Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 96: Things To Look Forward To

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

Someone once told Steve a secret to happiness he's never forgotten: “You always need to have two things to look forward to.” “Why two?” “You need one so that you can look ahead and know something exciting is on the horizon. And you need to a second so that you don’t get depressed when the first one ends.” In this episode we talk about: - The benefits of "positive anticipation" for your happiness - Why purpose really matters - Whether you should keep chocolate in the fridge --- Join us on our virtual retreat on March 19-21! Go to MHVirtualRetreat.com and spend a magical 3 days with us transforming your confidence and relationships... -- Also, we love to hear from you! You can email the show at [e-mail]!  --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey  

🎵 Well, hello everyone and welcome back. What's going on, Matt? We're at the very sort of end here of a long winter. There's a lot, you know, mum has been putting out a lot of the spring stuff about the home. So it feels like very much we're entering the new phase of the season when I've seen her she's you know popping early Easter decorations around little chicks going up on her mantelpiece and I feel like things are there's a new chapter well she suddenly got space because it's March

and she only took the Christmas decorations down yesterday. That is true. That is true. I mean, honestly, it was starting to look mental. Watching like you guys, you know, doing FaceTimes with you guys at home and still seeing Christmas decorations everywhere. And it being March was starting to freak me out a little bit. It went down at the end of February, but it was quite, it was quite excessive. We finally got rid of them all. And here we are.

So I was thinking about what's ahead and thinking about the topic of happiness, of life satisfaction, as I'm often one to ponder. I like to maybe overthink about these things. But I was thinking about how important it is to have things to look forward to in life and the importance of positive anticipation you know when it comes to happiness there's not there's no like as much as people like to give it i don't really think there's a secret to happiness i think with a lot of important things in life, there are many secrets, right? And happiness anyway is a bit of an elusive concept at the best of times.

Your mood changes, it comes and goes, and it's quite a hard thing to grasp on. But I do think about what keeps you motivated, what keeps you excited, what gives you some kind of good feeling throughout the day. And I always remember our cousin Danny said this to me once ages ago, but he talked about how he had heard that you always need two things to look forward to and you need one so that you've got something on the horizon that excites you and then you need another one so that you don't get depressed when the first one's over so so you're not you're not suddenly lamenting the fact that it's immediately done when that that party you were looking forward to is over. And it always stuck with me as like, that is pretty, that's a pretty profound piece of advice.

And I've always thought about it ever since. And there was a, in Psychologies magazine, there was this, they were talking about a journal article that found that people had a more intense emotional reaction when thinking about an upcoming skiing holiday in the future, the one they took in the past. And it talked about how we have an expectation that future events will make us feel more emotional than we do about ones that have already gone so basically there's a there's a real advantage day to day to you positively anticipating the future and you know we've heard this as well where apparently a big part of the excitement of making a trip is like the plans the enjoying it with your spouse or your friends all getting up to it and like that's a big part of the whole thing as well and i think there's something about that in every part of life all right would you say it would be pessimistic to take from that second point that it's a good thing we as human beings

don't have good enough memories to remember how last time it wasn't that great either like we think we always think that the neck like bliss is in the next vacation or in the next great weekend and we don't actually remember that vividly that like the last one was all right but it didn't like was bliss wasn't there well i guess so if you're remembering an old vacation, you don't get excited. It's like a nice thought, but it's not like excitement, is it? Because it's already happened.

And it's like, oh yeah, we went to Barcelona. Well, before I answer that, Steve, Jameson, this phone is going to die because my theory was correct. It doesn't plug in. It doesn't work from a computer could we figure out a way to keep this charged while I talk thanks pal um so on your first point well I suppose Steve I'd put it back to you that idea of always having two

things to look forward to because then when one of them ends, you've still got something coming up. I think there's some truth to that. But do you worry that mindfulness teachers would say that is, by definition, never being in the moment and always living in the future? Yeah, that's the thing, right? That whole philosophy is always the elephant in the future. Yeah, that's the thing, right? That whole philosophy is always the elephant in the room. And I've got a lot of time for the mindfulness philosophy for sure. I don't meditate as much as one would recommend, but I do. And I've enjoyed it when I do and see the value in it. But first of all, that may be compatible anyway because you could enjoy the practice of being mindful

about the wonderful things you have coming up in your life. So there's a kind of like maybe they can harmonize together there where you might just think, I've got wonderful things in my life. I'm looking forward to seeing my family. I'm looking forward to that. But yeah, it is on some level, it is not being 100% in your moment. But I do know-

