This podcast has bad words.
Hmm Every little thing You think that's me every little thing you think that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed.
Oh, I bet that she will be fine without it You're listening to the Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and T .K.
Coleman, recorded live at Urthing Studios in sunny California.
Yes. Although I think today's a bit cloudy, but it's sunny in Malabamos voice as you could hear it.
We've got a studio audience here today.
My wife, Rebecca, is here.
Bula is here. Of course, we've got A, B, Yin, Z.
Savvy D is here as well.
Today, on the show, we're talking about dating clutter with Dr. Orion Taraban.
Dr. Terribin is a clinical psychologist and the creator of PsychHacks, a popular podcast and YouTube channel devoted to relationships and personal development.
Coming up on this free public, minimal episode, a caller has a question about entering the dating scene after the end of her long -term relationship.
And then we've got a lightning round question about how to tell whether or not going on a date is going to be worth your time or a waste of time.
That's followed by a right here, right now segment and a listener tip.
You can check out the Maximal Edition of episode 458.
That's the full two and a half almost three hour episode where we answer so many more questions and we dive deep into several simple living segments that private podcast is out right now at patreon .com slash the minimalist. Your support keeps our podcast 100 % advertisement free because sing along at home, y 'all.
Advertisements suck.
Our first question today is from Marni.
Hi Minnollus, it's Marni from Canberra, the nation's capital of Australia.
Thank you for all your deep impactful conversations.
Your podcast has been my regular weekly source of inspiration and healing over the last few years, as I navigated through a time of soul work and growth as I separated from my husband of 16 years.
Now I'm feeling pulled to delve into the dating scene and explore what I am attracted to.
I find I am questioning whether the values and general lifestyle choices that I'm searching for, are a true representation of what I want and need from a future partner, or whether I tend to just go for the opposite to what I have previously had issues with or felt I wasn't getting in my marriage.
Also, how do we navigate feelings that arise from triggering experiences that we've had, that we don't want to bring into a new relationship?
I feel like I am straightforward and would speak my mind if something bothered me, but also don't wanna bring up unnecessary baggage.
I'd appreciate any insights you may have. Thank you.
Love your work. So Dr. Taraban.
Orion, I thought we'd start with this question because the name of your new book is The Value of Others.
I just finished it, I can't wait to dive in to talking about it.
But I think the essence, or at least half the essence of Marney's question here is after the end of a long relationship, hers ended up being 16 years of marriage that ended.
how do I understand what I actually value so that I can apply those values to the dating scene if I wanna get back out there.
And I was really surprised by this because the value of others, as you say in the book, can sort of be read two ways, either cynically or sincerely.
Can we start by talking about that?
Sure, first, thanks for having me on guys, this has been great, what a warm welcome, very happy to be here.
So yeah, the value of others can be read into different ways like you described.
It can be read in the sense of people are valuable and there could, it could be read in the sense that people have a price, that they cost things.
And I think that's really important to keep in mind because I think both things are true simultaneously.
And when people tend to prioritize let's say the more romantic dimensions which could be the sincere dimensions of relationship at the expense of some of the transactional elements their relationships can be conflictual and difficult.
And if they prioritize the transactional elements, which I think is actually less common, they can feel a little soulless and not emotionally satisfying.
So I think in general, you have a combination of the two would be the ideal relationship.
TK, when we first got copies of this book, and I remember you held it up to me and you said, you know what, I haven't read this yet, but I think I agree with most of what's in it.
Now, O 'Brien, it's worth noting that TK is our resident economist here.
He used to work for the Foundation for Economic Education as a director over there.
And so, I think he often looks at things in the terms of economic models.
However, and I think this is where there might be some disagreement, although I can't really find the disagreement necessarily is that, I have a question for you.
Why do I get the ick when all of a sudden I start applying economics to relationships?
And I'll let either one of you maybe respond to that.
Well, I'll just say one of the things I really love about the way he articulates things is that he can be honest without being undermining.
Sometimes when you point out things like, people make decisions out of a consideration of their own self -interest, or there is a transactional dimension to relationships.
It can make people feel defensive because what they think you're saying is it's impossible to ever act nobly, because after all, if I save a drowning man or if I help an old lady across the street out of a consideration of my own self -interest, surely there is no more space for virtue. But the way Dr. Orion articulates his points, he leaves space for virtue, he leaves plenty of space for authenticity while challenging us to be honest about the fact that there's more to it than just these pure, positive feelings of attraction.
That there are consequences for our actions, there are costs and expenses associated with our choices.
And we're affected by these things and our dealings with each other, even if we're not always conscious of it, and even if we're not always intentionally and explicitly doing the calculations.
Am I representing that right?
That was very well said.
I think that the reason why The word economic tends to run people the wrong way because it's so overly associated with money and it makes people think of like sugar baby relationships or gold diggers.
And money is just the surface of economics.
Economics is the study of how people apply scarce means to intentional ends.
And the fact of the matter is is that in the vast majority of cases, people choose to date this person and not any other person on the planet.
And assuming that this person has any degree of optionality to speak of, which most people do to some extent, that person is making some form of economic decision that my time and my emotional energy are best invested in this relationship with this person and not anywhere else.
And so if we get back to Marnie's question, she just got out of a long -term relationship.
Now, a lot of people listen to this who have been through a long -term relationship or maybe they see a long -term relationship that they're in approaching its horizon, the end point of the relationship.
And I think what she's saying is, how do I understand what I value so that I can apply that to other relationships?
And then there's a second part to the question, which I find maybe even more fascinating.
How do I avoid carrying past baggage into future relationships?
Which one would you wanna start with?
Let's start with the first one first. Great questions.
