Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast.
Join late night legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews, and more.
Now this is the second term we can all get behind.
Listen to the Daily Show Ears Edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Do you want to see into the future?
Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life?
Your Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast.
Join late night legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines.
From the minds of Kongo to the surface of Mars, from...
Men talk too much. And women have quietly listened.
And all that stops here.
If you like witty women, then this is your tribe.
Listen to the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect podcast network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you go to find your podcast.
Hey you guys, I'm Catherine Legge.
I'm a racing driver who's literally driven everything with four wheels across the planet.
And I've got a new podcast.
It's called Throttle Therapy.
This season I'm competing in some of the world's most notorious racing event.
Tune into my new podcast, Throttle Therapy, with Catherine Legge, an iHeart women's sports production...
This meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC.
Follow the Big Take podcast on the...
Wherever you get your podcast.
Presented by ELF Beauty, founding partner of iHeart women's sports.
Hello and welcome back to the psychology of your twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to new listeners, old listeners.
So great to have you here.
So great to have you back for another episode of the show.
I'm so excited about what we're talking about today.
And I think we're talking about something that is so relevant to our twenties.
I'm surprised I haven't done it sooner.
And that is whether the idea of the dream job is real or whether it's outdated.
And kind of going into some of that psychology behind things like career anxiety and the cultural pressure to make our professional decisions.
So early on in our life, whirlwind.
Like we're getting a bit of a tease that comes with...
We've found ourselves asking and looking for an answer to.
Breakups are never easy.
We are emotionally born to very confusing emotions.
But what exactly happens when we see our former partner moving for sense of what is going to come next weighs really heavily on our mind, I think the closer that it gets.
If you are experiencing some of that anticipatory anxiety around where do I go to next or perhaps you're in that period right now facing the post graduation blues.
I really empathize with you.
I think it's not an easy transition, but it's also not one that we speak about enough.
I think we expect people to leave university, leave college and have some grand idea or some path forward.
And very rarely I think does that happen.
Very rarely do we have the answers to all of those questions that we ask.
So what I want to discuss.
But I think that upon reflecting on those experiences, there's been some good lessons.
What it is about your ex moving on that is so uniquely confronting in particular.
I really want to discuss what we think it says about us that are important.
The one thing that our 20s promise us, and I say this all the time, is choice and change.
No matter where you are in the world, who you are, the plans you might envision, this decade is going to throw you a lot of curve balls, some of which we can predict and some that we can't.
I think that's all part of the game, part of the fun of being in this transitional period of life.
But it's also why we kind of colloquially hear about our 20s being called the panic years, the panic of having to find yourself amongst discovering the things that society expects from you, such as our career, the addiction model of heartbreak, expect in thinking, social comparison.
I think jobs like, you know, being a surgeon or a lawyer, the fairly traditional career pathways and they have clear entry points, clear degree and experience requirements, and they might take some time.
But the idea is that is what do we do?
I think it goes without saying that jumping into any relationship or finding a rebound feels like the first chapter of adulthood is actually beginning.
Whilst that former chapter is closing, one that we are probably very nostalgic for, one that we possibly really enjoyed.
So it's actually coined its very own phrase known as post -graduation blues or depression.
And it's not a clinical term.
I will state that as of yet, at least.
But the fact that we have a term for an experience, a lot of us go through, kind of goes to show how universal it is to feel anxious.
To feel uncomfortable, to feel stuck, even depressed or lost after university.
And perhaps you needed that reminder that you are not the only one.
And it's a combination your ideal career or that just doesn't appeal to you.
You know, a job is just something that you have to pay your bills and allow you to live out your past.
A job, it's just a job to me.
It doesn't need to mean more than that.
And there's so much to discuss around this concept of the dream job.
And as we'll uncover, a lot more research and literature than I thought.
Because regardless of whether you have a dream job, whether you know what you want to do with your life or not, the truth is that work and our careers are a fundamental part of our lives, not just our 20s.
How we make money, you're quite isolated after years of having your friends live.
Just around the corner or down the block, it feels really lonely to not have that support system.
I promise that that is completely normal.
I felt it immensely after I graduated.
Research and psychology around this topic, there's literally an entire field of psychology called organizational psychology that is dedicated to our relationship with work and our jobs.
So buckle in because today we're going to break down the psychology of the dream job.
Is it fact? Is it fiction?