Well, could it be- I do know that a huge part of, say, a huge factor in depression is often thinking that there's not something good ahead or there's nothing exciting ahead there's nothing to look forward to and just reverse engineering that you do think well is it does help me when I think oh in a couple of weeks yeah we've got this pandemic and lockdown now but you know this is going to be really nice when I can see my family and do that or

the travel I'm going to do another time is going to be really fun or whatever. This work thing is exciting coming up. So it does all help me, I think. I feel like it's also got to be possible to be present with anticipation in a weird way. You know when you're planning a holiday and the exciting part is planning the holiday, you can be present with that moment where you enjoy the planning part. You are, it doesn't mean you're not being present because you're planning something that's happening in the future. I suppose the distinction would just be to also in, you know, to not live in this constant state of when I get to that vacation, it will be exciting. Enjoy the planning because the planning

is fun, not because you think that the holiday is going to be like the answer to your problems but I do think that having having things to look forward to is important I mean my god that's what's kept a lot of people going during the pandemic is this feeling that it will there will be a time where this gets better. And in a sense, I think sometimes looking forward to something allows us to enjoy the moment more when we say, well, look, I know I'm going to see my family in three months. You know, if I, if I know, okay, I miss my family in England. I know I'm going to be able to see you guys in two months. Then I, that it sort of is a pressure valve that means I stop worrying

about that. And then I can actually enjoy my day today. I often think when we don't feel like we have a pressure valve, when we feel like there's nothing coming that's going to be a relief from some situation we're in right now, that's when it gets hard to tolerate the day to day. Yeah. And it's almost good if you can have things you know a couple of things that in the horizon near enough that they are you know even if it's small you know it's just like oh i've booked to take that course next month that's cool i'm gonna see that person like just having them as like these markers to like that's something i'm gonna work my week towards or enjoy that next month yeah it's all it's all part of you know happiness is this weird thing again it's very like

holistic it involves so many things it's hard to say like you know this is the the thing um but yeah i i think you know and that but but I agree if you get obsessed with a vision of the future and that's all you think about is like, when I'm 60, this is going to happen. That's probably not a good idea. That's probably not a good idea to think this will be the solution. And this is the thing that's going to sort out my life and make me happy. Well, I mean, I was listening to jordan peterson talked to tim ferris recently and he on the tim ferris podcast and you know peterson said like the most depressing moment can be when you finish a writing project you know you think about it as being really

difficult when you're in it but then you finish it and you're missing purpose you don't have some something to focus on now now you really feel like you're in trouble and you can suddenly feel like this grief for this project that's ended so I I always try and remember that when I'm in the middle of a different difficult project that you know that's I don't know I don't I wouldn't say the fun part but the part where we feel connected where we feel like we've got purpose and And I think more and more, I just think purpose is the answer to so many things. I really believe like there are fun checkpoints, you know, the, the virtual retreat is like a fun checkpoint is something that's

happening next weekend. It will, it's simultaneously a really difficult thing that brings me a lot of meaning and purpose in the lead up to it and during. It's also something that will give me relief afterwards. But the relief that comes after having done it doesn't last for that long. You know, before long, I want a sense of purpose again. We don't always have to be working at the same rate to have a sense of purpose again we don't always have to be working at the same rate to have a sense of purpose and that's one of the things I'm trying to learn in my life is working in manageable ways working in sustainable ways and in more enjoyable ways in some cases rather than doing too much but I do think that that having a sense of purpose in life is, it was also brought up by Peterson, I think the idea that

you can endure life's struggle if you have purpose, if you have something that's keeping you here, you know, that I do really believe that. I think there's a lot of stroke. There's a lot of, there's a lot that's said about happiness. And I feel there's not lot of stroke. There's a lot of, there's a lot that's said about happiness. And I feel there's not enough said about dealing with struggle and, you know, what it takes to, to deal with life's darkness, life's difficult moments. And I think that one of the things that keeps us around, one of the things that keeps us here and able to get through our current struggles is having a purpose is having something to focus on that gives our life meaning yeah yeah i agree um it's just one of those things, like you say, when things end, you have to renew it and you have to sometimes and say for whatever reason that meaning that purpose is no longer viable and it gets snatched away or there's reasons it becomes difficult and people

often get stuck when they don't alter what that purpose is now because they go well it was that and now i can't do that so you know my life's over and you know i i can't do that. So, you know, my life's over and I can't do that. What's the point of living? And I think you, you know, as you get older and your priorities change and things, you kind of have to be willing to be like, maybe my purpose is a little different now. And maybe my contribution looks a bit different now. Maybe I'm more about the people around me right now or experiences. And, you know, that's why it's often good to have different role models

