HealthyGamerGG - The Struggle for Control in Today's World

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

🎙️ Join Dr. K as he tackles the struggle for control in today's chaotic world. He shares his observations on increasing levels of depression and despair and offers a path towards peace. Through a simple meditation technique, Dr. K shows us how to reclaim our power and find inner calm. 🧘‍♂️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want to talk to you all today about how to gain control in a world that is complete chaos. I've seen this come up more and more where it seems like society as a whole is becoming more depressed. I see people sort of making posts about, okay, like how do I exist as a man today? Right? Like, I can't support a family. I'm saddled in debt. Like, I can't buy a house. It seems like there's just more despair everywhere we look.

And the problem is that the scale of problems that people are dealing with, maybe that you're dealing with, like you just can't fix them, right? You can't fix things like climate change. And I heard recently that, you know, some parts of the United States have passed bills that allow like 14-year-olds to work overnight in restaurants and like meat packing plants and things like that. Like, we can't control what is going on today. And the problem is that what's going on today, it seems like kind of like the world is going to hell, right? So much stuff is getting worse. It's like for about 100 years as the human race, we were focused on surviving. And we sort of achieved that.

And even today, like survival is not too hard. But somehow at some point we like started prioritizing survival over like hope. And so the world, everyone's living really long, but everyone is becoming incredibly hopeless. The climate is changing. There's runaway inflation. People are saddled in debt. there's even like these things on the horizon that are really terrifying like you know the number of new children being born is like stagnating so there are some societies where like we won't be able

to take care of old people anymore and so we kind of look at the world like we've created something where you know sure we're not dying and there's improvements in things like infant mortality and medicine and we kind of managed COVID in some ways but like so much stuff is getting worse and the challenge is if you're like existing in this world I hear people struggling it's like how do I live, right? How do I wake up every day and do something? Because all of the effort that I put forth seems like it's not going to be enough. And believe me, I see it too. It's like I can't fix those problems, right? Like you can't fix climate change. You can't fix inflation. You can't fix wealth inequality. You can't fix that we're like, you know, managing to destroy our oceans.

you can't fix how tall you are and what online dating is looking like and like you can't fix any of that stuff. So how the hell do you deal with it? And it's funny because I see this meme that's been circulating recently about, you know, it's like the bus meme where there's like this person who's looking in one side and they're like, they're really sad because they have no control in their life. And on the other side, someone is really happy because they have no control in life. And that seems to be sort of the answer, right?

is because we can kind of acknowledge that we have no control, but then there's like some people who are able to be happy with it. And that seems to be a big part of the answer, but like we don't really know how to do that. And so I'm going to share with you all today, like how to move from one side of the bus to the other side of the bus. How can you move from being devastated by a lack of control in your life to actually being at peace with having no control over your life?

And bizarrely, how you can actually start to gain some control by acknowledging that you have no control. Hey there, thanks for watching, and I'm glad these videos have been helpful. A lot of times I'll read the comments and see people asking, well, what do I actually do about it? Which is a great question.

And unfortunately, the resources out there haven't been that great, which is precisely why I started at HG in the first place. HG coaches are trained on a curriculum that integrates my understanding of what motivates us, what paralyzes us, and most importantly, what leads to lasting behavioral change. If you're ready to take the next step, HG coaches can help you build the life that you want.

They've helped people build careers, help people find relationships, build networks of friends, and even do things like discover their passions or pursue hobbies. So if this sounds like something that you'd be interested in, check out the link in the description below. And this is a problem that is becoming increasingly worse, frankly because our brains were not evolved to deal with the society that we live with today. So we have to understand that like society has changed rapidly over the last 200 years over the last 2,000 years. But our brains have evolved over like millions of years, hundreds of thousands of years. And so if you kind of think about what have our brains evolved for?

