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On this week's episode... of Next Chapter, I, T.D.
Jakes, sit down with Denzel Washington, a two-time Academy Award-winning actor and cultural icon.
I don't take any credit for it.
I just didn't put me first.
I just put God first, and he's carrying me.
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Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally.
And I'm Hari Kundabolu.
On our new podcast, Health Stuff, we demystify your burning health questions.
You'll hear us being completely honest about our own health.
My residency colon was like a cry for help, honestly.
And you'll hear candid advice and personal stories from experts who want to make healthcare more human.
I feel like I never felt like I truly belonged in medicine.
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The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day.
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I'm Robert Smith.
This is Jacob Goldstein.
And we used to host a show called Planet Money.
And now we're back making this new podcast called Planet Money.
Business history about the best ideas and people and businesses in history.
And some of the worst people.
Horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business.
First episode, how Southwest Airlines used cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business.
The most Texas story ever.
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I'm Gemma Spake and welcome back to The Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast.
New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode, as we, of course, break down the psychology of our 20s.
So the other day I did an episode on the five biggest regrets I have about my 20s so far.
And one of those regrets that really stood out to a lot of you was this regret I have about focusing too much time on dating in my early twenties.
I remember being 19 in my college university dorm room downloading Tinder and being like this better, get me a boyfriend.
Like I need a boyfriend.
I need to fit in.
I need to have this like relationship that like others can see.
And that's I got the boyfriend.
It wasn't very satisfying.
I ended up back in this cycle of again and again and again chasing validation from men, chasing validation from romantic partners.
That was actually pretty unfulfilling and took away a lot of the time that I should have devoted to figuring myself out, to traveling exploring, putting time and effort into the friendships.
There was especially this relationship that I've spoken about before, where the very fact that I was in that relationship cost me a lot of friendships.
And it's something that I still think about fairly often.
I still miss those friends so much and I'm not even in that relationship anymore.
And it's a huge regret of mine that romance often took precedence over not just all other kinds of love, but just everything in my life.
Nowadays we're seeing this incredible and I would also say personally, really admirable trend of decentering men, decentering dating, taking your time to find the right person, honoring your single years, questioning what we sacrifice in a relationship much as what we think we gain and I thought what a great time to investigate this trend of decent, centering romance, decentering men in our 20s, and doing so from a psychological perspective.
I want to talk about where this laser focus on love comes from in our 20s, why it might be holding us back in in other areas of our lives, and how we can decenter dating and needing to find our person during this decade so that we can be a little bit selfish, so that we can really focus on ourselves, so that we can have all that time and energy and effort and attention we put into others just for us, when I think we really need it the most.
So without further ado, let's break down the psychology behind decentering romance in our 20s.
To start us off, I think we should first look at why we focus so much on love during this decade, during these years.
The first explanation and the easiest explanation is simply that love is really wonderful.
It is great.
I'm not going to pretend that it's not.
You and I both know it is life-changing. if it is with the right person.
The thing is though, nobody told us how hard it would actually be to find the right person.
The storybook romances of our childhood.
They are actually pretty few and far between.
But because our society is based around ideals of marriage unions couples families, we often feel like or at least I remember feeling like the rest of my life would not start, could not start until I have I had firstly ticked off.
Get a boyfriend on my list, get into a relationship was this thing that I had to do before, you know, I could progress into the next phase of my life, before I could truly be an adult?
There is this huge societal pressure and find somebody so that you can, you know, move in together, and then so that you can get married, get a mortgage, get a dog, have a kid.
And that is a process that we feel very pressured to begin at actually what is quite a young age.
Like your early twenties, you were a You're still like very, very young.
And yet in the back of your mind, there is this constant fear of like the clock is ticking.
All the good ones are taken.
My standards are just going to get lower.
The dating pool is going to get smaller.
I feel like we all know this script.
I always ask myself how much of this is really just about social approval and social recognition and how much of this is actually purely about the other person and really caring for them and having real true deep, passionate feelings for another human.
We are very naturally sensitive to what is publicly celebrated.
