing is comparing sports skill with one person, video game skill with another person, research accomplishments with another person. and like, you know, some other, like a number one in your class with another person. So what the ego does is it doesn't compare one person to one person.

It compares you to the best aspects of a dozen people. So it's creating a situation in which you can never win. Yeah. Does that make sense? It makes sense. Can I say something about them? Sure. The problem with the ego here is it makes you think it's achievable.

It makes you think comparing yourself to other people. It makes you feel like you can do the same thing if you work hard enough. You can do this thing if you work that hard enough. Well, are you going to be a revolutionary researcher? Are you ever going to win the Nobel Prize, Kami? That's the problem. I don't know if I can. I don't.

Probability is really low. It's really, really low. Let's be, I'm going to be a little bit critical. I mean, not in terms of this nuance of your language. The ego doesn't tell you it's achievable, right? Because if I ask you, can you achieve it? You're like, probably not. The problem with the ego is that it tells you that the insecurity that I feel will be fixed if you achieve.

I see. That's the problem with the ego. And then what, what the problem is that it sets up these goals. for you that you assume if you win the Nobel Prize that you'll be like content, right? That's what the ego tells you. The problem is that even if you win the Nobel Prize, like the ego is not going to be happy because you'll share it with someone else. Yeah.

Right? Like. Yeah. So, and the key thing there is that the ego is a consequence of an insecurity. So ego doesn't arise when people are confident. It actually arises when people lack confidence. Sort of like a defense mechanism? 100%.

Right? So that's why I could try to convince you that you have impact on your patient's lives. I'm pretty sure that your patients would agree with me, by the way. But your mind is going to reject that. Because you don't feel that way, right? Like when you save someone's life from cancer, you don't feel that way. You go home after a day's work and you're like, okay, I see. saved a life today, you sit down to play video games, your dad walks in the room and shakes his head,

jokes about it, and walks out. Yeah. And so, like, you don't know how to appreciate your accomplishments. Okay. Okay. So that's ego. Yeah. Okay.

Now, the second thing to understand is that, like, you know, so, okay, so, like, what makes people happy? So this is where there's been a fair amount of research in this, but I think sort of the Eastern traditions, like we're talking sort of like the Hindu. tradition, the yogic tradition, the Buddhist tradition. I think they basically got the best answer to this, which we're sort of verifying through science now, as we sort of develop these like psychotherapy modalities that are sort of based on some of these principles that help people reduce their suffering and find contentment. So I think there's like some, like,

decent scientific evidence for this kind of stuff. But that essentially being outcome oriented as opposed to action oriented is going to like make you unhappy. The interesting thing is that it won't necessarily affect your performance. So this is where, you know, being happy is essentially about living in the moment. So like, and we sort of know this, right, because there have been periods of your life where you've been happy. And those are the periods where you were kind of like focused on studying, you were curious about learning, you were enjoying things. It sounds like you were doing okay. But I don't know that being aware of what comes next would have actually made you study more.

And research basically shows that, like, being terrified about the future versus, like, focusing on the present, it's not like one necessarily, it's not like focusing on the future actually improves your performance or GPA. Does that make sense? So I think if you want to be happy, what you should do, if you want to, if you enjoy research, then by all means become a researcher. And if you want to be happy, like, really try to just enjoy. day to day. Like that that's an answer that we sort of have. Now the downside of that answer is how do you

plan your life? Right? If I'm just focusing on the day to day, like how do I like plan at all? And that's where like the tricky thing is planning your life for happiness is not a great idea. You could plan your life for like a career, but the assumption that a particular set of steps will make you happy, that's where people run into trouble. So I'm not suggesting that you don't plan your life, but sort of saying like, okay, if I get an MBA, will it make me happy? I don't think an MBA or an MD or a PhD will in and of itself make you happy. And my simple reasoning for that is that there are people who have MDs who are happy and people who have MDs who are not happy. The difference is that happiness and success, like, aren't necessarily correlated. I'm sure if you do