It's actually very difficult for people to understand what they value.
In my mind, this isn't something that you can sit at home and introspect on.
Oftentimes, when people just look in and journal about what they want or what they feel is important in their relationships, they move in the direction of, let's say, an ego ideal.
The way that they would like to be, the way that they think they should be, the way that they want their ideal partner to be, and they're getting further and further away from reality.
People have certain preferences.
Certain things work for them, certain things don't work for them.
And to my mind, the best way to understand yourself is to examine your choices.
We learn about ourselves by making decisions as we move through the world.
We can think that we value some things consciously, but how we actually spend our days, the people that we choose to spend our time with might actually reveal a very different story about what we value.
Sometimes not a very flattering story.
Like, for example, I think that the dominant value in the West today is comfort.
And I think that that prioritization of comfort in the sense of I'm going to avoid difficult emotional conversations.
I am going to potentially prioritize what feels good right now and anesthetizing principles like food and alcohol and drugs.
These are things that keep people stagnant stagnant and though they might consciously, if you asked them tell you that, oh no, I value courage and I value authenticity and I value relating and connection, their revealed choices show a very different story.
So I would recommend that this woman actually begin to monitor as objectively as possible, how she spends her time and who she spends her time with.
And that will help her to reveal herself to herself.
We often call these lint service values on this podcast. You can say you value a bunch of things, but our actions actually reveal what we value in the moment.
I can say I really value eating a healthy diet, but if I'm eating Cheetos at every single meal, I think that reveals my actual value.
Well, one of the other ways of looking at value, just like in the title of my book, is that values are expensive.
They cost something.
So if I actually value self -development, then it has to come at the expense of comfort, for instance.
I have to move, or be willing to move beyond my comfort zone to be able to do that.
Everything has a cost, like the cost of peace is impatience.
Like you cannot be both peaceful and impatient at the same time.
To the extent that you surrender your impatience, you will be in a position to acquire more patience.
Do you understand? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, yeah.
So the economic distinction that doctor is talking about here is between stated and revealed preference.
And I think this distinction is not merely academic.
It can help reduce the amount of antagonism that many people feel when they approach the dating scene.
There's a great sense amongst many that all the dating scene is just filled with dishonest people who lie about what they really want.
They say they want one thing, but then they behave in a way that completely contradicts it.
Well, when you understand the economics, you realize people aren't in line, it's just that people respond to incentives.
And when the incentives change, the behavior changes, even if the person isn't self -aware about this.
So stated preference is what I say I want when you present a question to me in the abstract without any cost in the form of maybe a survey or a fun conversation.
TK if I wrote a book, would you buy it?
Sure, TK if I had a concert tonight where I'm singing jazz, would you come?
Absolutely. I'll be there.
Because what are the incentives for that question?
Well, there's a social cost for perhaps answering in a way that displeases you, but my opinion here, my answer here, isn't gonna cost me anything financially.
I'm not gonna have to give up my time.
You're not gonna hold me accountable to anything.
I'm just telling you an answer based on how I genuinely feel when you ask me the question.
But reveal preference is what I actually choose to do in a situation where trade -offs are involved.
So, in order to go to your concert when it becomes real, not just a hypothetical, I've got to say no to my wife asking me to do something with her.
I've got to say no to the other things that I want to spend that money on.
And it's not that I'm lying in one scenario, but telling the truth in the other.
I'm telling the truth in both scenarios, but in each scenario there are different incentives that dictate which thing I'm going to prioritize more.
And so, one of the reasons why you have to be careful with asking someone, well, hey, what are you looking for in a partner in treating that formulaically is that you'll be misled.
Someone may say, hey, I want a guy that buys me flowers.
And you try to turn that into a formula.
Okay, if I just buy her flowers, she'll love me.
Well, what she's not saying, and she's not being dishonest about it is, I'm presupposing that I'm attracted to the guy, right?
And that's the missing part.
And so you think the attraction is based on the buying of the flowers because you're looking at it mathematically when there's something underneath that is being presupposed.
So I think this is a really important like conflict resolution tool to think about these things in this way.
This guy gets it he's awesome.
That's why I touched her book and I just felt the power of it.
I was like, he's right.
So well said. Yeah, I actually have an episode on that very subject it's called the part that women always leave out.
And it's one of the more popular on the channel.
And I've talked to so many women in my life and I've asked them what they were looking for.
And it's like, I want a kind man.
I want somebody who's commitment minded.
I want somebody who's sweet and remembers the small things.
And I remember when I was younger, I'd be scratching my head thinking, what the fuck, I can do all those things.
I got right here. What's the problem?
And then I would double down on doing the small things and being sweet.
And it generally had the opposite effect because the part that women always leave out is they want those things, but they want those things from the men they've already decided to be attracted to.
And because they've already been attracted, they've already decided to be attracted to those men, they actually don't need any of those things for their attraction.
And the attraction is far, far more important than any of the other things.
Like you can't give a woman flowers to increase her attraction for you if she's not already attracted to you.
So this is a great example of stated versus reveal preference.
And I think there's a lot of social desirability response, which is something you were also touching on.
And I think that one of the reasons why people get the ick when we approach relationships from an economic perspective is that it can infringe on the dignity of the individual.
We would prefer to think of ourselves as being more altruistic, more loving, more selfless, more devoted than we actually are.
And part of that has to do with our culture as well where it prizes these things like altruism, which isn't it doesn't exist there's no true altruistic person, right?
we all operate and with respect to our own self interests.
And yet we do like to contribute to others as well.
And so then we have this weird, so it feels like a conflict.
