Are you tired of living by societal guidelines that don't seem to fit your life's aspirations? Today we explore the arbitrary rules we impose on ourselves—from education and career paths to homeownership and societal expectations.

We discuss how these so-called rules can often create a mental cage, limiting our potential and happiness. In this candid episode, our hosts offer insights and encourage listeners to question these norms, find their unique paths, and live a more fulfilling life.

Get ready to challenge everything you think you know about the rules that govern your life. Tune in to start breaking free and living authentically.

Let's grow together. We're rooting for you.

Are you tired of living by everyone else's rules and not really sure why you're doing it? Today's episode is called the rules are fake, and it's all about the rules that we live by, the rules that we place on ourselves, and the cage that we mentally create for ourselves, and how to break free of it, of course. Welcome to the five year you podcast, a show dedicated to helping you become the best version of yourself one day at a time. I'm Andrew.

And I'm Catiefe. And we promise to keep it raw, real, and relatable.

Are you ready to grow? Cat, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. How are you?

I have some trepidation about this topic, if I'm being honest. I'm like, you know, cause. Cause it's all made up. In one way, it's all made up, and in another way, it's all very, very real. I feel like this is a pandora's box that we're gonna open up and we're gonna be like, yeah, what about that? What about that?

Then our kids are gonna listen to it one day, and they're going to be like, so your rules are fake?

No, no. Our rules are real, and they must be at all time. What are we talking about when we say the rules are fake?

When I think of the rules are fake, I'm thinking, like, the path that society tells us we're supposed to take. And we've talked about this on previous episodes. We've said the rules are fake on previous episodes, but I wanted to dedicate a whole episode to it, because I really think that we use these rules, which are completely made up by people in order to sort of structure our lives. And any time we feel like we're not fitting in that mold or we're not doing certain things or meeting certain goals by a specific time frame, we use that to be unkind to ourselves. Rules exist for a reason, right? I mean, traffic lights, super helpful line.

In the middle of the road. Definitely a helpful thing. Yep.

Yep. I mean, there are some pros to rules, but I think it's a good idea. And this might be kind of philosophical, but every now and then to sort of step way outside of the world society and kind of look down and just say, huh, look, how interesting. Everyone's just following these same rules, and no one really knows why.

I think there's a very strong tendency to revert to the mean or, like, maintain the norm. You get out of school and, you know, first thing you're told is, well, go to university and learn a trade or do some things, get more education so you can, and you go, why? It's like, well, so you can get a job, so you can make money, so you can get married and have kids and buy the house and buy the car and have the debt. And that is just a made up story. I mean, it's a useful story for a lot of people, but I think anytime you have a rule like that, we're trying to shoehorn everybody into the same box and it doesn't work.

Everybody's different. I think a good way to look at it is that, you know, maybe it's a helpful outline, but you can write whatever type of story you want. For a lot of people it works, but it might not work for everyone. And here in the states, we have a major student loan crisis. People are tens of thousands of dollars in debt on average. And when you think about it, it's like, oh, no, you need to borrow this money to get a college degree. Well, why? So you can get a job? Because you need a college degree to get a job, so you can make, you know, more money, quote unquote, than someone without a college degree. And so kids buy into this false narrative.

They get a job, they get a salary, and then what do they have to do with it? Use it to pay back their student loans. And it's crippling debt for a lot of people. The truth is college is great and helpful, and many professional careers, doctors, lawyers, things like that, require it for a lot of things. You can kind of go without it. In today's marvelous technological society, there are many things you can do without it and earn more than someone with a traditional quote unquote job.

I would agree with that. So, I mean, I know your kids are fairly young. Mine are getting to that time where they're going to be going off to school and they're going to be finishing up their later high school years as of today. And we're not going to hold you to it because the rules are fake. But what advice would you give your kids right now if they don't know what they're going to do? Do you tell them go to college or what do you say?

That's a great question. I haven't really thought it through. But, hey, let's do it in real time just so the twins can listen in to. I mean, I have told them that by the time the twins get to college age, so that's eight years from now, I think it's going to be a very different landscape. People are tired of the increasing price of tuition that's increasing faster than inflation. And a lot of people are starting to question this narrative. So for the twins, my biggest goal for them is for them to be independent. And I take that all the way through everything, including, you know, we have ten year olds loading the dishwasher, we have ten year olds mopping the floors.

They're learning how to manage their money with a debit card, all these different things, because I'm very focused on teaching them just basic life survival skills. And part of that is they have to learn how to earn an income in whatever way possible. One thing I do tell them is to try to find a job they enjoy, but also that contributes to the world, makes the world a better place. I would tell them that if they can do their job without college, then I support them. Like, the thing is, I fully support whatever they want to do. If they want to go and learn how to paint in Italy for three years, I fully support them doing that. They're going to have to figure out a way to pay for it. They're going to have to learn really fast to how to find artists grants and things like that, and they're going to have to get creative, because part of fulfilling your dreams, and you and I both know this as entrepreneurs, is figuring out how to build things from scratch.