All of those good things.
I think to begin, we all have some concept or idea of university is when you gain that perspective.
There is like one way that I really like to stay in touch with my friends.
It's through this app called Agape.
This is not sponsored.
I'm just a really huge fan of their work.
So it's essentially where you send a question once a day or whenever you would like that spur conversation about what's going on in your daily life.
Stories, funny moments, deeper topics and you and your friend or even your partner each get to answer throughout the day and see the other person's response.
Honestly, when I discovered anything else, I also think there are people in the broader pop culture sphere who we can't imagine doing anything else.
You know, like Taylor Swift or Oprah.
Can you imagine them being a barista or a gardener?
No, there's just some people I think who have a calling.
It feels like you've known them forever.
Those people are coming into your life.
They are on their way.
They are already out there.
You just haven't met them yet.
So I would say I understand that it's really stressful and now you're listening to this podcast because you realize that maybe you're a mistake and it's not as easy as that.
And you're feeling a little bit stuck.
One question I had when I was thinking about this concept and writing this episode is where did this idea even come from?
Like this idea of a dream job seems so bizarre and I had a few ideas and did some further digging just to kind of understand where this idea came from.
And it was pretty hard to find our loans to pay our peers that it became popular in the 20th century, especially as education levels begin to rise and incomes expanded.
People were no longer resigned to work the jobs that their fathers and their mothers had worked.
And after World War Two, I think many were still in a rise in wealth.
And with that, an opportunity to be able to pick a job that you enjoyed rather than one that just prevented you from starving.
And the idea of the dream job was born.
That belief I think has slowly expanded.
And the idea has become a lot more common, especially as we've seen entirely new industries emerge in recent decades with the invention of the Internet and the expansion for your situation.
But hopefully I can provide you with a bit of wisdom from my own experience.
My friends actually have this joke that I'm a foster girl, this sort of massive life stressor that we're experiencing where we're always worrying about money and we're always worried about how we're going to kind of get on our feet, as they say.
But undoubtedly, for many of us, there is still a lingering feeling or need to absolutely adore what we do to be happy.
So where exactly does that pressure come from?
Where does the pressure to discover our dream job come from?
I think personally, it starts really, really young.
Think back to when we were children.
Already we did have some concept that what we would eventually do is some kind of long term financial plan.
And that financial anxiety causes a lot of stress.
For many of us, it can lead to a lot of sleepless nights.
It can also make us feel like we really need to start accomplishing all the things we want right now at once in this moment.
Like we kind of have to make all of our moves at once.
But honestly, good things take time and they take diligence and they take consistency and sometimes just a little bit of luck.
If it's not working out right now, if you are not working your dream job or succeeding in everything that you wish you were doing, seeing our parents, you know, incredibly dissatisfied with work and those early childhood experiences, the experiences of our parents, they leave an impression on us.
And it kind of determines where we see ourselves in the future.
And it kind of leaves this impression of, you know, I never want to be like that.
I never want to work a job that I hormone.
That is what promotes this intense closeness.
Even if maybe you guys were never official, even if it was a situationship, our brains don't understand that.
All they understand is here is this person who is fulfilling this need for me, who is providing me with this closeness, who is touching me, who I trust.
That is what's important for us and for our brains.
When that relationship ends, this abrupt ending of those positive experiences, the disconnect and that loss of a future together is incredibly profound.
And seeing someone with your ex days a week, there's this kind of lifestyle change where it feels like your life now you will never work a day in your life.
And we see similar messages in so many areas of our lives, and it might seem innocent enough.
And in some ways, it definitely makes sense, right?
Like when we love our work, when we enjoy doing it, we will want to do it the same way we want to do a hobby or anything else that we love and enjoy.
But I think there's something more insidious about this idea that can create a lot of doubt and pressure on those of us who don't have it figured out yet.
Which I think is probably, well, you know, the majority of people who are listening and do what you love is such privileged advice, right?
And it really ignores the fact that most of the world's population, most of the people walking up and down the street, they don't really have the luxury of choosing to do something.
Kids, one of the defining theories of our 20s, but for a refresh in psychology, choice overload refers to having too many choices or options such that it actually causes decision or analysis paralysis.
It actually makes us, Emiya makes it, telling you that you should, because it promotes this idea once again, from an early age, that what matters most in your life is what you do professionally.
