What Is Happy Ever After? - The Think Free Rebellion

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The Think Free Rebellion - Rob McPhillips EPISODE 22, 22nd September 2020

What Is Happy Ever After?

00:00:00 03:18:00

We spend a lot of time trying to get into relationships. We spend a lot of time thinking and talking about our relationships. But have you ever defined what a successful relationship would be like for you?

Listen in as we discuss the topic from different perspectives and clarify what happy ever after would be for you.

Transcript

Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your path to happy ever after with your host, Rob McPhillips. So if we start individually, we can be extroverts are going to right. So five minutes really thinking about what what would you have to have to have your personal happy ever after? And it may be that you want to move or turn your camera off or whatever while you think about that, and then we'll go into the into the groups.

So I'm going to be here for a minute while I had everyone else. I know some people who come in and just for the recording, because I always forget about that.

But if you're listening along afterwards, he also it because I think it's really important that you have your definition before you listen to anyone else. So the question is, what would happy ever after look like? And the answer is going to be different for each of us, but there probably are going to be some common themes, so. He would like to share what they discussed or their. Vision. I'll go first on the news for an hour. So this is going to be a good time to mention I, I am on that spectrum.

So for me, someone who understands the news, who understands that I might say the wrong thing occasionally and I might not react in the same way and I might not laugh. You joke. You don't get it. I actually have to ask. I'm sorry. Are you being sarcastic? Which isn't so I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely asking how are you being sarcastic? Because I got so, uh. But yeah, just someone who likes to laugh as well because I'm a bit, I'm a bit silly.

I've got better sense of humor like a pun. So someone who is not too strict about things but I do like to set routines. I go in this day, that day and that day and night and then like gets disrupted. I got a bit like that because the way my brain works, so someone who's OK with my little sort of like what the word be, I think the way to be not certain way like little idiosyncrasies. Someone is OK with those.

Yeah, but, um, I'm pretty easygoing in every respect, so as long as they're all right with me forgetting to take the Benzal occasionally and talking, not talking over, talking over them when I watch to because I've already seen the film, I don't know what they're gonna know what's gonna happen other than that. Yeah, I'm pretty much fine as long as I'm not a huge drinker. So and anyone who goes out on the set, everyone I know, I'm not I'm not.

I'm not I'm not aware of that. But yeah. Over the night. Yeah. I'm pretty easy going to be honest.

Okay. So you want to be understood. Really. Yeah, understood. But also I just I understand because of my previous relationships that it's give and take on both sides. So, you know, as long as they are a bit patient with me, I'll be very understanding with them.

So, you know, it's really tricky for Sharon and anyone else. Shall I say something or just, you know, there's a little arrow in here coming to the rescue again for this silence?

Well, I just thought the silence was a bit deafening for me. Yeah, OK. So from my point of view. I suppose so with me, it's something I've not really had properly, my relationships, and I don't know what not, but it will be a much more closer connection. So it will be a case of a little bit like what was described just now. But it's I suppose it's. They have now, if there will be where I feel that that person is always on my side doesn't matter.

I'm not expecting that person to agree with me all the time because that will be unrealistic. But I expect them to be honest and they expect them to be have my best interests at heart. So basically, when they say something to me, it's because they are thinking the best of me. So if they say, I don't think you're right about that is going to go wrong, they're actually trying to prevent me from making a mistake.

I may not agree with the. But also to seem to agree to be able to talk really on things rather than deteriorating into some sort of I don't like I don't mind arguments, it can even be a heated argument for health care. But not just I don't know why, but it really has a very negative effect for me. I like to just be able to talk to people, discuss things. So for me, it's a case of saying. You know, working together through life's ups and downs, but I accept that there will be issues and problems, but so long as I feel that that person is always on my side, that for me creates a trust, a bond.

And that for me is the one, the most important things in a relationship that I know that I can trust them with whatever happens. And if I'm down. You know, if they told me this isn't going to work forever and I don't listen to her and I get on with it and it all blows up in my face just the way she said it was going to be, what it does is rolled up their sleeves and gets Maxin and helps me sort it out, because what that does next time round is for me to say I was I was an idiot.

I should sat there and listen. I didn't see what was coming for some reason. And, you know, I've got to pay more attention next time in my previous relationships. It's not been like that. I mean, I've had to make the decisions because there was a little dithering going on. And then when it did blow up in my face, the other person just stood on the sidelines and told me, I told you so. And, you know, I don't I don't particularly need that at that point.

I just need someone to help me out. Even if it was deserved, I would suggest that everyone makes a mistake. And therefore, if you are meant to be partners in life, because for me, I mean, in the last week we were talking about the fact that we had a lot of independent people and that's how the women were independent, rightly so. And they were quite openly saying, we don't actually need them. And as such, to buy me things or do this or do that because they're independent, they can manage their own life.

But actually, we all need somebody. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. So we need somebody to share our life with. It's a journey and we want to share that journey with someone. That means that someone is there to help you when you fall down and help you along and on Monday fall down, you are there to help them. Yeah. So for me, they're for the happily ever after isn't necessarily everything is going to be peachy, but that we can work through the rough times together without it getting becoming a negative event that we actually get through them together.

You know what, the bond is stronger because we help each other out. We got through it, OK? We might have got a little bit stressed at times. But the point is, you know, we we work through it like two adults. We discussed our issues and problems. We agreed our way forward. And, you know, we are stronger as a result. That's kind of where I am, but anyway, I don't know if that makes everybody confused now as to.

Nothing to me seems quite clear, and I like what the government says, is that basically a couple of really good marriages or relationships are based on what is it like, baby, when you have the whole world stops.

So the focus of each other is to like, if one if one's down and one's having a hard time or, you know, whatever the other ones are there for them, is that teamwork? Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Has anyone else or if anyone doesn't want to actually talk to that, but they can put it in check. Laura? Did you talk? Yeah, you still meet its. The muted on me. OK, yes, sorry if you've heard this before, my great, but for me that happy ever after, I guess the focus was on that word happy having been in quite an unhappy relationship.

And it was like, I want to feel happy in my relationship and I want to know that the other person feels happy in the relationship too. We we laugh together. We share love, a kind of emotional level, physical level, mental level, bizarre, maybe a spiritual connection to its connection. It's meaningful. It is mutually supportive and nurturing from this group. I've also loved learning has taken place the having skills, you know, the skills of communication.

Problem-Solving, what can we bring to a problem that's arising in our relationship? How are we going to deal with it so that it doesn't destroy our relationship would be really important as well, so that we can work together to support each other through problems and deal with the problems that arises from our dynamic in the relationship. Yes, so when I listen to that, what I'm hearing is. Is it's about fundamentally you've been happy and also the other partner being happy, and then it's about when you look at being happy.

It's like riding a wave. This is the metaphor that comes to mind, and it's about when the seas are choppy. And how do you navigate?

How do you balance and stay on top of that so that you you don't allow, like, the waves of life and rough seas to come between you, which I think is basically that the struggle that most relationships have is when times get tough, everything that they had was built on this fragile relationship, this fragile tie that when other things could come between them, tear them apart.

Is that yeah, yeah, yeah, I can kind of relate to that, the end of the match for the sea, calm waters, stormy waters riding the wave, but also like navigating the seas about the skills of sailing, about what you do, you know, dealing with the wind, et cetera. So it's not just like. Going with it, I guess you've got to try and proactively develop together the skills to deal with the rough, you know, stormy weather.

OK. And I just. Can I just add. For me, it's important to have mental stimulation. And a part of that is to be with somebody who, yes, you have shared and common interests, but having different interests as well so that we're not carbon copies of each other, we bring new and interesting ideas or experiences into the relationship and that that would keep me interested. So that will keep me happy.

That will keep you also. Being possessive, needy, living in each other's back pocket does not mean I don't have to see you every day.

I don't have to see you, you know, all the time.

Respect for each other. Which I think ties in with the trust that I mentioned. And I think it's it also involves not taking the other party for granted.

So tying all of that into what everybody else has said it's and being respectful, trusting and being open with each other, but at the same time just trying to maintain a level of of of curiosity about the world and your part in it and and your partner.

In other words, not going into retirement.

Yes, that's that that tends to be where I've heard it most is a complaint from women about men as they get older.

In general, yeah, yes, so. So really what you're looking for is. To entertain, but someone who stimulates. And keeps things alive. So I think it's important to know what you're looking for, to be clear about what it is. Sometimes we can talk about these things in abstract fashion. But if someone said, well, OK, so what what kind of a character will this person have? What kind of character traits will they really have?

I mean, how would you recognize this person? And sometimes it's I mean, I say that from my own experience as well. I mean, when I first went into my marriage, I have to say, I, I didn't really know. I mean, I knew that, OK, yes. You know, someone to get along and trustworthy and all that, all the rest of it, I didn't really know how to identify or recognize such a person.

Not not consciously anyway.

And also, I think I suffer from naivete where there were problems that I could see. I was maybe obnoxious enough, not just naive, that I thought in time we can sort that out or I can help out with that. But, you know, it's a problem. And I can I can do that. I can get along with anybody and. It's not me being beheaded. Yes, I can get along with anybody, but it doesn't it's not the same as living with people.

You know, when you're living with somebody that's different to having to get along with them, you get along with your friends and your colleagues. But that's very different to being in a relationship. So sometimes it's important, I think, to kind of understand what you're looking for and perhaps your own limitations as well. At least that's the problem I have. Yeah, I think that's a that's a very good point in that my story is exactly the same and.

So I was wondering, so we've got a couple of questions here. Who in previous relationships? Who? Knew what they were looking for accurately. If you've if you've had a long term relationship, I think we're probably in about sort of two age groups. There's my kind of age group and then there's some that are a little bit younger and. So I think a lot of us have had one look, one long relationship and maybe someone younger to have had maybe as long.

So, you know, something to think about. Allan, I just noticed your hand up there. Are you? Yeah, I was just. Just in relation to Yishan, who knew exactly what they were looking for? Yeah, I did at the time, but it isn't what I'm looking for anymore. I wanted the fairytale, as it were, wanted the you know, that pure love of.

That we expect everything, that all of the positive aspects that people have mentioned so far today and I believed in it, but I don't believe that anymore. I just I just just don't. I would like to, but I just don't I don't I don't think there's a perfect person. I don't think there's an absolute soulmate out there.

I think it's difficult to meet people and give people to give you the chance now anyway. And if you don't meet with whatever expectation the media or Instagram or whatever else puts in front of that puts in front of that person, then you kind of already doomed. You know, I've touched on it in previous occasions. Where? We all projected an illusion about ourselves, and sometimes relationships go down and fizzle out because the illusion fades from from what happens at the beginning.

But I think now it's even difficult to get through that illusion, period, because people it's like fast food, you know, I want what I want. Now, when I get it, finish that and I throw it away and I'll get something else. And that just seems to be the nature of things that doesn't seem to be any interest in longevity and actually getting to know somebody. And that goes across all aspects sex, love, passion and everything just seems to be so quick.

And it's like, you know, it's like the likes of Tinder where someone can judge you with this swipe of a finger. I mean, that's just ridiculous. And that's what people do. And so I just don't have any belief in that anymore. And that's why I personally am kind of going down the list of like, OK, I'm going to get myself sorted so we don't have to rely on anybody else. And then if somebody comes along, well, good.

But I won't have to rely on them to to be content. I won't have to, you know, be in a position where I could get seriously hurt because they leave me or they have an affair or they die or or whatever else it happens, whatever reason in my life. Yeah. That's kind of where I am at the moment.

Hmm. Yeah, I think. I think it's like if we look we have an obesity crisis and we have a debt crisis, and I think it is for the same reasons that Alan has mentioned that.

There is this need for instant gratification. Yet even in those. Even like even though like McDonald's and Burger King and whatever fries and the mainstream does tend to go like that, there are still people that are, you know, have a lot of dedication to their fitness to help you. There are still people and in the same way and I think that's a really valuable insight, that there's this need for instant gratification which is affecting relationships.

But yet every one day soon, you soon get fed up with the instant gratification. And there is a point where people reach a level of obesity. There's a point where people reach a level of that, where they have to take control of things. And so that there still are always people that.

Are have the. Ability to delay gratification. And so I said that there was something else that you said that I wanted to pick up on on. About the Cuban people giving you the chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think. I think what your what your what's happening is where people are. Dropping out early or whatever it is that they're showing to you that there's someone that isn't going to make it in the long haul anyway. She probably just learning earlier.

I think I think I mean, every relationship ends and never ends and therefore ends in a breakup. So the cool thing always has to be yourself and has to be you have to, of course, know that whatever happens, you can always be happy and you can always find someone to be happy with. That's just a matter of skills. So when you know that when you know that you can just go out and you can always find someone who is I mean, just like you just picking someone, but someone who has the qualities.

But then there's a.

