The Young Turks - Part 1: Dr. Cenk

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

Part 1: Dr. Cenk in the House: You've got questions and by gum, Cenk has answers. Cenk on the air to field your burning, itching, or otherwise nagging questions. Cenk is not an actual doctor. All advice given is for entertainment purposes only. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, back on our Dr. Jenks special. Okay, so it's Anna and I for the first hour, and then it's going to be me and you guys for the last two hours. If you're saying, why is it going to take three hours? I don't think I can make you happy in an hour. You've got to give me a little bit of time, right?

Man, you love to talk. That's what it's really about. It's keeping real. Yes, all that is true. So just let me acknowledge two things up front. First of all, am I going to make you magically happy? Of course not, right? But if any of these are slightly helpful to you, then I feel great about it.

Any of the stuff that we discussed, the tips I give, et cetera, right? Am I an actual doctor? Of course not. And if you actually have clinical issues, for God's sake, go see a therapist, okay? And don't just rely on a rando talk show host that you're seeing. Even if it's not a rando one, it's me and you have some degree of faith in me, still see a medical professional if you need one and go see a therapist no matter what if you're having issues, okay?

So I'll probably repeat that 17 times. But anyways, and guys, this is like, it's well planned we got. videos coming up for you guys and I'm in and you got a bunch of questions sent in but I'm we I've never done this before so I'm just gonna you know go in random order almost and and we'll see how it goes okay so but the other thing I want to tell you guys before we get started is send in your comments so whether it's through Twitter and hashtag t-y-t live super chat floats up to me quicker honestly and member says in our website, t.yt.com slash join to become a member and Twitch as well. Okay.

So we try to take all those comments. The best of our abilities. And I know it's funny, but I'll never fit it in in three hours. So we'll do our best. And one last thing. If you guys could help our health, that would be great. tyt.com slash go. It's super important to us. and we need all the help we can get to keep fighting and being strong for you guys and being your voice and we everyone who donates or becomes a member, you are the young Turks and you're like family to us and we love you. Okay, so guys, let me start this way. Before I ask Anna a question, I'm going to ask you guys a question, okay? And I want you to think about it. What's the point of life? Okay, do do do do. Okay, now seriously,

Once I give you the answer, I think that a lot of you will say, well, yeah, obvious. It's obvious and so, oh, big genius figured out the most obvious thing in the world, right? By the way, no one calls me a big genius. So that's why I want you to think about it ahead of time. What do you think is the point of life? Because before I give you the answer, there's a thousand different possible answers. People will say, oh, you know, to do good in the world, to, you know, religious folks will give a certain different kind of answer depending on their religion, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, I think, and I think logically it is inescapable that the point of life is to get the most out of life, the most enjoyment out of life.

Now, I don't know why nobody ever tells you that. And so if you think like, duh, yeah, but are you sure you were saying duh a minute ago, right? And even if you were saying, of course I was saying get most enjoyment out of life, of course that's the right answer. What else would we do? Oh, it doesn't nothing else even make sense. Okay, but then the next layer to that is how? How do you get the most enjoyment out of life? Is it as simple as the hedoness?

Just go crazy and eat whatever we want and have sex anywhere we want and or with whom we want, et cetera, and just go nuts. No, not really because that'll give you happiness in the short term, but it might do great damage in the long term and then you actually have not enjoyed life properly, right? These are breakthrough comments. But Anna, do you see people? doing this, do you see people going, oh, you know what? I figured out my life. I figured out

what makes me the most happy. For example, I'll give you my example in a second of what makes me the most happy. And I figured it out in the short term and the long term. And I know that that's my objective. And that's why I've been leading my life with that in mind to get the most out of it. I haven't seen too many people do that. So, but maybe I'm being ridiculous. Maybe everybody's doing that. And they're like, Jake, we're all so happy. And we all know that. What are you stupid? And maybe that's true. So what do you think, Anna? Well, I mean, I think that most people know what makes them happy. It's just a question of whether or not they have either the resources or the, in my opinion, the most important resource of time in order to engage in

the things that make them happy. So, I mean, real quick way you can make me happy if you want to make me happy, you know, give me more time off. And I can spend time with my family, which makes me super happy, interior decorating, which makes me super happy, smoking weed and reading super long articles about stuff that I'm just curious about. That makes me super happy. But no, I think, look, everything in life is about balance. So part one, I think, is identifying what makes you happy. But finding the balance or making the space in your life to actually engage in those things because we have to kind of uncondition ourselves, decondition ourselves to not feel, for me at least guilty about not being productive, right?

Like there's always this pressure to be a productive member of society. And I think that takes away from allowing people to do things that they genuinely enjoy that might not be seen as productive by everyone else. You get what I'm saying? I do, absolutely. So actually you just hit on something that is two giant problems that people again recognize as problems, obviously, we're not dense. But I don't think they realize the enormity of the problems. One is guilt, another one is judgment, people judging.

And there are so many things that society tells us that we should feel guilty about. In a sense, Anna, you're lucky because you're you feel guilty. about being more productive. And that's a good thing because it leads you to being more productive and getting long-term fulfillment out of the, hopefully the things that you're doing and bringing news to people, but really bringing hope and change to people to the best of your ability, and that makes you fulfilled, et cetera, right? A lot of people feel guilty about nonsense stuff.