Obviously, we instinctually, as humans, seek harmony and conformity, even if we think that we don't.
And being in a relationship is a goal and is something that is very easy to recognize and applaud from the outside.
Not that we are shallow, it's not that like we are only doing this because other people expect it from us.
It's just that we are very much aware and influenced by society's expectations and the fact that romantic milestones monopolize our sense of progress, even when our values are more complex than that.
You may have noticed this like you see a family member you haven't seen in a while.
Sometimes even you have conversations with your friends, and it's never you know how excited are you for the future.
Or what's like the big thing that you're working on right now?
What are you excited about?
What's your goal?
It's always, so do you have a boyfriend yet?
Do you have a girlfriend?
Are you dating anyone?
The conversation always comes back to that and it creates a lot of anxiety, anxiety that influences our decision-making.
You know, this is another thing that I think about a lot and that I really wish my younger self had thought about a little bit more.
Do you really want a boyfriend?
Do you really want a girlfriend?
Or do you just want the anxiety about being single to go away?
Do you actually want a relationship, or would it just stop you worrying about what you may be missing out on?
Do you want a partner?
Or do you want people to know that you have value because someone chose you?
This is all stemming from deep fears about whether we're worthy, whether we are loved, whether we are accepted, whether we have value.
This fear, this anxiety pushes us from a place of discernment, a place of rationality, intention and value, into a place of urgency, a place of impulsivity and where we accelerate commitment, not because the fit is strong, not because we are even necessarily compatible, but because the timeline that we are experiencing in our 20s feels very fragile and feels very uncertain.
What is the risk in this?
What is the risk in centering romance too much and too strongly in our 20s?
The risk here is what we refer to as narrative foreclosure.
We have the partner.
We found the person on the dating app.
And now that we're in the relationship and maybe we're a couple of years down the line, we genuinely believe it's too late to start over again.
It's too late to get back out there.
So you tolerate less and less and less and less than an amazing relationship for this good relationship, for this relationship that at least ticks the box of being partnered.
And you know, what I really believe should scare us and scare you more than not finding somebody is actually finding the wrong person and confusing them with the right person.
A lot of the time rushing into relationships or marriages very young is actually more likely to see you broken up or divorced later down the line, because we are acting from a place again of urgency rather than discernment, which causes us to just choose wrong.
A 2013 study published in the journal Couple and Family Psychology actually found that 61 of couples who recently got a divorce cited that getting married too young was one of the main factors their relationship didn't work out.
Simply being partnered when you're in your early 20s because you feel like you have to is not the same as being well matched, and is not the same as having somebody you genuinely trust and are compatible with.
And the risk is that you have this person and so you feel like a chapter in your life is closed, maybe earlier than it should have.
You've given this person some of the best years of your life.
You've given them your youth and then now you're 30, 40 and you're like, why did I do that?
Why was I in such a rush?
I actually had so much time and I cannot get those years back.
The biggest reason I think that we should be de-centering romance in our 20s is because ultimately, this should be your selfish decade.
If you want to spend a month in Greece, do it.
If you want to move countries, do it. do it.
If you want to change who you are every four months, do it.
You want to explore everything, try it all, taste it all, see it all, do it.
Like, having these goals and ambitions for yourself requires focus and it requires time, and it requires you to be really honest and in touch with who you are.
And when you focus, when your focus is on romantic love and romantic love only is Don't confuse me.
Your life is not about you anymore.
It is about this faceless, elusive someone who will come into your life and save the day.
If you are waiting to be chosen before your life really begins, you are going to contort yourself, change yourself, lose yourself, trying to impress somebody who might not even make your life better than what it could have been without them.
So you lose your identity, you lose your priorities, you also lose your time, and centering romantic possibilities and centering dating is so time-consuming.
It takes up valuable mental energy.
Getting to know somebody replying to all these messages on dating apps, constantly trying to organize dates and remember whether they ghosted you or not.
It's basically a full-time job.
I remember when I was dating fairly intensely for a couple of years there, if I had made a pie chart of what I spent time thinking about and I was like pursuing my education, I had a really great job.