A level of more security and less anxiety about it, and you can let people go. If that makes sense, I think you need to have that, you need to have that foundation where you feel like your happiness doesn't depend on anyone else. And it's knowing that you have the skills and the ability and you can cope. Know it's like. It's like pretty much every single relationship I've had, you know, it hasn't been like truly amazing when you first go on your first day.

So you first meet them and sometimes you think, you know, I'm not sure what they are for me or they're not for me. And you go on a couple of dates and see how that goes and you can even not know them, you know, sort of get to know them for a couple of months. And then you go, you know what? Actually, the thing that I thought was a little bit annoying about this person in the beginning is actually really redeeming quality.

And it's only those those those things can be revealed sometimes in time, and that works the other way around. But I just don't think that the majority of people, through an expansion of that, a lot of friends who have split open a shingle and stuff like that and that all seem to, you know, no one's influence on anyone else. It's all like the same story, but with somebody else and talent. And, you know, I've got I've got a sister who's younger than me, quite attractive.

And she's in the same shame both. So it's not just men, it's women as well. I've got a cousin again. She's really, really pretty. And she she's the same thing of actually meeting someone, which is Dennis, a patient. It just be an ongoing theme. And I think Chris and. That it's it's that that is the problem of why. This is the that's the reason is because people don't know, like the people are in a relationship and things go wrong and they don't know how to change it.

They don't know how to fix problems. So they say they think the and what's happening is this has always been a dynamic that people it's why I say the fairy tale underlies everything, because people go into a relationship and I have certain expectations that someone's always going to love them. Someone's always going to be there for them. And the reality is that they're not. The reality is that there's going to be people who expect unconditional love. But the reality is, if you think of everyone and anyone and everyone in your life.

There is a time, like a moment, just a moment where you hate them, there's a moment where you're angry with them and it doesn't mean that you don't love them generally, but it means in that moment. You have anger, you have hate or whatever, all bitter towards them, and so people read that and sometimes it's more than a moment. I'm not sure if I've just dropped out. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. And so in that so that when we have a problem in a relationship and when we don't do what we're always talking about, we're not there when we're not there and we're not supportive.

And sometimes we're not just because we stressed and we're busy. And when we're not there, that person feels unloved because that person feels unloved. They they lose that connection to you when you when we feel unloved, when we feel low. What we do is we then get angry, we like someone else, we look for who's to blame, then we blame our partner, we get better. And so we think they don't they don't love us. Maybe they're not the one.

And that's when people look outside. And the real reason is that they if you imagine, like, there's a line below. Despair and there's a line when we drop below it, we feel angry, we feel better, and it often has nothing to do with the other person. It has to do with, you know, like when you're when you're tired, you're stressed. You're going to look at people and someone in the traffic. You're going to be really angry with that girl like they in one area.

But when you're feeling happy and you're relaxed and you're calm, the same thing can happen. And you just your understanding of the world that they're in a rush and you let it go. So does that make sense? But, Rob, one of the things that I think we tend not to focus on is we are thinking what I'm looking for in the person that I want to love me. And, you know, I want to be loved, I want this person to be this and that, and I want this person to do this for me and me, that to me.

But have we ever sat down and taken an audit of ourselves? What is it that I am going to be able to give to that person or what do I bring into this thing? What what will they love about me? What am I doing for them? Just like how I am looking for these things in them. What what is it that I'm going to be given to that person or what will they get from me? And I think we really it's part of, I suppose, how we when we grow up in a society where we look for, you know, the partner, the ideal partner, not focusing on how can I be the best partner that I can be to whoever it happens to me that I end up with.

And so we have not learned how to actually assess ourselves, and sometimes we are afraid of it and I think we need to get over that fear, but also that I think is part of growing up when you are 26 or when you are 20. You know, I don't think you have the skills or the experience to even articulate what some of these attributes are that you that really are important and you are evolving after a while. Yes. You start to look at those things that.

Are part of you, but also those things that you can't abide, if you know what I mean, the other things that are very important to you, like honesty and it's just not cemented in you when you're very young. It's part of growing up. But I think it's important. Yeah, yeah, definitely, I think that's that's. A really key, key point, and it's it's the reason why it's so important to understand yourself, because when you understand yourself, the next level is that you understand someone else and.

The biggest secret. Two relationships is really there, what Sandra said is we're all about people go dating with a checklist and it's all about, yeah, I want this, I want this, I want this in a relationship.

And people think, OK, what do I have to do to get this? But the other person is doing exactly the same thing. And it's something in psychology called the fundamental attribution error and a fundamental attribution error is. We have all these cognitive biases, so when we look at the world, we never see the world really as it is, we never see people as they are because we have these biases. And one of the most fundamental is this fundamental attribution.

And the way I was taught is when we look at someone, it's like if we both fall over. It was like. You fell, I was pushed. So it's that if we if you do something, it's because you're an idiot, if I do, it is because some idiot left the step there for me to pull over.

So we and also when we look at other people. When someone screws up, we judge them by their behavior, by the action, by the result that we got, and when we do the same thing, we judge ourselves by our intention. So, yeah, I did my intended to do this, but we don't give the other person the benefit of the doubt. So, yeah, that that if if I think if there's one case and also if there's one key, but.

If you can understand. The other people are exactly like you, they have the same face. They do things for the same reasons as you, but it's always easier to see in someone else. And so if you understand they're looking for exactly the same as you. They have the same fears, the same anxieties, the same stress, the same whatever in their own way.

And so it's just understanding why did they really do it? And when I talk about narrative, but the key to relationships is narrative is the biggest narrative that comes between people is when we ascribe. Some intention to their behavior has nothing to do with that. So the classic one is when we have an argument, it's because. It's because. They don't love you, it's not because they they just didn't think about it or whatever. But when we say all that means that they didn't love us.

And it's that kind of belief that makes people not really give everything to a relationship and to drop out quicker. Yeah, I am, if it was OK, I speak yes, no, it's really interesting to hear how this conversation has evolved from obviously, you know, all the way to basically saying that it's actually about who we are as people. I mean, it's interesting that Sandra actually says that. I actually I'm twenty six and I feel like it's really it's definitely the case.

I can understand what Alan is saying because it is a case where the majority of people we look on the outside, it's easy to have a bleak view of the state of relationships with state of anything. But I think what most of what comes down to is who you actually are within yourself. I think that we can always look at the outside world and say, oh, this isn't a great picture. That doesn't look great. But I think that the way I see life is that if it's to be, then it's up to me.

And I think that when it comes to relationships, it really is fundamentally down to who you are. I think that many people go into relationships, not actually, as you said, Rob, and as actually many people have said on this call, not really having any clue who they actually are, what makes them tick, not having any sense of self-awareness, know actually having the patience with themselves and therefore the patience with others. And I think that they like when my younger life, even though I know you're like, oh, you're twenty six.

Yeah. But like when I was younger than twenty six, I was looking for a relationship as the antidote to pretty much everything like loneliness, even just to go out with just entertainment. Absolutely. Everything I did was until I went on further when I realised that to be honest with you, the most important thing is who I am. And that if I want somebody who. Is who I perceive to be somebody who's a great life partner. I've also got to be that person, not only for them, but also for myself.

And then I think that when you have a vision for your own life, you can look and look at other people and see if they have a similar vision for themselves and then maybe your visions together marry up. But in regards to the happily ever after. I agree with what he said on the chat, as I do for happiness is temporary. I think for me, I'm striving for an inner peace which comes from the presence. And I think that going back is what you said, Rob, is that you don't actually need anybody else to make you happy, that I believe we're all born with everything that we need in this life to get us through what we need to get through.

And having a someone along for the journey is. Is a bonus in many respects, but I don't I think it's great. So I don't think you should expect anything in life. I think that nothing in life is guaranteed happiness for me, as always. And I think joy is more permanent. So maybe it's like happy joy everafter.

And I'm just looking at a government crackdown. And so I wrote a book on happiness.

So I've actually actually write down I was going to come back to Allen's thing in the chair because the key thing in anything like this is defining terms and because there are lots of definitions of happiness.

And so so the basic one I looked at is the Greeks had two two views of happiness, of hedonic happiness, which is just the pleasure in a moment. And it was Aristotle who had eudaimonia, happiness and eudaimonia.

Happiness is more a sense of being, of becoming something. So Konik is about here and now you got monarchies that you may delay gratification and be less happy now, but for the greater gratification. So that is the perfect segue, I thank you, Alicia, if we can go into breakout groups and work out so if we go into three groups. And the other thing is, she wants to say something. Oh, yes, sorry, yes. Yes.

Sorry, I, I thought you were amusing, but by mistake. Sasha, if you can hear us. So if we got in this same breakout rooms and so.

This time, your definition is what is happiness to you? And when when we're back, if you if you did speak, Sasha would start off with with her point. What's the difference to the fairy tale, don't look so happy about that kind of relates to what let your relationship the idea of being in a relationship, some happiness is what has to happen in your life. For you to feel it was meaningful. Well, that's my definition. So what is happiness?

What is happiness to you?

So we got to that first one that comes back to the same thing.

But as you know, this individual individual happiness without a relationship.

Of course. Yes. Yes. So the priority is that first happiness, then happy ever after everyone's back. We're going to start off with Sasha was able to make a point before. I just wanted to add, you know, when you were saying about unconditional love not being what exactly you said.

OK, so basically, I think it's summed up in a quote, Menom mclachlin said nobody's ever been loved in the way that everyone wants to be loved. All right. OK. Well, I think like from a movie perspective, in terms of unconditional love, I think even sometimes where we're not present or we're going through a stressful situation, I don't think that takes away from our unconditional love towards other people, because unconditional love for me is saying, I don't love you unless you're X, Y or Z.

That would be unconditional love to me. Does that make sense? So I do think unconditional love does exist in relationships and regardless of how we are with people, it doesn't mean this unconditional love to me means that you don't love that person unless that's something that you expect them to be. Or if they fall short, if they fall short of that, you still love them, that's unconditional love.

OK, so the the point. So, yes, sir, this is a common like the concept of unconditional love is a common concept and people think it's expected.

But if someone if you're in a relationship with someone and they take. And they lie, they spend all your money, they're physically abusive, do you still love them? And I don't know, because I am literally saying it from a mother's point of view and looking at child. I think the child's parent is the closest. We get to unconditional love. I mean, can you think of an instance that would affect your love for your children? Difficult times for sure, like if they were if they were behaving in a certain way or it doesn't it's not going to take away from my of it's not going to make me love them less.

It's not going to stop my love for them. So what is the context in context, in the context of a relationship, if you were being treated like that? You don't have to be in that relationship. Does that make sense? So I hear your point about not necessarily being loved the way that we want to be loved with the example that you gave of, like, if somebody shot with you or whatever, because they're going through a difficult time.

I think that's just for us to be understanding of that is not necessarily because that is not because it's a lack of unconditional love.

Yes, yes, I you see the concept of unconditional love becomes damaging when someone believes they have to love their partner, whatever they do. There's a point where. You could hate the love. Hate the hate the action or it doesn't take away from sort of loving guidance. I think you have to love someone has to be worthy of your love in a relationship, because what I've seen otherwise is people stay in abusive relationships and they say, I love them.

And I think, you know, I love abusive relationships would be a different ballgame in terms of a reasonably healthy relationship. I think that unconditional love can exist personally. OK, so the concept of unconditional love is that you're with someone, you're going to love them forever. And what I'm saying is, is, first of all, the the that concept is very difficult because as Alan was saying, very few of us live up to have the capacity and the ability to love unconditionally.

We. When when there's some that type of love is called a topic in the group is the group said, seven different types of love and a gap that unconditional love.

People have tried to do research on it and they had to abandon it because they found instances where people had a in love, but they couldn't find any examples of people who could live that way.

And I see what you mean with that. I just. I just think that it doesn't so say in an abusive context, they could still unconditionally love the person doesn't mean that they have to say they can walk away from that relationship. So not to be treated in that way, out of self-respect and self, unconditional love and still love that other person.

What I agree with you that and still want for three days, if it's like a rapper or something, I'm sorry and still want God and want what's best for the other person, I see that as unconditional love, even if you're in a relationship with the girl, not.

Yeah, I kind of agree I agree that I think we have to love people to the capacity that they allow. So what I mean by that is we can love people even if they do things that are unlovable.

So we accept who they are, but I think there is also a nuance that we have to at some point, we have to love someone in a relationship to the degree that they're able to be. Loving as well, because, I mean, if somebody is constantly difficult in a relationship and constantly not showing and a level of care and respect and just equal treatment to the other person, then it's going to be very difficult to have a meaningful relationship with them or in terms of unconditional love, as I see that as wanting the best for the other person no matter what.

Even if that means you you're not with that person or whoever is not with that person, and I think that I do personally, obviously the system we searched for was know something that you are talking about of this unconditional love concept. But personally, I think that it can exist. I agree. Maybe not.