I remember when I was religious, for example, and I don't mean to pick out religious folks, and that's not what this is about, okay? But I used to feel guilty about certain things when I was a kid, right? There's no reason to feel guilty about any of that stuff. I mean, if you believe the stuff that folks teach you when you're a kid, and it doesn't matter really which religion, there's all these different things. Oh, you can't do that with that person, you can't do that with that person, you can't do that with yourself, you can't do this, you can't do that.

And if you do any of that, you should feel super guilty. And that gets inside your head. And one of the top things I want to tell you guys today, once we get beyond the overwhelmingly obvious and the slightly obvious, is you have no idea how many people are inside your head. And they don't need to be there. You could actually empty them all out. Now, it's not that easy because as humans, we're built literally biologically, genetically, evolutionarily, as social animals.

And because we're social animals, we get our view of ourselves from how others, receive us. But that's dangerous. And that's wrong. Why? Because first of all, other people don't actually know you. They know very, very little about you. Think about high school, for example. And my guess is that you had a range of folks in high school who thought about a range of different things about you. I had my nerd friends and they liked me. I had the football, non-friends that was on the team, but we didn't really get along. There was a cool kids who thought I was a nerd, there's all these different ranges of opinions about me, right? I imagine you had to say, right? Yeah, I mean, sure, sure, I did. I mean, everyone

thought I was great in high school. But really? By the way, all through. Of course not. Of course not. I was bullied like crazy in high school, like nonstop incessantly. And we didn't have a football team in my school because I went to a hippie school that didn't have that kind of stuff. But anyway, but yeah, you are right. I think that a lot of people, especially when they're younger, tend to hyper focus on what other people think about them, how they perceive them. And that unfortunately translates to how people view themselves. And I think that could be dangerous, especially because people are full of it. And you should be confident in who you are. you should be confident in your preferences and your hobbies and not really care about

anyone who has anything negative to say about it about it yeah but everybody says that nobody actually does it I do it okay well that's awesome do you I feel like a lot of folks get inside your head no I mean they used to but now I mean someone who's been a positive influence on my life and I don't think he even knows it is Kenny Clips Ken Clippenstein really can How's that for a twist? Because they clown on ridiculous right wingers, right? So if anyone would get under my skin time to time, it would be right wingers. But once you like really take a step back and see how ridiculous they are, it's like,

I love when people bring up my nose job. Like, I think I look really damn good. Like the nose job doesn't, like bringing up my nose job makes me realize I spent money on something that worked and I'm proud of it, right? So like no, like that kind of stuff just, they don't have the ability to get under my skin at all, at all. And it's actually pretty liberating and fun. And that's exactly how I wanted to be for you guys.

So let me talk about my liberation. And it is, liberating your mind is the most important thing there is. Who cares about your knees or your elbows? Your mind is the really, it's all you are. And so when you let folks who are not even rooting for you, who don't even know you inside your mind to let them tell you that you're not good enough, that's understandable, but crazy, don't let them do that.

So here, here's my story. And there's a thousand of these, but I'll just give you one. When I was eight years old, I immigrated to this country, and I didn't know what to wear, right? So not like I was wearing a turban or anything. I just want to be like clear. Like we wore the same clothes roughly in Turkey as is, you know, and I grew up in Istanbul, which is the biggest city in Turkey.

And I come here to New Jersey, we're relatively same clothes. But but not the cool clothes, because I don't know what the cool clothes are, right? And I don't know how to act in this new context. So almost everyone in school, in third grade all the way through high school, but especially in the beginning, gave me the message of, you don't belong. They didn't mean to their third graders. They didn't mean any harm by it.

Or if they meant harm by it, they're third graders. It's okay, right? But they're kids and they, ha ha, he this, that and stuff. But you don't belong. You're not cool. You're not wearing the right clothes. And guys, I hope you're better than me. And that doesn't affect you, especially when you're younger, right?

But a lot of movies indicate that it affected a lot of us. You know, all the movies about all the mean kids in high school. You don't have those movies if it didn't affect a lot of us, right? You're not alone and it certainly affected me. And so I started to think that I didn't belong. And I didn't realize I was thinking that and that I wasn't as good as them. The cool kids were cool and good and amazing and superior and the rest of us were not. And that is super powerful and that burrows in your eye.

But what the cool kid in high school, again, this happens in your career, it happens later in life. But I'm just taking that as one example. The cool kid in high school, what the hell did he know about you? Like, did he know you, you know, all of who you are? Did he know how you treat your friends and family? Did he know if you're smart or not? Did he know any of those things about you? No, he didn't know, he barely knew you at all.

But maybe he made a mean comment in the hallway or in a class or something. And man, that burrowed inside your head, right? And even the folks who are closest to you, some of them are wonderful people and they're rooting for you. And that's great. And hold on to those people. And they make all the difference. Right. But even folks who are casual friends with that unwittingly, they might be rooting against you. Why? Because of their own ego. Well, if that guy's doing well, maybe that means he's above me. And I don't want him to be above me. I don't like them. And look at it playing out in politics. That level of spite. has driven the Republican Party, and I don't, again, I don't want this to be too political.

But I'm just telling you as a phenomenon, and we talked about it earlier in today's show, it has created a giant, like, class of spite, right? And so this is as old as time. In the South, they use this on poor white folks. Hey, don't worry, black folks are under you. We might be kicking your ass, and you might have no opportunity, and we might be keeping everything for ourselves. But remember, you get to feel better by kicking down to black people and other minorities.

