Episode 20: We Can't Do It Alone

[00:00:00] Seth: We were never meant to be alone. We would never become what we are, alone. So I'm not a huge fan of television, but I watched a show once called Alone, and so contestants are placed in the same region, but they're placed pretty far apart from each other, and they're required to document their lives as they try to survive by themselves.

Whoever is last to tap out wins the prize money. And, predictably, at the beginning of each season, probably a majority of these people fall off within the first few weeks. And then there's a handful that make it longer and you really just follow those handful of people as they go through this experience.

And as you follow them, you start to watch them figure things out. Either they start getting like a reliable source of food or they start figuring out like a better living situation. It's really pretty fun to watch. For a lot of the frontrunners that kind of make it past a certain level, survival is not really the problem that they deal with anymore.

It becomes loneliness. And every single day becomes a burden to them. Even the most introverted of them just gets incredibly lonely. And the winners get through it with sheer grit and determination. Sometimes it actually seems to benefit these people to not have such an easy time surviving. Because the ones that do figure out how to survive with some relative amount of ease, Start suffering from that loneliness earlier, whereas the ones that have just enough difficulty surviving are so distracted by just getting their next meal that they they're a little distracted by that, and the loneliness is, um, put at bay just, just a little bit.

Now, the environments that they're placed in are hand picked to be difficult, but far from impossible. There's usually a source of fresh water, and there's some food nearby. And not to mention, like, every couple of weeks or something, they get, like, a medical checkup. But these people are chosen based on their perceived ability to survive, and even they can barely last weeks most of the time.

Now, I remember when I, when I got divorced, I, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. And seeing as I only have my kids 50 percent of the time, it's that leaves 50 percent of my nights to myself.

And around that same time, I started doing a little less field work for my company. And for the first time in my life, I lived alone. Prior to getting married, I had roommates, and prior to that, I lived at home with my parents. So I just never had experience being alone. Being myself for any length of time.

Now I've become used to my solitary life, but it is remarkable to me how it affects my behavior. Now, my work keeps me pretty busy and doing these podcasts keep me pretty busy and I enjoy them, but, um, I still have half of the evenings entirely to myself. I remember during my separation, shortly after my divorce, I started doing things that I never thought I'd do.

I started using Facebook. Regularly for like the first time in 10 years and other changes happen I now say yes to pretty much anything I get invited to I Look for classes and other activities just for the sake of being around other people on days where I don't have anything planned I will literally go to the store for no other reason than to exist around other people now Not everybody is like me and I know that I'm naturally more extroverted than a lot of people So the social desire is probably a little stronger than

But when you're married and you got kids dripping all over you, getting away from it sounds like such a welcome break. And it is for short periods of time, but even then you probably want to get away from it all with your significant other or to go do something with your buddies. I mean, I know people that will take solo trips or they're, they'll take a few days to work on some project, but it's usually never longer than a few days.

And often when they are doing something by themselves, it does involve. Interacting with other people in some way, shape, or form. They're either reading something that somebody else wrote. So, still interacting in a way. They're traveling someplace that other people like to go. Where other people are going to be.

They're watching movies and reading books about other people. So when people leave to be alone, It's kind of hard to say that they're actually truly alone. I mean, even people that want to go and commune with nature are going to, quote, commune with nature, which is sort of like a personification of nature.

It's like they're turning nature into a person. And even that isn't for terribly long most of the time. So, I guess my point here is, we are lost without each other. I, I've long felt that we need other people in order to think properly. When we express a thought to somebody else, it's almost like we're projecting an image of how we think things are.

And when it's exposed to another mind that sees things from a different angle, they can help you increase the resolution of that image by helping you get the details more crisp because they offer a different angle. Think of any great thinker that you've ever admired. And imagine what they would be if there was no one who had come before them.

They'd probably be little more than intelligent cavemen. Almost every technological advance that we've ever made was made possible by at least some understanding provided to us by other people. We don't stand on the shoulders of giants, but rather we stand on the shoulders of armies of people that have come before us.