Maybe not in the context of people believing in all of the certain way that they expect to be loved might not be necessarily unconditional love in that context.

Yeah, in that sense, I think the quote speaks to the fact that we're always going to be disappointed. We're never going to get the complete love and Angeliki and devotion.

That's the sort of perfect perfection has never been said in her own words. You're exactly right and doesn't exist.

Yeah. And I agree with your point. I think we should strive to love unconditionally, but I don't think we should choose our relationships.

Because the bit that people misunderstand is they say, I'm in this relationship when you're in a relationship with someone, you have to love them unconditionally. Therefore, I will accept this behavior that's intolerable.

Yeah, that's not that's not my idea of unconditional love, because you got a certain level of self respect to self-love. I love yourself is not to let yourself go through something like that. Yeah.

So so in terms of unconditional love, we love them unconditionally and then let them go at the point where the relationship doesn't work. Yeah, but I don't think that takes away from the unconditional love, I think people get skewed ideas of why this toxic love is co-dependent type of loaf.

And that's that's why I thought you meant what you said, that it doesn't really exist.

No, I think it doesn't exist in most relationships because I think people go in and this is related to what Sandra was talking about, about understanding the other person and caring for them in the way that you want to be cared for. I think that doesn't exist, which is I think it can be I think it can be applied to the relationship.

Maybe not, not not in a perfect sense without follow, but you can definitely get worked out and apply to strengthen.

Yeah, I know. And all the rest of it. Yeah, I.

I think when we talk about what everyone's view of happinesses, I think it will lead to a deepening of this conversation. I just I just wanted to add that this personality may be everyone's idea of a conditional, slightly different, but personally, I believe that being funny with somebody isn't a sign of them that they're not doing well. Yes, I would stress yeah.

I definitely agree with that. I think I agree with that point. I think that there is an invitation to what we're capable of, that we are ideas on our aspirations to unconditional love. Right. That we don't live up to.

And I think there's a danger in that when people take that literally and don't let themselves let themselves be become a victim to something like.

Well, I hear what you're saying. So if they perceive they're not being lost because of person's in a certain way, they feel like they're not being moved.

Yes. Yeah, I think so.

And also, they expect they expect something that they're not living up to, as Sandra said. Just before we get into the to the happiness Alan talked about, if a actually found a track, what you mean by attached to the person, like when you're unattached, you can Sasha, I'm going to miss you because there's some background noise, but I shall always just go. Yeah. And meet yourself if you want to join in, Alan. Is that question clear, did I finish it?

No, sorry, I couldn't hear you.

OK, so you've asked you said if it's. Yes, but if I understand now, I may have seen context, but do you mean that you can love someone unconditionally if you're not attached to an outcome with them?

If I were the kind of fraizer. Not necessarily to attach to an outcome, but more have an emotional attachment which is intrinsic to yourself, so i.e. this person has done X, Y and Z, I love this person or they've cheated on me, for example, but because I have it attached to them, I have to stay with them because my emotions are entwined into this. So you can basically do what? Let's take domestic violence. You see people getting all sorts of things done and they still stay with the partner, and that's an attachment, isn't it, where they they would be there, they show entwined within that or the person that they're in love with, in inverted commas, that if they are to then break free that relationship, it would.

It'll leave them feeling emotionally empty because of that emptiness, they would feel that they would have to return to that relationship. And that's what I mean by an attached attached it being like a negative type of love, whereas you can be unattached. You can you can have the same amount of love for that person. And that's why I mentioned about liking someone, but not loving someone, but not necessarily liking them. So you can then go, OK, I still feel the same way about you from a low point of view.

But you know what? You don't understand the other. Because of that, I'm going to break free and I'm going to move on with my life. I think that's kind of from a simplistic point of view.

Yes. So basically, you see is when you see them as you will be attached, you mean you see them as the gateway to your happiness?

Yes. Yeah. So even though they've done these horrible things, I still have to be with this person, because if I don't, I'm going to be more miserable than I am now.

Even though you're going to say, yeah, I've been in groups and we've had groups on domestic violence. And I talk about like they're watching the clock and saying, you know, I've said I'm a big guy, but I I've got to be back by nine, otherwise I'll get the third degree. And yet in the same breath, next breath, they'll talk about, well, yeah, but, you know, it's hard out and a dating sites and I don't want to be alone.

And yeah, sometimes it is just awful that they feel that they have to be in that relationship, otherwise they're going to be more unhappy.

So it's not even just the fate of the partner. It's a fear of themselves being alone. And that's why I'm saying it's so important to have a good relationship with yourself so you don't have to be in that position. Yeah. Okay, so that leads us to the discussion in the rooms on happiness. So. What were people's definition? Like, how do you define happiness? For me is doing things I enjoy doing rather than expecting happiness to go from something to come from someone.

So happiness is the side effect. Yeah, and what is that feeling that you're talking about? Is it a feeling or a style or.

I think it's a straight. So this to you, Dominic, which is more of. You'll be coming and then the hedonic.

So I think happiness there is a level of we talk about happiness as being and we talk about so much that it loses its meaning, but we talk about it as being a feeling and then as a general. As a general thing, so so you're you're talking and I agree that it's more of a side effect. Of of how we're living. Is that yeah, yeah, yeah. Is anyone else you are discussing in our group, and Peter and Maddy, I think, have had some interesting ideas in particular, but separating happiness, coming from doing particular things which are transient.

In a sense, it's then there and you derive happiness, but that doesn't mean that you are essentially your essence actually happy. That's that's the discussion that we were having. And I don't think we arrived at the definition that to say the core of being hot, being described as being happy.

Versus deriving happiness through and activities that you enjoy then talking about being given service to others, he derives great pleasure from that. And we were using that to to look at that being an essential part of your being. And so that is that's you. That's long term. So that's a different that's different in the sense that that contributes to your sense of yourself, your sense of who you are and that's your happiness versus, you know. Oh, yes, I read this book and that made me happy, you know.

Yes. An activity that said that gives you a transient thing of well-being.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was so when I when I was studying psychology was the time when positive psychology was coming out and it was nearly six cents and a jolly good fellow. And he talked about the fleshlight being this perfect state where you lose yourself. So a musician playing music, an athlete in the performance, it's that way you just lose yourself, Cirilo, and. Yes, there's that state of it being a side effect of a peak moment.

And then there's Marty Seligman at the same time wrote Authentic Happiness, which was was talking about that. State of sort of self actualization of being yourself. And happiness coming from from that, as I remember. I'm so. If happiness is a side effect of who you're being. What is love? Is it worth going into breakout rooms to discuss that question? I don't think so. I mean, you're going to answer, you know what, I think it would be very rich if we heard each other, because this is interesting.

What can I add something about happiness? And I think. Disappeared. He disappeared. Yes. He says I followed you automatically.

OK, well, anyway, I just wanted to say that congrats finding, which is kind of what you're saying about flow.

It's sort of. Concurrence. And by that, I mean when you're in a cell is is being seen as being it is matched with the with the external with what is happening with around you. So if, for example, I was supply teaching for a long more many years ago and. I was very unhappy and I couldn't find happiness, and therefore there was a sense of incongruence. Because I couldn't find. I guess the inner peace will prevail, whatever.

There's something in me that wasn't being matched out with what I had to do with my job involves. So I think when I left teaching, I was able to find another job in another environment, another situation, I found Congonhas somehow that my external world matched minor I in a sense. And that goes with determining who you are and when your world matches. You know, you're in a you're in a sort of sense of who you are and you have concurrence.

Makes sense. Yeah. It does, yeah, it says authenticity. It's like the social self matches with the inner self. It's not gap between. It's not easy to find I mean, it takes a while, is it? You know, depending on what your baseline is in life, I think is is hard to find that. And I think it's a learning. I think it's a learning journey. I don't think you ever find you know, you'll never.

You know, I think you're continually finding what your authentic self is, because we always we're being thrown in a continual sense of flux and change because of the world that we live in. Yeah, yeah, I think that is something critical. There was something I was looking in my book and it was just like a story of like I'll be happy when we convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another, then we're frustrated that the kids aren't old enough.

And it's basically this isn't for me, but it's just a story that was in the it's like a poem of that. We're illustrating that we're always waiting for something to happen before we're happy. And. The pursuit of happiness in itself can lead to unhappiness and happiness is the side effect of being ourselves. There is like a blueprint that we have to be in order to be happy. And when we have that congruence, I think that's where we have that happiness.

And I think we're about to get some words of wisdom from the Gary.

Yeah, I was just going to say, let's imagine you've got a baby and you treat that baby in a nurturing way, you feed it, you clean it to use the word love. You love that baby. If you do all of those things, then you will be classed as a godmother, mother or a good father. If you did the opposite, you neglected that child.

If you didn't feed, if you didn't give it love and you didn't give it attention, then you would be classed as a bad or evil parent. So in terms of. Your question before about what is love or love is simply good, its basic form, love is good. We've got a person who loves us, then that person is good to us. There will be aspects of bad or evil, which is basically what anything which is negative is evil, but good.

Is Hlophe. If someone truly loves us, like if we are lucky to have a parent that loves us or a partner that loves us or a child that loves us, then the predominant overriding emotion from that person will be good and true love.

So so there's just one point I want to ask a question. So when the parent is bad, when the partner is bad. Why do you think that is what what is driving that behavior? You mean when when they like mainly bad, for example, like in a case of neglect or something like that to me?

Yeah. Or in a partner that is cheats and isn't it's like just can't live up to being a good partner, I would say being self-centered.

So. It is self centered, you make yourself the center of the world, so with your needs that come first, you are the thing that drives you, you are your own purpose. So if you're not self centered, then that baby in the example given is is the purpose. So you'll be tired, but you go up to feed the baby because you have the the empathy and the sympathy. And that is the that you know, that that baby's going to be hungry, it's going to be crying, it's going to be in pain.

You don't want it to be in pain because you derive your happiness from the fact that that baby is happy because of love. But if you are evil or bad, then what's the noton? Your happiness is literally your happiness. So anything that doesn't shooting you doesn't she you. So is that self-centered ness that I don't really care if it's if it doesn't suit me, then so what? And I think that's the driving force behind. So.

So then I want to go another level deeper off of what drives selfish behavior.

And sometimes trauma, because when we've at the time when we have when we have specific traumas in life and what I can do is you can make it go in with. And when we go in with. We are looking towards ourself, we are looking inside of ourselves, and that can lead to detachment and when we are detached, we have we are having a decreased level of awareness of the life of the world or people or feelings or things around us.

So is that detachment which will make his draw away from. From Love, so. What I'm driving is my my belief is that. There is love, there is happiness, and then what stops, there is fear and so like from a trauma, I think what trauma does is the sexual version of reality so that you're afraid that that trauma might happen. I think that fear drives a sense of scarcity that you feel you have to get it whatever is before you can make someone else happy.

Would that. Is that what your. Like what you're talking about in terms of trying to selfishness, or do you think there is something else?

I think I think Chemonics. I think someone who is ultimately self-centered is living life from a fear based perspective, probably yet to meet anyone is self-centered. That doesn't have huge levels of anxiety to go along with it in one form or another. So anxiety is a fear based state. But again, fear, negativity is all is all evil at all the exact opposite of what love is. Love is being determined as good. So. Yes, so and I love up in connection with happiness, is that for me?

Love is happiness with what you see when you focus on something and you're feeling happy with what you see if you love. And happiness is being in love with whatever you're focusing on. So for me to they're the same thing with two different faces, if that makes sense. What one influences the other? Yeah, or basically just different if you use a different, slightly different slant of looking at something and you might call it love or you might call it happiness.

But as as Alan said, I think what stops us is we have so much fear. That we when you look at people, people are so constrained by, like just instead of going out and doing what they want to do, we're all like second guessing ourselves.

Are we good enough? Can we do it? When you look at relationships. There are so many people who want that deep love. Yet there are so many fears and anxieties, just like Maddie said, is the incongruence that we we give one social face to the people and in reality something different.

And it's this inauthenticity within relationships because we're we're based in fear and we're all so afraid that someone will cheat, someone will mistreat or someone won't live up to being that person that we don't give fully. And then because we don't give fully the other person's kind, what do they really love us? Don't they really love us? And if we could get rid of that fear. Relationships would be so easy. But self-preservation is innate in us. And with each disappointment or with each knockback that we get, it's further reinforced and the barriers get stronger.

So as you're saying, when you get to a situation where you're looking at receiving love, first of all, do you doubt it? You have anxiety that if I let my barriers down, I stand to be wounded, disappointed, all of the negatives I make myself vulnerable. And those very things in the balance also diminish your ability to appreciate and acknowledge and accept and enjoy the love that is coming your way. So it is a vicious circle. You know, in a sense.