If my son is like, look, I'm a developer. I already know how to code. I really don't need to go take English 101 and Spanish 101 in college. I can just get a job at insert tech company here, or I can be a freelance coder. Then I fully support them. What I don't support is living in my basement, watching tv all day, playing video games, and like, being a drain on society. As long as they're productive, I'm here to help. I would love, love for them to go outside the box.

That's really good for me. Again, I support my kids in whatever they're going to do as well. I believe that going to school for the sake of going to school is not a productive thing. Especially it's four years. And if you're going to come out of that four years and not be using that education for something, given the cost, that if it was free, it'd be completely different, I would agree. I would. I think that you support them. You're raising your kids to be able to go off in the world and do something that makes sense to them, meaningful.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Contribute to society. But that can mean a variety of things. And yes, some things do require that education. A lot of things don't. And I think college, and this isn't a talk about college, but it is, you know, I think college is like one of the big rules for most of us. Like this is what I have to do.

It's a big rule. It's college, job, house, kids, save up so you can retire and not work. That is the quote unquote path plan, at least in North America, that we have been fed. And the thing is, is we have to take into account present day and times, because in the past, 100 years ago, especially 150 years ago, education was the ticket to becoming something better, to elevating throughout the ranks of society because education was not accessible to all. And now we have the Internet, and now we have learning for free at our fingertips at all times. Certainly we got to teach the kids how to like comb through it all and find, you know, accurate information and all of that, but all of those old societal rules still exist, but the world has changed and I think we're going to see a lot bigger changes. Come on. And I, I just don't think college is going to be as necessary of a thing anymore.

And, yeah, I mean, you can take the house thing next, too. We could do a whole episode on that.

Well, I'm sure we will at some point, but I think that's the next one. I want to just the whole college thing and even like the rest of this, but I want to talk about the housing and all that stuff, too. But when it comes to college, college is a means to an end. And yeah, you get your college experiences and stuff like that. And that is a valuable part of your life for some people. For others, not so much. When it comes to why you're doing it, it's to go get a job so that you're going on that path of work, however, and retiree, I'm trying to direct my kids and anybody I talk to more along the lines of what's if you never had to work like or call it work? I think that's one of the greatest quotes I've heard in the last month, is find what you love to do but call it work to everyone else. And it's really true, you know, like, it really is a good quote.

And to know that it's not going to be the same all the time. I mean, when we both got out of school, we had different ideas.

Yeah, totally. That quote perfectly encapsulates what we're talking about, because the reason it exists is because if you, like, love what you do, and you don't feel like you're working. It's like. But call it work to everyone else because everyone is following the fake rules.

Yeah.

So that they understand, so that it fits in.

Exactly. Nobody wants to hear, like, oh, I went to work today, and it was the funnest day of my life, and I can't wait to do it again tomorrow. People that are in that boat get it, but it's a small, very small boat at this point, and we want to make it bigger. One of my best friends, David, he says, like, you know, I worked for 20 years doing this, and I have no intention of ever stop. He's like, stopping what I do. I love what I do. The day I stop is the day that I can't, you know, my heart stops, basically. And I think that's a really good point.

That's what we want to encapsulate in. It's like, go to college if that's going to lead you to the thing, that's going to be what you love to do. And maybe you won't love it all the time, but today you do. So follow that path. And if you don't have that path, that isn't. If your education isn't required for that, start asking yourself, what do you actually want to do? I'm doing that with my son right now, and it's a completely different dynamic, because when you don't know what you want to do, the next thing is like, well, I'll just keep going to school until I figure it out. And that's fine if you can afford it, but if you're crippling student debt, this doesn't make a lot of sense to you.

That's right.

All right, let's check. Jump on the house bandwagon, and I'll let you run with that. So, how is the house a rule?

Well, honestly, it's not just me that's doing the eye roll at the house thing. And for anyone new to the podcast, Andrew and I are financial bloggers. That's how we started out. And I wrote a personal finance book, and so we do have, like, you know, a smidge of money knowledge on this podcast here. For me, I feel like the house thing is one of the biggest lies that we've been sold as Americans, maybe in Canada as well. You'll have to let me know. But we make the house thing out to be this symbol versus what it really is, which is just a place to live. We make it out to be the symbol of success.