I'd love to talk about the second part of this question though, because how do I avoid carrying the past baggage from my past relationship that just ended or any other relationship into a future relationship?
Thoughts on that? Yeah, that's a challenging one.
And after 16 years, it's probably going to take some time to get that relationship out of your system.
It could take a few years to actually resolve that emotionally.
And that also depends on the consequences and the circumstances of the dissolution of the relationship.
Like if it was very conflictual and high intensity, it's probably going to take longer to resolve.
So let's assume that enough time has gone by.
I think it's important for people to understand that it's okay to have deal breakers in a relationship, but we really do need to differentiate between what's a deal breaker and what's just something that we would prefer not to experience because those aren't the same.
So a deal breaker to my mind is any behavior that if left unchanged would by itself degrade a person's enthusiasm for remaining in the relationship.
What that means is that if that never changes over time, the relationship will fall apart because I'm going to feel less enthusiastic about being here.
So even if you're perfect in every other way, this behavior by itself would degrade the experience of relating to you.
So that's a deal breaker.
A very obvious deal breaker that many people have is let's say addiction.
It's very difficult to be in a relationship with an addict because they're already in a relationship with their drug of choice for instance.
But people are free to have deal breakers about anything.
They just have to be really honest with themselves about what works for them and what doesn't work for them." Now that said, if a person in their examination reveals that this behavior is just sort of annoying to me, I would prefer that my partner not do this thing, but I'm actually not gonna be looking for the door.
Then that person should keep that to themselves.
Like I'm actually a pretty big proponent of keeping the space between two people very clean because that's actually what the relationship is.
It's the dynamic between the two of us.
And just like you wouldn't come into your own house and just start throwing garbage on the floor, you have to be very careful about what you put out in the space in your relationship.
You can say one thing in anger and your partner will remember it for the rest of her life.
Like it's not fair, the symmetry there, but that's the way it is.
So, we should be very cautious about what problems we bring to our partner.
Another reason is because part of love is accepting the other person for who he or she is.
You don't necessarily want to love someone just to change them.
that's actually kind of disrespectful.
You're saying in essence that the way you are isn't good enough, and that's very invalidating.
So, part of the fun of love is embracing and accepting someone who might be very different from you to see if you can like in the relating to each other, become different versions of yourself.
We learn about ourselves in relationships.
So if something isn't a deal breaker, someone should then examine him or herself and think, well, why does this bother me so much?
This could really be my problem.
And to try to figure out like, what is it about this person's behavior that reminds me of maybe my parents, my mom or my dad, or a disavowed portion of myself that I would prefer not to acknowledge.
There's this really pithy line in therapy that's called if you spot it, you got it.
So basically the people who irrationately seem to piss you off the most generally remind you of a part of yourself that you would prefer didn't exist within you.
I hate that he or she is so self -righteous because I myself am self -righteous.
Yeah, but we'd prefer not to think of ourselves.
So we disavow that self -righteousness and project it on another person and try to eradicate that un -preferred a component of our own personality by, you know, messing with the other person over there.
The judge - Doctor, it annoys me how smart you are.
You see what I did there, you see that?
The 50 way to say that might be that judgment is a mirror that reflects the insecurities of the judge.
Now TK, you deal with, you've coached and counseled thousands of people at this point.
And now you're doing this thing called clutter counseling, where you help people, not just with physical clutter, but emotional clutter, relationship clutter.
And if you were to talk to someone like Marni here about carrying past baggage into future relationships, what's the emotional component to that?
Well, one question I would ask about these kinds of things like Dr. Talking about the deal breakers is, what is it about that deal breaker that breaks the deal?
Is it the mere existence of the deal breaker?
Or is it the way the other person responds to being informed about the deal breaker?
I always encourage people to strive to be as reasonable as you can, but be careful with assuming that other people are going to be reasonable in the same way.
When we come into a relationship, we bring different sensitivities and you would be amazed at the number of people who are capable of respecting your sensitivities when they are informed about them, but they need to be informed about them because they couldn't imagine in a million years being bothered by something that doesn't bother them.
And what can really damage a relationship very early on is the assumption that if you loved me, if you cared about me, if you saw me, if you listened to me, if you paid attention to me, if you really wanted me, you would notice what bothers me without me telling you.
And that's a great superpower if you have it, but there are some really amazing people out there who would lay down their lives for you and they have no idea about the ways in which you may silently or secretly suffer.
And so if the mere existence of deal breakers is enough to break the deal, that's gonna be very difficult.
But if you can articulate it and have a concept of what you think the right way to listen is, what you think the right way to respond to the sincere expression of that is, then I think you're gonna be on safer ground.
Another aspect of this, when it comes to old elements that trigger us, I think it's important to never put all the pressure on any one relationship, every relationship is made healthier by the existence of other relationships you have as an outlet to process the feelings.
And so if you are coming out of a relationship where you're triggered by things, well, you can't bring all of that up on a first date.
You don't wanna bring all of that up on the first five dates because you're going to block or blind that person from being able to see you in a way where they have the space to get to know you enough to even have context for that.
And so this is one of those things And one of the things that other friends are for, a major, major problem in relationships is that we look to the other person to be the end -all, be -all of our lives.
Hey, you're gonna be the person that watches sports with me, you're gonna be the person that does work with me, and you're gonna be the person that listened to me talk about my problems, and like no, no relationship benefits from that.
When you look to people to be what they can't be, what no human being is big enough to be, you reduce them to something that can never satisfy the needs that they can legitimately fulfill.
No. Oh, Ryan, you talk about this in your book quite often where relationships go wrong.
I think it's in the last chapter is when we try to turn our significant other, whether it's our spouse, partner, or whatever you wanna call it, you turn that person into every functioning role in your life.