How do you get to the point where you can look at your instincts to preserve yourself, especially if you've had a serious breakup and you really do not want to to go there because it's painful, it's extremely painful, and nobody wants to feel that hurt again, ever. I mean, that's how we're conditioned. How do you get to the point of having enough confidence to say, I'm willing to pull, hug and let my barriers down and experience this because it could be the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Yeah, I think those hats are mini versions of, you know, Allan was talking about trauma and then the mini traumas and we so we all carry scars. And so we have this. I think. Even before we've been her, we've been told that we have to be someone, we have to live up to a certain things, there's there's right and there's wrong or there's good and there's bad. And we're told that from a child, you know, like big boy, big girl, all of those things are even before we got school.

And then school is like a process of making you fit into the average.

So what's critical there is knowing that. You can be happy regardless of what anyone else does or says that happiness comes from you. And so when you're looking in terms of relationship. Any one individual may not live up to the relationship that you want, but if you go out and you have the confidence and the faith in yourself that you can heal from a breakup, that you can redefine that someone that you said was always going to be the first of all, you go into a relationship and you go in with the mindset of I'm with this person and I'm going to commit fully to this person.

And yet, you know, there's kind of a dichotomy that you give everything. And yet you also know that. If anything were to happen, whether through death or breakup, that you can still be as happy that your happiness is not tied to that specific person, that it's the relationship that fulfilled you and not the individual and is one specific person, because as long as you know, you can recover from the breakup because that's redefining your future happiness, you can always meet and connect and find someone who you can have a similar level of quality of relationship with.

Then you have so much more confidence than you demand a certain level of standard and behavior before you will that you will accept and that causes people to rise and treat you differently. And so you have the better relationship. You bring more out of them, and if it doesn't, then you know that you can recreate that and you know that even on your own, you can be happy regardless. But that means you have to acknowledge to yourself that your your relationship is not you with the person, it is a relationship with another person, and that person is not responsible for making you happy, because if you believe that that person is responsible for your happiness and for your being, your well-being and your sense of self, then when that person goes, what's left behind?

Yes, so the first is the responsibility that your happiness is only your responsibility and you navigate your relationships and the world based on that happiness so that happiness has to be the priority.

So the first thing I'm going to talk about on flights, you put your own oxygen mask on first.

You first have to.

Have your own happiness, because if you don't have your own happiness, you're going to be selfish. And the problem, as Alan talked about in relationships, is that most people aren't fundamentally happy and taking full responsibility for their own happiness themselves. And because of that, then we assign blame to other people and then relationships descend into petty disagreements. So it's first and foremost, if you think of like your life is this big circle and a relationship is a part of that circle and all of your relationships come within that circle.

But you have to transcend every relationship and every everything else and not in a. Not. People misunderstand when you're talking about that, it's not in the sense of being selfish, so the selfish. Haven't talked about it's selfish as in I have to get this, because if I don't get this or if you get this, I get less. And that's a scarcity of fighting for resources, whether there are emotional physical resources, but selfish in a sense of I'm going to fill my cup up so much that overflows and I can give you everything once my cup is overflowing, because otherwise, innately our instincts are we need to be filled first.

And that country and the other partner, because they are always given, they are there, they're being taken from constantly and what you are providing is not what you are as a receptacle. I take it you're taking wakin you're taken, which says to me that you become it becomes an unequal relationship, but at the same time you can become so accustomed to taking it. It's almost in my mind it would become a behavior that is hard to break if you're if you're if you're not careful as yet.

And that's what it's supposed to be. Yeah.

And those dynamics where I come from, so many people need a relationship because they're unhappy that they want a relationship to be the magic pill to escape from their life. And all that happens is they add the complexity and they add more unhappiness to their unhappiness. So they even drain someone dry off of, you know, their personal happiness or you get to unhappy people and they just explode. Yeah, a relationship's not the answer to happiness. It may be part.

Most of us do need a relationship. We do need that love, the intimacy, that connection. But it's not the solution to happiness. True, that kills the conversation. That is so true, though, and I think like. Acknowledging that a relationship is not the solution to happiness and if anything, it almost sets you free because I think so many people, so much pressure on find the right person and not being alone by a certain age.

And it's like none of that at the end of the day really makes you who you are. And it's more of a liberation rather than a negative thing, I think. Yeah, definitely.

All of those things, society's pressures, feelings like ticking, biological clock ticking, like you're going to be left on the shelf and that social pressure, all of those things create anxiety, which creates fear, which then plays out in the relationship and makes it negative. Definitely, and I think with society's pressures like, well, I think is I mean, I will come from a spiritual perspective on this, but like, you know, it's just other humans telling other other human stuff that they don't really know anything about.

Like, I think at the end of all, you know, everyone likes to think they have the answer, but no one has any clue.

Yeah. This is like something that I always think like, you know, like you have to be registered to be. So you have to be raised to be a therapist or you have to be registered to do something like that. Right.

By who? So basically, all therapies come from someone has an idea of Freud's research, the origin of therapy probably goes back to Freud and his research was based on eight people, which was later found that a lot of it was fraudulent. So. Right. So then he writes something that sounds like a good idea. We're going to then institutionalize this. You need to have this qualification. But look at the state of the world's relationships. Who has the answer?

There is. And yet all these people are registering people just because someone came up with a theory of philosophy, they gained some popularity that they became. It's like getting on the media and like there's some talk show host have the ability to make you an expert. You know, these people are defending themselves as experts because they've been on TV. It just means that they've had popularity. They've let. Found the mechanics to do that, and then they're saying no one else can practice this unless they agree with me, which is what society has done throughout the whole of religion is basically.

They've taken Jesus, never said Christianity, Buddha never saw Buddhism, someone else has taken it and set their own standards on it.

So, yeah, you sent me off on a rant, but, yeah, none of us. We're all stumbling. None of us now and. I've given a few years of devotion to focused on relationships and seen a lot, but I still so much like how much percentage doin that, John Gottman will say that, you know what to say now after 40 years of study. And yet people are saying this is what you should do. Everyone's unique.

We all have to find our own path.

So therefore, what we need to do is to get the strength within ourselves to be able to question and come to our conclusions based on our experiences. What is it that we want? I will, yes, and and and bring those together. So we need to learn to question, I think, some of the times, because things are it's an emotional thing. It's about you. It's it's it's it's very difficult because you're looking inwards on yourself. So it's hard to be rational sometimes in terms of how you're thinking about a problem, because it's it's all the emotions that are involved and you can't be dispassionate about that.

But nonetheless, I think we all need to learn to ask ourselves certain questions and answers to those questions. We should use those as guides to help us as we go along. We'll never have all the answers. We are involved in different experiences.

Different things come out at different times, but we put it all together in that basket that it's us, you know, and the more you add to it and the more you're honest about it, I think you will come to a point where you and, I don't know, happiness sometimes with this kind of unattainable state of what, you know, euphoria, which it's not.

I think it's a state of understanding and acceptance of self. More than anything else, and then you can be happy in whatever form you define happiness to be.

I think we have all the answers. It's just we have so much of a noise that's been put into us. Who are you to know this? Who like, what makes you special? What makes you different? Why? Why shouldn't you follow rule? And I think so much of that has been put in that we don't just don't trust ourselves who we disconnected from.

From what it is, and we don't trust, that's if we can trust ourselves. That would be a.

And of society also, we have to be strong to know what what is the societal pressure, what expectations and decipher which ones are important for us to to heed and those that we should really, you know, look at and just do what really matters to us.

We're speaking to somebody who is just a rebel.

So do your own thing, which is which is like I was the biggest rebel in school and I felt that nothing, my friends, because my daughter was like, I'm the parent, is like you just you can do what you listen to them. And she was like the child, her personality type, who needed to be told, this is it, you're doing a good job. You're following the rules. Alicia, you were talking about your meetings.

No, I was just agreeing with Sandra, really, that I think happiness is to or journeying back to yourself and be content in your own self. Like, I'm a massive believer in my own life where I just think that if more people would just take the time to actually understand what it meant to be, that there'd be so many less issues and problems in the world, like I'm not like, oh, yeah, you know, there's certainly conflict and everything because everyone has a light side in the shadow side.

I think embracing a shadow side is a fundamental reality of life. I think that when people pretend they don't have any bad parts about themselves, that probably the most dangerous because they've got a self-awareness actually understand what makes them so awful, because we all have awful facts. But like, I think if more people were kind of just sort of detached from everything, that's what I think was people just happy, more free thinking, and not just read something online and go, oh, yeah, that must be true.

Or just think that because someone else agrees with them that you both have the same idea. I just think, like I say to this, my sister, I just think people just need to take more time to discover who they actually truly are. And, oh, I don't know if I actually got my insights bad. Well, yeah, I just think it's more of a shame, I think all this stuff in the media nowadays with the covid-19 and everything that's going on, I think people need to understand I'm not going to get too into this, just be afraid.

But like a lot of it is meant to divide and divide us and conquer us because we're weak and we're not together. And we're also weaker when we're not together with us within ourselves. I just wish more people would understand that.

Yeah, I think I think we have to make ourselves you have to be strong, not wrong. You have to make your narrative where we condemn ourselves and we should accept we are what we are. We might not. No one is perfect. Like no one can live up to the standards that we think. But we have to accept we are what we are and then make a narrative around that. Definitely, and even people who are like way, way, way, way older than all of us, I think like one of the biggest things for me would be to die and to not actually understand anything about myself.

I think if you want the riches or if you want all that stuff out on the outside, look, successful people think of success. Like for me, I thought of thought about it. If I were to die and I didn't actually know who I truly was, that would probably be the biggest travesty I could ever actually sort of do to myself and to other people, like, I think opportunity to kind of move forward in life in a more authentic way, because I think more people should do that.

Yeah, that's my two cents. Thank you. You've been very quiet today. Have you got anything, anything to tell us? I was wondering that. May I just say I'm listening and thinking this way. I think I. I mean, as someone who's been on quite a long time, I mean, I'm interested by everyone sort of talking about, you know, being self aware and stuff, and then I'm kind of talking about being selfish as well.

And if you kind of love. If you do if I am, I suppose, you know, I've been I've been I've been having counseling and I'm doing other bits and pieces and I've done quite a big self exploration. And this isn't the first time in my life I've done this for a real goods. A breakdown down in that I'm trying to improve that relationship with myself. At times, I think in my life, I mean, I've always been quite aware of myself and other people, and I certainly wouldn't say I'm a selfish person.

I'm not actually sure how much it's helped, if anything, because, I mean, I have to touch the rubber about me as well. And also, I'm quite honest, decide to have a social I'm quite interested in the idea of a social person and to say you have to have one face that you give certain people and you have a face myself. I know someone that I've always tried to be the same person, even at work, where in some respects that I am with my friends, I I'm obviously I'm not better at my language, but I think I'm probably fairly consistent.

And people that know me would say and I don't I think it's just constantly trouble because because if you are if you are so confident and it can it can bring you into conflict with people, I think and maybe that's you know, I'm listening to these things that people have suggested and I'm thinking of them that that most of my life and I'm still I'm still not really well want to be. I suppose it is interesting because, I mean, it's been very difficult vaccinates.

And I I mean, I can't I think the one thing that I will say and I never begin to say happiness stuff, but if you if you're going to improve that relationship with yourself, surely that is going to make you selfish. Wouldn't you say, because it's so fast? And surely that that brings selfishness in a way. No, I think I think it does the opposite, it adds to selflessness and because, you know, the example that Rob gave, which is brilliant and usually myself of when the oxygen masks fall down and you put it on your shelf first, what do you do in that?

Because in order to secure strength, you have to make yourself strong. So. If I'm with an unknown and I need to provide strength to others, well, I might do that at the cost of my shelf, my life, my happiness, my whyever. What if I build myself into a pillar of strength, which I then just like the example of the coke overflowing with abundance, then I have got the ability to give it, you know, give that strength away.

And there's a there's a fable which is the chicken and the pig. And very briefly, a chicken and a pig go into the forest and they go into a Claydon unusual children crying and they ask why the children are crying. And the children are crying because the hungry and the pig says, I know she will feed them on the cheek and says, yeah, that's a good idea, I'll give them some eggs and you give them some pork. So basically, the adage there is the chicken can give them at no cost to itself because it has the strength of the eggs in this case to do so.

Where is the pig? It will be given away a bacon, sausages, etc., but at the cost to its own strength, its own well-being and ultimately its own life. And that's I think that's the danger that we face. If we're looking to be honest, I think that's the case. I certainly have been aware of it on my own, for I wish someone would knock on the door and I open it and express themselves and say, come to your rescue and you can you know, I think we'd all be alive if we.

If we. Wouldn't have exposed at one point in our lives, but I don't want to be rescued by anyone else. I really don't, because that means I'm helpless, I don't want to be helpless, I want to be reliant on somebody else to come along and save me from my situation. I don't want to be in this situation to be saved from. And that's where I'm looking to, to get a. I think. We'll have, you know, when we take.