I had hobbies.
Still 50 of the time I would be thinking about men and I would be distracted by what they were thinking about me.
And it was all I could talk about with my friends.
It was so consuming and that was time that I don't get back that I could have used for rest or learning a new skill or making new friends or being creative.
And I really do feel like it was in some ways wasted.
I think maybe on a deeper level.
Sometimes we do this, we give up our time and we chase being chosen because we just want to feel like we belong.
And we want to feel like somebody sees us and loves us.
And that is a way to avoid truly being with ourselves.
We get a fast hit of safety or self-esteem in the text, in the plans, in the promises of being with somebody in their potential.
And I think we momentarily get a sense of relief that we might not be lonely forever.
That Maybe we're not that terrible.
Maybe we do have value.
And what we're really engaging in here is emotional bypassing.
We're using the attention of other people to dodge the inner work because it feels safer to do so.
Oftentimes we think, you know, when I'm in a relationship, everything will change.
I'll have the validation I'll need.
I'll be happy. because somebody else has confirmed for me that I have value.
And the thing is, is that all that insecurity will still be there.
And it will probably be made worse by the fact that perhaps you chose the first person who showed up at the front door, or you changed in order to be chosen.
And now listen, it's fun today.
I'm in a long-term relationship with an amazing guy.
I'm not saying like, turn into a nun until you're 30, but there is a difference between dating being a part of your life and dating consuming your life and consuming your time energy, identity and sense of self-worth.
So, after this short break, what I want to do is explore a nuanced balanced, healthy approach to romance in our 20s that doesn't eliminate love, doesn't eliminate romantic love, but just de-centers it from being the main story we're trying to build for ourselves or tell ourselves.
Stay with us.
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Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan?
Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link.
Thanks.
Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you.
Here's the link.
But there was no link.
There was no business plan.
It's not his fault.
I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet.
My name is Evan Ratliff.
I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman
There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company which would have been unimaginable without AI, and now it will happen.
I got to thinking, could I be that one person?
I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game.
This season on Shell Game.
I'm trying to build a real company with a real product, run by fake people.
Oh, hey, Evan.
Good to have you join us.
I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents in small to medium businesses.
Listen to Shell Game on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally.
And I'm Hari Kondabolu.
On our new podcast, Health Stuff, we demystify your burning health questions.
You'll hear us being completely honest about our own health.
I'm talking about very serious stuff right now, and you're laughing at me.
And you'll hear candid advice and personal stories from experts who want to make healthcare more human.
Sometimes you're there to listen, to understand, to empathize, maybe to give them an understanding or a name for what's going on.
That helps people a lot, understanding that it's not just in their head.
We are breaking down the science, talking with experts and sharing practical health tips you can actually use in your day-to-day life.
From when to utilize and avoid artificial light to how to sleep better.
Everything you need to know about fiber and how to poop better.
How to minimize the effects of jet lag and how to stay hopeful in times of distress.
We human beings, all we want is connection.
We just want to connect with each other.
We want to make health less confusing and maybe even a little fun.
Find Health Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Robert Smith.
This is Jacob Goldstein.
And we used to host a show called Planet Money.
And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History, about the best ideas and people and businesses in history and some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business.
Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing.
It's like not having it at all.
It's a very simple, elegant lesson make something people want.
First episode how Southwest Airlines used cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business.
The most Texas story ever.
There's a lot of mavericks in that story.
We're going to have mavericks on the show.
We have plenty of robber barons.
So many robber barons.
And you know what?
They're not all bad.
And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked, like Thomas Edison and the electric chair.
Listen to Business History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What do you get when you mix 1950s Hollywood, a Cuban musician with a dream and one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time?
You get Desi Arnaz a trailblazer, a businessman, a husband and, maybe most importantly, the first Latino to break primetime wide open.
I'm Wilmer Valderrama and yes, I grew up watching him, probably just like you and millions of others.
But for me...
I saw myself in his story.
From cleaning canary cages to this night here in New York, it's a long ways.