some kind of like logistic regressional analysis, you're going to find that there's some correlation. but, you know, that's massing a bunch of variables. I don't know how useful that is for an individual person. Does that make sense? Yeah, correlation is not causation. Yeah. Right. So I think this is where, like, you're conflating, the one piece of, you know,

recommendation I would have for you, and this is sort of a situation where I feel a little bit more confident, like, leaning on other things as opposed to asking you a bunch of questions, is because I've worked with a lot of people who are medical students and young doctors and sort of helping them. through this kind of stuff. And what I'd say is, like, you should start by teasing apart these three things. That making a plan for your life and assuming that a plan for your life is going to make you happy is a mistake.

What do you think about that? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I completely agree. Right? And this is where we sort of know that, like, if we look at your life, a particular plan is not actually how you've been happy. In fact, the more that you conflate,

happiness with planning, the more unhappy you've become, and the harder it's been to plan. Exactly. So this is the kind of thing where I'd separate those two things out. And by all means, if you want to be a researcher, because, like, you find research like engaging, then by all means, do it. But this is also where... Anyway, so... Okay?

So happiness is about living in the present. by all means plan your life in sort of a strategic and forward sort of thinking measure, but don't assume that a particular plan will make you happy. With me? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next thing.

So this is what tangles them up is the ego. So this is where like, as long as you feel unhappy and insignificant in here, your mind will try to plan a life of achievement that will fix the insecurity inside. Does that make sense? Any of like an example for this one? Yeah. So do you feel like a fantastic human being, Kami? No.

How do you feel about yourself? I have plenty of flaws. I look at my flaws and try to better themselves. Exactly. So you have plenty of flaws, right? That's why you don't feel good about yourself. Yeah. So what's one of your flaws?

Let's say. There's a lot. I'm trying to pick one. Let's say one of my flaws is that I'm not a Nobel Prize winning researcher, right? Yeah. So the ego, this is an issue of identity, right? So if I identify as a Nobel Prize winning researcher, do you understand that that has to do with my identity? It's like an ego, right?

So like you can identify as a doctor, you can identify as a man, you can identify as a father, you can identify as a researcher, you can identify as a Nobel Prize winning researcher or just a regular researcher. Those are all aspects of identity. Agreed? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So if one of my flaws and something that makes me unhappy about myself is that I'm not a Nobel Prize winning researcher, what can I do to be happy? Okay.

I'm asking. That's the question. Yeah. I mean, going on with what you said, basically living in the moment. No, incorrect. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're asking you what your mind is telling you to do. What is the mind?

How do I correct that? if I'm flawed, you gave me the right answer, but I'm looking for the wrong one. Yeah, just study and get your Nobel Prize. Exactly, right? So now we see how the ego is the root of your plan and your happiness. Because the ego says, oh, I can feel better about myself if I have a Nobel Prize. In order to get it. Okay, so that means that the Nobel Prize will bring me happiness.

Now we've attached happiness to your outside outcome. then what we also do is we see your plan. So that gets reverse engineered into a plan. Oh, so then in order to be happy and win a Nobel Prize, I have to be a researcher. So let's plan the next 40 years and plan on research and grinding and grinding and grinding and grinding. And then we'll get our Nobel Prize and then we'll be happy. And then the ego will be satisfied.

Does that make sense? Yes. Yes, it does. But then that's like, why is that hard for you? because actually you've been happy. And what's really confusing for you is that the moments that you've been happy are not what your ego is telling you to do.