We will take responsibility if we are responsible for our happiness. I think we are responsible for our health, so if we want to be healthy, when we do like basically ultimately our life is about you, when you look at Maslow's, it's about security, it's about connection, love, and then it's about meaning. And for us to have meaning, we have to have health. We have to be so we have to look after ourselves.

We have to eat well with, you know, exercise that kind of thing so that we feel good, sleep well. We then have to have good relationships so that we feel good. And when we get to that point, when we're full of health, when we're full of energy, when we're full of love. What have we got, we've got everything we need, so then everything that we've got is to give. Because there's a point like people are greedy for money.

We talked about this, all right, but when you're Bill Gates and you've got 60 billion dollars, you know, you can never spend all that doesn't. There's nothing he can buy that like that amount of money. There's nothing more that he can buy. So what do you do, you've got to give in order to improve your status, to improve your purpose, to feel that you've you've died giving what you need. So that you're a good person because money after you've got the security, after you've got to love money is about.

Who am I the reason the designer clothes and so so like the difference between a Cuchi T-shirt and a Primark T-shirt is basically going to get of conspiracy theories. But the basic difference between a geeky and a prime T-shirt is about identity. All right. There's a level of quality, but that is is like a few quid more, whereas like a thousand pound more is about who am I when I wear this. So.

The human. I think we avoid the truth, the reality of human nature, and the reality is that we are brutal, selfish, self-interested, savage. I've been reading the book, which is selfish, stupid, and. Selfish, stupid, and something else else, but. Basically, it argues that this is human nature, and then if we accept that we deal with the reality, this is like embracing our dark side as a species if we embrace that reality and then work with that.

So when you have enough or we all you've got, you can't take anymore. So then you have to give. So the more self, so it's like looking after yourself. So in terms of our responsibility is primarily to ourself, like Alan said, to make sure that we're the one who is strong, who is the pillar of strength in order that we can help others. But we also look at it from another viewpoint, we, as you said, we are brutal creatures.

We are driven by hormones, you know, adrenaline and our endorphins, etc. And as you say, after you acquire, you're acquiring all of these billions of dollars, that is that gives the adrenaline rush. That's, you know, and the pleasure, the endorphins get released and so forth when you have so much that it no longer means anything. You have to find another way of getting that same relief. It's like an addiction in a sense. So what do you do?

You in the typical American way, you get into philanthropy, you give away, and that is the feel good factor that you are now embarking on to replace the acquisition phase that you went through to acquire these these billions. But for those of us who cannot acquire billions. What is it that gives us those feel good feelings? What is it that makes us feel that we got that elated and that sense of happiness and achievement and all the rest of it?

And you mentioned taking care of the physical self before.

And I think just as the as how we exercise and we take good care of our diets and we look at and we buy clothes so that we look good and all the rest of it. For many people, the mental health. Doesn't fit into that equation at all. It doesn't get much, much, much time until it becomes something that is really important and that I think is tied into our emotional health and our ability to love and be loved and all of those things.

So I don't know how you see people creating that balance wherein you take care of all aspects of self to be able to actually love and receive and be loved.

Yeah, I'll just ask you quickly before anyone else. And is that what I want to do? Just what I didn't make clear is when I talked about billionaires giving away money, now, most of the time they give away without really charitable intent. Some of them do. But what I what I meant was if we do that in health, we do that emotionally. We do it in every area of life where we have so much. So a lot of mental health problems are argued to have come from our society, from our social structure.

And so it's it's that whole. So I think we have a personal responsibility, health, relationships, personal happiness. We primarily should be rebels against everything everyone else tells us because we have to find our own path. And it's not accepting what anyone else says. It's working out for ourselves, so I think we we have to. That got me into trouble. Basically, I got me into trouble in my job and it got me into trouble in my relationship.

And that's the thing, isn't it? I mean, it's funny, I think I he mentioned this before, but I really didn't because I'm interested and I think that gone but we were talking earlier about, like, I'm still not sure I can actually define what happiness is. And it's and it's interesting. And I think that's what's giving me so much thought tonight, because I think I've realized that. And then what makes me happy? OK, I'm not actually sure I could tell you.

I think happiness is and it's so funny for, you know, that's quite something to sort of. Think, I suppose, in some respects. And I've lost my train of thought already. But in some respects that I've always been quite an honest person and like I say, it gets me into trouble. And I and I used to do those things where I used to people and basically I got shafted. It was because of who I am, because I was uncompromising and I stood up for people who didn't have anyone to stick up for them.

And basically I work in public sector and they did a job and they basically screwed me up, basically, I think. And and it's funny, isn't it? Because because you have these sort of ideals and then. You know, it's like that old thing about about someone saying that, you know, like a liberal or a fascist is a liberal who just hasn't been robbed, you know, that sort of stuff. So as soon as something happens to you, it makes you it does change your views.

So I've kind of hit this thing I'm having, I would say, over the next financial crisis because I know myself well enough to know. I'm like I'm really, really exploring who I am. And I'm reading this book about I mean, I'm sure you probably have heard of it, but it's this that is sort of not given, as you say, basically. And that talks about the idea of. That it talks about Buddhism at the beginning and it says that, you know, obviously one of the fundamental Buddhism is that life is about suffering.

And this is kind of what we're talking about here. So maybe maybe you could say that happiness is just an absence of suffering. And I think that's probably what Buddhism says, that obviously there's a lot of life, there's a lot of suffering. And some of it you can control and some of it you can't control and obviously learning to accept and we were talking about acceptance and not the other way I thought about acceptance is definitely dropping my fears there in terms of this.

And maybe this is what I call. But, yeah, and I've learned some things, but not without this. And that's because I am a rebel and I like accepting certain situations. I that politically as well, because I'm a smartass and a good writer as well. And maybe I am lacking a little balance because of my life, but in some respects has trapped me where I am. And I'm trying to move to my next stage. And I feel kind of physically being prevented from doing that because of a number of factors which is going to have risen.

And it's easy to blame other things. I think I find it difficult sometimes to accept external factors, and that does affect my happiness, basically. And I'm not sure I ever will be able to accept some because I'm a passionate man and I mean, I never used to, but I certainly have definitely. And I probably still don't really. I certainly. And I like the guy well, that's good, because I really don't like. And I am not setting a grudge towards but said he fell down the stairs or something and broke his leg.

I wouldn't. And you were behind him pushing him?

Well, I think it was karma certainly wouldn't there wouldn't be much sympathy for it.

And that's about as hard as I get on someone as. Can you describe what you feel when you're happy? What does happiness do when you say you're happy?

What is what is happening in for the animals? So so see what Rob was talking about with this happiness plan? And then I can experience that because I can get lost in the amazing in some respects, it's almost like that's a mistake hiding from your problems in some respects, but it's kind of the same as drinking or even as some people use exercise or drugs or whatever. Basically, there is an element with music that it is just something that a hobby, I suppose, but it is something that allows me to escape my problems, because that's what that's probably a positive thing, but it's also not a positive thing in some respects.

So part of it, I don't know. I don't know. I think I was happy. I was happy in my relationship. I was so unhappy, a part is a chemical reaction, there's a reaction in us, I'm not sure it's weird.

I can honestly say I get it. I think I think at the moment I'm so busy trying to control on that. That's also almost like that myself. I'm just sort of aiming for that middle ground where as like no extremes, let's try and right myself. So it's kind of difficult to experience happiness. And I mean, if someone is it was love, the ups and the downs. So I never would have gone in that middle ground. I always would have said, yeah, give me the highs and lows as I get older.

You know, those lows for a man in a really difficult basically. I don't really become easy, let me deal with things, but in some respects, like the stakes become high, what you're betting as you've gotten older actually becomes so you've got more to lose, basically. And it's a lot it's a lot more difficult to deal with with the breakup of a of a long term relationship when you're old age from younger. Maybe maybe you're just a bit more.

I just want to say that I've both. I just it's weird, I'm not sure I can, actually. Find happiness for me, some water. I know what to say and to say that does give me so. This is a. I mean, the list is chemicals, and I've got like a little picture somewhere, which, as you know, is love, this kind of philosophical thing going on, this meeting of minds between you and another person, or is it just a biochemical reaction?

And that's the thing. You know, it's really happiness and love, which is biochemical reactions. And that's always in the back of my mind is perception. And changing your perception is how you learn to accept things. I can't quite do the happiness with everything. I'm not exactly the sort of Prozac. And for the unhappiness is. So you're saying that you have coping mechanisms then that help you to control? Yes, I mean, I always have a coping mechanism, I think.

I mean, I'm finding London quite a nasty I don't. I don't really want to be here anymore, and it's quite an unforgiving place. Some of my friends and stuff. So I don't really sort that work either. So I am encouraged. It is really buggered things up, my friend, and worried about my mom is 200 miles away. I said exhilarating. You know, I was trying to give it up to take that step and begin that new life.

And it's you know, it's still bloody in the same boat. As tended to go that it does this occasionally. And there is there is something that I. From what you said, I think one of the reasons meditation is taken off is that if you can do it and you can stop your force, that's like playing the music. I think there is that happiness side effect. I think really the things that we strive for, love and happiness.

On something that we should aim for, there's something that should come as a side effect of living well, and you used the story of Buddha and when you look at the story of Buddha is really about. He Mr.. It is less than. He stuck. Come back with. Maybe he's ascended to the next plane of existence. I've never.

Oh, dear. Is anyone got any good jokes whilst we wait? Well, you can sell it slowly.

Does anyone want to. Who hasn't spoken yet? Does anyone have anything to to add or any questions or comments that they'd like to make?

Even a good joke or. So just kind of like a summary thing, just while we wait for Rob that we feel that we have we've gained anything from from the shaming that we feel that we've improved in our knowledge or understanding of self or or indeed happiness. Anyone want to comment on that? Maybe I've definitely definitely got some food for thought. I think. An interesting session, Leslie. I mean, we finished the last session quite finished, and this one is kind of being philosophical for me, I think, really.

I think it's a topic that we can come back to after nine weeks maybe. So, Alicia, this is your first time on the session, what we did expectations, how we found out what she didn't have any expectations that just like the title of the the meeting.

And I was like, that's pretty interesting because I think I feel like love and not what I would term as love. But, you know, the sensationalized version of love is not actually what I would deem to be real love. And I just wanted to hear everybody else's thoughts about it. It's been pretty cool, to be honest. I think that I mean, I don't know because I don't even have nearly enough experience in my own life to even I'm nothing compared to maybe a lot, obviously.

But like, I just think, you know, it's good to question things. I don't think there's anything wrong with questioning stuff. I think we should all question everything, really. And I think about the fact that we all do is pretty cool.

I mean, you can have life experience at twenty six and I've met some very wise. Know people in their 20s and even in their teens in your last year of your life, so, you know, some people just go with the flow. But other people actually was I think. I think that is some pretty unwise to people in their 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s as well. So age is not it's not proportional. I think by age to wisdom, it's attitude more.

That makes sense. And what you learn from it, what you people some people have experiences, but never stop to actually get and acquire their lessons that they should absorb from those experiences. So it's it's it's as you said, it's not about age, about how you live to take from your experiences and how you build on them as you go as you go through life. I've met people as well. We're perfectly happy and I wouldn't call them particularly self-aware or whatever, but that they are happy and they make other people happy.

So there's no I mean, no sense that there isn't a magic bullet, that there's just nothing that you can actually say, you know, this is not something you can follow. You kind of have to you have to feel your real self, I suppose.

But happiness is also related to your horizons. It depends on what you want out of life. And if you're if you're happy with and, you know, X and Y, then that's your that's your comfort zone. And that that you are happy in another person will look at that and say, no, that's too confining. That's too narrow. That's too small. That's too oh, that's just not me. I'd be totally unhappy with living like that.

So yeah, on to different cultures and you see people are very, very happy, extremely happy. And you look at it through the lens of your experiences and you wonder how. But they look at your life and they wonder what a crazy person and what all of these things that you know you need and you think you need.

That's not happiness. So it's it's individual.

So you know what you said in the piece about about yourself? I mean, I personally, you can you can call it God, if you like and whatever. But I believe that this there is this love, this source of love, the source of goodness out there and which you can tap into. And if you want to use the term spirits to do that or whatever, then then so be it. But I think the idea of truly doing something alone, I wouldn't like the idea of the show.

Even when I do talk about doing things for myself, I'm not technically doing them so myself. I am doing them for the greater good of a wider expanse than to myself. And don't get me wrong, I'm by no means on my way to where I want to be or anything like that. And I don't think anyone ever will be because it is simply a journey and we're never going to reach perfection. And it's an impossible, impossible feat unless we have that.