That our jobs, they are the center of our lives, our primary source of happiness.
And if we don't enjoy what we do, if we don't have a clue about what we want to do, you know, we're not going to be happy.
And, you know, there's sometimes there's things that we love doing and we just can't make a living.
Where, you know, work can just be work and possible pathways.
And humans, we just like to have fewer choices, because it means fewer scenarios to weigh up, fewer cost benefit analysis to conduct.
But in our 20s, we are presented with a lot of different forks in the road or the path.
Do you start the corporate job?
Do you go traveling for a while?
Do you do some postgraduate education or do you keep working your retail or your hospitality job until you find something you love?
Do you pursue your big creative dream?
Each of these scenarios comes with pros and cons.
They have their benefits.
Our careers have become much larger and a greater contribution to our identity.
You know, we spend more time in the workplace.
We retire later. We're seeing inflation rise to the extent that we do have to work longer hours and for more years.
And, you know, we're in a recession right now.
The cost of living is so high and we need a way to afford to live and to pay our bills.
And being told that there's a way to work and still enjoy life through this myth of the dream job is a pretty excellent way to distract us from the live.
It's associated with maybe that deeper acknowledgement that work doesn't really have to be the center of our days and of our lives.
And it's kind of unnatural.
We probably want to be doing other things rather than being cooped up in an office.
And like I said before, most of us will end up working eight or more hours a day for most of our working and adult lives.
So it does make sense that if we're told that we can enjoy what we do and even bigger than that, that our careers determine so much of our identity, it's going to make us feel better about how much time we're counting years, it's our coming of age season, season two, 23 to 24.
Does that mean we're replaceable or that the intensity of those feelings were one -sided?
Or does it mean that there's something wrong with me that I haven't moved on yet, that I haven't found someone else?
Our self -esteem after a breakup is already greatly diminished due to that lack of certainty, due to that confusion.
And our efforts too, it's so common and it indicates how much our identity and people's perception of us is determined by what we do for a living.
You know, I was asked this question at a party the other day and it was so exhausting.
There are so many new people there.
By the end of the night, I honestly just started making stuff up.
I was so frustrated.
I'm like, I think I told someone I was a reptile vet.
It's only you can spend a year doing nothing but pursuing some deep creative passion because you have nine other years during this decade to figure it out.
And also it doesn't end there.
You know, it's not like your thirties are a death sentence or the end of the road.
I think the biggest myth that we tell ourselves post -graduation is that the most exciting, whether they truly loved you as much as likes our appearance, our personality.
And this is only exacerbated when we begin to link our self -esteem to our work performance or to our job selection.
There's been some really interesting studies on the outcome of this interlinkage between our professional lives and our identities.
And a longitudinal study in the US, it's actually still ongoing, it's still being conducted.
But so far, they've shown some preliminary insights that the work we do does shape our personality and the things like our sense of control over our environment, our self -pity.
I've been there. You know, every time I've heard about one of my exes dating someone new or even being engaged, it has happened.
It does kind of stick.
Humans, we are creatures of comfort.
We don't like huge events that upend our sense of stability, security or emotional homeostasis, kind of that sense of internal calmness and consistency.
Graduating university, although it feels very positive, it is a moment of celebration.
It is a big growth.
And they also owe me nothing, but I really owe them a whole lot because they've only made me so much better.
You know, it's interesting because I'm actually dating someone at the moment, which I haven't really spoken about on the podcast, you know, just for their privacy and also to see how things go.
But one question he asked me when we first started talking was, what did your last relationship teach you about?
You shouldn't be allowed to enjoy your career is what I'm talking about.
I think more than that, it's that you can be satisfied without knowing what you want to do.
And even if you haven't discovered your dream job or maybe you don't think that you have one, that these people were not meeting.
Working, behaving in a very similar way, doing the same kind of tasks just at a gradually increasing intensity, kind of all you've ever known since you were a child, is this one way of doing things in pursuit of this large goal that seems really far away until you graduate, until it's happening right
now. And then it's over.
You stop. We know that social comparison is entirely normal.
It's an evolutionary process that really allows us to validate our own behaviors and ensure that they conform to some broader social norm.
But when we engage in upward social comparison, especially with someone's new partner, whereby we see someone as better than us and subsequently reduce our own self -worth, it can be really painful.
And we all know that feeling of doing the sneaky Instagram stalk of their new person.