So now what you're trying to do is correct an ego problem by a particular plan, which you hope will end up with happiness. And that's how the three things are tied together. Yeah, I mean, that's something I internally think about myself as well. Like, I let's say have like crises like this, what I'm like sitting in my room by myself, thinking about stuff. But then the way I calm myself down is, okay, just remember,

you're not going to get into an exam to win the Nobel Prize tomorrow. Right? It's really far ahead. You don't need to think too hard about it. That's how I try to fix the problem, the internal conflict I have of, you know, should I just keep on going or should I just stop you? Yeah. So I think that internal conflict is because,

because you've got these three different dimensions that are a part of one equation that should each be its own equation? Yeah. Does that make sense? I understand. I understand your point here. So that's where, like, I'd say very practically, like, you've got to start thinking. So I think a lot of this comes down to ego and what makes it hard for you to feel significant? Yeah.

Right? So, like, when you do help people, and I'm assuming that, you know, you know, you're not. your patients like you? Yeah. Like, are you a good doctor? I have a good doctor, yeah. My patients like me. Right?

So, like, why doesn't that help? It does help, but it doesn't help in the bigger picture in my head. The bigger picture I have in my head. Yeah, so, and where is that bigger picture coming from? My ego. Right? Yeah, I understand your point. Yeah, yeah.

So now the question really becomes like, like, and I think this is where it's like, you know, dad is a neurosurgeon, I'm just a GP. I mean, who knows if that's really what it is, but we've got to start thinking a little bit about, you know, why did you feel inferior to other people? Because you also told me that you've basically felt this way your entire life, which means that it has nothing to do with your accomplishments, right? So the ego, this is a tricky thing about people who have an ego insecurity is, so the ego tells us, okay, so if I feel insecure and the ego tells us, accomplishment will make me feel better, That's the assumption.

You with me? Yeah. And then as I accomplish, do I feel better? No. If you did, then you wouldn't be here. Like, you would have been content. Like, if an outward accomplishment fixed your ego, then becoming a doctor would have been sufficient. Yeah.

So despite all of your accomplishments, what does the mind always say? The mind always says, that's not enough. Look, someone is doing better. Look, someone is doing better. Look, someone is doing better. So it's not actually like logic. I mean, it's logical, but it's like, collective logic, that no amount of work is going to satisfy the ego, which is the nature of the

ego. Because the insecurity was not actually born of a lack of accomplishment. It was born of a feeling of a lack of accomplishment. And no amount of accomplishments will fix that ego. Yeah. So then the question becomes, when did you start to feel like you were not good enough, that you needed to be better? the more I learned. It was just the more I learned, the more I realized.

The more I found out that, yeah, I can do this too. I can do this. The realization of I can do this, it was. So I think all of those things were reinforcing it, but I would venture that you actually, like this is like some weird experience that you probably had as a kid, where you're the son of a doctor, right? So this is something that I too am the son of a doctor.

So like I'm making assumptions here. But generally speaking, where I grew up like there were a lot, there was a lot of value placed on accomplishments. So fundamentally, I learned that my value as a human being and my worth as a human being is tied to my accomplishments. And there's a decent chance that that's something that you grew up with too. Yeah. And so then like, then it actually goes back and starts like, I mean, you're going to have to do a lot of work here, Kami. But I would say like, you know, maybe even working with a therapist or coach or something like that. I mean, you're a doctor.

So, you know, hopefully you understand the difference is like if we're talking about something traumatic that reaches a clinical threshold, then you should absolutely see a therapist. Yeah. But working through some of this stuff and sort of setting planning and goals and things like that, that's like totally fine with coaching. you can actually try both. But this is the kind of thing where I think you need to do some very serious internal exploration and try to figure out

when you started feeling insufficient. And when you started feeling that if I do this thing, then I will feel sufficient. Can I say something about this? It's going to be really broad, really, you know, I'm looking at the surface of it, but what makes a kid happy,

like thinking about it as a kid? What makes a kid happy? If a kid does something good, and if you tell the kid it did something good, for example, let's say I have a child and my child just learned how to ride a pike. What would I do? I would congratulate him, and I would present him with a prize. And the prize would make him happy. The accomplishment will make him happy, and the prize would make him happy.