That's what Sanjay saying. It's about you. Yeah, it's good to have targets because that's how you get through life, because you always want to be able to. So without suppose is that if this is what happens when you fail, isn't that one of the things I think that I think in life never really teaches you how to cope with failure. And I think that that's that that's kind of the first thing that you get when things go wrong.

And I always remember watching an episode read The Wolf a couple of years ago, and there was anyone who's ever seen it. There was a guy who in one of the characters in a different dimension, his character failed the skill. So it meant that because he felt that security had to repeat the year and that was deemed as a failure. But the truth was that the failure was actually that the very thing that made his success. So, you know, every single one of us here has had a failure in one way or another, whether it's, you know, in a relationship or a job or whatever, we've all failed in one way or another.

But the important thing is, is that not we're not here to rest on our laurels, are we? We're here to build. The rise of the Phoenix. We're here to build something out so well out of the ashes and the fact that we're all here, we're all living, we're all breathe, it means that we do have the ability and we do have the chance to develop ourselves. A lot of people don't go wallow in self-pity and still go out and commit crime because we don't have what we want and we'll take what we want or what we feel like we need.

We're not doing nothing. We're looking at it from a more positive point of view.

And I think that's something to really bad might not get so excited because God knows us. And I'm not saying you take what you want and you do all of those things, but that in itself is filling a void, trying to fill a void. And that is, again, a transient feeling of of of elation or whatever.

And you go and you want to do something again to to create that feeling of happiness or whatever it is self worth. And so that is a downward spiral and that's in itself destructive or can be destructive.

So I suppose if you.

Are not honest with yourself at the outset. Yes, that is you can end up on.

Trying to use plaster's or. To solve the problem, you never solved a problem because you never get to the root of the problem. And all the other things that as temporary solutions, but they're not solutions, they just sound, so to speak. And the problem and the problem remains, it will go through your life because you have not have not addressed it. I suppose, which comes back down to the whole thing of being honest with oneself. I am a great believer in the phrase of when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Not really, not and not an to turn negativity into a positive is a good thing. I'm certainly not available and I am quite positive at this time to sort of run a pretty crappy lot from about twenty 2015, which started with the death of my father. And then I had this problem with and then it culminated. It was another thing, and then it culminated in the ending of my relationship of the nine years and those things all sort of happened and they're probably all connected.

Isn't that because you're kind of going from one life and then suddenly you end up with. After that service, they left, you know, if you're trying to suppose and you do know how much you say sad things into a, it's it's pretty difficult to do that when kind of your entire wall is disappeared and the family's changed, jobs changed. And I'm just sort of leveled by the fundamental things. I think it's a mistake to say to the idea of turning a negative into a positive, you can't do that, in my opinion.

I think you just create a positive from a negative situation. And so you bring in something new into into a situation that already exists, because to think that it's a mistake that a lot of people do make that out of the creates this bad thing and turn it into into a good thing, you just can't do the. It's about bringing new stuff in. And as I said earlier, you know, nobody nobody knows what life has in store and.

I mean, like last year, I bought a new car and the reason I bought a new car is because I had a massive run of bad luck, which culminated in someone pulling a knife on me when I was in the car. And the police even said to me, you need to get rid of this car because you just happen loads of bad luck. So anyway, I decided to get a new car and. On like two days before new text Mayka for this new car and a park outside work and then comes back to the car, someone smashed into the side and 500 pounds worth of damage.

So I looked at the car, I looked at that and those bad luck and thought I could potentially cry. But you know what? Now, I'm not going to do that because unless there's this thought coming to mind, the thought was you do not know why this has happened, so don't get upset about it. And I thought, OK, I'll go with that. So I drove to the garage. And I said, look, I need to justify this this deal and and I need I'm not part in that part of an exchange in my car anymore.

I didn't tell them why. I said I'm going to sell it privately, but it won't mean it won't have a car. And they said, oh, will end this car then. So, like, OK, so they lent me an upgraded car. And basically, long story short, I ended up getting the upgraded car with the same price as a would have car, the lesser model. So what I originally thought it cost me money has actually saved me money.

And I've got a better car. As you know, it's only a car or it's just an example of looking at life by the level of you don't understand.

And a lesser person or someone with a less broad mindset than me would have, you know, gone and drunk or even killed themselves, you know, with silly things like.

Yes, a good example of how to shift your frame of thinking when watching something.

Would. Yeah, I, I agree, I think it is you were saying about earlier about acceptance, and I was going to say that you've mentioned about Buddha and. I think there's a temptation to define success or failure as what happens to. And I think the lessons of Jesus and all those kind of people who are held up as examples is they did what they did regardless of the results of what they did.

They did it from an inner congruence.

And it didn't matter whether they were persecuted, well, how fair it was, how unfair it was, and so the the the passion, how I understood Jesus, the strength of him, was that he was the only one who didn't change. Regardless of whatever temptation, fret or challenge he faced, he continued to stay true to everyone else in that story changed based on what they would gain.

And when you look at the story of the Buddha is his, he transcended life by understanding it didn't matter what the everything was an illusion that was a threat. Or temptation. And. So I think the challenge of life is that we have to, like Allans, just set an example when something happens. It's accepting it, it's accepting a life. There are times like when they've done studies on people over their lifetime, everyone faces those challenges. Everyone has parents die.

They lose their jobs. They have moments of failure. They have moments of success. The secret the secret to happiness isn't. Based on external circumstances, it's based on can you still be yourself when the world tells you you're wrong, can you still be yourself when no one likes you? Can you still be yourself when you're not being yourself? Means that you get the promotion. It means you get the praise. It means you get the adulation. So it is.

Can you be yourself regardless of any external.

Reward or loss, you're talking about resilience, Rob.

It is even deeper than resilience, it's about authenticity. I'm going to be who I am regardless of what the world says about me.

And I don't mean that in the sense of I'm going to be a dick, but I'm going to say what you say from the higher saying, I'm going to do what I think is the highest pursuit, like Alan talked a couple of weeks ago about overcoming fear and his journey. And I think that is basically the journey slightly differently.

Greta Thornberg is a suppose a good example of somebody like that. No, today's as an example today. Gretta. Yes, that's the young girl is not much, but. Yeah, I don't know enough supposably big city of fixative purpose and regardless, I think. Yeah, 10 fixative purpose and ignoring opposition, steadfast, all of the points that you are saying in terms of of being true to self and really being convinced that what she's doing is what she needs to do.

Yes, I mean, I'm not sure in that particular example, because I don't I haven't seen enough and I've seen a lot that she she's no whether she is or she's made to look like she's deranged and whatever, because there's there's about I think Nelson Mandela is a great example in his later years of he had that fixed purpose and yet he was also understanding of the other side. I'm not sure what the Grétar if she's just about climate change and not understanding the other side and there's a little bit of letting go of the outcome, you know, you have to see Grétar in.

She's on the is it is it the autistic spectrum? She has Asperger's. I'm not sure exactly which one she has. So her behavior. If you if you temper your expectations of how she reacts and she interacts with people and her, I suppose, her fixity within that lens, then maybe you understand what she's what she's about. Our temper, your expectations of her. And also she's young. But I just thought of her. And you're quite right.

Nelson Mandela. Yes. Would be a good example of holding steadfast to his beliefs even throughout all his years of incarceration, and still hold onto them after after his release.

But how many of us can really hold that line of love for a lifetime and live lives like that?

I think that is something that you have to move because because all of those people had movements and they said, yeah, it's a lot more difficult to do in day to day life when you have got loads of supporters. I suppose. I mean, I suppose that's isn't as some of these kind of awesome people haven't got any friends and none of them are really, you know, in proximity if I'm going through life largely without support. Plus I'm also giving support to other people as well.

So I suppose I'm feeling a bit like we were talking about this day. It's good to have you about. It's good to have an abundance of love so you can give it out. But sometimes you're not in a position where, you know, you never ready for these situations. When things happen, sometimes you just have to sort of. But it's about relationships, again, as you're saying, I think it comes back if you are in a relationship, you compromise on commitments to to those kinds.

If you look at all of those leaders, they're not married. They are single out there. And all of their energies go towards that. We have in a relationship means that you have to give to the other person, which means it takes away it would take away from that commitment, that deep commitment that you have and also children. So.

You're right, how many of us can have that deep commitment to anything when you are striving to maintain a relationship with somebody else and also taking care of children if they happen to be in there, you that's your commitment. I think day to day life is much harder. I think we have people like the Dalai Lama and Buddhist monks, and it's easier in that life because they've organized their life around that idea. However. I think the answer to all our problems is.

And I think the relationship dynamics are so key that if you have the relationship dynamics where it doesn't drain you and it doesn't drain, then and instead build you back up, then that is key to managing both of you of your personal happiness.

Yet the problem is that we haven't evolved fast enough to be capable of that. Technologically, we've outstripped emotional capability.

And so when Alan was talking about, you know, nobody's got the ability to delay gratification, everyone wants everything now, now, now, that is because the technology has outstripped. Our ability to delay gratification, our emotional development, and so social media is where all these things are built to game, you know, the game of fires and to make us addicted is dangerous because we don't have the emotional emotional capability or the resilience. We I suppose in the pre social media era, things are a lot slower and people had time to digest, had time to take things slow.

You hear about relationships which relied on the snail mail. So things went for weeks before the letter came and you wrote whatever or Alisi or too young for all of that. And so people courted for several years or you know, and yes, social media has speeded up all of that. And you're right again, that we have not evolved to move through the emotional rollercoaster that comes along with that speed. But also, I think it's not just the speed, but also the.

The overwhelming amount of of of of information, there's too much stimulation all at once impinging on everything that we're trying to make sense out of. So we're all we're desensitized. We are.

We're trying to find some kind of equilibrium that allows us to, you know, feel a sense of control. Throughout all of this, especially when you look at how people are able to when you meet a person face to face, you, you behave in a much different way to when you're are on social media. And face to face gives you some amount of you can see the cues, you can react or you can withdraw. Social media is in your face.

It's right there. It's boom, boom, boom, boom, instant as is in many respects. So I think we're trying to navigate and trying to find a way through that enables us to. To feel comfortable and to feel like we are in control. Which is why I think when people get trolled and they are ghosted and all of those terms, some of which I'm still learning, they feel so violated.

I think you can't really trace it like like normal. I think and that's a thing that I think of my generation and generations and before me, they treat it like a letter and you can't treat it like that. There's a different set of rules of what goes on social media, and there's even different rules really amongst Facebook and Twitter and, you know, tick tock and all the other stuff that there is now. Basically, you know, I remember when Facebook went down and all the Facebook users, it went down for like twenty four hours and all the Facebook users went on to Twitter and they just got absolutely no, because it assumes that everyone is just really rude to each other.

That's on Facebook. It's a bit more sort of like mutual. And it really struck me how different these things are, as I said. Know, I think Facebook is more like it's like being in a pub and like being in a cafe and being in a library is a very different atmosphere. But the key is always because the responsibility is what we feel is ultimately our responsibility, and it's not that that like, yes, people shouldn't do that.

However, we can't control they are always going to there's always going to be a bully in a room. There's always going to be someone who's seeking power. There's always going to be someone. He's he is going to be nasty, so we are always going to face that in life in different contexts. But if we but what's really happening where social media is really damaging young children and older people is because they're taking someone's point of view.

And internalizing it as being more important than their own. And that's happened somewhere. However, while we are and like this, the two generations and like my generation, we grew up before the Internet, but that was put there in school by a parent, by someone else who made us believe that we have to listen to someone else's opinion more than all right. And that's the fundamental thing.

It's what technology and social media and all these things are doing is preying on our vulnerabilities.

And there's always going to be a bully in the world that's going to prey on the vulnerable. So, like, if you want to solve bullying, you don't solve it by the bully because you just you just create a job vacancy that someone else will step into because that's just social dynamics. But you help the bullied child. So that they're able to cope with it. Is it social media that started already talking about the gamification of it?

Oh, yeah, I think it's kind of back to religion again is the difference between what a religion is and then how it how that religion is then.

But popularized by the people who made the established that it wasn't we we are inherently selfish creatures. We live in a world where selfish genius is rewarded as an economically. And there is always going to be a Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates.

There's always going to be someone who is going to pry.

So if you look at gambling, gambling as an industry preys on the weakness that the greed, but it only impacts greed. When you look like you get a Nigerian, scammers are going to scam us from some prints, it's all agreed that we fall for it. So social media. It is popular because it validates us, because it gives us attention and so that attention is the vulnerability from which we get hurt and in the same way, the more vulnerable we are because we need something in a relationship, the more we get her.

Totally agree with revalidation. If you down to social media to seek advice because you're not this and you open yourself up to abuse, well, you're seeking. Is an explosion a vulnerability, though, that we spoke about before by one thing after? And expose yourself. Well, I think there's a difference between being vulnerable and having a vulnerability. So when you're vulnerable, you're allowing someone the possibility of hurting you.