On the podcast starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama.
I'll take you on a journey through Desi's life, the moments it has overlapped with mine, how he redefined American television and what that meant for all of us watching from the sidelines, waiting for a face like ours on screen.
This is the story of how one man's spotlight lit the path for so many others, and how we carry his legacy today.
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In my humble opinion, I do truly believe that romance should not, at any stage in your life, be the main focus of your world, except for maybe, like on your wedding day.
How I describe it is my relationship and the love I feel for my partner is not my whole world.
It is a separate universe for which I step into, I get to enjoy, but I also step out of, because you know, my world is my world and me and my partner, our relationship, does kind of exist separately from that.
The moment that I'm spending too much time in this other universe or the moment that I feel like all my plans and all my behaviors need to be about him or orientated towards him.
This is like a really good sign to plant my feet firmly back into my own inner world and my own inner garden.
So if you want to decenter love in your 20s, if you want to have the world and then have the universe on the side, here's what you're going to do.
Number one, firstly, you need to ask yourself, do I have love to share?
We need to make sure our own cup is filled up first.
Then you need to make sure you have enough in your cup to give to your loved ones.
Then you need to make sure you have enough in your cup to give to the things you care about.
And if there is still something left over, then romantic love can be a priority.
This reflects something that we call self-determination theory.
And this theory basically maps the three needs that each of us should be fulfilling at any given time.
The need for relatedness, competence, and autonomy.
We need relatedness through self. friendship and community.
We need competence through learning and creativity, and we need autonomy by being able to make our own decisions.
When we are fulfilling these three things, we can be discerning about love, and we can be discerning and make a conscious, balanced choice about what we are choosing to spend our time on.
If your cup is not overflowing, I don't think that romantic love is going to make it flow anymore.
And if your cup is not overflowing and you want it to be, I want to tell you how you can make that.
So
How can you give yourself, I guess, more to give, more to give yourself, more to give others, more to give your life?
This is the thing you're going to do.
You are going to pick a misogi challenge.
Now, misogi is a Japanese term that is basically like a Shinto ritual where people would take like a sacred pilgrimage to a waterfall.
It was a way to challenge themselves and then they would like purify themselves under the water.
That's like the traditional version of a Misogi in Japan.
A modern Misogi refers to a significant year defining challenge that we really want to commit to and do.
That requires a lot of focus and devotion on our behalf to this thing.
So basically it's like a pact that you make with a dream.
You really have to just spend the year giving it your all.
A Misogi could be writing a book.
It could be starting a podcast, running a marathon, launching a company, completing a multi-day hike, getting scuba certified, building something.
And it's basically meant to require deep commitment and dedication from you.
The same way you might deeply commit and dedicate yourself to a relationship.
So many of us live passively.
Or so many of us focus on dating because it feels like a worthy project.
But when you have a misogi, you are laser focused.
You have things to do.
You have this task, this goal that is deeply personal to you, that you really care about that.
Nothing can get in the way of
This devotion to yourself, to a practice, to realizing a dream.
It means that you really only have space left in your life for the kind of love that finds you organically and that adds to your life.
All these other kinds of love that you may find on a dating app or that may be fickle or may come from people who aren't fully committing.
You have your misogi, like you don't have time for those things.
So it allows you, in a way, to be very discerning and to let only good love in, because you've got this big love here.
You've got this thing you're really dedicated to.
It's very similar advice to like getting a hobby, right?
It's just on a whole new level.
Here's the other thing.
I think having a devotional practice like a misogi, or having hobbies, having interests that you may have lost in a previous relationship or may have lost to your devotion to dating, it actually makes you a much more magnetic person anyways.
Like What I have found time and time again the less you focus on dating, the more people like suddenly appear in your life who are worthy of your love.
You can call it the law of detachment.
You can call it whatever you want to, but people who are committed to themselves and to doing cool stuff because they want to, that is so hot.
People are deeply attracted to that.