He knows that as he's accomplished, he's getting a prize and he's happy. So if I really look internally and like go back, think about it, I might say, okay, looking at other kids being accomplished in things, getting rewards for it, and like seeing them happy with it, being happy with it. And me just watching them from the side is what made it, you know, what made me think, oh, okay, I can do this as well. I can get on this. Why should I reach for go for the prize? Okay. I should not do something that would make me happy at the end point. I think that that makes a lot of sense and is actually sort of precisely the problem,

and I think there's more digging to be done here. So let me explain it this way. So that only makes a kid happy if that's what the parents reinforce and teach the child. Okay. Right? So if the parents say you only get the prize for accomplishment, then that's exactly what the problem is, is that you're creating a system where happiness gets conflated with accomplishment.

Then the problem is when these kids grow up to be adults, there's no external party that is now rewarding you for accomplishment. So then you end up accomplishing without being happy. Does that make sense? Because you've learned that, oh, if I accomplish, then I'm going to get a prize. But who's giving you prizes now? That's why you want a Nobel Prize. You want someone to give you a prize because that's what you think is going to make you

because accomplishment has been tied with someone externally giving you stuff. The problem is when these kids grow up to be adults, they wind up like you, which is that at this point, no one's awarding me stuff. So even though I'm accomplishing, I don't feel happy. The flip side of it is like also that really what you, I mean, there's research on this. Like you can look at Carol Dwex research, for example, on mindset. She did a lot of this original research. That what you really, if you want to raise a happy kid, what you actually want to do

is reward effort, not accomplishment. You want to focus on actions. You want to get them to not look at the top of the tree, but look at the branch that they're climbing on. And the more that you do that, the more happy the kid will be. The more resilient to failure, the kid will be. Okay. So I understand.

I understand your point here. So I would even venture that you grew up and you had some situations where you did something that you were proud of. And that someone around you did not validate that accomplishment. In fact, probably what they did is they said that you were really happy, like you ran to your parents and you showed them some piece of artwork. And they looked at your artwork and they said, what is this? That other kid did better.

Does that resonate with you at all? Where are you, okay, it resonates with me a lot, but not through my family. but more like through my, like, educational life. Sure. Right. So that's more at like school and like school accomplishments. Yeah. Right.

So like, and that's where, you know, some, I mean, that's common. So and this is the key thing is like you've got to go back and like reorganize your value system and like your, I mean, it's a lot of work. But like you've really got to think through this stuff and really start to realize like where did I start believe? that accomplishment was tied to more than accomplishment. Like, accomplishment is great. Achieving things is fantastic. But when did your worth as a human being start to get tied to accomplishment? Because when kids really develop confidence, they don't develop confidence through accomplishment.

The way that a kid develops confidence is that even if they fail, hopefully some kind of authority figure tells them, hey, it's unfortunate that you didn't succeed and you're still a good kid, I want you to try again. Okay. I understand. I understand your point perfectly. Do you think, what do you think about it? You understand it as one thing.

It is a lot of work. Yep. Even in my head, it's a lot of work. Yep. Just something to even just figure out myself, even get help if needed. It's definitely a big pile of work. So you got to be careful. is your mind looking straight or is it looking up?

That's the question to ask. Right? So in terms of stress, yeah. So even now, as you look at how much work it is, your mind may be doing the same thing. You may be looking up and saying, oh, if I accomplish this thing, then I will be happy. If I rebuild my value system from scratch, then I will be happy. If I do A, B, C, and D, and I accomplish these things, then I will be happy. And you've got to be careful, Kami, because if you do it that way, it's not going to work.

You're just falling into the same trap of the mind again. A vicious cycle. I understand. So it's going to be work. But like reasonably, Kami, in my professional experience, I've worked with people for like six months to a year. And they're like basically better. Like it doesn't take years. Just like anything else that we do in life,

when we really focus on it, we can get a lot done in a very short time. Okay. Questions? Where to insert? I understand your points perfectly. I will keep them in mind. Even just a question, just conditioning myself to think, okay, am I looking straight or am I looking up, is a good way of coping? Very good.