They're your therapist. They're your mom.
They are your lover.
They are your business partner.
They're your roommate.
Can you expand on that a bit?
Absolutely. Absolutely, I think that one of the reasons why we're having such a difficulty with marriage in our long -term relationships is we want people to be too many things, which is exactly what TK was talking about.
I think that we used to live in small communities where we had dozens or hundreds of meaningful relationships.
And we used to live in extended kin networks, either in intergenerational houses, or they would be close by.
And so we would be able to have all these different relationships with all these different kinds of people.
And we've spread our social and emotional needs over scores, if not hundreds of folks.
And that's a much more stable way to move through life, like putting everything, getting rid of the community, getting rid of the extended kin network and making your partner, the be all end all, the person who's supposed to satisfy every single one of your social, emotional needs is just asking for disappointment.
And I think that marriage in particular is a fundamentally very humble institution, and I think that we've overburdened it with a great deal of social and emotional and romantic expectation that isn't really justified by the fundamental institution.
I want to dive a lot more into that.
Marni, thank you so much for your question.
If you'd like, I might recommend going to TheMinimalists .com, click on Counseling at at the top if you want to book a session with TK Coleman, talk more about relationship clutter, emotional clutter, or maybe you've got some physical clutter in your house too, I'm sure he could help you with that.
Also, I'd like to give you two things for free.
One is a copy of Dr. Terriban's book.
It is called, The Value of Others.
We'll put a link to that in the show notes for anyone else.
But if you want the book book version, we'll send that over to you as well.
It's available on audio book and ebook, you read the audio book, right?
I did, it was a lot of fun.
Oh, nice, so that's available.
We'll put a link to that in the show notes.
And then for free, I would recommend downloading our values worksheet over at the minimalist .com slash V.
You can also find it on our resource page over there.
It's helping you understand what your values are.
We talked about those lip service values on the worksheet.
We actually call them imaginary values.
These are often the memetic values that are handed to us by our culture, by our society, by our peer group, by the people around us.
And we think we value those things because we've been clinging to them for so long.
And so letting go of some of those values or at least loosening your grip, is a great first step in understanding what your real values might be.
Before we get back to our callers, Malabama, what time is it?
You know what time it is.
It's time for the Lightning Round where we answer the Patreon community chats, Question of the Week.
Yes, indeed. Now, Dr. Terreben, during the Lightning Round, we each have 60 seconds to answer your questions with a short, shareable, minimal maxim we call them.
You don't have to worry about the minimal maxims. TK and I, we have our pithy answers in our pocket right now.
You can find - This episode's Maxim's and the show notes over theminimalists .com slash podcast and every Minimal Maxim Ever at minimalmaxims .com.
We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new Maxim's every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists .email.
We'll never send you spam or junk or God forbid advertisements, but we will start your week with a dose of simplicity.
Bama, what is the question of the week this week?
How can you tell whether a date will be worthwhile or a waste of time?
Now TK, before we get to our pithy answers, let's hear how some of our listeners answered this question.
What did Tim have to say?
I've got nothing here.
I could actually use a little dating clutter.
Yeah, Buella said the same thing to me this past week.
We were talking about, she's like, you know what?
I'm going to come in for that dating clutter up.
So I could use a little dating clutter in my life.
So Dr. Terriban, let me ask you, why do people have trouble finding the right people to date or maybe a better way to ask this question is to refer to chapter eight of your book.
Why do you encourage your clients not to date?
Okay, so many different questions.
Am I supposed to answer the first question?
Let's start with Tim's question here.
So why do you encourage people not to date?
Because he's saying I could use a little dating clutter in my life.
And in your book, I was really surprised that here that you talk to your clients and say, maybe I could encourage you not to date.
Can you talk about what you mean by that?
Well, sure. Generally what we mean by dating in our culture is some sort of fun, frivolous activity.
You go out for drinks, you go to putt putt, it's something that is supposed to be kind of low stakes, getting to know each other.
The issue with that is for most people, that's not what they're doing with their time.
Unless you're somehow a really wealthy foodie, you're probably not going to be going out to Michelin star restaurants every week, unless you are a professional mini golf player, you're probably not going to go to Putt Putt on a regular basis.
So what people are doing is like from the very beginning, entering into a fabricated experience, like that has nothing to do with the day to day lived experience of either individual.
And so how do you know that even if you get along in that bubble that dating bubble, well how do you know that that's actually gonna transfer over into the day -to -day relating that's going to be the vast majority of your relationship.
So what I would recommend doing, and this is also useful because a lot of guys in particular complain about how expensive dating is because usually they're the ones fitting the bill and they think, oh, it doesn't go anywhere so I'm just spending all of this money and it's, you don't have to spend any money to go on dating, and rather than actually create these experiences that are designed to stimulate, let's say a fantasy, do your best to invite the people into your extrapolated fabric of your life.
So, if you go to yoga every Wednesday, like invite the person to your yoga class.
If you go on hikes on the weekend, like go on hikes on the weekend, like in that way, it's also safer because you don't really waste your time because at the very least you're doing something that you were gonna do anyway and that you know that you enjoy, in value.
And also you're not creating this false picture of yourself.
I remember when Bex and I first started dating over a decade ago, she threw out some first date ideas and she's like, you wanna go horseback riding or kayaking or what else - What is your birthday?
Paraisailing, you don't have a microphone, so it's okay, hot air balloon?
Yeah and I just responded, no. Because I don't go horseback riding, I don't go kayaking and I felt like I'd be setting an unrealistic expectation.
I didn't have your book to fall back on, And it just felt like I had done this in the past where I was setting up someone to think I am the type of person that I am not.