But. The vulnerability is having them having that vulnerable nest, but not necessarily sharing it, but having it and not being aware of aware of it yourself.

So if you're if you're if your front door when your front door opens, your house is vulnerable. If you leave your front door open and it's certainly not a underbelly. So let's have the front door open if you leave it open. Yeah, I think if you open the door and you let someone in. OK, so let's say like opening the door to your heart, if you open the door to someone to see you, are you being vulnerable?

But if if like if we have a need and this comes to the point of. Selfishness vs. looking after yourself first, we have a knee like you have a need to be loved. All of us have a need to be loved, right? So we have to open the door to our heart to, like, have access to that vulnerability.

Is not being aware that we have that need, not being aware that that need is driving us. And so we get we stumbling into a relationship, into a relationship or situation, looking for that love that then ends up hurting us.

And the vulnerability. Is what drove. The the problem, the pain. Does that make sense? So basically what you're saying is it because it's it's a fear, isn't it? We used fear to say, let's get let's go even simpler. We use in a negative to see what we deem to be a positive. But it's not going away because it's a negative. And then you will receive in a negative in that example is producing a negative, so our vulnerability, which is a negative, is putting us into a relationship which isn't necessarily rifle's because we've done it from a vulnerable point of view as opposed to strength based position.

Amarasinghe and we're getting you right. I think so. Let me let me go back to what you can I just say this because I want to pick up on the point.

When you talked about Tinder there being instant gratification, that is based on people needing that gratification now because they're afraid that if they don't get it now, they won't get it always. And so that's a vulnerability, which means that they don't get the relationship they really want because they're too scared of being they're too anxious about it. So it's always going to be this one. Now, they need that feeling now and can't cope with not getting that instant gratification.

And because they can't get instant gratification, they've got a vulnerability that's going to a flaw that's going to stop them from getting what they really want. And they're not aware of it, so that's the vulnerability. Does that make sense?

Is that yes, I think I think what you're saying is on the line, it's fear based, isn't it? Yes, yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's and it's it's fear based, but it's not even being aware of the fear.

Yeah, yeah. Whereas if you were aware of the fear and you let it happen anyway, that's to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is having that same thing, but not not opening up and accepting it.

Yeah. Thank you. Sorry, Sandra. No, no, no, it's OK, it's OK. You said it. Sorry.

So there's that kind of come full circle back to what I originally said about trying to remove fear from your life.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I yeah, I definitely think so. I think that whole yeah, life is about overcoming fear and.

But we could have just said it in a sentence. You see, what we should do is we should just open up with a sentence from the scouts, the scouts.

And and I said, well, I think you owe me some money, Rob, because I, I kinda like took the reins while she was away.

And we we should do this.

And it's I it was a moment of enlightenment. Well, when I get home, I'll share it with you. Can I just say something? I mean, based on what I guess you. Based on what Alan said earlier about removing fear, is is that possible? Is that something possible to achieve? I think what's more achievable I mean, I may be wrong about this is, you know, allow yourself to feel that fear, but don't let it stop you doing from you, stop you doing whatever you want to do.

So kind of feel the fear, but do it anyway. I don't know what you think of that.

I absolutely agree with that. That would be mine. I think fear is ever present. It's it's it's something in protective.

But we shouldn't let fear stop us. But I'm going to hand you over to the school security. Yeah, I mean, I suppose it's whatever works for you, for yourself, really fear. I agree with you, Rob. Fear is ever present. It's always there, even in the case of OceanaGold. Now to the shops. It's raining. There's a negative as I say, anything negative which fear anything negative is evil. So it's about trying to.

Let's think of it as like a loving relationship we've discussed earlier on this evening about how you're not going to have someone else who gets a hundred percent vote and you're also not going to have the perfect relationship with yourself either. And so, yeah, you have to feel it and do it anyway. But I think it's also it can work together by removing as much as you can and then what remains then do that anyway.

Prior to that, I would do it anyway. Can you give me. Yeah, go ahead. So she will stay here and do it anyway. I say no, Saturday, you need to go through that process to find it, not contacts. You need to feel great then. This is not the first time that she is something we should be able to distinguish what protection is protecting us from things that we shouldn't do it because we are not actually thinking of what are stopping us from making progress on that situation.

I think definitely fear is intelligence and the ability to live with fear is also being more sensitive to fear and knowing what is valid and rational and what should be paid attention to and what is just overthinking anxiety, nervous tension.

So really, for example, scatterplot you should you go to Washington, it you know, I'm saying it is a rational fear that I like you put your life on the line. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's dangerous, isn't it, what we're talking about, there's a definite danger.

I mean, you still fear around danger, so identify it. Is it dangerous or is this a fear that you need to be truly happy, right?

Definitely, yeah. That is so essential if there is a risk to be managed. Yeah. Yeah, I I think there's a distinction between being fearless, which is basically being stupid and being brave, which is living with the fear. And on that note, I did send out something, but I know not everyone gets mixed messages, but there is. Got a case study group together for basically dating with it's going to be focused for one month on messaging, so which is basically a profile and sending messages and so kind of training for that.

But I wanted to live with 10 people to. Have Real-Life examples, so, well, if you message me, if you're interested in being part of that, send. But I didn't want to want to. Interact with the ads, but. Back to the main discussion, so now. The question is, who who do we? I was a little rough, but just to build on that last point, because we were talking about that fear.

So it was about managing risk by certain fears that Alan is talking about is where. You're using Syria as an excuse almost to stop doing something because you're afraid of will happen. I think that's certainly the problem I have with Syria. So I use an excuse like I can't do that because that'll happen. Almost like catastrophizing action then stops me doing the thing that I should really be doing.

I do definitely get stuff, but that means that you have analyzed it and you understand it so you can manage it, which is.

Yes, you know what? You're differentiating the different types of fair use and what that is.

So you can then devise strategies to cope with that or.

Yes. Yeah, that was fair. Of which is just ignoring it and just battling back this. Doing it, if you look at the. I was just going to say, if you look at the future in terms of it doesn't exist because it hasn't happened and what anxiety does, which is fear is look, it takes a set of events and then it will produce a negative outcome despite the fact that we haven't experienced that particular thing yet.

So even if it's the case that we've had 10 long relationships, that's gone down the path. If we look at it from an anxiety point of view, you could go out and relationships. I know because it's gone wrong 10 times, I've got a fear about doing on the 11th occasion, so my prediction of the future is this one's going to go wrong as well, because 10 that I've got I've got that in my back pocket about the experience of it going wrong.

So therefore, I'm not going to try and make number 11 where because my experience and my prediction of the future is negative as the of privacy as well, isn't it?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what anyone who's anxious will have will produce a negative future despite the future not even being real.

Yeah, that's the kind of fear I thought you were talking about. I certainly didn't think you were talking about a being eaten up by lions situation. A danger.

That's. Yeah, that's completely different.

Yeah. What about something in the middle? So not what lions say, does it said as a drug dealer downstairs and spread extremely loud music basically. And you think you are undesirable people in the house that you need to go to sleep or whatever. And he's playing really loud music. Do you go down and tell him to shut the ethanol up when it could get bad?

No, because you're still in a position of danger that you should be less bad if you were.

That's the thing of. Sometimes it's difficult to gauge that risk, isn't that basically because we were saying, but the teacher hasn't that, isn't it?

So you haven't been Dad, so you never know the guy. You can make judgments about what that person would be like if you actually say to them, you know, you're actually simple or whatever, they might actually job.

You might report to the point there is not about what you do. It's about the outcome. The outcome in that case is for the music to go off, isn't it? So there's a number of different ways for you to tackle that particular outcome. You could in the council, you could bring in the police or you could indeed go down either with of those three outcomes, each one of them would have an element of risk and each one of them would have an element of danger in the outcome.

I don't know what it would be, but in a hypothetical that the police and the police and the council, both in terms of making decisions for ourselves, which is really where I'm kind of coming from, make a decision of am I am I doing what am I doing what I'm about to do because I'm afraid. In one level or another, it doesn't mean I'm sitting there shaking. That's not what I mean. It just means is an element of anxiety, an element of fear to this choice, to this decision.

And I don't even mean it on a grand scale of shall I get in this relationship or shall I go for this job? I mean, on a simple thing of shall I go out for coffee, things like that. Yeah.

Plays its part in all aspects of our of our lives. But it's how much we allow it and. I mean, when I actually when that when I actually was very bad with anxiety and this is when I was little, I had a real problem with the margins and real problems. I actually had CVT to deal with that because because my mind would just race. And I didn't find all these alternative outcomes mixed on a stick to me. Doing something just made me worry about something, which I that's right there in catastrophizing, but I saw.

Everyone, she just needs to deal with the massive. For me, it was always the imagined ones that caused it, but. OK, I'm going to be I am agreeing with you as well, there's there's an added research that your greatest enemy is yourself. Yes.

You know, what I'm saying is it's not always easy to be rushed, I suppose, is the thing with emotions, I suppose, because it's not emotions the best in the world, the emotions of a very rational thing. I mean, love really is a completely irrational thing, isn't it? That's it makes no sense biologically. Where. I think it depends on. So I'm going to give a slightly different slant. So in the example of the drug dealer and whether you go down or not.

Right. So. If he turns the music off, it helps you, your life is better, but his life is worth. So there is there really a moral justification? And is that really stopping you from being happy? So I think really what I was talking about is it's based on it's based on either is immoral or is it a sense of something that is key to your happiness. So when it's a situation of decline, I I guess, you know, one of us gains, one of us loses.

That's really about a superficial reward. So you've got this the 70s downstairs with loud music that can really affect your. I can tell you that most people wouldn't go down, so they would just live with it and it would make really on a. And as we've been talking tonight about, except that that is I don't know if anyone, anyone, anyone on the call has ever had, but it's one of the most difficult things to sort out in the world.

But this is the best in themselves, isn't receptive. The police won't do anything under the jurisdiction of the environmental health at the council. And late not saying that you'll never you'll never get in touch. This is an idea because we're talking about this and this is the thing, and I'm kind of in that box, but this has been it has all the elements as all these elements as this idea of, you know, shall be afraid of going down.

But if you do nothing because your insides and your life is actually going to be quite. And that I don't actually think it's something that you can accept. I think it has to be pretty on the level with the base that they do to accept that that was was that you could be happy. Is it actually affecting your efforts? And if it's helping you sleep, then it must be affecting your. Mental health. OK. Difficult situation to do if the person Summerset.

Right, so so I believe that life is challenging you and so. The definition that definition of happiness is underpinned by the belief that law has to be.

OK, for you to be happy. Is that you can adapt to what is. So the way that you the way that you learn. The way that you reach happiness. Is by acceptance of your situation. So on one level, so that noise is a challenge to your piece. And there are many situations like that in life, in particularly when you're working in the company where things aren't fair, where you someone else gets the credit for the job.

Where you get overlooked for no reason other than some petty reason, and it's understanding that life isn't fair, life isn't about being easy or life is about, can you? With whatever challenge challenges you face, with whatever unfair persecution we've over, unfairness, can you maintain your equilibrium? And that comes from. You judging your life on your ability to express yourself as purely and authentically. As you can. Would you say they're listening to what you just said, so I guess I missed a lot tonight besides get my little ones to bed, but so I missed a lot of the early stuff.

But would you say then that, yeah, that happiness isn't like just the things you were talking about earlier, but being adaptable then not just resilience, it's being adaptable because you're saying you've got to accept this, accept these challenges. So if you can't change them, then you're adapting to them. But is that changing yourself to fit the situation? If that does that make sense?

It does it does it for yourself, but then, you know, it's to be authentic self, but then being flexible enough to adapt to the new challenges, the new set of factors and roles in a new situation. Yes.

So, for example, Victor Frankl, who wrote Men Search for Meaning, talked about in the concentration camp. Some people were happy, some people were kind, some people were nasty, some people were miserable. And the difference was the meaning that they made to it. So in like Jesus was crucified, was humiliated, was persecuted unfairly and deranged and he transcended. That was because it was about doing the right thing. Success for him was doing the right thing, wasn't about whether he was popular, it wasn't about whether people accepted him.

It was doing the right thing, so. I think the one of the greatest things is we look at other people and we say they have it easy, they've got a better life. If I only had this if I only had that, if I had that stuff. But if you look at people who've had some of the easiest life, born with a silver spoon in their mouth, given everything, given every advantage they often and some of them end up as drug addicts because they had no purpose, because purpose isn't in the success that you have in the world purposes, in the sense of meaning you make of the world, which is your narrative and how you deal with it.

So. Happiness can come from any circumstance. Yeah, it's about. The satisfaction. Of knowing that you're living life well. So the external circumstances are a challenge and then you're going to feel how you feel about yourself is based on how you navigate them. Does that make sense? Yeah. Which is a lot easier to say and indeed none of us live up to. Well, I was I was thinking about six example of going downstairs to the jugaad.