We have this amazing ability to be so conceited sometimes. and thinking that our successes are because of our own hard work and determination. Now, granted, hard work and determination are important, But even if you came from nothing and became a billionaire, or president, or some other position of status, you would not have done it alone.

You would have learned things from people along the way, and you would have had to have help from other people along the way. Like, I mean, there's no way anybody that becomes president can argue that they did it on their own. I mean, the amount of effort that goes into a presidential campaign, it's like they hire an, an entire army of people to do this thing.

I've known a few people that, out of stubbornness or pride, have insisted on taking as little help from their family as possible, only to go and find jobs where they were wholly reliant on their employers to sustain them. And it's true that in that case that there's an exchange of work, but even still, the independence that they believed they had acquired was largely fictional.

I had a mother that gave birth to me and nurtured me. I had a father that provided for me and taught me. I had teachers, religious leaders, uncles, aunts, grandparents, friends, cousins, family friends. I had movies, I had the internet, I had stories about people that all contributed to my upbringing. And even as an adult, I had employers, more teachers.

friends, books, online videos news outlets, and more that contributed to what I am today. I have a kind of independence that I didn't have as a child, but even now, I depend on my company's clients to support me. And I depend on my employees to get the work done. And I could not have done it Without the hours and hours of input that I receive from so many different people in my life, we are social by nature, and to fight against this reality is foolish.

We can feign the idea that we're independent all we want, but when push comes to shove, we need other people. I tend to think the more we recognize that we're incomplete without others in our lives. The more satisfying our lives can become. So I would lean into this truth. Stop thinking you can do it all on your own.

Maybe you can muddle through just, quote, doing things on your own, but it isn't what you're made for. For some reason, especially here in the U. S., I think a lot of us feel a little ashamed to seek out help. Or even to let people know that we want even just their company. We build these little social fortresses of acquaintances and shallow friendships.

Or we hang on to just a couple of people that we trust and ignore everybody else. I mean, maybe your social life is chock full and you have lots of friends, and if so, great job! You're probably happier than everyone else that has stunted their social growth and refuses to get to know anyone new. But if you don't have at least ten people that you feel comfortable reaching out to in a time of need, then, from my view, you are falling painfully short.

Getting to know people can be painful sometimes. And when you start showing a person that you want to spend more time with them, it's almost like exposing a little bit of a vulnerability. You yourself are not entirely self sufficient. It also exposes that your life isn't so chock full of other people that You have no time for anybody else.

So it makes clear that you do have time for somebody else when you try it. And when you start trying to spend more time with other people. And I think a lot of times we like to make it feel like our, our time is so scarce because we're so important. It's like busy people are high value people because they're so wanted.

They're so busy, but that's a, that's a losing perspective that will bring you no closer to any person. I mean, I know some people, especially when I was younger. I knew people that would almost exaggerate their relationships outside of the group that we were mutually a part of. And I felt like they did it to kind of elevate their status within the group.

That we were in together because they could kind of be like, Oh, my other friends, Oh, I got to go hang out. I got to go do this stuff with my other friends because you guys are not quite as cool as my other friends. Definitely, definitely got that vibe from some people, but I knew they were full of it a lot of times.

And I knew that we were probably the most important people to them at that time of their life. But it was just another example of, of people just trying to hide that vulnerability and just refusing kind of a deeper openness that will allow other people to be a part of their life. I know it's hard to show other people that you like them.

And we're not even speaking romantically, just as friends even. Even so, it's a small risk that can open up doors to real friendships. I remember watching this video that had Jordan Peterson in it that he, he said something about one of the easiest ways to get to know your neighbors. And it stuck with me because it, it just made a kind of like perfect sense.

And he said in it that you just simply go and ask them for a small favor and, and you being willing to owe another person something kind of opens the door for them to ask for something of you. But you didn't really ask for much, but you gave them the opportunity to be generous and you opened the door for them to ask for something from you.

And sometimes that's all it takes. So I hope if you're not socially fulfilled, that you can take that chance. It's always going to be awkward at first, especially the first few times, but it gets easier. I myself am painfully aware of this, but I know we need to do it because we were not made to live life alone.