And I think that's really where Tim's going here is like, I could use some dating clutter.
Well, maybe it doesn't need to be cluttered.
Maybe you don't have to go on a date.
Maybe you can invite someone into your life.
I'm also reminded as I was reading the book.
My favorite chapter was the ninth chapter about how - Me too.
Yeah so I think it could have been a whole book by itself, right.
So the ninth chapter is roughly titled, relationships have nothing to do with love, right?
Love has nothing to do with relationships.
There you go. So love has nothing to do with relationships.
Now at first I was a little worried because I thought this wouldn't comport with our tagline, our last book was even called Love People and Use Things because the opposite never works.
Now I will add a caveat there.
One of the things we often talk about is love is not transactional, but relationships are transactional, right?
In order to have a relationship, if you don't have to have love but the two can correspond or they can both occur at the same time, is that right?
Yeah, absolutely. So we can think about love like other values that I call non -transactable goods as gifts that are freely given either the spontaneous desire of the giver and they always come with no strings attached.
Like there's not even the expectation of reciprocity or acknowledgement otherwise you're giving to get but which is just transaction disguised as love.
No one would actually call that love, right?
Now, my fundamental definition of a relationship is when two people decide to trade unequal goods of comparable value, that when that transaction occurs, you have a relationship.
That's the necessary and sufficient condition.
And so that could be like a grocery store.
I'm giving you my money for the produce that I want to purchase.
Certainly. That's a transactional relationship.
But then I think we can also apply that beyond just the grocery store checkout line.
Of course. Like again, people get stuck on thinking that transaction is just about money.
You could be transacting excitement or the alleviation of boredom.
That's why a lot of people date.
You could be transacting for emotional security.
You could be transacting for sex. You could be transacting for a company or the assuagement of loneliness.
There's lots of different things that people can transact for and they aren't always conscious of the things is that they are giving in the things that they are getting, but it feels like on the whole that they're getting a good deal, which is why they choose that relationship.
I guarantee that behind 99 % of relationships dissatisfaction is the belief in at least one person's head that they're giving and giving and giving and not getting very much back.
Like if relationships weren't transactional, why the fuck would that matter?
You know what I'm saying?
That doesn't make any sense.
Like the purpose of love is to give and give and give, and not to think or count what you're getting in return because love wants to love.
That's the nature of love, is to shine just like a star.
But if you start to think, well, I'm loving, but I'm not really getting anything back for all the love that I'm giving, now you're getting into Rocky waters.
And that's what we see in modern dating because we have this conception of the love marriage, which is basically an oxymoron, it's like a jumbo shrimp.
Like those two words don't actually go together because love is about this.
I defined it as the humiliated self exultant.
And it's about giving of oneself and making a sacrifice of one's time and one's life for the good of the other and not looking for any benefit in return.
Like you can do that, but at the same token, if you're also expecting the other person to do that for you because you did it for them, then again, you've just transact generalized your love and you've reduced it to that level.
And so generally people vastly back and forth.
One minute they're thinking, oh, I just love being in the presence of my husband or my wife.
And the next minute they're wondering if their boundaries are being violated or if they could do better.
And that's because in one moment, they're in love and in the other moment they're in marriage and people in marriage, at least traditionally have gotten married because of a very explicit transaction.
It's like, we'll give you a 40 heads of sheep for that woman over there, or it's gonna be some sort of political alliance.
Marriage was always done intentionally.
It wasn't done because of the feelings of the individual involved in the vast majority of cases.
So we've decided that that's not the right way to do things.
We should marry people based on how we feel about them.
And that's very tenuous because feelings of course always change from moment to moment, let alone from year to year.
So it's not very sturdy of a foundation to build a relationship.
That wasn't pithy at all.
I just, man but that was profound.
It was profound. For God, I was doing the pithy.
We'll get to the pithy answer in a second.
Speaking of feelings, Meredith had this feeling about the question of the week.
Hook up culture makes it hard to meet real people who want genuine connection.
I'm reminded of Steve Irwin, and the great philosopher, just kidding.
He was the crocodile guy, right?
You're confusing him with Steve Irwin.
Yes, Steve Irwin said, crocodiles are easy, they try to kill and eat you.
People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first. Now, Dr. Taravan, does hookup culture make it harder to meet people who want a genuine connection?
I don't think it's necessarily that way, but you might have to hook up first. Expand on that.
Well, we live in an era for better or for worse in which sex tends to precede commitment and expecting that that would be different for you because you want to prioritize a connection first in a sexual marketplace in which sex comes first is going to be pricing yourself out of the competition because it's going to become increasingly expensive to date you when I could get more of what I want more cheaply elsewhere.
So like, maybe you still can have the connection but maybe it happens in a different order than before.
And we can lament or celebrate that but I don't think it's going to change anytime soon.
And Bex and I had sex on the first date and it was awesome, and we've been together for more than a decade.
People off, especially women, they often think that if they have sex on the first date or too quickly that no man would be interested in committing to them.
And that is absolutely not true.
My favorite line from your book was about the difference between commitment and obligation.
We tend to use those two words interchangeably.
But you talked about how commitment is obligation with attraction, but without attraction to someone, he's giving me the blank stare look here.
But basically - Did I write that?
Yes, that, well, I don't know, or maybe you plagiarized it from someone, but I don't think so.
And so, what you talked about is how commitment is, without attraction is merely an obligation is the way that you frame it.
Ah, yes. Yeah, and so what I've found that, yes, there is a type of commitment in a relationship, but we continue to stay committed as long as it doesn't feel obligatory.
Yeah, and still people can stay in loveless, sexless marriages for years, just out of a sense of duty or commitment or obligation, and that becomes their badge.