So it's a phenomenon that haunts us all, right? So those folks that are giving you those messages, they might not even have your best interest in mind. And oftentimes they don't, right? But the last part is maybe the most important. They're not even using the right metrics. Now, what does that mean? So in my case, let's say it was the close, right? But what does that eight-year-old's clothes have anything to say about their character?

And if you're saying, hey, Jake, this sounds like self-therapy. Yes, that's exactly what I went through in the last year. And part of the reason I tell you that is because you can do it too. And so that leads me to this question. And Anna, I'll ask you. Who's the most successful person on Earth? And before you answer, I want you guys to all think about it. Who's the most successful person on earth?

Okay, think about it, get your answer. Okay, Anna, now you. I mean, it depends on how you measure success or how you perceive success. So for me, the most successful person is someone who is able to, obviously this is based on someone's like stability. So if someone is able to like comfortably pay their bills, able to provide for themselves and their family, but also be. grateful and happy with what they have, but not settle for what they have. Like want to aspire for more, but also practice gratitude with what they have already. Like at least for me, that's what success is. As soon as I started implementing that kind of mentality in my life,

I felt like things became a lot better. Because look, everything in life is really about perception, perspective. And so if you choose to focus on the negatives, if you exercise the negative, muscle, you're going to be a negative person. And I found myself in that position quite a bit. And now I've been like working out that positivity muscle, right? Not fake positivity, but just like really savoring the happy moments in life. Like savoring those like 10 minute breaks you have in your day where you notice how beautiful the spring flowers are or whatever. Like just really soak that in. That's really helped. And also this is just a piece of advice that really helped me. everyone's under the impression that everyone else is thinking about them or everyone else is concerned

with how they're living their lives. The truth is no one's thinking about you. Everyone's thinking about themselves. So you should think about yourself and what makes you happy rather than being so concerned about how other people perceive you, what other people think about your life choices. Who cares? They don't really care about how you're living your life. They're not really thinking about you.

They're thinking about themselves. So do you boo, right? Like do what makes you happy as long as you're not harming anyone else, right? Like seek out the things that really fulfill you and don't be so concerned about the naysayers. Yeah, Anna, so two things about that before I get more into the answer. And I think you're very right. First of all, Sir Wyatt Hill wrote in the member section, Dr. Jenk, a nurse salty, is my new favorite show. But you're, the reason I read that is Anna, ironically, you're not being salty at all here.

Like now we've moved on to this topic and you look to be in pretty good shape, right? Yeah, for sure. In terms of where you are mentally and that's great to hear, right? Like, have you guys seen my husband? Like, he's super hot and he's like really, really, like he's the kindest, sweetest guy ever. I, you know, my job stresses me out, there's no question. But I like everyone I work with. I get along with, Jake's my boss.

This guy who wants to do a three hours special on happiness, that's my boss, right? Like, you can't get any luckier than that. And, you know, I just feel like there's beauty surrounding us that we never really appreciate because we live in this like, go, go, go, go, go, society. Like, be productive, pre-productive. But no, slow down and literally smell the roses. Like, there's beautiful flowers outside. Like, I know that sounds so cheesy, but I really love to, like, go.

for long walks and look at the landscaping in my neighborhood and really appreciate it because there's beauty around us that we never stop to soak in. Yeah, that's 100% right. And so let me build on the two things you just said. So first one was people aren't really thinking about you. And this was a common mistake that I was making. I think I have a pretty good meter for how people are reacting to me in person. And if anything, I think I'm overly sensitive to that. And so I try to make, I feel like some weird responsibility to everyone in the room to make sure they're having a good time, they're happy, et cetera. I mean, proofs in the pudding. We're doing a three hour special to try to help a tiny bid with you guys for anyone out there who needs it, right?

And I felt that's kind of a responsibility towards it. But that's a good portion of it. But the bad portion of it is like if somebody thought I was doing something wrong or weird or something that didn't, comport with what they were thinking I should do, it would bother me. But what I didn't realize is, they thought about it for like one second, five seconds, max two minutes, and they moved on with the rest of their life. Who cares that that person had a thought about me for five seconds? Why is it bothering me for five minutes or five hours or five days?

It lasted five seconds in their head. What are you sweating it for, right? And so to be able to come to that realization is super important. Look, the second point you made about soaking things in, I mean, obviously, for me, that's just gigantic, right? You got to soak things in. And the things that make you happy, it's almost a form of meditation. We should talk about that maybe even in later episodes, but like concentrate on whatever your senses are. So if you're, there's a, you're outside walking and there's a beautiful breeze.

Soke that in. And I know a lot of people that are the cynics, like, oh, this guy's soaking the breeze. No, I'm going to choose to be unhappy. Okay. That's a choice you're making, right? You know me with food. And we're going to talk, one of you sent a video about this. So we're going to talk more about it later.

But, I mean, you give me a good cinnamon scone and a banana. And step aside, Butch, I got this. Because I concentrate and I savor the living hell out of it. If you say that's dorky, that's totally fine. Guilty is charged, right, hokey, corny, dorky, whatever you want to call it. But I'm really enjoying the food and I'm really enjoying those different things. Why aren't you if you're the cynic? Does it make you happier to not enjoy it?

If that's the case, just stop and think about it for a second. Why does it make you happier or is it a defense mechanism? Just think about that for a second. Which actually then leads to probably the most important point. And some of you again will think that this is perhaps obvious. But I don't mind that at all. I hope everything I'm saying is obvious. And you're like, Joe, Jake, I had this on lockdown.