So what was like the scope of bad news that the human brain could get? Right. So we lived in like tribal communities for like most of like homo sapiens existence, maybe like 50 people, 100 people, 200 people, maybe like 50 kilometers away. There was like another tribe. And so you wake up every day and like what's the bad news that you can get? Like you only get bad news from your tribe. Maybe someone got sick. Maybe someone, you know, had an accident. But it's not like the amount of information that is coming into your brain is like problematic. And so the other way to think about it is like you can think about animals like chimpanzees and how much negative information or hopeless information do chimpanzees get. And so human beings haven't evolved for this high stimulation

that we live in today. Our brains have evolved for like these low stimulation, natural environments where maybe once in a while there's kind of like a drought and you kind of wonder what you need to do about that. But on a day-to-day basis, like things are pretty chill. That's how they are for animals. That's how they've been for the majority of human history. And that's what our brains have evolved for. And so generally speaking, even then when our brains faced a problem, like a global problem, like a big problem, like a drought or a fire or someone in our community who's been injured or died while they were hunting or something like that, our brains can process that and figure out how to deal with it. If there's a drought, okay, we need to like, we know there's like a river

that's a hundred kilometers away. So we need to move in that direction. We can kind of fix that problem. So even in the scale of global problems, our brains are able to process that and sort of come up with an answer. But if we think about the world today, the high stimulation internet information age. This is the information age. And what do we get overloaded with? Information. So now our brains are sort of like overburdened because how do I fix climate change?

How do I fix inflation? How do I navigate dating? How do I navigate this mental health crisis? How do I navigate narcissistic relationships? How do I navigate being bullied by some rando on the internet? How do I navigate the fact that my tweet didn't get as much likes as it got yesterday? This is what your brain is trying to navigate. and it has no idea how to do it because that's not what it was designed for.

And so what do we do in this situation, right? Because we're getting overburdened by problems that we can't solve and our brain does not know how to move forward. So we're seeing an unprecedented level of existential depression, hopelessness, and despair. And it turns out that there's actually an answer to this problem. And human beings sort of figured it out actually a couple thousand years ago when society started ramping up. So as society started to develop, what we notice is that human beings started to despair more about the future, about things that were out of their control. And the best example of this, I think, actually comes from the Hindu tradition. And there's this text called the Bhagavad Gita, which is a conversation between a prince and his charioteer.

And the prince is despairing because there's a civil war that's about to break out. On the prince's side, there's good guys. And then on the opposite side are actually his cousins. And on the opposite side is a lot of people that he loves and respects. So his grandfather, who he loves and respects is on the opposite team. His teacher is on the opposite team. And he's despairing because he's like, I don't want to kill my grandfather. I don't want to destroy the kingdom.

I don't want, like, what's going to happen? Like, we're fighting and there's no, there's no winning here. There's just going to be losing because even if we live, we've killed half of our family and we've devastated the kingdom. And so he's despairing. And he's like, you know what? I don't want to fight. Like, I'm done. Like, it's not.

I can't fix this problem. So as charioteer who's Krishna turns to him, he's kind of believed to be divine or whatever, because he, why is he divine? Because he figured this out, right? So he shares with Arjun, the prince, one piece of wisdom. And the whole conversation is central

around this kind of one piece of wisdom, which is, and what he tells Arjun is that as a human being, you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. All you are entitled to is the actions themselves. So it sounds kind of bizarre, But what he tells Arjun is that you can't really control whether the kingdom is ruptured, whether if you go into battle against your grandfather, you can't control whether your grandfather dies or not. Maybe you could die.

You can't control whether you're going to die. You can't control whether your grandfather's going to die. You can act. Right. But even if you go into combat, sometimes you lose. And so what he tells Arjun is that fundamentally you do not control anything outside of you. You can't control whether you win the war or lose the war. you can't control whether you live or die.

You can plant a seed every single day for the rest of your life, and none of them may turn into plants. All you can control as a human being is your actions. And so I went to India and I discovered this philosophy. It was taught to me, and I sort of implemented and transformed the way that I started to live my life. And if you guys want to learn how to do this, how can you transition from being terrified of all of the things that are going wrong in the world that fill you with despair and paralysis because you can't fix them?

And you're damn right, you can't fix them. Right. And there are people out there who are telling them that, yes, you can fix these problems. If you're a dude who's five foot three balding and overweight, it's going to be hard to find a healthy relationship through online dating. This is a reality that a ton of people experience. And the challenge then is in that situation, you can't make someone fall in love with you. And I want y'all to think about this for a second.

What are the things that you try to control in your life? Do you try to get people to love you? Do you try to get people to respect you? Do you try to be the best? Right? You can't, you literally cannot do that. It's impossible. You cannot control someone else's thoughts.

And the more that you realize that, the better off you're going to be. And so where does this journey start? So I'm going to teach you all really simple meditation technique. Okay? Simplest meditation technique that I've ever taught. So I want you to take your hands and I want you to put them in front of you. And then I want you to make fists. And then I want you to close your eyes and clench your fists.

And then your hands are kind of touching in front of you. And now I want you to kind of move them out and clench your upper body. And feel the tension. And now come back towards the center gently. Keep your eyes closed and just feel your body. And now take a deep breath in and out and relax. Let your arms come back to your sides. keep your eyes closed. And I want you to feel who you are in the second. Feel your body,

feel, notice your mind. And notice right now in this moment, what can you actually control? If you really pay attention, you're going to recognize and you can open your eyes now. Like, this is it. This is everything you can control. You cannot control anything outside of this. I'm trying to film something right now, but I can't control whether the hard drive record. I can't control whether the camera messes up. I can't control whether the power goes out. I cannot make this video. Do you all get that?

All I can do is show up, click a button, turn everything on, and try to shoot it. Whether it actually gets made or not is completely out of my control. There are thousands of things that can happen that I have no control over. So if you want to start this, it starts with this very simple exercise. And what I encourage you all to do is sit there for five minutes and literally look at what you have control over in this life. All it is is this. It's this body. I can control what I do with my fingers. To a certain extent, I can control what I do with my mind, right? And some of us

don't have control over our body or our mind. And that's it. Once you realize this, it starts to change a lot of different things. Once you realize that, hey, I can't make this person fall in love with me. Once you start to realize that, okay, if I'm five foot two and I'm balding, I may not be able to find a partner online. You can't control that. And normally what that causes us to do is it leads to despair. But that's only if we're focused on the outcome. So if I wake up every day and I focus on what I can actually do, which is what this instrument, what this human body is capable of, what's bizarre is this leads to peace and it leads to success. And the real tragedy is that the more that we spend energy trying to control things outside of us,

the worst things actually become. Because think about it for a second, right? If I spend my entire day worrying about how to get this person to continue to love me or not break up with me or how I get this promotion or how I get an A on a test, I can't make this person love me and I try. And since I fundamentally cannot use mind control, I can't make that person love me. And so I try and I try and I try and it's impossible to do. So what does that mean? It means I inevitably fail.

The more that I try, the more that I fail. The more that I fail for an impossible task, the more despair I have. And that's natural as well. Because the brain is like, hey, we've tried this, it didn't work. We tried this. It didn't work. We try this. It didn't work.

I see this all the time when people are talking about dating. They're trying, trying, trying, failing, failing, failing, failing, therefore it is impossible. And it's fundamentally because they cannot control another human being. All you can control is yourself. And this is something that like I kind of discovered luckily, right? So I went to India and someone had, I was lucky enough to where someone taught me this principle and I started implementing it, right?

I started closing my eyes every day and focusing on this person that I am. And this is the only thing that I can control. And the really bizarre thing is when I was in college, I was focused on getting A's and I wanted to be the best and I wanted to go to Harvard. I wanted all these outcomes. And what did I end up doing? I was so worried about being the best that I just didn't study. And I started failing and failing and failing.

Then I applied to medical school the first time and got rejected from 40 medical schools. Applied again next year, 40 more. Applied third year. Hey, I got accepted to one place. And I started med school. And at this point, I had learned this philosophy. It's even today how I try to live my life. You know, why did I keep applying if I kept getting rejected?

Really simple, because there's only one. I can't control whether I get in or not. All I can control is whether I apply. Really simple. I had family members telling me, hey, this is stupid, you should do something else. What about plan B, bro? You've been doing nothing for three years. I was like, you know what? This is all I can control. I'm going to do it. So when I started to med school, that philosophy was front and center. I didn't care about my grades. I cared about, hey, what am I going to do? I'm going to learn medicine. And it got to the point where when I graduated, it's kind of a cringe story. I didn't even go to my graduation ceremony. There was like an award ceremony. Because in my mind, I had not even considered, there's no way I'm going to win an award.

Right? Because, like, I'm this degenerate who's like failed a bunch of classes. I'm not even looking at my grades. I'm just focused on learning the material. Turns out I won two awards and didn't even show up. It never crossed my mind. And even today, I'm not saying this is like, it's not, I'm not trying to flex on y'all. I'm just sort of saying that if you sort of think about it, right? Think about how much energy you waste. thinking about despairing about things that are outside of your control. And I've been there. I've been so terrified of not graduating from failing a class that I can't even study.

I've been so terrified of being alone that any time I talk to someone, I'm thinking about, oh my God, this person is going to discover that I'm a loser and that I've never been on a date before. Or that my dates have been catastrophic and I'm trying to go out on dates on people. But I can't even ask them out because I can't get rejected. So like we go on these dates where I think it's a date and they don't think it's a date because I don't have the balls to ask him out. This is the crap that goes on in my head. And how did I end up finding a girlfriend? I decided to be celibate.

Stopped worrying about it. Focused on what I can actually control. And that's the frigging irony, right? And there's science to back this stuff up. That if you want to attain a flow state, you can't be focused on the outcome. You have to be focused on the action. And so it starts with this. close your eyes for a moment and just recognize what you are. This is it, buddy. This is all you can

control. Anything that you can feel you can control. And think about all the people that you're worried about. You don't want this person to do this. You don't want this person to do this. I've been traumatized. And they're like, oh my God, like, you know, it's terrible, right? Because you can't control someone if you're in an abusive situation. You don't necessarily have the freedom to get out of it. And other people can give you advice, just leave. You can't do that. All you can control is in here. And the real tragedy is even in here is a struggle. Literally, the purpose of HG and why we started doing this is to help you win the war in here. We're not out there telling you to go fix climate change. We're not out

there telling you to go fix the economy. We're not worried about any of that crap because all of that stuff, even if you think about the philosophy of what we're doing here, we don't solve the world's problems because we can't. I cannot save this mental health crisis. I can't fix climate change. I can't do any of it. And yet, I wake up every day and I'm pretty excited about life. I'm grateful for life. I sometimes get these terrifying thoughts of the world that my children will inherit.

Can't control that. What can I do? I can try to help. I can show up. I can make this video. I can teach you this principle. I can give you one exercise to get started. And the rest, honestly, is up to you because I can't fix you.

Right? I maybe is brilliant or whatever trained. here or whatever, like studied in India, I cannot fix you. All I can do is share this with you. The rest of it is entirely in your ball court. And the Buddha, for example, conquered this problem and it took him like 10 years. I haven't conquered it. I learned some of it. And that took me eight years. And the struggle that you have is 100% real. I do not mean to minimize it. But if you really want to understand how can you be at peace with the fact that the world is going to hell? You be at peace.

because you can't control that crap anyway. All you can control is yourself. And the cool thing is that if you start there in whatever the tiniest way that you can, and it could be something as simple as after you're done with this video, you're going to get up and you're going to take a shower for the first time in a week, or you're going to fix yourself a healthy snack, or you're going to open a textbook and start studying, or you're going to do something else.

And this is what we try to teach you. The rest of what we do is all about teaching you how to conquer yourself. And the last story that I'm going to leave you all with is when I became a doctor, I trained at some pretty good places, had amazing teachers, and I worked really hard. And I can't stop death. I had patients with cancer, got diagnosed, can't fix them. I'd sometimes had patients who were traumatized, suicidal. I can't fix them either.

I can try, but I cannot fix them. And so the last thing, the thing that I'm incredibly grateful for is I've been. been given a life where there are times where I've thought that I can fix other people. And boy, did life show me how wrong I was. And this is the really crazy thing, the really beautiful thing about working with a patient who's terminally ill is when you share this philosophy with them, they can find peace with death. They can find peace with, okay, this is actually out of my control.

I cannot control whether I live or die. And so what I'm going to do is just live every day to the fullest. And that's what I'm encouraging y'all to do. I completely agree that the world is going to hell. There's despair and hopelessness all over the place. There's climate change, inflammation. You know, relationships are getting screwed. The economy is getting screwed.

The oceans are getting screwed. Everything's getting screwed. And you can't do anything about that. What can you do? Close your eyes. Make a fist. Put your arms together. Feel that.

Because that's all you can control. And once you start focusing on that, fingers crossed, the solution that worked for Arjun, the solution that worked for Buda, and the solution that has worked for hundreds of people that I've taught it to will work for you too. But hey, here's the crazy thing. You say, but what if it doesn't work? I can't control whether it works and you can't control whether it works. The only thing that's important is whether you try.