And I
I have found, like in the times where I've been devoted to something outside of myself and I've been really committed to making something, and making something well and doing something cool, like suddenly you look around and it's like wait, why are there suddenly all these prospects for me?
Like why are there all these people?
It's because that mentorship that you were experiencing through that changes how people see you and changes how you relate to yourself and just changes your energy field.
Like I fully do believe it.
My next tip for de-centering romance in your 20s is to have a dating detox.
I know I've spoken about this a few times on the podcast.
I really don't care.
It's just so worthwhile to do.
If you have noticed that dating is taking up a lot of space and energy, have a break.
I genuinely do believe that, the same way you can get burnt out at your job, you can get dating burnt out.
You can feel so deeply exhausted and disillusioned that dating is a chore to you rather than something that gives you energy.
You are in this position of like, I just want to find somebody so I don't have to do this anymore.
I just want to finish this task at my job so I don't have to worry about it.
This isn't a job.
Dating isn't a job.
It is not something that your livelihood depends on. you can just quit the rat race.
You can quit the dating rat race and just say, I don't want to do this for a while.
This is where I think the biggest challenge comes about, because what you have to fight against is really your milestone anxiety.
And the part of you that might say, you're never going to find anyone.
You know, you can't take a break now.
The clock is ticking.
Like if you don't find somebody soon, like it's all going to be over for you.
Like come on, keep going.
You're going to strike gold soon.
And the thing is, you're not running out of time.
Three months of dating isn't going to kill you.
Six months of not being on the apps isn't going to ruin your life.
In fact, I think it's probably going to improve your life.
So delete or pause the apps.
Stop maintaining ambiguous connections with random people.
Use that free time for sleep, for exercise, for self-nourishment, for plans, for work.
And yes, you might expect a few restless days while your habits adjust, but I think it settles after a while.
And you realize like, I don't really need this anymore.
This actually wasn't a worthwhile part of my life, at least not the way that I was approaching it.
And when you do return because of course you probably will I think you'll be able to examine the relationship you have with these online connections or with these apps, or with people, in a much more constructive way.
After I did my dating detox, I feel like this is a very famous story on the podcast.
The first person I matched with after I did my dating detox is now my boyfriend of three years.
But obviously I was still swiping at the same time as when I had matched with him.
And I came back from my dating detox with solid rules.
Like I had rules for the people I matched with.
I can't remember them exactly, but I think it was like 24 hours to message me, after matching six hours to reply, one to two weeks to organize a date.
Otherwise, like I would seriously just unmatch these people.
Anybody who stopped replying after like a day unmatched.
Anybody who wasn't going to plan a date unmatched.
Anybody who just never actually messaged me, unmatched.
Their profiles were digital clutter to me.
It was taking up space in my mind to have them there, to have the unanswered message, to have the weeks-long conversation just staring at me.
And when I put my foot down and was like, how you begin is how you how you commit to going on.
So if these people aren't giving me enough at the beginning, I don't have high expectations for them in the future.
Once I decided that it was so relieving, it was so peaceful.
It was just like a nice stoic mindset.
It was like air.
It was just like wow, I can just flow through this rather than getting constantly stuck on these people who I thought I had a future with.
What you really have to remember is like your time is precious.
Your mindset is precious.
Your environment, whether it is offline or online is precious.
And none of like.
Nobody who you have not met yet, who you don't have a deep connection with yet, is important enough for you to sacrifice that because you don't even know them.
You know yourself, you know that you deserve love.
You So give that love that you may eventually give to them to yourself, until you can prove that they are.
Next and maybe my favorite tip for decentering romance is to start dating your friends.
And no, I don't mean like actually dating your friends.
What I mean is like start pouring all that time energy, love back into these platonic relationships.
Apply the same effort you use for dating to your close bonds and close friendships.
Put reoccurring plans on the calendar.
Confirm them early in the week.
Choose venues.
Get dressed up and actually follow through.
Make date nights for your friends.
I wish I did this more right now.
It's been a little bit chaotic for me with moving to a new country and all, but I used to host these like elaborate date nights for me and my friends a couple months ago.
Back in the day, I would do them all the time.