You know what Jake, who cares what they think? Keep going. Yeah, that's a fair point. Do you boo? Yeah, I know, right? Thank you for reminding me of that. It's exactly what we're talking about here, right? And by the way, I'm going to get to giant caveats.

So people tell you that money isn't important? No, of course money matters to some degree. We'll talk about that later. And again, if you have clinical depression, all this happy talk is nice and fine. But you've got to go see a doctor and you got to go see a therapist, right? So, but back to the important stuff and I hope the obvious stuff. Happiness is a choice. every time you go out in the world, you make a choice.

And so you say, oh, well, that's easy to say. Yeah, but it's also, if you make a decision, I know it seems hard. I know it. And I know that getting past how we are programmed is really hard. But once you see it clearly, it actually becomes relatively easy. I think you'll agree with me. I think everyone in the audience will agree with me that in any given day, there are 10, maybe 20 things that go really wrong.

Right? And I hope at least 10 things that go right. So every day you make a decision on which one to focus on, which one to concentrate on, which one to emphasize. And if, and sometimes there's logical reasons to emphasize the negative. Well, hey, that's a pain point. Like my hand is on the stove. I should focus on getting it off the stove. Otherwise, I'm going to lose my hand, right? So it's not polyanish, right? But it's your hand's not old. always on the stove. And so if you say, oh, Jake, that's, but I can't do that. The other stuff is so important, that's why I'm choosing to be unhappy.

Okay, but think about it. Think about if that makes sense. And so I know what, I think I know what a lot of you are thinking, which is, but sometimes it's just irrational. Let me throw out this radical idea to you guys. What if you chose to be irrationally happy? Mm. Mm.

Mm. Dare to dream. Love it. So thinking through for a second, you know, we kid around and we can do the and stuff, but there is a little bit of a, right? So, Jake, that doesn't make any sense. Yes, okay, there's a beautiful breeze outside and I had a great scroen, but, you know, I'm worried about paying the rent.

I'm not saying don't go to work, go to work, try to pay the rent, etc. But you're choosing this, and that's a really best thing. And that's a really bad example because that's really, really problematic, right? But usually it's a smaller thing, right? Somebody says something mean about me at work. And who does he think he is? And you're in your head, you're in your head. Well, you know, somebody says something mean about me, right?

And you're spending a whole heap of energy time. And guys, all of our time is so limited. We only live a certain number of days. Everybody's got a number of days that they live. And if you're choosing to spend a huge percentage of your time worrying about the things that are negative, instead of focusing on the things that are positive, you can call it anything you're like. You can call it polyanish, you can call it irrational, you can call it not realistic. But it's as realistic as just making the decision.

So let me do the caveat here. Look, I'm not a life guru. There's no miracle shake we sell you at the end. Okay, so there's no, there's no like Pat Robertson or, Kenneth Copeland or Craflow dollar thing at the end where I asked you to give me a jet, right? No, this is just for you guys. If you don't like it, just don't do it, okay? But I want to, so there are no miracles, and that's partly why I brought it up.

And so a lot of times people will say, oh, money's not important. And the life coaches and the gurus, life's not important. 9 out of 10 times somebody who says money's not important is already rich. Okay, I'm just keeping it real. Because I've been dead broke and I've been dead broke for a long, long time. And so I know the importance of money. Today I ate hot pockets for as nostalgia. But in old days, as I've told you guys many times, that won't nostalgia.

That's all I could afford. Cereal hot pockets, mac and cheese, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat for about 15 years. So you wonder how I got like this. Anyway, and so I get that money is important. I get that you got to pay the bills. I get that you got to pay the rent and you got to take care of your family. But after a certain threshold, then you got to stop obsessing about it.

And that greed has driven this society absolutely out of its mind. The stock market is in essence a greed machine. You must feed it 15% growth every year. If you don't, the greed machine gets angry and then fires the executives and replace them with other executives that are willing to be even more greedy. Feed the machine, feed the machine. And that's what rules all of our lives. When the vaccine hit, and I know he's a particularly lonesome guy in a bad example because

of that because he's an outlier. And it says, on the other hand, half the country voted for him, Donald Trump's tweet was, stock market is up and vaccine is here and I guess your health is going to get better. Like health is like the last thing he's worried about. He's worried about stock market is up. The green machine is happy, right? But we all have a little bit of that inside of us. So once you gotten past the threshold, stop judging yourself and others by the metric of money.

Because most people, when you ask them, especially outside of a context of how to be happy special, You just ask a random dude in the street, a random friend out of the blue who's the most successful person on earth? Almost all of them are going to answer Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or one of those guys. Why? Because all society tells you money, money, money, money, money equals success. Now, of course, as you've seen us talk about it here, really does it? Because let's go back to the very first question we asked. What's the point of life?