And so I wonder if that's because I you know, I don't know I don't know what they would do for a guy. Is it different if you're running for and thinking, if only I had the courage to go down there and deal with this? That make me happier.

But because it's a woman if that was done to me, I'd be too scared to go downstairs. But I might think, well, you know, if I was a guy, I'd go down there and I'd say just to get out. Tennyo wouldn't have the courage to do that.

If you're a liberal, basically, because, you know, you're probably the less likely the violence will be done.

Maybe to tell you the answer, Zapato, from personal experience.

So I was just wondering if you run for the narrative, your mind thinking, you know, like if I had the courage to go down and do that and just deal with it, if I was you anxious about it? I guess, yeah. I suppose if you if you if you got or something, I suppose then I suppose a traditional models. So I don't see them any less of a man if I didn't go down because would you assess that risk.

And it depends on who they are. And there are some great jobs in London basically said the same. I would challenge others that I don't like. I'll leave it. The thing that I think my pay and I'm being a little bit sneakier as well, because obviously there's been a lot of talk as well tonight about about the about that it's all about you and that you can control and that and that you shouldn't let external factors get. I think my use of that example is that that's an example.

And it's it's the only one I can think of. There are others, but they all have to think of where external factors can have an effect on your happiness. The ear plugs and there's nothing new about this, let's hear from Alan Keyes.

He's got. Well, I didn't I live in apartment and apartments in the city center, so I'm throwing my actions. Believe it or not, and you do get some loud parties. Ironically, there's some music going on upstairs above me at the moment.

So what I did this, rather than have it with them and cause any confrontation directly, because there was only made me and my comments at the time on those about 10 of them in the shielded apartments, I went to the electricity cupboard and the energy off the shows.

Oh, that's brilliant. I love it a lot.

But the best thing was, was like hitting them all, like having conversations between themselves about what it could be that has blown their elasticity to be on the phone to to to empower, trying to find out how to be in a power outage in the local area despite every single other departments having its lights on.

And I actually did similar to my boys this week. I couldn't get them to get off the computer.

And I went in the room and they were looking around trying to figure out that my son son's quite smart. So he was in there pretty quickly and in fact only works one.

What do you think about this? All right. Let us rob the question, Rob, you mentioned living life well and that it could make you happy, what you actually mean by that living life worth. That if you treat love or happiness as something to find. You won't find that because their outcomes of living well, so by living well, I mean is you have a DNA, you have a framework, a view of the world from your experiences and what you've learned.

And that blueprint is what you have to live by. That's who you are. And if you. Try to live in any other way. You're not going to be happy. And so what people do is they look at happiness. They look at love, and I think I have to do this to be that person. So people go to, you know, like there's all these dating tricks and things. And like, you do this and you behave like this and what happens or there's a relationship advice of you should do this, you should compromise, you should do it.

And so people lose themselves by being taking on behaviors that isn't them. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's not a box ticking exercise. No, yeah, it is individual and happiness and love are based on who you are, how you view them and what you need. And that's different for each of us. And that's why I think the great. Inside of the five love languages was it showed that people were different and receive and give and receive love differently, but I think it fell short in so many more ways.

So all of it ultimately is about looking after ourselves, well, is it emotionally, mentally, physically, you know, when we take care of our well-being, something so, you know, your children, for example, when they need to have certain needs, it needs to be not just as we do. As you know, we have a need for discipline, responsibilities and the need for downtime and grasping the need for. On all aspects of health being taken care of when we need more that needs for ourselves and when we take care of ourselves, what would you say that that's what that means for it?

Yes, the children who misbehave is because they're not going to need math, whatever the need for. I need to look good. I need to whatever you cure the behavior by dealing with the need. And it's the same with adults. If we if we have everything we need, we're happy and we're good people. I mean, there's a small minority that like psychopaths, psychopaths who are different. But other than that, if people have everything they need.

They're going to want only good for other people. That's what it says in The Matrix. Basically, it says in The Matrix revelations relations that people are just another thing, that. But I suppose I suppose we're talking about the actual human nature is is it just creates another reason why isn't happy. Yeah, but there's a there's a distinction like Alan was talking about, you know, people on Tinder are very mean, instant gratification. Those people, if they if they had if they had any gratification, were more of that.

But at the deeper level, if you like everything, you really need, not every whim that you want, because part of happiness is overcoming the whims, the whims.

So it's basically the seven deadly sins. Like I'm not religious, but yeah, there is a basis to religion, the seven deadly sins, the temptations and. Life is fair is about lives like if you overcome those, you transcend the world. And which means that you've transcended your needs. For anything wildly. Which is quite deep for us in our relationship. That's like self-regulation, really, isn't it? That's what you're talking about, is that being able to regulate your emotions and your impulses into your behaviors in the face of any and.

Yes, temptation or obstacle or addiction or whatever, whatever it may be. Exactly.

If you look at a relationship, it's about can I can I care about Navroz?

I care about myself. Can I overcome, like, arguments or about pride? You know, a lot of arguments are about probably like, oh, you make me look stupid or something like that. It's about temptation.

We live in a world with other people. You know, we're always going to be attracted to someone else. But can we resist that temptation when we're angry? Can we?

Like, can we deal with the anger without burning the other person you say is just is regulating ourselves? On. The childish emotions that we feel. I think the difficulty with that is when. I think is when you get to people where one person can, one person doesn't. That's that's been my experience in relationships where one one plays by those rules and the other person and. Yeah, doesn't. And I think that's where he is talking about vulnerabilities.

I think that's where if you've been in that kind of situation, that's where it's difficult then to allow yourself to be vulnerable again because you eat it. You think, oh, OK, I've been that way. And then this played out because the two people having the different playing by a different set of rules.

Yeah, it's it's which is which is where, you know, when she was talking about unconditional love, it's there has to be a point where.

If they don't live up to it, then then, yeah, that's that's going to break. And so you have to be enough of knowing that you love yourself as much as you would love someone else. And making sure that you're okay and you judge your partner by their ability to do the same. You were talking about earlier, though, because I think this is something that kind of made but, you know, we were talking about the idea of an airplane.

You know, you put your own mask on oxygen. So what do you do if you're in a relationship and you and you need to attend your. Basically, and I'd like you clearly have gone into a place where you need to do some work, so because of external factors, what would you advise?

Well, it's obvious that you kind of need spice in the relationship, but it's to say that because you're in a relationship, that's kind of what if you if you make that a priority?

My happiness, I have to make sure I have enough sleep. I have to make sure I'm safe and well, because so physically I'm well, I have to make sure emotionally exactly the same. And so you pick the more aware of it you are, the quicker you pick it up and the less of a big deal it is. Other than that, it's like this is what I need. And the other person, if you're in that kind of relationship, which I think is what we want from happily ever after, then the other person understands and supports it.

But you have to communicate clearly that they understand.

But part of that also is an understanding of the risk of doing something like as Peter said, do you take time out from the relationship? It may mean that at the end of your discovery, your process, you may not feel that you need to go back into that relationship. So the risk that you run is that the relationship men may end.

I think ideally you would both recognize a relationship where they both where both are gaining by far stronger because of it, and then breakups would be so much easier if both sides had that. Confidence. I do believe that in a century or so, relationships will be like that because. I think we're the only place we can evolve now is emotionally, I think. You know, everything you talked about, Alan, about the you know, no one having the ability to delay gratification, what this is creating is a world full of depression, a world full of anxiety, a world full of where relationships don't work and when things break down.

Then there's a lot of focus on it. There's a lot of attention on it, and so I think. There are, you know, which is kind of why I'm focused on relationships, because I think there's going to be a huge amount of relationship awareness and knowledge in the next few decades. And we're just you know, we all think that as a species we say sophisticated, but we're still animals.

We haven't evolved much past that. I mean, the evolution will definitely be. I mean, physically evolutional going to be more wasting away, as we all did in jazz with virtual reality headsets on and I think this gets directly downloaded to our brain and muscles will probably atrophy.

Yes, but even the way that young people process information, I mean I mean, let's open debate. So that was the best thing you can remember. Life before computers. You know, remember when you wanted to know something, you have to go and ask your dad or, you know, like daddy can look up in an encyclopedia. So you actually had to remember things if you wanted to record the information, you know? I mean, you know, we used to I used to spend hours arguing with my friends about which was basically rendered completely pointless because someone could just look at them about eight seconds.

So the youngest is actually getting to know where you can get that information. It's actually become a skill now that's a lot more desirable than being able to retain information, which is kind of what it was in our day is in your head so that you will now get a chip in your head.

Why is it that that is on the way down? That intelligence is is not going to be an advantage for that much longer. And that's where the one thing that robots are not can't do or is going to be lighter for them to do is emotions and emotional intelligence.

Yeah. That my electorate has told me you're having a nice week, and these days it is not about the last three weeks of elections, the robots are learning emotions.

They're learning how to lie. Artificial intelligence is developing and. In my osteopaths, that woman. I mean, my dad always said that that was he always got really annoyed and Starwars like where they make the droids promotions because he always thought the robot would never, ever be able to have emotions.

But take the example of those Japanese men who have already retreated from physical relationships with people and in relationships with their doubles, whatever, virtually and the physical dogs to butt in their phones.

Their relationship is with something beat a dog or a image of a person on the phone. That's who they speak to and they buy things for and they dress. I even saw one occasion where a man, he has this doll and he buys her outfits and he dresses her up and he takes her for a romantic weekends to hotels. Oh, yeah. Because you see those females don't talk back. They don't create emotional, emotional turmoil. They receive the love passively and they cause the grief and see that that is exactly, you know, like we were talking about the drug dealer.

And if you need life to be perfect, that's what happens is that's where ends up because everyone else is going to disappoint you.

Yes, I would say that this is kind of a anticline because there's no procreation, that's a natural response to the population dynamic with that possibly that's that's a biological response to human beings causing too much problems, basically, and being Zapotec right on the earth that supposedly this could actually be biological.

Yeah, but I think it's also speaks to a weakness to deal with emotional turmoil and emotional pressures. And it's all about that mental aspect of their their their their upbringing. And that is the result of you just forsake all of that. Yeah, I mean, isn't that you can buy things, it's no worse than someone like Donald Trump who just sort of belatedly married merit for his looks and his personality. But it's no different to that, I suppose, isn't it?

You know, his kindness. I thought that was that book that you know, the book that you said earlier, that you couldn't remember the sad thing. What was a selfish, stupid.

I was thinking that president of the United States would look like selfish, scared and stupid.

All right. But you mentioned something else, Donald Trump. And that's power. Power is attractive, isn't it? Yes, got those. So, as I said, basically, no, no, no. Classic, classic, classic example, Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy.

Just out of curiosity, where are you in the UK? Because the life behind looks really natural, like it's daylight. Me? Yeah. Yeah, I am.

Because it looks like it's daylight now.

I can't remember. It's one of those thingamabobs bulbs, those low what you call them, low energy, something are the other. Like a natural light type thing. Yes, actually, you're right. Yeah, looking at everybody looks quite different.

Yeah. I'm going to go anyway. Guys, thank you very much for your contributions and your information and thank you for hosting this evening. Thank you, Alan. Any last words of wisdom? I'm actually going to have a word with my neighbors because they're really noisy. Next week, you know what?

I take care of you, like I said, and we hope to see you in one piece next week, OK?

Right now, we need to wrap up and we need words of wisdom from someone. So. I think I believe based on. Never give up. Never give up any lost old self, never give up, I never give up. Alicia. And words of wisdom. I would say patience. She done this. I think I missed too much. It's enough to decide I you know, it's probably all been said. I just missed it. But maybe personally, I think the message is just really trust yourself to be just to be yourself rather than trying to fit into what you think people want to be self.

I think a little forensically delivered, Christina, everybody, sorry, I was coming off mute.

Everybody probably knows this already, but everybody is responsible for their own happiness. Christina. I'm very much what everybody said, I would just say trusting yourself to try and set goals. I'm a very I do believe in goals and that's the way I achieved things in life of trusting yourself and just keep striving for the stars, you know? You know, but definitely trusting yourself, because at times you do get those moments where you feel like you can't do certain things, so you just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So I just think trusting yourself is important. And don't doubt yourself and don't listen to your cynical voice that you have in your mind, which often we do have that. So that's very important to me.

Thank you. I think it is, is and we feel like if we're going to give advice, we can only tell people what. Everyone now says, but that's really what we all need to hear. And there's no difficult solution is just the simple solution that we don't you know, that it's accepting it. That's more important.

I'm not sure if you can hear us, Sasha, if you're able to talk. And still ahead, we're going to close with the last words of wisdom from you and look after yourself.

I want your child to be looked after and also for its place. Mark. Well, thank you, everyone.

So we we're in next week to discuss the idea of treat them mean, keep them keen, true or false.

Have a nice evening everyone. Bye. Yeah night.