And it was like themed dinner parties and like movie nights with like themed snacks and life drawing nights and art nights and really fun like dinner dates.
And you know what?
When I was single, those moments were like 99% of the time better than any date I ever went on.
Honestly, sometimes I would find myself like on a date with a man and being like damn, I really wish like my best friend was here.
Like I really wish my girlfriends were here.
Like genuinely giving these ties the same love and attention that you usually hold for romantic connections just creates such a beautiful opportunity for, like deep love in a new form.
At the end of the day, you know, you can find the love of your life tomorrow.
Maybe you will, but like they will never be enough to sustain you if you don't have these other platonic connections at your back.
If you don't have these other people who are going to show you love, and you show them love in a really important and healthy way.
Okay.
My fifth tip is to ask yourself the question if I knew I would find the love of my life in six months like we just spoke about, what would I do in the time I have from then to now?
What would I do before I met them?
And I've spoken about this a few times, but I think this exercise works because it really asks you to do away with the concerns of being single and just pay attention to what you really want in your life.
When you aren't distracted by this idea of choosing or being chosen.
What is on your single bucket list?
What skills do you wanna learn?
What emotional wounds do you wanna heal?
What trips do you wanna take?
What health goals do you have?
Financial targets, time spent with friends, time spent with family.
What unfinished goals would you like to achieve as a single person?
I need you to make a single bucket list of experiences and milestones that you think might be better as a single person, that you think would really contribute to your life, even when there's nobody else with you and even when you don't have a partner.
I want you to at least have 15 things on that list.
I know I feel like a drill sergeant, but I want results, 15 things on your single bucket list.
And now you've got those, I want you to choose two of them and plan to do something about it this week.
And then after that, methodically tick them off.
And every time you complete two, add two more on.
The main point of this question.
If I knew I would meet the love of my life in six months, what would I do?
The main point is, again, it takes the worry off the table.
It's no longer a consideration.
And so all your focus is just on your ambitions and your desires.
And you know what?
If you do want a romantic relationship in the future, which of course most of us do, And that's not the problem here.
But this exercise just encourages you to look at your life and genuinely think about the kind of person you would attract and you would want to be with, based on how you are living your current life.
Are you modeling the love that you would want to receive back?
Are you modeling the kind of person that you would want to fall in love with?
That's really like a really deep question.
Like, would you fall in love with you?
Because if the answer is no and you wouldn't fall in love with yourself first, then like there's probably a lot of work you need to do, because it shows that there is probably like a deficit there in self-esteem self-knowledge, in goals and inspiration that, like another person, is never going to do anything about.
They're.
This might not be everyone's cup of tea but, going on from what we were just talking about, I want you to do everything in your power during this period of your life to become utterly obsessed with yourself, to the point of arrogance, to the point of vanity.
And I mean it.
I want you to become obsessed with yourself.
That is one of the only ways I see as being able to decenter yourself, romance or obsession from somebody else.
And listen, I'm not worried about any of you going too far at all.
I don't think you're going to end up being these like egotistical maniacs.
I think if you're listening to a self-help podcast about decentering love, you've probably found yourself really lacking confidence in the past or being overwhelmed by dating, or feeling really struck by how dating hard is and struck by how terrible you feel.
So going heavy in the opposite direction with this self-obsession project, I think, is going to be a good counterbalance to get you somewhere kind of back in the center, maybe even further to the right of loving yourself and of genuinely thinking that you are amazing.
Like I need you to tell yourself daily, I am a catcher.
Somebody would be lucky to have me.
I am talented.
I am so hot.
I am so smart.
I am fantastic.
I need you to be like all in on celebrating yourself.
All in on treating yourself like you are the best person on the planet.
Because that's how a partner should make you feel about yourself.
And so if somebody is turned off by you thinking great things about yourself, it's because they don't think highly enough of you.
And they are intimidated by the fact that they can't get away with the bare minimum because you don't like yourself enough to not demand more.
Being a little bit self-obsessed is the best barrier to entry for people who are never going to treat you right.