Like I know so many guys who have spent 30 years in a loveless marriage, but they tell me, oh Ryan, at least I didn't cheat on her.
At least I stuck it out.
And I was like, man, yeah, you got to give him that because he doesn't have anything else.
Wow. He doesn't have the sex. He doesn't have the love.
He tries to avoid his home as much as possible but he has, at least he kept his word and that's no small thing.
It's not for me to decide how important that's going to be for everybody but that's a very steep price to pay in my opinion.
One of the things I really enjoyed about the book is it didn't make any sort of moral judgments and it wasn't even didactic as much as it was.
It was instructive or observational and I really appreciate that.
It wasn't here are the seven steps for the lasting marriage that you want.
It was here are the observations about how society worked once upon a time.
Here's how things work now.
Do what you will with that recipe.
Let's hear from Dee real quick.
How did she answer the question of the week?
Don't bother with dating apps.
They're phony and toxic.
These apps have created an I can find better culture.
So many people just settle or don't just settle for what they have. To be in a relationship.
We must decide to be with that person, warts and all, not just run away when things get difficult." If that's true, how do we distinguish if we need to stick it out and work on an issue, or if it's simply time to move on?
Oh, those two questions here.
Let's try to keep them pithy here, but do dating apps make it harder to commit to a relationship?
Absolutely. I talk about this in the book.
So it's ironic that nowadays where we have unprecedented access to potential dating partners, that the number of relationships is going down.
Like there are fewer new relationships that are being transacted, marriages, fewer young people are even having sex than the previous generations, it's striking.
And I think it's because of the economic principles in play in dating apps, when a a guy is on a dating app, it's just him and a seemingly infinite supply of women.
And so he doesn't have to deal with any of his intersexual competition.
He's the only buyer in town and all of these ladies would just be lucky to have him because he just sees him and all of these women.
And so that sort of makes it in his perception a buyer's market.
And so that drives down the price of relationship.
By the same token, a woman is sitting there by herself, She has no intersexual competition.
It's just her and an infinite supply of men who seem to be very eager to transact with her.
So from her perception, it's the sellers' market.
And so that drives up the price of relationship.
And so it's becoming harder and harder for men and women when they first meet each other to transact it all because their price points are just so widely disparate.
Men think that it should cost about this much to enter into a relationship.
Women thinks it should cost about this much and they're getting further and further apart.
And when you get too far apart, you can't really meet in the middle.
What about the second part of that question?
How do I decide whether it's time to move on from a difficult relationship?
In your book, you talk about the three crises of relationships' maintenance phase, I believe you call it.
It's the crisis of disillusionment, attempted mutiny, and the crisis of the doldrums. You're good.
Read the book. It's impressive.
I did my homework beforehand.
So let's talk a bit about that.
When is the time to move on?
It's a good question and obviously I can't give a prescriptive answer for all cases.
I do think that as a culture, we're at a moment where we can finally potentially arrive at the understanding that just because a relationship ends doesn't make it a failure.
Can we please just come on the same page with that?
The idea that if this relationship doesn't last forever and we don't die holding hands at the same time that it was somehow toxic and a waste of your time, that's really toxic like that attitude.
Because first of all, I made an episode about this.
No one can actually waste your time without your consent.
Like if I were just sitting here and I just started rambling off some random nonsensical language, like how long would you let me do that and how long would the listeners continue to tune in?
Like they have choice and they have volition.
So at the very least they consented to having their time wasted by me.
And so that's one part of it.
The second part of it is that it's your, you decide who your teachers are.
That's why there's that phrase when the student is ready the teacher appears because when you are in an open mindset, when you're willing to learn then all of life becomes your teacher.
Like you can learn your lessons anywhere that you choose to learn them.
And if you're just saying that there's nothing that I got out of this relationship, there was nothing I got out of all those years.
What a disservice to yourself.
Like, why not try to find some lesson to justify the expense of your time or the pain of your heartbreak?
Like, I think that's how you redeem the suffering of your previous relationships is you learn some lessons and then you move on.
And ideally like the best thing you could do is also to potentially have gratitude for those that maybe have hurt you in the past or that you were in relationships with that didn't work for either one of you.
It's like that relationship in maybe just a few months has taught you more than potentially a smooth and satisfying relationship could in years.
And I think that what happens quite often is the pain is so difficult.
We can never imagine that happening, but once the relationship's a few months or maybe a few years in the rear view mirror, you can pull forward those lessons in a less dramatic or emotional way.
Any words on that, T .K.?
Yeah, just one interesting thing about the mystics is that they often experience a sense of connection to other human beings that makes their concept of value not necessarily non -economic, but beyond that, which is tangible.
So it can be easy to think when you hear Dr. Talk about the transactional element, it can be easy to think that, well, if someone can't do something for you financially, or if they can't help you advance your career and you're making sacrifices for them, you're not getting anything out of the deal.
But I have a friend who's been married for over 30 years and her husband got paralyzed very early on in the marriage, and she stayed with him the entire time.
And he physically can't do anything for her, financially can't do anything for her.
He is literally a financial expense for her.
she'd be much better off financially if she dropped them.
He can't do anything for her physically, he can't even open up a pickle jar for her.
But at the same time, this is one of the happiest women I know.
And if you met her, you love her personality, you love the way she carries herself.
And she has a really deep sense of purpose.
And like many mystics, she feels a sense of doing something for others as doing something for herself.
And there are some people who say, look, I'm gonna give some money to this homeless man, And he can't do anything for me, but I feel so connected to him that it hurts me when I see him suffering and I know that I can do something about it.