If you answer the point of life is to make the most money, boy, did you fail that test? Sorry, but and no one would rationally actually say that because that obviously doesn't make sense. Money is a means to an end. It is not the end. And I'm not dismissing it as not a means. It is a means. But our society says, no, the most successful are not the happiest. They're the richest or the most famous or the ones with the most status. But nobody ever thinks, hey, you know what, Sally in New Hampshire, who's really happy with her life and just saw our grandkids and is having her favorite cup of coffee and wrapped in a blanket on a beautiful crisp fall afternoon is actually the single most successful person on earth. And by the way, now you're ready for the

moment, Sally could be you. But it's true, but it's true. All right. Anna, step in. Have I gone too far on any of this? Or does it still make sense to you? No, it totally makes sense. I think that you have it exactly right. I think you're right that there needs to be like a threshold met where people are able to, you know, take care of the basic necessities to be alive. But outside of that, honestly, happiness is a choice. And it took a long time for me to realize that. And it's all about like, yeah, once you go through the usual and inevitable daily annoyances that are required to just exist, right? The conflicts at work or whatever, that kind of stuff. You can either decide to dwell on it or you can decide to acknowledge

it. Do a little hat tip and then you move on, right? You just move on. If there's something you can do to make that situation better, obviously try. But more often than not, these little annoyances or little conflicts throughout the day, just move on. It's not worth obsessing over it. It's not worth draining your mental energy by thinking about it. It's, yeah, I just, it is kind of incredible how much happier you can be once you make the decision to focus on the happiness, to focus on the things that you liked about your day, right? So you might have had a bad day at work, but maybe that hike you went on with your friend in the morning was awesome.

So as soon as you're, you know, dealing with someone at work that you might not like and, you know, he or she is giving you a tough time. Just, you know, think about that hike. And in one year, out the next, you know? That's what you should do and just focus on the things that make you happy. Like that, it sounds so simple and so ridiculous. But it's literally the only way to have a happy life. Yeah, and if you're letting what others said of you bother you,

and I keep focusing on that because I think that it happens an enormous amount of the time. And so I think it's a bigger phenomenon in our lives than we even realize. Understand that that's also a choice. Everything you're making, you're deciding in your head. There's nobody else in your head but you. So every one of those is a decision you're making and you actually can make the opposite decision. And if all we do today is tell you that you could make the opposite decision and it makes you go, yeah, I guess I could, couldn't I?

Then for some percentage of you, then I feel great about what we did. So let me give two comments here. Danger Dave says, I agree with your first sentiment, Anna. Success or rather the struggle for a worldly view of success can be toxic. measure your own success, achieve realistic goals, and accept failure as learning. Exactly right, exactly. So guys, that's a good transition here, actually, to the things that make you guys happy and fulfilled. And what does it mean to be happy?

Because, again, it's not just hedonism. So I break it down into a couple of categories here, but you could break it down any way you like. And by the way, Sir Wyatt Hill, thank you for the comment. He said, this is great advice, Jank. I wasn't bullied during high school, but I was tormented in the army. It is rough, but things do get better, right? And so in terms of happiness, Anna, for example, said, you know, interior decorating, reading and learning things.

And that's part of the reason why you, I think, naturally migrated to this job because of the interior decorating. No. No, because you like to learn the news and I think you like to share it with people, right? And news as in information and interesting facts. But Anna, just out of curiosity, did you make that decision in an active way? Did you, when you were younger, think through, okay, what are the things that I really like? How could I achieve that in my life?

Oh, right, this would be a good way to achieve that. Yes, yes. As far as my career path, absolutely 100%, mostly because my mom forced me to. She was like, when I was super, super young, she's like, okay, so what's your career going to be? And I'm like, I don't know, I want to be an actress. And then she said no. And she's like, think about the things you like to do, right? Think about something you really enjoy and turn it into a job.

And at the time, I just really loved ABC's 2020, which was hosted by Barbara Walters at the time. And I was like, oh, it would be so cool to have conversations for a living, to learn about new things for a living. And so I just kind of pursued that career path, then I found myself here. So it is the best part of this job. Like, I love being able to like explore and learn new things every day. Actually, funny thing that's made things a little more complicated in regard to happiness, I'm just, I'm really like I'm fatigued by Trump stories. Like they spending time talking about his lunacy is not in any way intellectually stimulating.

And so I'm starting to get kind of. irritable with the new cycle. Because I feel like I'm not learning new things by talking about Trump, but it's the news. It's what's happening. And he's claiming that there's widespread election fraud when there's not. So you have no choice but to cover these things. But once he's out of office, I'm really looking forward to like going back to discussions about policy, things where I'm exploring different perceptions or perspectives and analyzing it for myself. I love that kind of stuff. So that's why I gravitated toward this job. Yeah.

And so God bless your mom for doing that. And some of you have done that too. But I suspect that a lot of haven't. And do it with your kids. Make sure that, you know, it's harder when they're younger, right? But as they're getting to a point where they can rationally think about it and really know what they like and don't like, make an active decision of what to do with your life. do like catalog any I guess I keep repeating I don't care if it's corny or hokey because in my

life people have always told me those are corny and maybe I have a lot of cynical you know acquaintances right but like oh you're going to catalog your life you don't have to make a list or you could make a list if you want to right but just put thought put active thought into what is it that I like to do and how can I do that in the long run and again Nothing Polyanish here because so Anna and I are super lucky that we get to do what we want, but it was a lot of hard work that went into it too. It's not like somebody came and handed us a show and said, here, go, right? We had, especially here, we had to build it all on our own.

And so that was, you know, decades of super hard work, 15 hour days, et cetera. But to me it was worth it. It was worth it because I get to do what I want. And I get fulfillment out of it because I'm genuinely trying to bring change to the country. And I think we brought a little bit of change. And that feels amazing. And if we can bring a lot of change, that would feel even more amazing. So the hard work was worth it.