Don't lie. I know we've all done it.
Or finding their own private, getting a mutual friend to survive with big benefits.
It's super lifestyle friendly and athletic greens is also a climate neutral service.
Also the end to a structure and a daily routine that we're familiar with.
In that environment, it's also very easy to define success.
You know, there is a correlation between effort and results.
You study harder, you get A's, you succeed, you're praised.
Post -university adult life does not operate in the same way.
So it is confusing to be over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance.
Like I said, there's no denying that enjoying your job is important.
Statistics do show that people who are more engaged in the work they enjoy, they're happier.
They are happier. But it doesn't mean that there's only one job that's going to make you happy.
And that if you're not doing that, you're destined for misery.
And this cognitive scientist from the University of Bristol, he wrote a really fascinating article on this.
This is just the next quest, the next opportunity to kind of test your character and grow as millions have done before you and come out the other side.
It's also important, especially when it comes to career confusion or not knowing what you actually want to do in your life, to de -center work from beautiful intimate moments.
The trips you took, the hugs, the kisses, the bursts of joy, you know, seeing them.
But you suppress the times when they made you...
the trips you took, the hugs, the kisses, the bursts of joy, you know, seeing them.
But you suppress the times when they made you feel terrible about yourself, when there was that anxiety and there was awful silences and those fights, because those memories are not the narrative that keeps us invested.
The narrative that keeps us invested is the rosy recollection and retrospection.
And if you're unhappy and you should feel confident enough to be able to change and you should feel supported enough to be able to choose something different.
It's not always about the specific job you're working, it's about things like the environment in which you're performing that role, your mental health, your values, how you want to behave, who you want to be, your passions, you know.
That's more than hobbies, more than values.
What are the things that you can spend hours talking about, you know, what kind of Wikipedia page would you know back to front?
What's an issue that with a lot of facets and a lot of strengths and many of our strengths and qualities are going to change over time and many of our desires for what we want from our lives are going to change over time as well.
And I read the statistic that the average person born in this century is going to have three to four career changes in their lives.
That's us. That's this generation.
You know, I've already had two career changes and probably like you, I'm only in my first decade of adulthood and the dream job that I thought I wanted and my final destination at the time, those other facets of yourself remain full and alive.
It's like that thing that people always say, you know, you're never going to wish that you'd spent more time in the office.
And when things like sickness or when your relationships are falling apart or when there's a rebound before, I know how much it sucks.
I once had someone tell me that I'd really helped him get over his ex and how grateful he was for me.
So shout out to them.
But for some, I have noticed this sense of competition of who can move on the fastest, who can win the race, who can prove to the other that they are the first ones to get over it.
It probably derives from some of that innate hostility that tends to bubble fulfilled and happy.
And the same goes for the line of work we choose.
So I'm hoping that if you feel stuck, that makes you feel better, that whatever you're doing right now, whatever you think you want to do right now, there are things that you haven't even discovered yet, which could fill an even deeper, you know, in even deeper need or desire within you.
And so I wanted to kind of talk about and talk to the people who might be experiencing that right now and some of the tips for overcoming coverage around six months.
I think that there's a lot of good things about you.
They've still got a lot of healing work to do that they're probably not even aware of.
But I think the mindset shift that we need to have is, so what if they have forgotten about us?
Why should it bother you that they've moved on?
Why do we still care?
And although we can answer a lot of those questions now, you know, the lack of psychological closure, the what if thinking, the rosy retrospection, the next stage is now what?
What do we do next to stop caring, to close that chapped life?
What kind of life do you want to have beyond work?
I think this reveals a lot more than simply choosing a job at a certain age and deciding that that's the one.
That's what I've decided to do.
Let me use an example here.
I mean, Mars is to live there long enough so that people evolve into Martians.
Like data is a very rough proxy for a complex reality.
How the show ears edition podcast The Daily Show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture.
You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports and more from john and the team of correspondents and contributors.
The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines.
Listen to The Daily Show ears edition on the I heart radio app.
And the connection to people, you know, if you're a surgeon, most of the time your patient's probably going to be anesthesized.
So you're not really going to be able to connect with someone who's unconscious.
And maybe you would actually be happier as a traveling nurse or as a school nurse, something that allows you to satisfy the other things that are important to you, while still leveraging your skills and your strengths.