And on this podcast, what we teach is to live from the inside out, to live from who you are and make decisions from how you want to be and what your truth is versus what everyone else is going to think. But houses are the symbol for I've made it. And for a lot of people, when they buy the house, they feel like they can check the box. Ramit Sethi is the author of I will teach you to be a rich. He's multi millionaire, owns a seven figure business. He rents, he rents in New York City and he said he could go out and buy a house today. But for him it's more about peace of mind, the being able to budget and to know exactly how much he's going to pay for housing each month. The argument to this is, well, what about it's a good investment and all of this stuff? And I read another really great quote.

I don't remember who I read it from. I'm trying to think. I can't recall where I read this, but recently I read that, yeah, houses are great investments if you don't live in one, meaning it's great as an asset if you have renters and it's an income producing asset, but if you're living in it, it's not income producing. I have purchased and sold two houses. I was fortunate to buy low, sell high both times, and it was a relief, though. Not everybody is so lucky. And now I'm renting and it's so much more peaceful. And if I ever buy again, it will be a cash purchase because I just can't, I can't deal.

Can't deal.

I agree with what you're saying. And I don't rent. I own the condo that I'm in. But a big part for me was I got swept up in the rules of the bigger, better lifestyle. And it's like, well, the bigger the house you have, the more you are as a human. And it's absurd. What I found was that the time suck of my life, doing things around the house. I can easily say like, well, bigger house means more cleaning, bigger yard means more yard work, more, you know, the more you have in size, the more maintenance it costs.

That's kind of it. But, and I think this is one of the rules that kind of is lying underneath the surface of all of this is that bigger is better and if a little bit is good, more is even better and doing even more. And so it's kind of like saying like, well, if you want to run 1 mile, then you should run 1000 because running a mile is good for you. Where's the cap? Yeah, exactly. So I think that's a big rule in society is that, like, well, bigger is better.

We're not giving advice on whether to purchase a home or not because, like Andrew said, he owns his home. I've owned two homes. What we're saying is, question what you've been told. Ask yourself. Just pause and say, why do I think this? Do I really want this? And will this make my life better? And is painting a wall the color I want really worth unexpected expenses? I mean, thousands of dollars of unexpected expenses, increasing property taxes, things like that. We're just asking you to question the rules, the marketing that we've been sold.

One thing I wanted to add to the point I was so inelegantly making was that we have more house means more maintenance. You and I both have experience that, you know, like, more rooms just means more rooms to clean more floors means more cleaning buckets and vacuums and all these other things, and they're a part of life. But the thing that we don't really factor in is more house generally means more debt, which means more hours work to service that debt, to earn the money to go pay it. So suddenly you're not really living a life of your design. You are living something based on rules. Somebody else has told you. You don't really realize how many hours of your life are being pulled away to this one asset. And I use air quotes for that because like you said, an asset is something that makes you money, not takes away money.

So when you're living in your house, yes, it's an asset. Yes, it's appreciating in value, but it's also costing you a lot of things that you don't immediately.

You're paying for it. You're not getting.

You're paying for it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, we've tackled the rule of college, the rule of housing. Let's go a little more granular on this because we can talk about retirement, too. But I feel like that's like a long one. What about the rules in our own head? I have been really picking at my own rules, and I have millions of them. Like, I mean, Encyclopedia Britannica has nothing on the pages of rules that I do in my head about everything. When you're a kid that you need those rules.

You need, don't put the fork in the socket. You still don't do that. I haven't tested it. But then there's all the other things that you kind of make up as a child. You don't understand this world. So you make up rules. And the rule you make up in that moment is a. If I make up a rule at age five, that is a five year old's rule, it may not apply to a 45 year old, but if I haven't questioned that rule, then I don't know any better.

So what I was just wanting to bring up is that we likely all have these rules in our heads. And I know you and I have very different cultures and traditions, but there are all these customs which are just rules that we've adopted and gone, well, no, you're supposed to do that, or, no, we do this. You wait till the other person's completely done eating before you get up to go. And the other person might be like, no, you literally have three minutes to eat, and then you get up and go. There's very different approaches to these things, but they're all rules in our head.

And I think the rules in our head are very much influenced by the fake rules all around us. The rules in our head are passed down from our parents, from caregivers, from school, from everything. I mean, I see a lot of women in their thirties panicking because they're not married and they don't have kids yet, and they feel like they're running out of time and running out of options because society puts this pressure on everybody. Like, well, if you don't have kids, you won't know what it's like to be truly happy. That's society's words, not mine. Or they'll say, like, if you don't have kids, you won't have anyone to take care of you when you're old. Again, fake rule. Because, again, who are we to say even whether or not we'll have the privilege of getting old, right? So, good point.