But you've got to put the hard work in. It just doesn't happen magically, right? But before you put the hard work in, you got to figure out what you want to put the hard work into. I have a friend who was absolutely brilliant in school. I mean, a guy would never get less than a 98 on a test. And if whatever points he couldn't get, we thought that meant those are undoable, right? I don't know that anybody ever scored higher than him on any test in any topic, okay? And I'm not exaggerating.

And he had straight A's or straight A pluses or whatever and wound up going to Harvard. And, and but he became a business consultant coming out of Harvard because that's what everybody was doing. And he hated it. Now, why did he go into that? Well, he didn't put enough thought into what he likes, right? So he just did what everybody else was doing. And he was a good student and he was super smart, but he didn't use all of that mental power to do the single most important thing,

which is what do I want to do and what gives me joy. And so then he decided to scrap that, which is brave of him, and went to medical school and became a doctor. I'm not sure that he's super happy about that either, to be honest. Okay, I'm no, I'm keeping it real. Not a big deal. You know, he was a business consultant, went through all that schooling and stuff, and then decided, you know what, I'm not happy.

I'm going to go ahead and go back to school and be a doctor. And it seems like he might need to exercise that happiness muscle. You know what I mean? No, but that's exactly my point, Anna. And he's one of the smartest guys I know, but it's wasted if you don't do the first step. And the first step is, what do I want? What do I like? What drives me?

Because it's different for everybody. Like another friend who loves driving fast. He loves cars. He's been obsessed with it his whole life. Drives like an absolute maniac. His dream of dreams was to be a race car driver, right? Me, I don't even like driving fast. I don't even like driving.

Right? So because I'm not good with spatial relations. So it's kind of stresses me out to drive. And he's like, don't you want to go faster? And I'm like, no, I actually kind of want to go a little bit slower. Right. So we're all different. And so for me, it was, I love learning new things. So that's what we share. Right. And I love, and I can't wait to share it with people. When I was a kid, when I learned something, I would rush home to tell my parents. And later in high school and college, I would rush to tell my friends, oh, you're never going to believe this, right? And they couldn't get me to shut up. I'd spend on the three hours, four hours, five hours on a phone call with friends. Okay, apparently I was meant to be a talk show host.

But by the way, I made the same mistake. I went and got a business degree undergrad, then I went to law school. Why? I hated being a lawyer. And I knew even before I went to law school that I'd hate being a lawyer. Because for me at least, I know I know some friends who love it, but two of them out of hundreds. Anyways, because it's a very detail-oriented job. It's a lot of writing, a lot of reading, a lot of minutiaa, a lot of legal talk. And people think it's Perry Mason.

That is like 1% of the law. 99% of it is mundane drudgery. If you ask me, right? Some of you are lawyers, sorry. Okay, but so why the hell did I go to law school? Why the hell did I go to business school? The business school wound up being helpful because we wound up setting up a business here. Kind of helpful, it's not that helpful.

But it's because I never bothered in the beginning to figure out what it is that I wanted and head in that direction. Only when I got out of law school and I'm 25 years old and I look around and I go, Jesus Christ, what the hell do I want to do? Here I am in a law firm and I got a nice office and I got a nice salary, but I hate it. I remember thinking I would literally rather shovel cow manure than be a lawyer. Everybody's different. I got a friend who's a lawyer who loves it, right? But for me, I was like, oh, just anything, manual labor, anything but this. How did I find myself, you know, relatively, at least a guy who did well in school.

I don't know, you know, you make your decision on whether it's intelligent or not. But that guy was enough of a knucklehead that he wound up at 25. with a lot of debt, by the way, and a lot of education, none of which we're going towards what he actually wanted to do in the world. So do that analysis first, right? And then figure out how you get on that path. Now, one of the most important things, guys, is once you decide what you want to do, then you've got to, when you're on that path, don't wait till you win or achieve some outside measure of success before you're happy. Life gets lived in the meanwhile.

Okay. No, no, but that was absolutely right. I mean, you mentioned the early years of TYT, which, like, financially speaking, felt about as unstable as we do now. But no, I'm just kidding. No, but like we weren't, we. TiT.com slash go. I just remember, you know, having this worry about, like, are we good? to make it because this is such a difficult place or not difficult place, difficult industry

to survive in, especially as digital media. But when I think back in those early years, I have fond memories. Like the journey to where we are today was amazing, it was so much fun. And I remember like I have nostalgia for those times, like when we would have like a milestone. I remember the first time we had 20,000, 20,000 subscribers on YouTube. We celebrated, it was only five of us at the company at the time. We celebrated by going to IHOP. And IHOP was like our celebration destination, right?

And we would get that appetizer platter. You know the one where you get a little tasty taste of every appetizer they have? All the fried ones, obviously. It's fantastic. Yeah, I wonder who ordered that. That was the best, it was the best. So yeah, the journey is actually something that if you don't savor it while you're experiencing it, you might look back at it and be like, damn, I should have really, you know, I should have

really enjoyed it or acknowledged how much I was enjoying it as I was enjoying it. Do you get what I'm saying? All right, I'll go one more. The journey is the destination. Mm. Because if you're on the right path and you're doing what you love, that's the whole point. Some end goal, okay, let's say you got the end goal, okay? And you got to the point where you're like, yes, I'm the best interior decorator in the world.

And you die the next day, just a hypothetical, right? So you're happy for one day. That's, wait, you didn't play life, right? Okay, the reality is if you soaked in that path and that journey, because that's truly what you like or love to do, even if through the hard times, even if you didn't make a lot of money, et cetera, well, then at least you enjoyed all of your life and not just the days after your so-called success. So again, these are all things we lived and the mistakes we made.

