Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: How to Live in Peace, Now.

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

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This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 143 sitting here with Echo Charles. There's a quote I want to read to you. It says this, if you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. Okay. It's kind of self-explanatory. It's a bit of advice from Lao Tzu, the old master, believed to have lived in

sixth century BC and China might have worked on the royal archives might have written or helped write the Taute Ching might have lived for a really long time might have been the product of a virgin birth there's a lot of Lee's a mythical guy right sure the mythical individual not much is known for certain about him but he's definitely one of the most respected sources of ancient wisdom in Chinese philosophy and here's the thing I like this quote, but not exactly how it's prescribed. Because I don't think you should only live in the present. I don't think you should only live in peace.

Like I don't think that's the crux of what we should be trying to do with this quote. I think it's more of a, of teaching you some indications and warnings of what could be happening in your life, of when you could be leaning too far in one direction or the other. I think it's a good way to understand your feelings and where those feelings are coming from. Because I think you should definitely think about the past. You should definitely remember the past. You should definitely learn from the past. You should definitely enjoy good memories of the past.

You should definitely study the past and the mistakes that you made. Right? You should do that. But if you go overboard with that and you live in the past, then you're filled with regret and remorse about what's happened to you. so it's just to me an indication let's say you're walking around today echo charles you woke up today you're feeling kind of you're dragging you're like uh you're thinking about things you don't feel happy you feel a little bit of regret you feel a little bit of depression and you're you just

have these feelings i think it's a good thing to think to yourself oh i remember jocko was talking about this he said i'm thinking a little too much about the past a little too much should you think about the past yes because if you don't learn from the past we make the same same mistakes. But if we're dwelling in the past, make that one. Dwelling. If we're dwelling in the past, it's problematic. So stop thinking so much about the past.

Just dial it down. And listen, I know it's hard, man. I know it's hard. The reason I know it's hard is because sometimes when I'm trying to go to sleep at night, I have thoughts. Sure. And I can't stop them. And I can't go to sleep for hours.

by the way yeah and I mean I had a long day I trained I lifted I worked maybe we recorded something like maybe I went surfing like the whole thing I should be tired but I mean there I'm thinking about this this thing and this thread and this other thing leads to that thing and I'm just can't go to sleep so I imagine when someone's having negative thoughts about the past it's kind of like that you can't just be like stop I'm gonna stop thinking about this because if I could do that I'd be falling sleep every night at you know nine 38.

All right. But it doesn't work that way. So I get it. But I think understanding about that, you can at least actively say, all right, I know what this is. I'm identifying it.

I find that if something's bothering me, I study it a little bit hard. You know, like focus on it. Like, okay, what am I really talking about here? What am I really thinking about here? So that can happen to us. Now, the other hand is,

it's good to prepare for the future, right? It's good to prepare for the future. to think about the future. It's good to get things ready. It's good when you acknowledge the path that you're on and you look to see where this path is leading and look to see how long it's going to take you to get there and what you can do to better prepare yourself as you're going on this path. That's all good. But since you can't control everything in the future, if you go too far, you'll be anxious about it, you'll be worrying about it, you'll be excessively focused on it which is problematic you can and you and i did a podcast where i was talking about being a little bit

paranoid right and i think it's good be a little bit paranoid i was i was honestly i was a little bit extra paranoid when i was in the i was in the team's parker day i was a little i was a little too paranoid in other words i had to you know be instead of being like 20 minutes early half an hour early i had to be 45 minutes out early i had to be an hour early i had to be an hour early for something I was good to go you know instead of like preparing for 20 minutes I had to prepare for for two hours and I wasn't the only one I'm not trying to say there's like guys like me that were like a little extra paranoid I think I missed out on stuff like normal life activities because I was a little pair a little too paranoid so I think is it

good to be a little paranoid yes it is could I have been personally a little Less paranoid. Yes, I could have. But that's different than me, a lot paranoid. Like obsessed, like OCD activity. Like, I can't sleep tonight because I'm going to be thinking about this thing that I'm, you see what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. So you got to watch out for both ends of these spectrums. You got, listen, you have to think about the past.

You have to learn from the past. You have to think about the future, how the thing's going to go in the future. but if you're feeling depressed or gloomy or somehow miserable, you might be living too much in the past and thinking too much about the past. And if you're anxious or constantly worried or you're over paranoid, you might be spending too much time thinking about the future. So I'm just trying to give you an opportunity to see where these feelings, these negative feelings might be coming from so you can make some adjustments that's it think about

what's happening now that's kind of my that's kind of my statement for the day so when you're when you can't sleep right the tape running in your hand over and over again like what do you do about it you just freaking suck it up um yeah basically i'll try and like pull the thread on enough but it it's like I haven't found a cure. My wife listened to something or read something that was like you count

you start with 20 breaths and you count each breath going backwards and it quote unquote gives you something to do this is very believable your or I agree with this letting your mind wander is way

harder to control than if your mind has something to do that's why it's like When you were a little kid, did you ever get told, like, count sheep? Yeah. Yeah. That's why. Just like count sheep.

Count your breath. Count this thing. My problem is with trying to count the breaths, it takes too long to breathe. And so I have like, I'm supposed to be thinking of a number, but I have, it's real easy for me to have 98 different thoughts in the four seconds. Yeah. And so what I've, I've tried to do, like, counting each breath as it goes, you know, like, I'm timing my breath now. 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1001, 1002, 1,002, 1,0003, 1004, 1002, yeah, I can see you're getting confused.

Yeah, well, basically I just try and occupy my mind with some menial task that will prevent it from thinking about all these crazy thoughts that I have. And does it work? Sometimes, not usually. So, you know, people ask you a lot, like, do you meditate? And then, you know, and I've heard you say this, which I agree with. But when you say, oh, yeah, like, jiu-jitsu is like kind of one of my forms of meditation, right? So it's lifting, surfing, yeah.

But it's not true. I know there's like all this other stuff about meditation. Yeah. Well, actually, really, when you want to go deep enough, it kind of is true. Because think about it. I mean, that's why jiu-jitsu is so therapeutic to us. You and I are bros, and I think that's blind. you right now. I think there's a bunch of stuff about meditation that I'm just not. Yes, not doing. I think

you're correct. And in fact, and this is why I even bring it up because jiu jitsu kind of forces you to do this, what meditation has you do as well. So you know, like, okay, uh, who is I talking? I think Kalipa maybe. I don't know. Maybe you, I don't know. Where jiu jitsu, if you're stressed about home, you got an argument with your boss, why, whatever. When you go to jiu jutsi, you don't have the attention span for a better way putting it. You have the mental capacity to think about that fight. Yeah. You just got to think about not getting choked.

Not getting choked, how freaking tired I am. Like I sweat. Like basically everything right in front of you, which is a lot. It's like that's the only thing you have the attention span for. Bandwidth mental man. Right. And then your body gets into this pattern, this rhythm. Let's say you do five rounds, right?

I feel like five rounds is like the perfect cutoff of like anything less than that you feel a little bit like you didn't get your full feel. Anything more than that is like, good. on who you rolled with. Yeah, absolutely. But if you figure where the five rounds, let's say they're five minutes, six minutes, whatever, that's about 25, 30 minutes of straight up, not thinking about anything else except for what's in front of you, right?

So meditation from what I understand anyway, the beginning, you know, there's different levels of meditation. So the fundamental part of it from what I'm told is just focusing on your breath, right? Yep, that is one of the fundamental parts of it for sure. And then so think about that where essentially you're doing the same thing, but instead of focusing on what the guy's trying to do you and what you're trying to do to the guy in Jiu-Zitsu, you're focused on just your breath. You're actively monopolizing your mental attention to your breath. Just so you don't think about all this other stuff. You're trying to do what jih Tzu's do.

Yeah. Just naturally, you know. So when you're, I asked you because this happened to me pretty recently where I'm like thinking about stuff. And it's not even bad stuff. Actually, a lot of it was good stuff. So for me, I could be thinking about a book plot. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

And it's just like, yeah, just don't stop. Yeah. And so I'm like, Brian, I'm kind of up late right now. Like I'm not like I've been here for,

I think it was like two and a half hours of just that. Yeah, I've done that. So I'm like, all right. So I did that. I tried to do that. I was like,

okay, I'm going to do this thing. How is it 12, in the morning? Yeah. For me, it was a lot later. But yeah,

exactly right. Same exact question. And it was Sam Harris, who, said like okay the beginning of focusing on your breath so I'm like focusing on my breath right and it is weird how hard that ends up being if you're not used to it yeah so I'm like shoot I'm already thinking about something else like freaking 20 seconds in I'm already thinking about something else just total lack of mental discipline yeah I'm right here dude but after a while when you're like oh I see what's going

on and you start to get used to it you start to kind of kind of pick it up you know pick up the skill or whatever and then it does help like you you do you don't realize it, but it's like, dang, I haven't really thought about anything. And then before you know, you're kind of sleeping. Yeah. I think that's a good call. Yeah. But that's a good way to kind of zoom out, detach, if you will.

I think that those sleeping scenarios can often be like either thinking about the past or thinking about the future, right? Yeah. Whereas if you make yourself think about like how many breaths you're taking in a second or whatever, you can be like, oh, now you're just thinking about right now and hopefully you can fall asleep. Yeah. Yeah. Because really when you think about it and I don't know, look, am I. By the way, for me, it's not like every night I'm like that. Right.

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