We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Amanda’s Breakthrough: Finally Letting Go

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Pod Squad: It’s just us this episode. Glennon, Abby, and Amanda are snuggling up on the metaphorical couch to answer your questions and spiral together about:  – Is writing about yourself self-i...ndulgent? – Is camping a vacation or a trip? (and why lesbians can’t seem to figure that out); and – How Amanda is finally setting down the plates she’s been spinning for decades.  Snuggle up—you won’t want to miss this one.  Follow We Can Do Hard Things on: Youtube — @wecandohardthingsshow   Instagram — @wecandohardthings TikTok — @wecandohardthingshow

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Starting point is 00:00:26 shop k18's mask at sefora or get 10% off your first purchase with code hard things at k18 hair.com that's code hard things at k18 hair.com hi pod squad hi it's just us today hi hi this is one of those days where we just snuggle up on the couch on the metaphorical couch which is so huge that it holds all of us and we take your questions and we just spiral around them together, which is kind of my idea of heaven. And so today we are talking about some really cool things like, what's the difference between a vacation and a trip? And why can't lesbians figure that out?
Starting point is 00:01:16 AKA how Glennon used a Bible story to get out of ever going camping. So that's the other way of talking about that. It's a stretch. She comes in with a stretch of a... Listen, if Christians know anything, it's how to use the Bible to get what we want. Secondly, we've talked about, is it arrogant for a memoirist to write her story?
Starting point is 00:01:43 Can't wait for you to hear that answer. And number three, we talked about Amanda's journey in letting go of some of control. that has recently made her life difficult, and it is an amazing conversation. You will not want to miss this episode, y'all. It's so good. All right, snuggle up. Let's get on the couch. Well, hello. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Today's one of our favorite days on this show where we actually just get to sit with your questions.
Starting point is 00:02:25 spiral around them with you, pretend we're all on a big couch, snuggling up, talking about life together. This is, I think, our sweet spot, the happiest place. Well, the couch has always been the happiest place. That is our sweet spot. Hey, want to get some popcorn and go to the sweet spot? I do. Thank you for asking. That's right. Today's the sweet spot. Let's hear from the pod squad what do they want to talk about all right let me ask the first question can we talk more about vacations because every time my family suggests camping as a vacation i feel like i'm being tricked is this actually a vacation or just character building family time that i have to endure I've never been camping.
Starting point is 00:03:24 So someone else will have to answer this. If that doesn't just activate some real relational issues. Yeah. That's basically what I want. Yeah. You want to go camping? I want to go camping. I just think being in nature, there's just something important to take away the modern day conveniences to get back into our
Starting point is 00:03:47 natural primal selves to experience the world without the luxuries of life like a roof running water it forces your brain to work in different ways I truly think that I'm right about this do you go to the dentist and when they want to fill a cavity
Starting point is 00:04:07 are you like you know what forget the novocaine I just I want to experience this as my primal self no I'm not saying I want this in every waking part of my life Okay. I want this in some of the parts of my life so that I can then appreciate the Novacane. The Novacane. Okay.
Starting point is 00:04:27 Well, I mean, honestly, we were actually just having this conversation. Yeah. The other night, we were having initial chats about what Abby was asking me, what I would want to do for my 50th birthday and whether I wanted to go on a trip. And I felt like the conversation was going fine, and I felt very loved and understood. and then Abby just said the word tent. Okay. She said the word tent to me.
Starting point is 00:04:52 Yes. I don't know in what context. She just said the word tent. Come on, babe. You and me under the stars, the breeze, marshmallows that are being roasted like on the sticks. Camping is nature. God made nature, Glennon.
Starting point is 00:05:13 You love God. so i do love god yeah and you're right that god did make nature um that feels true um i'm just thinking you know what i'm thinking right now of this story in the bible now that you have brought god into this, Abby Wambach. And I'm thinking of a story that happened right before Jesus died. Okay. Jesus gathered all of his disciples around him. And he said to them, I have come to you and I have done miraculous works.
Starting point is 00:06:05 That is true. And now I have to leave. and go back to heaven. Right. But don't worry, he said to his disciples, because you will stay here and you will do far greater works than I have ever done.
Starting point is 00:06:25 Right. Okay, that's what Jesus said. And as you're talking, I'm thinking, here's what I think that Jesus meant by that. I think Jesus meant, yes, I God made the breeze. I made the breeze.
Starting point is 00:06:42 Yeah, okay, which is important. But you, my disciples, you will make air conditioning. And that is a far greater work. I think he meant, yes, I made the stars, but you, my disciples, will make overhead lighting and tiny, tiny book lights, far greater work. I think he meant, yes, I may have made the ground we sit upon. today but you my beloveds you will make couches i may have made whatever you said the sticks i've
Starting point is 00:07:20 made i made sticks to cook with but you will make pots and pans and fucking forks far greater works i may have made tents i i may have made tents but you my beloveds will make hotels greater works so i don't can't because i believe jesus yeah far greater works have been done and we should not go backwards obviously we're not staying in a tent for your 50th birthday and we probably have learned abbey wambach that you should not try to outgod me yeah that's true next Oh, Lord. So to whoever asked this, maybe just go back to Sunday school or something. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:08:19 It depends whether you define vacations in Abby's terms as depriving yourself of modern luxuries so that you can enjoy your everyday life more. Or as Glennon does, indulging in modern luxuries. so that you can enjoy the rest of your life more yeah it really enjoy i'm enjoying i don't i don't ever take for granted air conditioning or forks or couches i don't think i need to not have them to appreciate that they are here blessed are the forks blessed are the couch i love that you said sticks and pots and pans and forks because those are not coming coming from sticks i just want to let you know that no no no jesus made sticks to cook with his disciples made for It works. Far greater works.
Starting point is 00:09:15 All right. All right. Second one. Glennon, I love your books and want to tell my own story, but I am struggling with feeling self-indulgent with it. Do you ever feel like it's totally self-centered and egotistical to write books about yourself? I could talk about this forever self-intelligently, but I think that I will put it in this framework. I have been interviewed many, many times by
Starting point is 00:09:50 people who write articles about writers, or do podcasts about writers, or you know, kind of cultural critics type people. And one of the things that said often is, I mean, I actually remember someone, a very famous cultural critic, saying to me
Starting point is 00:10:16 during an interview about Untamed, do you ever think it's arrogant to write another book about yourself? And I didn't, I couldn't, I didn't think of anything smart to say in the moment. I just have thought about it every night since then, like it's my Roman Empire in my mind, wanting that moment back every time. I mean, side note, like, when Untamed, I think it was around when Untamed came out. I've mentioned this before, but one of the major newspapers in the book section said, Glenn and Doyle has a third memoir, question mark. And then underneath it was David Sedaris's 28,000 memoir out today. Question mark. Like, she's still talking. This woman is still talking and we're letting her. Anyway, there are many ways to look at it. What I can tell you is that
Starting point is 00:11:03 I, what drives me, what I am most curious about in the world, The only thing I can get myself to care about really is like the human condition, what it's like to be a human and how do we operate and how does this experience work here and how can we do it in a way that brings us more joy and peace and how can we work in community with each other, me being human and you being human and do better down here and have, that's all I care about. Like some people care about science, and so they are constantly experimenting with petri dishes or whatever. I don't know. But this is my driving question. Okay. Now, when you want to spend your life thinking about spiraling around being curious about the human condition, I suppose you could use for that experiment yourself or you could use other people. Okay?
Starting point is 00:12:04 what I kind of wanted to say to that person, if I could redo it, was I can barely, I use myself, I'm interested in the human condition. So I offer myself up as the specimen. And that's what I'm doing all the time. I'm trying to say, this story, is this about all of us? I'll use myself so that we can talk about this thing. Maybe that's arrogant. I don't know. What I can't imagine being arrogant enough to do is be interested in the human experience and only use other people as specimens. I can barely, I can't, not, no, I shouldn't say I can barely. I can't even truly figure out my own motives or emotions or drives or ambitions or faults. I sure as hell would never purport to publicly try to understand someone else's. I would never, ever look at someone
Starting point is 00:13:08 else's art or life or something and write pieces about that person, analyze that person's motives, take apart that person's life and feelings and whatever, and come up with some kind of premise about that person. To me, that is far more arrogant. then using your own life and saying, I am really interested about this, and I would like to create a campfire for us all to talk about it around. So I'm going to use myself and never you. If you want to bring your own thing, let's talk, but I will only use my own story in this experiment that I want to spend my life doing.
Starting point is 00:13:51 That is what I would say. Like maybe it's arrogant. I can't imagine the chutzpah, the whatever it takes. to say, I'm going to use you. I'm going to criticize your story, your life, your whatever. That is what, when I read those pieces, that blows my mind. Maybe it blows their mind to see me mining my own story again, but it blows my fucking mind when I see people decide to do that with someone else's life.
Starting point is 00:14:20 That is my answer. And I want to say to anyone who feels the same way as I do, your story is your fucking right to tell. And by the way, they only say this about women. Nobody says to David Sedaris or whoever the hell, whatever guy is writing the next thing, that it's a navel gazing, that it's confessional, that it's this or it's that. Men are writing about life. Women are writing about themselves.
Starting point is 00:14:48 Men are exploring the great ideas and women are navel gazing. I actually believe that there is a space. that most of the drama and trauma that's happening in our lives and in our world is because people aren't doing enough fucking navel-gazing. Like, maybe people really need to sit with their own story, work out their own shit before they unleash it on everybody else. I encourage it. So all of that is to say,
Starting point is 00:15:18 I will tell my damn story however the hell I want to for the rest of my life. and I will continue to resist analyzing, criticizing, or pathologizing, or pretending to understand anyone else's life. I will stick with myself. I think that this is such an important and brave thing to say because so many people, they have this kind of self-consciousness about having any kind of self-importance as if this one wild and precious life that we have here is not important. or something and like the impulse for somebody to want to tell their story to the world is claiming it's like putting a stake in the ground saying like I am a person that has a voice and has something to say and there's something really important about that being able to say that not just only
Starting point is 00:16:18 to the world but to yourself it's like the self the self sovereignty that we've been talking a lot about. I just think that that's so fascinating. And I'm so glad that you're a writer. Your writing has helped me know myself better. Thank you. There's something like that is about it's presented as male and female, but I don't know. It's, it's anything that wants to explore inner life is disregarded or shunned or, you know, all that's women's stuff. I mean, that's been going on forever. Virginia Wolf would have been, you know, that was, because she was so focused on internal life and internal whatever that she would have been talked about as the like beach read of the time, right? That was like so feminine. I rarely think I have something to say and I'm
Starting point is 00:17:08 going to say it. I do sometimes like every once in a while, you know, the glad thing or for the freedom fleet or the, I do sometimes feel that, but it's rarer than my feeling of like, I'm so curious about this thing. like what is this what is this human experience and then the idea of like my angelo's if if if i'm human nothing human can be foreign to me that also means if i'm experiencing this my entire career is based on the assumption that i am not special that is the entire right i would not ever write this shit if i thought it was just me like that i would that would be too terrifying i believe that we all have our different you know flavors but the substance is the same the human experience
Starting point is 00:17:56 is the same if i thought i was special or different i would never be writing any of this a memoir is here's my life a memoir is here is what i'm experiencing that i think is about you right that i think is about all of us it's like you have written three memoirs not because you believe you're exceptional, but precisely because you believe that you are not exceptional, that like this is a state of the human condition. And if, and if you believed you're exceptional, all the better for you. I'm just saying that your belief that the more specific and intimate the story is, the more universal it is of the human experience happens to be why that you're producing this work. that if you were like, look at me, I'm a rare little unicorn and I want to tell you about myself,
Starting point is 00:18:51 then the motivation to be curious about that would be less robust. Yes. I also think there's something, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I just really do at my core. And they might feel the people who say this about memoirs might have something different at their core. And I respect that for me. I cannot imagine being a critic of a memoirist and thinking that memoirist is arrogant. Right.
Starting point is 00:19:21 Like to me, to me being a critic of another memoirist is the most arrogant thing that you could be that I have this all-encompassing knowledge that can decide whether your story matters, whether you're wrong or right. I'm over here going, I'm trying to figure out if I matter. If my story matters, if this is real. like, I'm sometimes to be self-focused is more humble than to be other-focused, especially if you're judging the other, yes, is what I think. Yes, it's like, it takes a lot more arrogance to tell someone they don't have a right
Starting point is 00:20:01 to be a main character than just someone who's a main character. Exactly. The amount of times that people have asked me to write a piece about this person or that person or this memoir or that book or that never absolutely not i will read it i will have feelings about it i will have opinions about it i will think it sucks or it's amazing i will have a conversation with the author i would never be like here is my sweeping take on whether this is good or bad that couldn't like yeah it's audacious it's audacious it's audacious it's also super interesting what you just mentioned about virginia wolf and like the interior story like the structural
Starting point is 00:20:39 value applied to that versus other things. And it's just so mirrored in every structural hurdle that we've had. You know, where you have like, okay, the domestic sphere belongs to women and the public sphere belongs to men. And that is the natural order of things. And therefore, because we have made those assignments, the domestic sphere will be unpaid, unvalued, and be seen as just inherently women inherently desire that and that gives us a reason to not compensate that work and to assign it to them they super want it therefore it has no value okay outs here in the exterior world and the public spaces are where we are going to give prestige and money and value okay and then you look at even the things that happen in the domestic sphere like why is it you
Starting point is 00:21:36 punch somebody in the face on the street, it's assault, you punch somebody in the face in a home, suddenly there is way, that is now a domestic situation. It is treated differently than if it happened outside the home. In the writing, even the value of saying, okay, this is an analysis of internal interior worlds is by definition, that's acute self-help. that is not something that is valuable to the world inherently and to people. And it's just, like, it isn't interior because it's interior. Everything that you talk about has structural and societal and political implications. It is called interior because it is a woman exploring it.
Starting point is 00:22:31 Exactly. It's not like women have interiors and men don't. That's what I'm trying to say. They're doing the same thing. It's just labeled something else. There's always terms used to dismiss women when they talk about their lives or themselves. It's whether it's self-help, now there's a lot of self-help that is very prescriptive, and I hate it. So I don't, prescriptive self-help, I understand the ickiness.
Starting point is 00:22:51 That doesn't, that's not what we're talking about. Everything else is lumped in there. If it's just a woman, a woman exploring daring to put herself as the subject and exploring her own life, it's also dismissed as self-help. you know there used to be women women who were writing about themselves online who dared to say I would like to talk about my life all of us were called mommy bloggers Rachel Held Evans was called a mommy blogger and she didn't have kids at the time she was talking about faith and love and the world and radical political shit mommy blogger that's what they called her it's just there's always terms for it and this is a flavor of that to me
Starting point is 00:23:34 And I understand, I feel it constantly when my writing is written about. I get it. I understand what's happening. Like that's the dismissal of it. I'm just, I continue to believe that women's stories matter, that women's lives matter. And I also know that in a world that hates women, every time a woman dares to speak, people will find a way to hate it yes they'll use different words they'll use different little dismissing things they'll say they'll call it they'll couch it in language that they can forgive themselves for
Starting point is 00:24:19 later but the dismissal of misogyny is at the center of it like i always think of the adri lord quote like anything that i accept about myself cannot be used against me and so this idea that you are you are naming all of the things about yourself which then other women can see in themselves and name for themselves and claim for themselves it stops being a weapon used against us if it's something that we see and claim on our own and that is hugely important because everyone's scared to say the thing because they know it's weaponized but here's the truth if you say the thing and claim the thing it defends the thing exactly That's why I'm like, if you're going to write, write the shit out of it.
Starting point is 00:25:07 Write an expose first so nobody else can. That's one of the great comforts of my life. Nobody can write an exoset that I haven't already written about myself. Great question. Thank you for allowing me to get all of that off of my chest. That felt good. And now it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to We Can Do Hard Things for free. The holidays are.
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Starting point is 00:31:05 Midi, the care women deserve. Okay. The next question is, Amanda, you've shared a lot about control, handling it all, and feeling overwhelmed. Where are you with that right now? Have you found anything that is helpful? Just an easy one. This is what we call a softball question. Yeah, softball. Help the people. Help the people, sister. I'm thinking. So I had, I shared a little bit about this on the tour, but I, um, you know, What happened was I went through, you know, the year-long cancer situation and someone texted me about, oh, no, it was like the day of the year anniversary of my diagnosis and was like, holy shit, it's been a year. Like, congratulations. I'm sure you're a different person now. I was so sad. Like, I hadn't been sad about the whole thing. But when I got that text and, like, sat with it for a minute, I felt really legitimately
Starting point is 00:32:21 gross and depressed and sad. And I think it's because I realized that I kind of thought that a magical thing would happen with the cancer, where it was like kind of this God-imposed speed bump, where it would be like okay shitty news about that but the good news is that inevitably there will be some transformation of me where I will stop going from like a stressed out super anxious feeling like I need to get everything done person and there will be an automatic values realignment where I kind of like see what's important in life and realign myself accordingly and and then life will be different and I when I got that text of the year anniversary I was
Starting point is 00:33:20 really unpleasantly surprised to do a quick review and realize that I had changed nothing about my life that I had like adjusted to the process and the surgeries and the got through that thanks to your help you guys and and everybody's support and then I had been like just jumped on the same treadmill like and just didn't make any changes at all like not to my schedule not to my expectations of myself not to what I spent my time on not to slowing down nothing and I realized I was like I am not going to ever change like this is my life and if not this catalyzing a change then like this is just the life I'm going to have because I can't imagine something more dramatic happening that is going to cause me
Starting point is 00:34:30 to reassess myself like that was the highest goal is trying to do all the things and I and And as long as I thought that that was the highest goal, I didn't know how to stop going for that. Like I didn't know how to adjust myself. It felt like a defeat. Like I have to admit that I can't handle it. And then I... Do you mind if I stop you there for one second just to make sure I understand? Because I think that was so important.
Starting point is 00:34:58 If you think the highest goal is to do all the things, then to not do all of them is just failure to the goal. It's not a shift in, you have to shift the goal. Like how would you define, how would you define that goal, doing all the things? So there is an opportunity, there is a challenge, there is a project that needs to be done. There is a goal that you or someone on your team or someone in your family has. And therefore, you try to go get that thing. Yeah, okay. It felt like if as long as that is what the goal is and you are readjusting yourself,
Starting point is 00:35:45 what you're readjusting yourself to is a lesser goal or just resigning yourself that you are not a person who can any longer achieve the goals. Got it. So that feels like defeat and failure. Yeah, it just feels like, well, I guess I'm just a fucking consolation. prize person now. Like it just, it, um, if that's the paradigm. And it certainly was, and I couldn't see a way out of that paradigm. And then I was reading this Buddhist master called, um, Fuji, you can it. And she was talking about her goals for her students and like
Starting point is 00:36:28 the way she really pushes them and works with them. And she said that her goal for her students, her ultimate goal was not to lighten their burden, but to make their burden so heavy that they put it down. For me, it felt like, oh, it's not, it's not that the burden is so heavy and I need to keep holding it up. Like, that's not a show of the highest, best form of my life that I can keep holding it up. It's like it's shifting the goal post. It's like if you get to the place where you can put it down, that's actually the goal. Like just even changing that framing was like, oh shit.
Starting point is 00:37:26 Is that the point? Is the point not to keep piling, but is the point to have enough awareness? to look and be like do I want to keep holding all this shit up and do I want to spend my whole life struggling to hold this up and do I want to spend my whole life resentful and angry and bitter towards everyone whose arms look honestly a little more relaxed than I think because that all of my energy is either going to holding or resenting and being like why can't someone help me hold this why is no one seeing how heavy this is to hold him why can't they help me and that reframing was like maybe we're not helping you because we don't want you
Starting point is 00:38:12 to keep holding it yeah maybe we're not helping you because that would just keep your arms in the air for the rest of your life and ours too yes maybe we're not helping you because the whole fucking point is to put it down yes and that for me has changed my self a little bit because it is entering just this little bit of calculus that's like here's a heavy plate okay great got it it's more like do I want to hold that plate? Do I even like that plate? What has that plate done for me? Do I want that plate in my life before I take it on?
Starting point is 00:39:03 And that is just not even a thing that used to be part of my life. So for me, the control even starts earlier. It's like, do I want that in my life? And the other part of it is also that Audrey Lord quote that's, you know, pay attention to the present you're constructing. It should look a lot like the future you're dreaming. is that I am trying to really condense the window between what I say I want and hope for my future self and what I say I will take on for my present self.
Starting point is 00:39:52 Those two things together have allowed me a little more breathing room because the control has to do with you've got to maintain a really really lot of control if you're holding up the you know a platter full of precious dishes yeah like and then of course you're mad that no one sees you and of course you're mad that no one's helping you and you got to really figure out how how many plates are really yours up there yeah and if not put them on someone else's fucking platter. That belongs to you. That's yours to control. That's not mine. And then like the new ones that come on, like really be careful what you put on there. And and it's lighter and you have to exercise less control when there's less to hold. Yes. And there was a lot of shit on my platter
Starting point is 00:40:48 that didn't belong to me. That's right. And so that's what I'm trying to work on. And now it's time for our ads. Gain is on a mission to spread the joy of scent, and they are doing it through their new Gain Wicked for Good collection. Just like the film transports us to another world, the power of scent does too, and together they're taking us all the way to Oz. The new Gain Wicked for Good collection lets fans get sent to Oz with three enchanting limited edition scents, designed to transport you to the world of Oz. My favorite is the gain in-washed scent boosters in wonderfulest woods and beautiful blossom beads. The scent has a way of making me feel both happy and calm. And there are very few things in my life that can do that. I pull my
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Starting point is 00:43:34 best sale of the year. That's C-O-O-P sleep goods.com slash hard things. Okay, so here's the thing that I've learned. The moments that matter most in life are often the small ones. the tiny gestures that say, I see you. I'm here. Zell helps us show up for the people around us, even when we can't be there in person. Recently, a friend was going through a hard time, and I couldn't fix a situation, and I couldn't be there by their side. So I just sent them a little something that they could take a break, get a coffee, and feel cared for. That's the beauty of Zell, whether it's a birthday surprise for a friend across the country or helping your niece out when her car breaks down. Zell is there when you need to send money or receive money so that you can be
Starting point is 00:44:21 there when it counts. And because the money goes directly into your enrolled bank account, it's there when you need it quickly and securely. Life is made up these small little moments of love and support and with Zelle, you can make them happen. When it counts, send money with Zell. all the difference shift between like the piece that the path to peace is peace. So like every time we say to ourselves is something that you and I do all the time and you do too. I'm sure everybody does it. But the idea of, well, I'm just going to hold on for another this because I'm going to get the peace. Like this is the time where I do the things so that I can earn the peace. And then that never works. I'm just, I don't know what the answer to that is. I just know
Starting point is 00:45:12 I've become supremely suspicious of myself every time I say something that hints at horizon living. Yeah. And this is the idea of like I'm going to pay the price of a lack of peace because in this transaction is the promise of future peace. Yes. As if peace isn't this is what you're described any time. Yes. So that I think we should be suspicious of and that's what that quote is getting at. Like if you're not, if not now, don't pretend that there's a means to an end here. If peace is the end, then peace has to be the means. And I also just want to say this because I think it's very important for the three of us to really like embody this understanding too, is that there has been an extraordinary amount of affirmation related to the toil and the holding up of plates in all three of our lives.
Starting point is 00:46:12 the three of us work extraordinarily hard we're holding up a lot of plates in the air and there's a thing that that has come from it right like we have i have one extraordinary things i've done extraordinary things this podcast has done extraordinary things but there has been a cost and i think that that the cost that gets paid we can easily ignore because we start to prioritize all of these other things that we can claim as affirmations or the positive sides or whatever that the world is telling us because this is the capitalism right it's like the world that we live in right now so the kind of bravery sister for you to want to stop the paradigm for yourself and to put things down that does not belong to you it is like what we kind of need to keep doing it reminds me of that
Starting point is 00:47:08 story of the person climbing like there's like a ladder again against a wall. I think this is another Buddhist story. And the guy like can't get up the ladder fast enough. So he's like trying to like train and trying to figure out how to get up the last the ladder faster and how to be the fastest and how to be. And then suddenly realizes like the ladder is not is on the wrong wall. Like it's the wall. It's the wrong fucking wall. Like it doesn't matter how good he's going to that how fast he's going to make it up that ladder if it's the wrong wall. So like I'm thinking now of the wall as your original goal.
Starting point is 00:47:44 Like the ultimate goal is to solve all the problems, do all the projects, do all the things, fix all the things for all the people, be the best at it. If I do anything less than that, it's, I'm just being less good at the jaw, at the wall. So if that's not the wall, do you have any idea what the replacement for that goal is and it might just be I also believe strongly in the not this moment it could just be I get I I don't know yet I just know it's not this wall is there any inkling of what the next the real or truer ultimate goal or wall is for you I mean listen I have I hesitate to even like it's really easy for a person who has
Starting point is 00:48:37 a bunch of financial resources and is really privileged and to be like, I'm going to put it down because I'm also a person that, you know, I stayed miserable for 10 years at a law firm job that I hated every minute of because I had the goal and I'm paying off my student loans, right? And like, I am grateful to that person who did that because that person allowed me. me to then come take the experiment with you and then build this. So like I don't, I think there might be a time and a place in life for all these different stages.
Starting point is 00:49:19 And so I don't know that it is always put it down. All I know is there is where there is also a self-imposed prison where if you have always lived a certain way and then you assume that you always have to live a certain way. certain way. I know that it would be foolish to live in the same level of delayed gratification, the same level of I am sacrificing for a future me when I am someone who is 47 years old and has what I have and gets to make choices for myself. That like no one is coming to save me, I am the only one who knows what I want and need and will make me happy, period. And so I would be living in the same fiction if I didn't accept that now as I would have been living in a fiction if I would have been living in a fiction if I believed I could quit my law firm job and just figure out a way to pay off hundreds of thousands of law school debt.
Starting point is 00:50:33 like just because it was true then doesn't make it true now and i think that kind of reality checking of like what outdated rules and beliefs are you living by in this moment that just because they served you then doesn't make them true right now i'm in a moment where i'm like i need to have a come to jesus with myself and be like what are the stories you're telling you about your life because they're actually different now. Yep. And what's different now is that you get to choose. And you know what?
Starting point is 00:51:08 That's even less comfortable for you. It would be much more comfortable the way I am built to be like there's a path. There's a role. What we do is we do the thing now for the payoff later. That's what I've always done every day of my life, my entire life. It is deeply, deeply uncomfortable for me to adapt to a world in which I have the volition and I have the responsibility to figure it out. I never had that responsibility to figure it out before.
Starting point is 00:51:35 All I was doing was the quote unquote smartest, best long-term plan. And now I'm going to point in my life where that long-term plan is actually not suited to my circumstance. And I'd be lying to myself to say that it was. And so I have to figure that out. And I am a tiny infant baby. I have no idea how to figure out what I want. I have no idea how to build a life that isn't based on rules. I have no idea how to be like not as prudent, smart decision.
Starting point is 00:52:08 That like that's the path. I am finally at a stage where I have to like figure my own path by myself for myself. And that's not comfortable for me. So I don't know what it is. All I know is that there are different considerations that I have known. never considered that I'm being forced to consider if I'm going to live honestly according to my reality. Well, it's a good thing you can do hard things, sister.
Starting point is 00:52:40 We're going to stop there. We love you, Pod Squad. We'll see you next time. Bye. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us at we can do hard things on Instagram and at we can do hard things show on TikTok.

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