So that's why I'm hoping if I tell you guys that, that it might help some of you. And so, yeah, Anna, I mean, we didn't know how good we had it at IHOP. You know, we were dead broken. So the celebration at IHop with Bart, who's here and Jesus and J.R. and Dave and me and you, and sometimes Ben would come and Jill Pike and stuff back in the day. Well, yeah, and it was a big slurge for TYD to pick up the tab at IHOP for the five of us or six of us, right? But we did not, at that point, since we were not that relevant, honestly, we didn't have the whole world attacking us. So we lived in this safe, comfortable little bubble and we just started and in a sense.

And at that point, YouTube and a lot of social media was positive. I know it's hard to remember back into those days, but people would always be helpful. They'd give us a good advice, they'd give us support, moral support, financial support. You guys still give us financial support, right, after all these years. And it was, it was, we did not have any out. outside success. But it was great, great days. And I don't know that we soaked it in enough. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And so nowadays, you know, we have a lot more viewers. We have a lot more of the outside metrics of success. But we also have a ton of incoming attacks, nonstop, nonstop,

the right wing, the establishment. So now some portions of the left wing. You're not this enough, that enough and then let alone the lies and the et cetera, et cetera. And so believe me, look, I got a lot of great things going on. And so you might say, hey, it's easy for you to be happy. But you have no idea the kind of attacks we come under. Yeah. And so that's not easy to get past. Right. So the attacks are one thing. And so for me, the attacks, like the last time I think really got under my skin was when you were being attacked. Because people don't know. you, right? So I think they see you on the show and they think that's representative of who you are.

And it is representative of a part of who you are. But behind the scenes, like, Jank is super, super nice and not at all in a rage, right? Like I feel like the show is just, I feel like it's your way of venting about the things that do frustrate you. But behind the scenes, Jank is like very pleasant, very nice, is never moody or anything like that. With me, I think you see what you see is what you get, like both on air and off air. But anyway, so I bring that up because, like, random people online attacking us, like, I'm

so desensitized to it at this point, I don't, I really don't care. But when you're being attacked by legitimate media outlets who were literally defaming you, like making things up about you, that's what, like, was really frustrating. And then like, when you have a bigger audience, the pressure and the responsibility. is heavier, right? And so the hardest thing for me to juggle is feeling like I didn't do a good job on the show. And I get that feeling all the time. Like, we'll end the show and I'll be in the car, driving, and I'll just be upset. Like, I should have brought up this point. I messed up that point. We didn't cover this story because we ran out of time. That daily thing is probably

what frustrates me the most, right? So the work that I'm doing right now is finding a way to find a good balance where I'm not too hard on myself, but I'm also doing the best that I can with the show, you know? Yeah, you know, the pressure kind of sucks. And so, you know, we're doing special on how to be happy. It doesn't mean we figured it all out and we walk around on a cloud all day. So, and life is real and there's real pressures and everybody's got different pressures. But honestly, probably the happiest I ever was in actually doing the shows. And now that I am verbalizing it, it's a little sad actually, is that is when I was doing the public access shows like 25 years ago. I would walk out of there on an absolute cloud. Like, oh my God, I got to do this show

and people called in and we had a good time when we laughed and et cetera. And did I sometimes rage back then? Oh, absolutely. The rage is not the issue because that's my way of venting. And that's lightens me. It doesn't, it doesn't make me angrier or sadder in real life. It actually lightens my mood because I get it out of my system. It's like when I was a kid, I liked to fight. So I became a middle linebacker to have a societally acceptable way to take out my aggression. Okay, I'm keeping it real. And in a sense, this talk show is a societally acceptable way, take out migration. But I wasn't doing this show, and I see all the news, the Lindsey Graham's and the Mitch

McConnell's and Donald Trump's, I'd lose my mind. I'd be calling every friend and family member nonstop. Can you believe what they're doing, right? But since I get out of my system, I feel good about it. But there's too many pressures, right? There's financial pressures. There's this, there's that. And at least back in the day, you know, we just do a show.

And that was it. and you could go home feeling happy. So I'm not sure that there's a lesson in there for you. It's more of a lesson in there for me, to be honest. But if there is one in there for you, it's don't let that little stuff or even big stuff bog you down. Try to remember what the joy of what you do is. And by the way, it doesn't have to be your job.

It could be your hobby. It could be your personal life. It could be your family. It could be your friends. Don't let go of that joy. make the choice to engage in that and to go deeper into that. In fact, the last thing I want to do with Anna

and then I'm going to go to you, we're going to be a lot more interactive. I'm going to go to your videos, your questions in the next couple of hours. And in fact, let me do one portion of that before we do the last segment here with Anna. So a whole bunch of people just signed up on Twitch that I want to give shoutouts to.

Katrina reads, Shoshia, Milt Rock, 73, Blue Horizon, NH68, all subbed with Prime. Again, if you have Amazon Prime, it's free for you on Twitch, but we do get the revenue, so that's a great win-win. Blue Horizon did it for two months. Unfairy, 79, did it with two months with Prime. Visterian gifted 10 subs, so that's a beautiful of you.

Thank you. Display Geek, also gifted 10 subs. No character, that's their handle, subbed with Prime, and then gave five gift subscriptions. That's the part that I love about Twitch. All the gifting and giving the bits, et cetera, it's a great community on Twitch. I love it. Anyway, so Anna, let me ask it first in the form of a question. What are the different forms of happiness or enjoyment that you have in life?