So. Yeah. Good. So let me try to summarize for you. Okay. So the first thing to understand is that if you want to move through this and resolve some of this stuff is to stop conflating your ego and your personal sense of satisfaction with planning your life and being happy. And to recognize that these three things can actually be separate. Because right now what your mind is trying to do is solve all three problems with one strategy. Does that make sense? Yeah. So working on your confidence, your sense of, okay, why do I not feel accomplished enough in the first place? To ask yourself very practical questions. Like, when I save someone's life, why doesn't that help me feel good about myself? Like, that's bizarre, right?

So you've got to start asking those kinds of questions. That's about ego. You can also do other kinds of practices like meditate and things like that, which will give you a sense and experience of self that is beyond a common. The second thing that you've really got to do is plan your life. But don't plan based on assuming that if I do this 40 years later, I'll be happy. Because if that doesn't work out, and here's the problem with what we call the planning fallacy, which is that we make plans at the beginning. And the beginning is when we have the least amount of information.

Ergo, the worst time to make a plan is actually at the beginning. Right? So I think you should, by all means make a plan. plan. Don't just like, you know, forget about the future entirely. Like, if you want to do research, think about it, focus on your application, build up your application, whatever, do this kind of research thing. If you like this, if you like this, like whatever. By that means plan, but don't, plan for the sake of like professional success and almost like, have it be a compass. Don't really focus on the end, like, how do I win a Nobel Prize? Really focus a little bit more on like playing

a game of chess where it's like, okay, what's the next best move? You can't plan out how to win a chess game, but at any given moment, you can look at a lot of possibilities and you can try to make the next best move. And if you want to, like, apply for a PhD and start doing research, then by all means, apply for a PhD and start doing research and be like calculating about it and stuff like that. The third thing is you need to do a serious exploration on what is happiness and what makes me happy and what makes me unhappy. And like be scientific about it, right?

you want to be a researcher. So when you, you know, if you spend a day working on your application, does that make you happy? When you receive an acceptance somewhere, does that make you happy? It's to really try to understand, okay, like what is the actual origin of happiness? And once you figure out what the formula of happiness is, then you can start crafting your life towards it. Okay. I have two questions. Can I really ask them fast?

Okay. First of all, the patient. part when treating a patient going back home. The problem with that one I have is working as a doctor. I'm sure you can think about it as well, but living at a house, my mom is a nurse also. Going to the house where everyone is a health care worker. Working on people's health, I'm not saying lives, working on people's health, bettering people's health is something really normalized throughout my life.

Even going to work right now, I look at my patients, I care for them, I understand them, I try to help them in every possible way, whatever I do. But at the end of the day, unless I'm holding the heart with my hand and just pumping the butt myself, it feels like normal. It feels like a normal part of my life. I don't feel, oh, this is something different that I see. This is something different that I do. It's something my family has been doing. It's something that I am doing right now.

We provided health care. And we're still doing it. Yeah. So that's to put on that one. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very good thought. You had another one? Or you want me to address that one first?

Yeah, address that one first, please. So I think one of the most, so this is like one of the problems that actually like kids who are kind of gifted. run into or kids who grow up in situations where exceptional is normal. Right? So like you get a weird value system where what you're doing is considered run of the mill. And so like that's something to just kind of think about. But this is also where like even people who are not exceptional or like don't grow up in like, you know, households with very high expectations, they also have to do this as well. That even if I'm a carpenter or a plumbenter or a or a doctor, this idea that doing a particular task will make me happy or make me feel accomplished,

that's what we sort of learn, right? So if we like interpret what you're saying, what it sort of means is that being a plumber, being a carpenter, or being a doctor, finding the value and appreciation in that is actually intrinsic. And so what I'm hearing you say actually aligns perfectly with what we're talking about, which is that accomplishment does not automatically. equate happiness. And something about the value system that you grew up in did not teach you to appreciate what