And it allows you not to decenter love altogether but to decenter mediocre love, because you know you already have a fantastic thing going with you and yourself.
The relationship you have with yourself is amazing.
It's the best one you're ever going to have.
So some average person cannot get between the love affair that you have with you.
They're not worthy of it if they don't match, if not exceed, your self-obsession and your level of love for yourself.
I really do feel decentering love is such an important decision and thing that we should all aim to do, whether you're in a relationship or not, like during your 20s.
It really allows you to just ground yourself and like, what do I want from my life?
How much free time would I have?
How much energy and effort would I have if this wasn't a priority?
And what could I do at that time?
You know when your time ends.
Attention are distributed to things that you really care about.
Your whole aura, your whole way of being is just elevated and you just achieve, do see believe, love more.
And I think that's a really great place to be in before you start looking for somebody else to add to that.
Looking for somebody else to maybe fill parts of you that you weren't able to fill yourself.
If nothing else, just prove to yourself that you can.
Just prove to yourself that, yes, having somebody might be and is nice.
Worst comes to worst, you might not need it because you really do have like everything you have ever needed to make yourself happy.
And if you don't have everything you've ever needed to make yourself happy, your friends definitely do.
And your hobbies definitely do.
And your community definitely does.
Then you can go looking for it in romantic love.
So I hope that you have enjoyed this episode.
I hope you enjoyed the discussion.
Hopefully my passion came through on this.
I know it's ironic that like, I've been with somebody who's amazing for like three years and yet I'm still able to rant about this, mainly because I know that I would not be with him and I would not have found him if I hadn't gone through this whole process together myself.
And it's not to say, do it so that you can find love.
I genuinely really was like, so detached from the outcome when I de-centered love in my twenties, earlier in my twenties, that I really was happy with never finding anyone.
And it's, yeah, just kind of surprised me.
And my standards were high and they continue to be high.
And it just meant that the love fit in perfectly with the life I'd already built and continue to build for myself.
So I want that for you guys as well.
And I do really feel like this is a pathway to maybe not find that, but to find just find peace.
Find peace in like the chaos of dating.
If you enjoyed this episode, again, remember that this episode was also on YouTube.
So if you want to go and subscribe to our channel for future video episodes, please feel free to do so.
Make sure that you are following me on Instagram at that psychology podcast.
It's December in like a week, I feel like in less than a week.
So we have our famous 12 days of guest episodes coming every December.
I just interviewed the coolest people that I've had the opportunity to meet this year and I get to you know bring those conversations to you guys.
So if you want to be up to date with who we've got coming on the podcast, we have a plastic surgeon.
We have somebody who runs a renaissance fair.
We have financial consultants.
We have authors, like all these cool people.
Make sure you're following us on Instagram and subscribe slash following.
Whatever you are listening right now.
But until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself.
And we will talk very, very soon.
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On this week's episode of Next Chapter, I, T.D.
Jakes, sit down with Denzel Washington, a two-time Academy Award winning actor and cultural icon.
I don't take any credit for it.
I just didn't put me first.
I've just put God first and he's carried me.
Listen to the next chapter podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
New episodes drop weekly.
Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally.
And I'm Hari Kondabolu.
On our new podcast, Health Stuff, we demystify your burning health questions.
You'll hear us being completely honest about our own health.
My residency colon was like a cry for help, honestly.
And you'll hear candid advice and personal stories from experts who want to make healthcare more human.
I feel like I never felt like I truly belonged in medicine.
We want to make health less confusing and maybe even a little fun.
Find Health Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day.
My fellow Americans, this is liberation day.
Stories that move markets.
Chair Powell opened the door to this first interest rate cut.
Impact politics.
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This is a really stunning development for the AI world.
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Listen to The Big Take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Robert Smith and this is Jacob Goldstein and we used to host a show called Planet Money.
And now we're back making this new podcast called...
Business history about the best ideas and people and businesses in history.
And some of the worst people.
Horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business.
First episode, how Southwest Airlines used cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business.
The most Texas story ever.
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