for different times and things in your life. Because sometimes a role model you needed five years ago is not the role model you need now. Well, role models can be really dangerous because you can be copying what looks like success but you don't see all of the things that are driving that person which may not be good like they may not be healthy someone being outwardly successful as we all know doesn't mean they're happy and it doesn't mean that the right things

are driving them. You know, you can say, you can have someone who's getting a lot done and is achieving a lot and is doing it for all of the right reasons and beautiful intentions and, you know, just really enjoys what they're doing and is excited about it. And you can have someone who looks exactly the same on the surface, but who's doing so much because they're thinking there's an ego component to it. That's always driving them. There's a component to it. That's always about trying to show that they can be bigger and better than the next person, trying to show that they can always be number one. And that could be a dangerous thing. We can end up copying the results of somebody else

and not realizing that the thing driving those results is something that will make you as unhappy as it's making them. Yeah, yeah. You have to, that's why you have to dig and find your own why and not borrow, you know, borrow the model of how you're going to live just from looking,

like success is very charismatic. That's the thing. And so it's very tempting to just want to transplant what that person does and how they live to what you do um but yeah you you've kind of got to you kind of got to find your own reasons uh otherwise you just end up floating around looking at like i'm attracted to this person's confidence i want to be like them i want to be like this person i want to be like michael jordan i want to be like them. I want to be like this person. I want to be like Michael Jordan. I want to be like this entrepreneur. And you're just kind of, you know, borrowing bits without questioning what they're doing for you. You really, you really

have to be proactive about deciding who your role models are and be, be really intentional about it. Be clear about it. Don't just take, you you know I don't so there's sometimes these inspirational documentaries that come out and I know like en masse everyone watches them and they're like wow it's so amazing whatever that person's done sometimes I'm watching I'm going I've something's off to me like I or I don't I don't there's something about this that that makes me uncomfortable like I don't know what that seems about this that makes me uncomfortable. Like, I don't know what, it seems like what's driving this person isn't necessarily a good thing, but we're very quick. There's a lot of, you know, that there's, there's a lot of really heavy handed inspirational

messages and figures out there that I think everything, things tend to lack nuance. And it's why we have to be really discriminating when it comes to what it is, is going to drive us. So what is my life? What do I want my life to look like? Because there are more messages than ever right now, telling us what success looks like, telling us what you should be getting and and it's become like caricatured I mean it it's become this weird like a robot now is imitating whatever inspiration once was like you know when you go on Instagram now and the quotes aren't even they they're not even by the people that said them half the time anymore. Like there was one that was like, I saw one recently that was Conor McGregor and it was a

quote. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are always so good. I wish everyone could get rich and famous so that they could realize it doesn't work. And I was like that was jim carrey secondly that doesn't sound like something conor mcgregor would even say but it literally is quoted as conor mcgregor and now we're like so now it doesn't even matter who says it now it's just it literally is like this algorithm that's just pumping out motivational sludge that we consume on a on a like breakneck speeds that we can't possibly turn into any meaningful form of happiness or a better life it really it scares me yeah and it's like this kind of subliminal advertising they just like throw like you like chris hemsworth right here's a picture of chris hemsworth and then under it it says um I'm gonna be there for the people when I'm on top I'm gonna be there for

the people who are there when I'm down or something and it's like there's no indication of Chris Hemsworth ever said that but he just looks good in the picture with his shirt and he's successful so it's just like yeah and it's uh yeah like you say it's just very it's, uh, yeah, like you say, it's just very, it's a very synthetic form of inspiration. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, uh, that's why you've got to, um, you've got to narrow it down. I think, I think, you know, when you've been trying to, you're being told you need everything. I think it just gets so overwhelming and then people wonder why they're frustrated all the time i think it's just like you're being sold

someone else's life or some other idea of what a good life looks like i mean honestly you would probably be better off if we all took one great like phrase or one great idea from social media, you know, Instagram, Facebook, whatever, one of those like bumper sticker quotes. And you just said, I'm just going to do that for the rest of the year. Your life would be better than if you consume a thousand of them every month for the next 12 months because those ideas like that they're massive ideas like can you imagine each one of those big like just massive statements about life or how we should live or what the way we should think each one of them inside each one is a world, is a world of wisdom and knowledge and difficulty in doing it. So you could spend your whole year just trying to do one of those things and it would improve your life. But the idea that it's like, you know, we take Sun Tzu's wisdom and just distill it down to a post. And it's like a one second,

like, Oh, that's really good. Next. Like that's going to have an impact on your life. He was good at creating memes, Sun Tzu. He had a lot of quotes.