And it's probably going to make you a lot happier when we assess the full picture and the scope of our life, it may be a better decision because our expectations are more aligned.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that when we send me money, like I feel the moisture between my legs and I'm like, Oh my God, it's getting in some of the world's most notorious racing of her.
I'm Erica and I'm Mila.
And we're the hosts of The Good Moms.
So you live, find something that's going to suit your life and your strengths.
And I think another tip is to allow yourself to be uncomfortable with uncertainty.
Not much in life is certain, but the one thing that is is change and inconsistency.
It's a really good reminder, not just when we think about our careers.
When we think about everything.
There are jobs in the future that haven't even been created yet.
Life changing moments that will completely alter your entire outlook and expectations for your life.
There will be so moist jobs between my legs and the man sends me money.
I'm Erica of I Heart Women's Inn.
And thinking that you need to commit to one dream job, we were each.
One global business story that matters.
You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine.
A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC.
Amanda Mull, who writes our Business Week buying power column.
Very few companies who go viral are like totally prepared for what that means.
And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter.
Courts are not supposed to decide elections.
Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders.
That's for the voters to decide.
Follow the Big Take podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen.
To ultimately stop caring, we need to understand we get so wrapped up in days that was perhaps not given to us at the end of the relationship.
That lack of emotional closure is, I think, what really triggers those unpleasant feelings associated with our ex dating someone new.
I think when we learn our ex has moved on, we want to do one of two things.
Number one is to completely self -isolate.
Maybe due to the shame of this perceived rejection to kind of lick our wounds, languish in the self -pity.
And that's okay. Self -pity feels nice because it provides us with the emotional validation and the permission to feel sad.
That perhaps we really need that we really need to explore you.
Is it talking to people and feeling like they always open up?
Maybe being able to really easily rationalize ideas to form really good arguments.
Maybe you're creative.
Do you have a really aesthetic brain?
I have one friend, Sarah, shout out to Sarah.
I fucking love her.
But Sarah has this really aesthetic eye and I do not.
She can really get that idea that there's only one thing that we're born to do to understand that the world confronting emotions, what we would call escapism or displacement.
So in screaming or by having a fight, so we're going to displace our anger by getting with people rather than others.
And maybe that's based on our temperament, our perspective, how our brains process information.
But instead of trying to do the things that you are not good at and beating yourself up because you are not like someone else in some department, focus on the things that you bring to the table.
Even if they are not as deeply acknowledged or even if people aren't as ready to praise them, those skills are always needed.
Every single skill that someone has has a place.
So discovering your passion is another thing, but I have some questions for that as well.
And I think also the thing of passion is that sometimes it can be subconscious.
So that's why when I say these questions, I want you to think about them really deeply.
I really hope that that is the case.
And if you enjoy this episode, feel free if you feel free.
And then what to do next.
So the addiction model of heartbreak is kind of the psychological concept that likens the experience of heartbreak and overlook.
What do people come to you for?
Is it advice or is it for something really practical, something intuitive, even fixing clothes or for travel advice or asking you to take pictures of them?
What is intuitive for you that others can also see?
And finally, I know it is such a cliche question, but what would you do if money was no option?
You know, what would you do if money was no option?
Obviously, money is a factor in a lot of the decisions that we make, but pretend it isn't for a second.
And answer without prejudice here, without thinking about what's impractical or what your family wants or what society expects.
What is the thing that when you're out for dinner with friends, out for drinks, whilst you're still meeting your lifestyle goals.
I'm a big beer fan, so I also love the taste of Heineken 00, plus being our affection and attention of our ex -partner.
And these lead to things like obsessive thinking and a desire to reconnect or to relapse, in other words.
However, these cravings are very much neurological.
And when we don't satisfy them by going no contact, by giving it time, they will start to lessen.
You have to push those cravings, the withdrawal, the potential for relapse, that temptation.
You need to push that out of your mind and really power through in order to rewire your neurochemistry away from this person to more positive things in your life.
But this does explain a bit of your dreams, however small is never a waste.
And I don't think it will ever be something that you wish you didn't do.
The same goes for so many other opportunities and jobs.
The mistake we make there, go through after a death, after someone dies, who we love.
But a lot of people do us.
Listen to tech stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
With death, as we explained earlier, it can be exacerbated by the realization that your ex has moved on.
There is that sense of a closed chapter.