you actually do. So now this is where you have a personal journey to discover whether you can actually appreciate what you do. Right. So how does it feel to sit with a patient? How does it feel to not sit with a patient? You may discover that it actually feels completely insignificant. And that's where like, if that's what your internal compass is telling you, I'd spend some time

kind of working on it, but then maybe you need to do research. I mean, it doesn't feel insignificant. It doesn't feel extraordinary as well sitting at a patient. It feels normal. Yeah. And this is kind of my experience of working with people, is that most of the happiness in life doesn't come from extraordinary. It comes from normal.

And this is where we've got research on mindfulness, right? Where it's like, when I mindfully eat a piece of cake, my enjoyment and happiness and contentment over the piece of cake will increase. So to the enlightened person, every normal experience is extraordinary. That's what it means to be enlightened. And these are people who have moved away from suffering and moved towards contentment. So this is a, it's a long path, Kami, but I think it's important for you to walk it.

Okay. I understand it. Next question. You had two. You kind of answered my second question as well with the explanation there. Okay. Okay, one more question. One last one.

You talked about someone, Carol. I wanted to write the name down about... Carol Dweck. Carol Dweck. Okay, thank you. So she wrote a book called Mindset, which is like for popular consumption. Depending on whether you have access to research papers and stuff,

you can just look up her bibliography. But there's a book. And then we also touch on a lot of this stuff. I mean, have you seen Dr. Kay's guide? I actually haven't. So I would, you may get, I don't know if people who call in get access to it or not, I'm not quite sure, but you may actually want to check that out because I think there's a lot of stuff in there that will be, you know, was made for people like you. So understanding purpose, understanding happiness, even on, we talk in the recent guy, in the guy that's coming out, we talk a lot about mindset. And we have some, we lean on Carol Dweck's work and like how to change from this perspective of,

Accomplishing brings me happiness to focusing on the action brings me happiness. Okay. Okay. I'll definitely check into it. Good luck to you, Conno. Can I ask one professional question? Sure. What do you think about cultural psychiatry, the transcultural psychiatry in the gaming industry, the people in gaming? I don't understand the question. Okay, it's a really long question. Maybe I'll just email me. about it later. I mean, you can ask it, but if it's a really long question that you're shortening

to seven seven words, I think it's going to be hard for me to answer it. Yeah. Okay, I'll start it this way. Do you know about cultural psychiatry, the transcultural psychiatry? McGill works on it. So I'm familiar that psychiatry has a cultural component. Exactly. It's about that. do you know anyone who works on cultural aspects of psychiatry in the gaming culture because now they're moving towards... The culture of gaming or different cultures

combining in gaming? Culture of gaming. Like what is gamer culture? Exactly. And the mental health. I mean, so... Off the gamer. I mean, that's a lot of the work that we're actually trying to do because...

Yes. And more and more people are doing it. I'm not sure off the top of my head. Okay. You can reach out to TechTeller with your question, and then we can forward it to our research director and see if they know anything. Okay. Thank you. Good luck with that. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It's been weird looking into myself. Yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of weird when you first start doing it. Yeah. Good luck to you, Kami. I really mean it. Thank you. Thank you so much. I wish you the very best as well. Take care, man. Take care. Okay. So, and that lasted longer than expected. So I think once again, we're going to have to skip meditation, which we're going to have to do better about time management. But a couple of things to just recap, okay? So the first thing is that sometimes we go looking for happiness.

And either through a combination of how we're raised or, you know, cultural influences, we sort of assume that accomplishing a particular thing will make us happy. And that belief isn't entirely wrong, right? there's a reason we believe it. It's either through some kind of cultural influence or the way that we're raised by our family or even some of our own early experiences. The problem is that once we start to tie a particular accomplishment to happiness, what that sort of means for us is that we have to plan a particular kind of life to be happy. We start to tell ourselves like, okay, I have to go to this school, or I have to become a doctor, or I have to accomplish this, or I have to win a Nobel

prize, or I have to be promoted. And we start tying our happiness to particular worldly accomplishments. When you do this, sometimes it can be very helpful because you're going to work really hard because you assume that something is going to make you happy. But what happens oftentimes is that when you start living a life where external accomplishment is how you're chasing happiness, you tend to run into one of two things, either an early life crisis or a midlife crisis. Despite a lot of accomplishment, your mind continually tells you things like, oh, but look, that person is doing better, that person is doing better, that person is doing better. And despite all of your accomplishments, it feels like it's never enough, right? There's

always more to do. There's a higher mountain to climb. There's the next mountain and the next mountain and the next mountain. And then what happens is there's this like critical conflict in our mind between the part of our mind that was learned that if I accomplish particular things, I'll be happy, and the growing part of our mind that despite accomplishing these things, I'm still not happy. And when these two things butt in your head, this is when you get a life crisis. And what I'm seeing is especially in people who are accomplished, gifted, etc., this life crisis is not happening as a midlife crisis. It's happening as an early life crisis. And the crux of this life crisis is, hey, I've been playing the game.

of life with this particular strategy because I thought it would succeed. And what I'm discovering is despite succeeding, it's not working. And then we panic. Because what do we do next? Do we keep doing this strategy? Do we just assume that if I keep grinding for the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, I'll succeed? Or do we change our strategy? Do we say, oh my God, this did not work? So we have to find some way new. And even if we assume that, that's terrible. Because does this mean that I've screwed up? Does this mean that since I've been playing with the wrong strategy that my life is not recoverable and that I'm doomed to unhappiness? Or even there's anxiety, how do I find out which is the right strategy? I've wasted 10 years of my life with this strategy. How do I make sure that I don't waste the next 10 years? How do I find the right strategy? This is the crisis. And so oftentimes what ends up happening is that we conflate a lot of different things. our ego gets conflated with planning for the future gets conflated with happiness. If a particular plan for the future leads us to happiness and we crave happiness because

we feel insufficient, oh, I'm not good enough. What do I need to be to, what do I need to do to feel good enough? I need to win a Nobel Prize. How do I win a Nobel Prize? Let's adopt this plan. And so ego drives your life plan or an insecure. or a feeling of not being enough, creates a life plan with the end goal of being happiness.

And now we've combined all three of these things. But there's actually a fair amount of research that shows us that these three things are actually very separate. Resolving an insecurity can sometimes be done through psychotherapy. You don't have to live a particular life or win a Nobel Prize. You can just go see a therapist and they'll help you work through your insecurities. Planning a particular life doesn't necessarily lead to happiness. And there's even been research on this, that we know that there are certain principles of happiness,

like living in the present. It's not that winning a Nobel Prize will necessarily make you happy. And this is what we sort of see in people who are very, very accomplished as they think, okay, getting promoted, becoming VP will make me happy. Still not happy. Senior VP will make me happy. Still not happy. Junior partner will make me happy. Still not happy.

Senior partner will make me happy. Still not happy. So we go on accomplishing, accomplishing, accomplishing, and we're not happy at all. So the key thing if you're kind of in this situation is to tease these three things apart and dive into each one and don't plan a life to fix an internal insecurity because that's the strategy that's wrong is assuming that this internal dissatisfaction that I have will be fixed by someone handing me a piece of paper or by getting a corner office or by driving a fancy car. And so when we tangle all these three things together, which is exactly what our ego does, right? It says, I don't feel good enough, therefore accomplish more. When you accomplish more, you'll feel good enough. How do we accomplish?

We have to devote our life to doing this kind of thing. And so when I work with people like this, this is where really teasing apart these three things is really, really important. And working on them kind of individually. And as you do that, hopefully you'll resolve your insecurity. you'll start to discover the nature of happiness and be happier day to day, and you will actually be more accomplished in life.