He did have a lot of memes. Very short and snappy as well. He'd have had millions of Instagram followers. And, and he'd just have become some Instagram philosopher and that would have been it. But he'd have had to make sure he had a decent body or he'd have to put other people with his quotes.

And talk about manliness a lot. All right. Well, hey, listeners, why don't you tell us, going back to our original idea here why don't you tell us two things you are looking forward to or that you could look forward to um to get a bit of positive anticipation going and uh you know they can be small they can just be seeing a friend they can be a really good meal could be uh a friend. They can be a really good meal. Could be somewhere you want to go in the next three months.

But yeah, let us know. Podcast at MatthewHussey.com or DM me at Stephen H. Hussey on Instagram. But yeah, send us in. All right, Matthew. Wellew well wait hang on i i've asked for the answers to the question from last time you've said i've got to wait till the end and now you're just going to wrap up the episode and not tell me well we we still have answers coming in matt the thing is these podcasts don't go out immediately after you make them because I bagger when they get released.

So I get nothing. Well, I can... Hang on. Let's see what we've got here. We've got one from... Do you want one or not? Yeah, I want one.

We've got one from Barbara who says, Hello Matt and Stephen. After Matthew's request for feedback and relentless piss taking of Stephen on this topic, I was moved to send a comment. Just to say, I very much enjoy your brotherly banter. Pickles, puddings and the film of Poltergeist needs to be made. Make it so. So she likes her. Just to to be clear she likes me taking the piss out of you no she did not say that and you shouldn't read into her words like that she just

said after your relentless piss taking she said she had a good time but yeah okay who else uh nicola says stephen and matthew i find your instagram videos of your podcast recordings highly entertaining and real it's like eavesdropping on a conversation between siblings slash friends yeah i'll describe this as those uh reminds me of the chats i have with my sister it makes the house less quiet when the children aren't here general ramblings are welcome with words of wisdom sprinkled in. My suggestion is MTV style cribs or hussy homes. Love looking at your mum's Christmas decorations. And she says, oh, I look beyond your shoulder. I think she's talking about you, Matthew, and think that it looks like a very interesting garden.

There aren't many gardens like that in Yorkshire. So she's saying she wants a nosy of your garden. Also, a quirk of mine is seeing the contents of someone's fridge. Tells you a lot about a person. Always ask permission though, with the exception of family. I always go straight to the fridge in their house. One guy I asked had a banana in the fridge. Who puts bananas in the fridge? So I suggest you both share the contents of your fridge no cheating though and staging it uh she says you're both always entertaining thank you nicola i agree with the bananas in the fridge thing pointless pointless unless you're really trying to hold

on to a banana for a long time which why would you famously there's some differences between the uk and the us here because the people in in America think the Brits are crazy for not putting eggs in the fridge, which we never do in England. And Americans always put their eggs in the fridge, I understand. I put my eggs in the fridge now, but I sort of agree. I like the look of an egg in the fridge, but it doesn't make any difference to me. Whereas a banana, when you're eating a banana ice cold, is is horrible i don't know why anyone would want to do it the same was chocolate in the fridge i i can't understand why you'd want chocolate that doesn't melt in your mouth well matt you know me and you disagree on this because i love to put a little bit of chocolate to cool it

in the fridge and get that lovely snap when you eat it. And yeah, I love it. If you want tasteless chocolate, go for it. If all you want is texture, then fine. I even confess it takes away some of the taste, but that lovely crack with a glass of milk, like hard chocolate, that is just, to me, that's a pure pleasure. I'll do that with a peanut butter cup, because then you've still got something soft in the middle. You'll do a lot with a peanut butter cup because then you've still got something soft in the middle. You'll do a lot with a peanut butter cup

because you're bloody... They're like crack to you. Yeah, I love them. I absolutely love them. Well, Steve, when's this going out? Is it going out before the virtual retreat? Yes, it is. Right. Well, then in that case everyone last chance this is your last chance to get on the last call for people to get on the

virtual retreat train before it leaves the station go to mhvirtualretreat.com to get your space we will see you there and what a gas we're all gonna have um that's something to positively look forward to um all right well thank you so much for joining and we'll see you next time cheeks cherubs and chuckles. Cheers, Steve. Over and out.