And then we'll talk about how to put them in buckets or categories. I mean, that is quite a question, Jank. I mean, it is, but that's what you got to think of through. Because like I talked about in the beginning, it's not just simple hedonism, okay, otherwise we'd all be doing meth 24-7 until our teeth fell out, right? Okay, so what are the different kinds of things that make you happy? So, so I would probably put it into two, no, three different buckets. Bucket number one is work-related happiness.

I've met a personal goal, right, and I feel proud and feel happy as a result of that. There's stop and smell the roses type happiness where you take a moment to like really appreciate your surroundings and the things that make your life as great as it is. And then there's like pleasure happiness. So pleasure happiness is, you know, special time with my husband or, you know, some pot in reading time, like though that would fall under the pleasure happiness, right? So yeah, like I would say those three buckets make a lot of sense for me personally. Yeah. So I have it in three different buckets, but it gets to the same point.

And by the way, you could have it in three different buckets or five different buckets. There's no hard and fast rules here. So for me, one of the things that give me happiness is what I call enlightenment. So figuring out what I want, all the things we were just discussing a couple of minutes. ago figuring out who I am, what are my goals, what's my path, and understanding life overall, when something clicks for me and I go, oh, I get it. I'm like, yes, that feels great. Another bucket is just simply ecstasy. So what you were referring to as both. Yeah, yeah, I like that. Yeah.

Yeah. And isn't that amazing? Why shouldn't we feel ecstasy? Why shouldn't we feel ecstasy? A little bit of you and me. All right, go ahead. Right. And it could be pleasure, right? So certain kinds of pleasure, food, right, and many others. And it could also be the senses. So, you know, I don't want to overdo it, but yes, for me, like if you, there's some

things feel so good, whether it's a scone or a beautiful day or whatever. I keep you, sorry, you're using the same examples, but there's a sense of like, yes, right? And that's awesome, right? And so, but for everybody, it's different. Some of you might get that out of basketball. Some of you might get that out of work. Some of you might get that out of family and friends, et cetera. Okay, then the biggest bucket, though, family and friends is a little bit different.

But anyway, is what I just call generally enjoyment, but that breaks down into a lot of different categories, too. So the biggest one that is not talked about in terms of happiness enough in society is fulfillment. So I've told you guys this many times I tell to my kids all the time. I don't phrase it like this for the kids, but fulfillment's a hell of a drug. And doing good things for other people, God, we have such a cynical society. That's why I keep wanting to say, it's up to you whether you want to say it's unrealistic or polyanish, et cetera. It's my gut instinct to keep telling you that, right? But it's not polyanish.

We are built as social animals. So when we help others or when we do good things for others, it makes us feel good. We're literally biologically programmed that way. But I'm not unrealistic. We're also programmed in a competitive way. And we have a really interesting balance of competitiveness and cooperation. And each one of us is different. We're a different place on the spectrum of competitiveness and cooperation.

So for me, when I help other people, I have the win of helping them. I have the win of feeling great about it. And maybe the most important win is peace of mind, the peace of mind of trying to be a good guy. I don't know how the bad guys live with themselves. Maybe they're on a different point in the spectrum. Maybe they're much more competitive and don't really care about cooperation. Some of them, if you go all the way to the extreme end like Trump, I think he's a sociopath. So I don't think he feels good when he helps other people.

He might even feel bad. He might think like, oh, I'm being a sucker by helping someone else. And that's his particular, perhaps biological makeup, perhaps societal pressure, et cetera, made him what he is. But for me and I suspect for a lot of you guys, it feels great. And so fulfillment is the number one most underrated portion of happiness. And you can't get that from just short term pleasure. That's the one you got to work towards. That's the one that's the hardest, but literally the most fulfilling, right?

So to me, and that doesn't mean that ecstasy is just like high sugar, who cares, don't Don't do it. No, that's not true. As much as you can, not the drug, actual feeling. Do ecstasy. Maybe you get a little euphoria from your enlightenment. Maybe you get short-term happiness and long-term happiness. But you got to map all that out for yourself. And so when I map it out for me, I know the profession that I want. I know how I want to treat family and friends. I know how I want to lead my life. And so proofs in the pudding, it's worked for me. It doesn't mean it's going to work for you. But for me, I do. I enjoy. I enjoy, especially when I get a break and I'm not working on stop. And I know that that's a balancing act and there's a little bit of irony in there. But I feel over the top fantastic about it. And the reason I tell you that and the reason we're doing this special is because I really, really believe that a lot of you can feel the same way. Okay, so we're gonna take a little bit of a break here. And I'm gonna come back with you guys.

I'm gonna start to show you some of the videos that we're sent in and take some of your questions and make it just a little bit more real, yes, but I got this issue or I got this problem or how do I think about this so that I can get more practical with you. The first hour was more general. The next two hours will be, I hope, a little bit more practical. So Anna, thank you. Thank you. And I know one of the things that's going to make you happy is going home. So I do like my home. So go say hi to Charlie, probably the thing that makes you the happiest. Yeah, 100%. And Christian, too. I was going to say, let alone your husband, okay, because people might be like, oh, her husband, Charlie, no. Charlie's her dog. Yeah. Christian's her husband.

That's a real MVP. Okay, so let's take a little bit of a break here. Come back with you guys. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at Apple. slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon