Speaker 1: Every little bump in the relationship is the potential dissolution of the entire relationship. That's actually why people get married, you know, just so you know Because this is built into marital vows I'm not leaving Ever no matter what it's like, okay Well that definitely puts a boundary around our arguments, right? Because I can't say every time you manifest one of your flaws, which you're likely to do just as often as me Well enough of this. It's like that's horrible man. If your whole life is well every time you get out of line I'm out of here. It's like how the hell are you first of all you're not going to admit to ever doing anything wrong second you're going to be on your You're like a like a scared cat the entire relationship because well who knows it could just come to an end at any moment It's like you know people say well if you're if the possibility of divorce is open it makes you free It's like yeah, that's what you want. You want to be free a really really So you can't predict anything. That's what you're after. It's a vow and it says look I Know that you're trouble Me too So we won't leave No matter what happens well, that's a hell of a vow, but that's why it's a vow right That's why you take it in front of a bunch of people. That's why it's supposed to be a sacred act It's like what's the alternative? What's the alternative? Everything is mutable and changeable at any moment. Well, go ahead, you live your life like that, and see what you're like when you're 50. Jesus, it's dismal. Two or three divorces, your family's fragmented, you've got no continuity of narrative. And it's not good for the kids, not by any stretch of the imagination. And so, it's a form of voluntary enslavement, I suppose, but it's also equivalent to the adoption of a responsibility. And there's more to it than that. If you can't run away, then you can solve your problems. Because it might be, okay, well I'm stuck with you, so how about we fix things? Because the alternative is we're going to be in a boxing match for the next 40 years. That's the alternative. So, and you think you're going to fix problems without something like that hanging over your head? There isn't a chance. You'll just avoid them, because that's what people do. It's really hard to solve problems, especially in a relationship. Don't have one plan. Right, if you're going to stake yourself on something, you should throw a couple of alternative scaffolds up beside you so that you have somewhere to go. You want to be a doctor. Okay. Well, you could be a nurse. It's like it's not a doctor, but it means cutting your throat. You're still doing 80% of what you wanted to do. So you want to, and you want to think about this during your whole life, man, if you're going to take a high risk you want to scaffold yourself in other areas so that if it fails, you don't, the bottom doesn't drop out and you die. and it's also very much worth thinking about with regards to setting up your life in general it's like if you concentrate solely on your career you can get a long way in your career and I would say that that's a strategy that a minority of men preferentially do that's all they do, they work like 70-80 hours a week they go flat out on their career they're staking everything on the small probability of exceptional status in a narrow domain But it's hard on them. They don't have a life. It's very difficult for them to have a family They don't know how to take any leisure activity like they get very one-dimensional now It may be that that unidimensionality is the price you have to pay to be exceptional at one thing Right because if you're going to be something like a genius level mathematician And you want to do that for or a scientist say it's like you're in your lab You're in your lab all the time you're working 70 hours a week or 80 hours a week. You're smart. You're dedicated You're unidimensional, and that's how you get to beat all the other people who are doing that it's the only way But the problem is you don't get a life now if you love being a scientist and you have that kind of Focus of mind well first of all you're a rare person and second you're going to pay for it, but find more power to you, but but it's a It's a risky business to do that you sacrifice a lot for it. You know and I would say most Most often, if you're speaking about having a healthy life, that isn't what you do. You spread yourself out more. So, you know, you have a family, you have some things that you do outside of work that are meaningful to you and useful, you have a network of friends, um, well, that, those three things alone are, four things alone are plenty to keep you well-oriented. And then if one of those things collapses, you know, everything doesn't go. Now, the price you pay for that is, the more you strive to optimize that balance, the less likely you are to be fantastically successful at any single one of them. But you might have a very, you know, if you consider your life as a whole, that might be a winning strategy. One of the things Carl Jung said, I really like this, he thought that men went after perfection and women went after wholeness. So they're different, they're different, value, they're different, there's something different at the top of the value hierarchy So perfection would be, stake it all on one thing and look for radical success Not that all men do that, because they don't, but we're talking about extremes At least with regards to the men that do that The wholeness idea is more like, well I want, I want, it's like I want one thing in my life to be a hundred and fifty percent or I want 5 things in my life to be 80% well, there is a lot more richness in a life where you have 5 things operating at 80% but you are not operating at any of them at 150% so, and I really believe this, because I have watched men and women go through their careers now for a long period of time, and one of the things that there is lots of things that produce this But one of the things that I've noticed is that mostly women in their 30s bail out of unidimensional careers They won't do them They won't they won't put in the 80 hours a week that they would have to put in in order to dominate that particular area and it isn't the reason that they won't do it is because they decide it's not worth it and no wonder because Why would that be worth it? You have to ask yourself that it's like well you want to be an outstanding scientist It's like okay really really that's what you want because that means that's what you do Because you're competing with other people you know they're smart they're hard-working and if you want to be at the top you have to be smarter and work harder than any of them and Working hard means working long hours. I mean it also means working diligently, but in in the final analysis It's all also an additive issue If I'm smart and hard-working and I can crank out for 70 hours a week, and you do it for 30 It's like in two years. I'm so far ahead of you. You will never ever catch up so Anyways, and I think partly maybe part of the reason to that women are oriented that way more than men I think there's two reasons is one is Socioeconomic status does not make women more attractive on the mating market But it does make men more attractive and the second is women's time frame is compressed Right because guys can always say well. I'll have kids later, and they can say that till they're like 80 whereas women It's like no way man. You got to get it. You got to get it together by the time You're let's say 40 But really probably by 35 but definitely by 40 because otherwise it ain't happening and that's bloody Dreadful like the most unhappy people you ever see hmm. No No One of the common routes to extreme unhappiness is to want children and not have them I wouldn't recommend that you know you see couples who were in their 30s one couple in three over the age of 30 has fertility That's defined as inability to conceive after one year of trying. One in three. So it's worth thinking about because people are very, very unhappy if they want to have kids and then they can't. Man, you're in the medical mill for ten years if that's what happens to you.