And I feel better about myself.
I feel better about the world that I live in.
I feel better about the message that I'm sending.
I feel better about the social impact that I'm having from people who may observe me or be influenced by me.
And that is my value.
And so this goes back to Drs.
Distinction. Economics isn't about money.
It's about value creation.
I love this guy. I love the sky.
You're great TK. So, I want to piggyback on that by sharing a parable from a Zen monastery that kind of speaks to, let's say, a higher conceptualization of value.
So as is often the case in any kind of close community, there's one monk in the monastery who was just really, really annoying.
Like, he was always dropping the plates and breaking them.
He was snoring at night.
he was late and noisy during the meditation sessions, he was just sort of like, a clumsy, oafish, disagreeable person.
And eventually one of the monks got sick of this guy and he went to the Abbot and said, oh, we have to do something about this guy, like he's just driving everyone crazy, can we get rid of him?
And the Abbott looks at him and he says, get rid of him, I pay him to stay here.
He's the only guy on the staff!
We had a bunch of people comment on this, but question of the week, how can you tell whether a date will be worthwhile or a waste of time?
Helen had this to say.
Dating is hard. But I think dating as a minimalist is even harder.
I see so many people hiding behind their possessions as a trade -off for authenticity.
In a world where you can one -click shop and swipe right for an instant dopamine hit, how do we get people to understand that a great relationship requires work and won't always be gratifying, but actually difficult and painful at times?
Now the funny thing about this, Orion, is you could substitute the word minimalist with anything else.
The dating is hard, but I think dating as a construction worker is even harder.
Dating is hard, but I think dating as - A non -Mormon living in Utah is difficult, right?
and what I found is, and I've talked to so many other minimalists, they often say that dating as a minimalist is easier.
So something has to do with the story we tell ourselves about whether or not dating is harder or easier because of the label that we've heaped onto ourselves.
Well, I think part of what makes dating hard for a lot of people is that they believe that they should just be able to do whatever they want and then people should like them.
It's like, can you imagine if people had that attitude about money if they thought I should just be able to have a business.
The customer should just want to buy my product.
They should pay me exactly what I want for that product.
And I don't have to do any kind of marketing or advertising.
I think that this is a great idea.
So everybody else should think it's a great idea too.
Like that business is never going to go anywhere.
It's going to be a complete loss because it turns out that you can't just decide for your customers what your customers want to value.
Like I have this line I say often on the channel, the milk, the cat decides what milk is good.
It's not you. And any good business develops sort of a dance with its audience or its customer base.
It's not captured by it entirely, but it can't act in, despite of their preferences and interests, right?
So there are ways of making money.
There are ways of engaging customers.
There are ways of retaining them.
And there are people who make it their livelihoods to teach other people how to do this.
But people somehow think that I should just be loved for who I am, that any real person should see the me deep down inside and that they should value that connection ahead of all of this really superficial and materialistic stuff.
That's like a business saying they, the customers should just want to buy my product.
And I don't understand why they're not paying for it.
Like it's a good product guys.
So that doesn't work.
And we don't have a lot of sympathy for any business that operated in that way.
And some well -meaning people might say, hey, you know, you might actually want to do some customer outreach and maybe some marketing research. And clean your store up.
Exactly. Exactly, but if you in any way suggest that there are rules to attraction that you violate at your own risk and that even though these might seem superficial and materialistic but are associated with the outcomes that you might want, like get over it, learn what works and then through that effectiveness you can eventually develop a legitimate authentic connection.
That's the goal. And I think if you were to replace dating with business, right, a lot of the most compelling businesses now are the simplest business, they make it really simple on their customers to transact with them, right?
And I would say the same thing is true as a minimalist who goes on dates.
It's... It's a simpler life and a lot of people are attracted.
Guess what? Some people aren't going to be attracted to it at all.
And that's okay, it's okay to exclude the people without having to change yourself in order to appease them.
Can you imagine a business saying that, I don't think we need a brand and design doesn't really matter or at least it shouldn't matter.
Like it's what is on the inside of our product that counts, like that's ridiculous.
So nobody makes decisions in spite of the evidence of their eyes and the evidence of their ears, we are superficial creatures to a great extent.
Like it takes a long time to get to know somebody and to somehow expect that other people should delay their preferences and interests long enough to get to know you when there are other more attractive options that they could be spending time with is absurd and selfish.
I just wanna throw one thing in there.
If you start with what other people want or your predictions about what they want, you'll end up being confused and spineless because what sets the context for making feedback meaningful is your knowledge of how you want to contribute, how you want to serve, how you want to relate.
If I'm going into business, I get to decide, do I wanna go into the restaurant business?
Do I wanna go into the spa business?
And no amount of other people want this can make me serve in a way that I don't wanna serve.
But once I've decided that, then I've gotta ask, hey, why am I not getting the business?
in what ways do I need to pay attention to the market so that I can understand how I need to deliver it so that the customer is happy.
So you definitely need both.
Honor your values, but at the same time pay attention to that feedback.
I will say with respect to Helen's question at the end of this, she's talking about whether or not relationships are effortless or do they take work to maintain?
And I would say that it's both.
My relationship with my wife feels relatively effortless but also it takes a lot of work to maintain.
That work is much more pleasurable than if it felt like a simple obligation.
How about you listeners?
How can you tell whether a date will be worthwhile or a waste of time?
Let us know in the comments.
Okay, give me something pithy, TK.
How can you tell whether a date will be worthwhile?
Or a waste of time?
I can't tell. You don't have to predict the future in order to prepare for the future.
To prepare for the future means to identify those areas of my concern and to do the best that I can to mitigate risk within reason.
But to predict the future is to somehow issue myself a guarantee that everything is going to be okay.
I can't do that with anything that's important in life.
I can't do that with the movie that I go watch. All I can know is that it's interesting to me and it's worth the risk.
And I'm going to watch this movie in an environment where I have reasonable expectation of being safe.
When I start a business, I can't guarantee myself that I'm gonna have any customers.
All I can say is I feel passionate about the product or service.
I can sell it honestly.
I'm confident in my ability to deliver it and let's see what I can learn in the process.
I think if you pressure yourself to predict a future, you'll stress yourself out and ruin that first date.
You got to relax and be playful.
Love it, one more thing I want to say on this subject that helped me out a lot personally is the attitude that there are no bad dates.
they're either good dates or practice for good dates.
Like the idea that you should just be good at dating is absurd, like that's just saying that you should be good at podcasting or you should be good at business.
I might not trust you if you're good at dating.
Well, that could be it as well but we, which is kind of strange because we do reward competence and confidence, especially with seduction.
and no one, women in particular, they don't tend to choose timid and incompetent men.
So where do they get their confidence and competence through practice?
So that's the side of it that women don't like, but that is sort of required by their selection preferences for competent, confident men.
And expecting that men will somehow be competent or confident without that practice, again, flies in the face of reality.
So I often say that I've gone on more first dates than most people have gone on dates.
Like when I moved to San Francisco 13 years ago, I wanted to get really good at dating.
I went out maybe five, six times a week.
Wow. Hundreds of first dates, and most of them never led anywhere, but I wanted to get really good at dating.
I wanted to get really good at making a connection with somebody really fast and seeing if I could present myself in a compelling way to stimulate that kind of emotional dynamic faster.
And you can definitely get good at dating.
Yeah, yeah. There's something about this dating clutter thing.
Clutter is just anything that gets in the way.
And so the way that I answer this question, how can you tell whether a date is worthwhile or a waste of time?
It's a waste of time if it is clutter and you continue to hold onto that clutter.
Something that was clutter or that was useful before or eventually becomes clutter when we cling to it into its obsolescence, right?
On page two, we got a bunch more callers, Malavama, but this is the end of page one here and we're just getting started, y 'all.
If you, Oh real quick, right here, right now.
It's the little segment we do.
We talked about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. Actually I've got two things for you.
Our next FAMS call.
It's the Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom is on September 6th at 3pm Eastern.
All of our Patreon subscribers can hop on a zoom call with us.
We'll answer your questions.
We'll laugh with you.
We'll cry with you.
Those things often happen, sometimes at the same exact time.
Also on Patreon right now, Malabamma just did this amazing decluttering meditation.
I've never even thought about a decluttering meditation.
She brought it into the studio, we listened to it.
TK provided a bunch of really great feedback.
It was already 95 % of the way there, and now it is outstanding.
It's my favorite meditation yet.
You can find that over on our Patreon page as well.
Great work, Malabama.
Thanks. What else you got for us?
Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.
Hi, my name is Victoria and I'm a Patreon subscriber from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
I recently spent an extended period of time away from home and want to share the insight that the time preparing for a trip and the time I'm packing upon your return can be a natural time to minimize.
When packing for travel, you select essentials, favorites and items that you think will add value while you're away.
Obviously, not all the items you choose to leave behind may be appropriate for your journey, but they may also be clutter.
For example, why didn't you choose to pack all of your makeup?
Is some of it outdated or your bathing suits?
Does one not fit quite right anymore?
Can you let some of these items go?
When you get home and unpack, review what you didn't wear, use, or need.
Like that book you brought along, but never felt inspired to read.
Or the extra pairs of flip -flops because you only wore the black one after all.
Can you let go of these items?
Perhaps they were clutter after all.
Victoria, thank you so much for that thoughtful comment.
For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode, or any other episode, leave a comment on Patreon on our YouTube, or better yet, send a voice memo to podcast at theminimalists .com so we can feature your voice on the show.
Now this is one you're not going to want to miss.
This is the first 32 % of the episode so far.
We have an entire dating clutter episode over on Patreon.
It's episode 458. We'll see you on Patreon for that full, maximal edition with Dr. Orion Terriban.
We answered a bunch more questions.
questions like, how do I know if I'm oversharing on the first date?
How do I know whether I'm best suited for monogamy or an open relationship?
How does the fear of being alone hurt my chances of finding a meaningful relationship?
How can couples avoid relationship insecurity while using social media?
How do I know whether I'm compatible with my new partner?
And what are some of the most common and red flags and a relationship.
We talked about so much more.
Seven day free trial over on Patreon, check it out.
There's also a simple living segment that talk aboutables.
We have so much more to cover.
Also an outstanding home tour from one of our listeners this week, just visit patreon .com slash the minimalist or click the link down in the description to subscribe and get your personal link so that our weekly maximum episodes play in your favorite podcast app.
You also gain access to all of our podcast archives all the way back to episode 001.
Big thanks to Dr. Orion Terriban for joining us today.
His new book is called The Value of Others, his YouTube channel and podcast called Psych Hacks.
We'll put links to all of that in the show notes as well as his website if you want to sign up for his free newsletter.
And that is our minimal episode for today.
Big thanks to Earthing Studios for providing the recording space on behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, T .K.
Coleman, Malabama, post -production Peter, Spire Jeff, Inspire Dave, AB Yin -Z, Savvy D.
We got Beck's and Buella in the studio as well.
And the rest of our team.
I'm Joshua Fields Milburn.
If you leave here with just one message, let it be this.
Love people and use things because the opposite never works.
Thanks for listening, y 'all.
We'll see you next time.
Peace. Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it