We have all of these things, oh, I should be more successful by now. I know. For me, one of my rules is that after my divorce, I got into debt handling life after the divorce, which is very typical and common, but I felt like that shouldn't be me because I'm a financial writer. I wrote a money book. So my rule in my head is like, you should be perfect with money if you're somebody that gives money advice and writes about money every day. And so when we don't measure up to the fake rules in our headland, because why should I be the only person to come out of divorce unscathed financially? Everyone knows it's a tremendously burdensome thing to go through financially. Why should I be the only one that comes out unscathed. You know, it's just something that I think in my head, something I've made up to give myself a hard time.

Instead, I should be thinking, ah, what a privilege. I know so much about how money works because I know exactly how to fix it. Right. What a privilege that is. That that's my job or whatever. All the fake rules, the things we measure by. Oh, well. Oh, I'm about to be 40, and I should have done this by now.

I should have this work title by now. I should have this much saved by now. I should have gone to visit these places by now, because that's what people do when you're insert whatever. But the thing is, like, not everybody's there same. In fact, no one is the same. Every single person is different.

We all are. I think, first of all, thank you for the vulnerability about surrounding your divorce. I think it's really helpful for people to know that because I think a lot of times you're putting yourself on a pedestal that doesn't exist. And I think we all do that. It's kind of, we're all looking at the rules and we're all following them, and at the same time, we have this bias that we are the exception to the rule and we are only the exception to the rule when we are being hard on ourselves. That's not maybe the best way of phrasing it, but truly, it's hard when you go, well, I should be this. I think the should be rule is probably the most pervasive one in our minds. And it's, I should be doing this.

I should be married. I should be. And it causes so much misery and anxiety and just terrible physical responses and emotional responses, because we are essentially giving our happiness, which is internal to something outside of us that says, until I achieve achieve the house, the car, the job, the college degree, the whatever, I will not be happy. And newsflash for all of us, you're not going to be happy when you get to that next thing. It's just not how it works. It's an internal thing that goes, I'm happy, and I want to go do this. I know who I am. I'm happy with how I am, and I want to go pay off my debt, and I want to go get a college degree, and I'd like to own a kick ass car, a big house, whatever it is.

That's the thing we need to focus on.

Yeah. So to sum it up, we are encouraging you in this episode to take some time and think about you go inside your mind, go inside your heart, your spirit, and try to identify the things that you really like and the things that you really want and try to identify the things that you're doing just because it might have been a rule that you didn't even realize was a rule inside your head. We're not here to offer tons of solutions. This is just a conversation to encourage others to open their mind and to let you know that it's okay if you are walking along a path that is less traveled. In fact, we think you're kind of cooler for it. We want you to know we're rooting for you for sure.

Absolutely, we are. We're rooting for you. I can honestly say there's been some challenges. When you start kicking out the rules and questioning things. Don't expect the people around you that are following the rules to understand if they haven't listened to this podcast or they haven't gone outside of their own paradigm. But when you're hearing this and you're like, yeah, you know what, I do have these rules that I'm following. I should examine those. You don't have to throw everything out.

You just, we're just asking if it's blocking your happiness. Maybe just take a look at it. So, Cat, it's time for glimmers. Woohoo. What is your glimmer this week? What is that thing that lights you up from the inside that you're just smiling about and joyous about this week?

Well, this is bringing me a lot of joy. I've actually wanted these for like forever. And so I have three little crystals hanging in my windows. I have these big windows in my living room. They are delighting me because every morning I open up my blinds and it puts rainbows all over my walls and I love rainbows. They are just making me so happy and it's just been so nice to, I don't know, just come and sit one of my kids bean bags in the morning and drink my coffee and just watch the little rainbows on the wall. I love it.

That is awesome. And would you like to share with the readers and listeners and viewers where you got these rainbows?

Well, my friend Christina gave me one and then I got more from Teemu.

I just wanted you to put Teemu in there.

All right, well, what's your glimmer, Andrew?

My glimmer this week is I said previously what my glimmer was going to be on a previous episode about going to Minneapolis and meeting Ben Platt. I knew it would be a good concert because I was liking the songs, but I will lightly use the term life changing concert. It was really, really good. He was a delight to meet. I was just like, I didn't expect it to impact me as much as I did, and I'm super grateful for it. So that's my glimmer this week. And you know what? It was for myself personally. I mean, it was a gift to my daughter, but I could have very easily just bought her the backstage pass ticket, but I did it for myself.

And to me, it was like a little vote in the Andrew column of, you deserve to have these cool experiences, too. And so that's my glimmer for this one.

I'm really glad you did that for yourself.

Yeah, me too. It was a lot of fun. All right, everybody, thank you very much for listening, and we hope you have fun questioning the rules. See you next time.

Bye. Oh, and don't forget, if you want to get that advice from your future self, head on over to fiveyouru.com future to get signed up.

We're rooting for you. Just a reminder, we're two people on the Internet. We're not doctors or anything else, but we do want to help. If you feel that you need professional medical care, please see a licensed medical practitioner.