There is that sense that you will not see, make changes, that your decisions allow you to choose differently.
You are not going to be the same person every year of your life.
You know, what's the statistic?
The average person tends to go through three to seven careers or jobs before they retire.
So don't be afraid to participate in a bit of trial and error when it comes to the work you want to do.
Especially at a time in your life where I think youth affords you a lot of privileges.
The ability to make mistakes and recover.
The ability to change without so many people holding you responsible for their own well -being.
The ability to turn around and choose entirely differently.
You don't need to justify those choices to anyone.
It's your life. You are allowed to make mistakes in shock.
You cannot feel the resent this person for what you've gone through.
All of their negative qualities are very, very clear.
You really, you really hate them.
But I do think it's important to remember it's just a natural reaction to your hurt.
You don't really hate them.
To imagine one day in your life, five years from now, in as much detail as possible.
And we've done this exercise on the podcast before, but I think it is important to do this regularly.
What would a day in your life where you are immensely happy look like in five years?
You know, where are you living?
Where do you wake up in the morning?
What does your room look like?
What are you having for breakfast?
Where are you off to afterwards?
Who are you talking to throughout the day?
What kind of things are on your schedule?
What do you do after work?
Who are you having dinner with?
What are you celebrating?
What are you looking forward to?
Those small details, when we picture them, they are the source of what will actually make tears, the sadness.
And often it's where we get stuck and we can't seem.
And in time, all of these negative feelings will pass.
I really, I promise you that.
And with that comes an acceptance.
The rhythm are accidental.
That is important to remember.
You cannot control for everything that is going to happen in your life.
Both the good and the bad.
So when we exit university and we feel like we need to like immediately make this five year plan and stick to everything, it doesn't always leave us room to be flexible and room to kind of accept the surprises that life throws us.
Secondly, try not to get lost in the nostalgia of the good old days.
Nostalgia is a beautiful emotion and important one that brings a sense of life purpose, of good times, of optimism.
But when we spend too much time wanting to return to the past, we don't focus on how we can make our current life and future life even.
The argument attached to this theory suggests that everyone will have to go through these stages eventually.
And what you don't heal before a new relationship will inevitably create problems in your next relationship.
So I think we've established what your first steps are.
Number one, you have to allow yourself to feel whatever it is that's bubbling up below the surface.
Whether that is jealousy, bitterness, anger, sadness, each of these emotions is valid.
And it's your time to listen to all of those amazing breakup songs to wallow because avoidance and avoiding this state is just going to cause more stress.
The memories that they made during that period of time, it's almost like Peter Pan syndrome, wanting to be forever stuck in those very young, carefree moments, not wanting to grow up.
Remember, you can't always trust your memories.
Sometimes when we look back at the past, we are doing so through a filter of what we call rosy retrospection.
And it's this tendency to eagerly thought we looked terrible or ugly or some kind of way.
But when we look at them now, we're like, wow, we were so beautiful.
I looked great. I totally did not take advantage of how hot I was.
The same will go for this new chapter, even the new challenges, even the nostalgia.
You one day see that as part of the journey that is bringing you to your future self.
Also, this is a bit of a tangent and kind of unrelated.
But just get off LinkedIn, please.
If you are on LinkedIn, if you are someone who has a tendency to engage in upward social comparison, where you are always judging yourself against the accomplishments of others, that platform is only going to intensify your feeling of insecurity.
You don't need to see what anyone else is doing to a meaningful place or one of vengeance.
There's this idea called repetition compulsion.
So if you have been hurt in the past, you can be very tempted to rush into a new relationship with people who are wrong for you because you're subconsciously trying to fix the pain.
But here are some important questions to ask yourself first, if you are planning on dating again.
Am I still regularly thinking about my ex?
Why is that? Do I still imagine a future with them?
What did that relationship teach me and have I reflected on what it has taught me about myself?
You get the urge to look at whether you qualify for a master's degree or you start applying for new jobs.
Slow down, you have time.
Every person you idolize, every person you admire or look up to has experienced the same thing, has had those feelings.
It has taken them years and they have found themselves and they're continuing to discover themselves as you are.
And as a final reminder for my post uni people out there feeling super aimless, every emotional state.
It's more of a thinking exercise because I think if you answer these questions, honestly, you will be able to come to the right conclusion about whether you have truly reached acceptance or you are just displacing your jealousy or your desires onto someone new or feeling that whole with companionship.
Thirdly, if your ex has moved on, take the higher ground.
As the saying goes, I think success is truly the best revenge and not because of what it brings the other person, but because of what it brings you.
Move forward in silence, cultivate a beautiful life without the need for them to just have to trust like the wave of the tides and the moves of the winds and everything that's happening around you that you can't anticipate all little surprises and opportunities that you cannot anticipate.
And that's kind of the beauty of this chapter.
The beauty of this period is that you can do anything, you can do anything that you want with your time.
You are young, you are carefree.
There are so many seasons of life you let to live.
So do not lose sight of that.
I sincerely hope that you have enjoyed this episode.
If there is someone in your life who needs to hear this, you rather than that bitterness towards your ex and their new relationship status.
This is such an important mental exercise because I think we often don't feel valued in society unless we have a partner.
And we face this stigma, this perception that we should be striving towards a new relationship.
And what this does is it causes us to end up in the wrong relationships at the wrong time with the wrong people.
This is of course going to be exacerbated by seeing our ex in apparently a very happy new relationship and thinking that we should have that as well.
But being single brings such a sense of freedom and independence that is insanely valuable, especially in this decade of life and our twenties when our identity is still very much being formed.
You have more time for your hobbies.
This year I've been really rethinking my relationship with alcohol and so I decided to commit to Dry January to really kickstart 2025 and just test myself.
Heineken00 is the perfect companion for Dry January because you feel like you're still participating when you're out for dinner with friends.
Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily Show which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition Podcast.
Join late night legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews and more.
Now this is the second term we can all get behind.
Listen to the Daily Show Ears Edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
Do you want to see into the future?
Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life?
Do you want to experience the frontiers of what makes us human?
On Tech Stuff, we travel from the minds of Congo to the surface of Mars, from conversations with Nobel Prize winners to the depths of TikTok to ask burning questions.
So you really need to embrace this chapter.
I'm talking the daily walks.
I'm talking journaling, a clean room, a clear mind, regular therapy if you can, and cultivating beautiful friendships, cultivating beautiful and deep self -awareness and self -worth.
I remember after my last break up, I really kind of went into this realm of embracing my inner divine feminine.
I like wrote. Beamstack stuff is I think embarrassing to the SEC.
Follow the Big Take Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen.
My agency, I was so hyper focused on being the best version of myself and I didn't see moving on as competition and I also didn't see it as them replacing me.
They found someone that was better for them and I'll find someone that's better for me.
And that is all that we can kind of hope for.
And that's something that I think a new relationship wasn't going to give me, a rebound wasn't going to give me.
It wasn't going to fulfill that need and the work I needed to do for myself.
You know, at the end of the day, you're not your relationship status.
And if your ex is choosing to move on really quickly with someone else, they haven't done the work that you are going to have the privilege to constantly be healing their emotional wounds by using others to fill them, essentially.
And that's not the kind of person that anyone listening to this podcast is going to be.
And as a final reminder, I just want to extend some love.
I know so deeply how much this hurts, how it feels to perhaps be forgotten or feel replaced.
That is not the case.
That is definitely not the case.
And even if it was, that has freed you.
That has really allowed you to do the work that you need to do and allowed you to move on because they have kind of, they've made their decision.
They've put their cards on the table and I think it actually does provide the emotional and psychological closure that is necessary to fully be liberated from an experience or from a relationship or from an ex partner.
So they have really done you a solo, they've done a service for you.
So thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
I really enjoyed some, you know, I shouldn't feel bad.
I shouldn't feel sad about this.
You know, you totally should feel sad.
If you want to feel sad, it's a completely normal, natural psychological reaction to a breakup, to the after effects, to an experience of rejection.
So I hope that this episode has really helped you.
As always, if there is someone in your life who is having this experience right now, whose ex has moved on really quickly, you should send this to them.
I really hope that they get something out of it.
If you did enjoy this episode, please feel free to leave a five -star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now.
And if you want more content, more bonus episodes.
And if you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life, do you want to experience the frontiers of what makes us human?
On Tech Stuff, we travel from the minds of Congo to the surface of Mars, from conversations with Nobel Prize winners to the depths of TikTok to ask burning questions about technology, from high tech to low culture and everywhere in between.
Join us. Listen to Tech Stuff on the iHeartRadio app.
