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Hey, this is Leo for actualised.org. And in this episode, I'm going to talk about should statements and how they're ruining your life, and how you can stop guilt, shame, bitterness, and blaming. This episode is really a continuation of last week's episode, which was entitled a rant against morality. And that episode was pretty foundational. So I recommend that if you haven't watched it, go watch it first, then come back here, because what we're gonna talk about today is we're gonna talk about the practical applications of the sort of philosophical stuff I talked about morality, last time. All right, so we're going to build on that, we're going to show you how to actually now use some of those concepts to eliminate things like guilt, or bitterness towards the world or towards other people, or blaming other people for situations, and all that kind of stuff. Right, I'm going to give you one really powerful insight here, it's almost magical, this insight. When you fully realize this insight, it will radically transform the quality of your day to day life. That's the power of can have. And it's very, very simple. And it's actually quite simple to apply as well. But first, a little bit of the explanation. So actually, I want to tell a story, which is my ex girlfriend, I had a girlfriend few years back. And we saw each other a lot. And the problem, though, is that it was impossible to maintain a relationship with this woman. And the reason was, and I only figured this out, after maybe a year or two of being with her, I slowly started to piece together her backstory kind of like, what was what was your childhood like? And you know, how did she grew up and what was her family like, and so forth. And what I was able to kind of piece together and I'm, I'm kind of speculating, but this is kind of the best that I was able to figure out is that her mother was extremely moralistic with her and filled her mind from the very beginning of her life, with all sorts of ideas about what should and shouldn't happen in life, what's right, and what's wrong. And this is what I call moralism. And so she fed her with all these shoulds payments. And she continues to feed her with the should statements for all of her childhood and into her teenage years, and even now still as an adult. And so what happened with my girlfriend is that she had all these very rigid ideas about how life should be what's right, what's wrong, what she should do what she shouldn't do. And it was kind of sad, sad to me, because that's not how I was raised. I was raised in a sort of very kind of like, laid back environment. Right? For her, it was like the opposite. And also, there was like elements of Christianity in there. So there's religion, you know, thrown into the mix there. And her mother was a very neurotic person. So of course, this neurosis that her mother had, was transferred to her. Because the neurotic, acts neurotically the child learns neurosis from observing that parents behaviors, and then the child thinks that that's normal, right? But then what happens is that the child grows up to become an adult, and then the adult can't function. Because every step in life that she tried to take, there were all these like limitations, and rules and things she couldn't do anything she had to do and how she had to look and how she had to be and what her weight was supposed to be like, and what relationships were supposed to be like, and what ideas were supposed to be right. And all that. And that was very unfortunate, because it made it impossible to be in a relationship with her. So I'm just saying that is a little backstory here. But what I really want to talk about is I want to talk about what I call should statements. What are should statements, should statements are basically any time in your life where you or somebody else tells you, you should do X, or you should do Y or you should not do z. Now, on the surface, these statements appear very innocent. And in fact, they appear as though they're well intentioned. It's like, well, yeah, I mean, how else can we live a good life, other than by telling ourselves what we should and shouldn't do? We'll circle back around to some of these questions, and we'll address them as we go on here. But let me give you a list of short statements so that you understand exactly what I'm talking about. And here I'm going to focus mostly on the practical secular should statements that you make in your life. So I'm not talking about religious stuff. I'm talking about everyday kind of stuff. So here's some examples. So you get an idea. People should be nice to me. Children should respect their parents. People shouldn't steal from me. Politicians shouldn't lie to me. Corporations shouldn't be so greedy. I shouldn't be so lazy. I shouldn't watch so much TV. I shouldn't masturbate. My mom shouldn't be so stubborn. People should be more understanding. People should be more tolerant. My girlfriend, she should stay in shape. And she shouldn't be fat. I shouldn't eat donuts, and I should stay in shape. And I shouldn't be fat. I should wake up earlier in the day, I should meditate better, my boss should work harder, and he should be competent. My business should be more successful, I should be earning a bigger paycheck. Okay, so that's just a random assortment of very common every day, ordinary should statements. Notice that we have some statements that say I should, or people should. And also, we have some statements that say I shouldn't, or people shouldn't. So all those I count as should statements. Now, here's the magical insight that will radically increase the happiness in your life, if you can embody it. But I warn you that you're gonna resist this. And it's gonna seem very counterintuitive to you. And in fact, it's gonna seem like it's crazy. It is. Stop making should statements. That's it. That's the whole insight. So if you want to boil down everything I say, in this entire episode, it just boils down to this, stop making should statements in your life. Just stop it, cut it out. Now, as simple as that is, there's big problems with this, because like I said, it seems very counterintuitive. And you don't understand why you should do this. And there's a lot of room for misinterpretation of what this really means. And why I'm making this suggestion. Right. So the first warning I have to issue to you is that notice that I did not say you should stop making should statements. I said you can stop. Do you notice the subtle difference? It's subtle, but very significant. I'm not saying to you stop making should statements as though they're wrong and evil, and you should stop doing it. I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that if you want to live a better life, and you want to be happier, consider this option that you have, which is to realize that your should statements are limiting you and that you can stop them. You don't have to if you don't want to don't do it. If you feel like they're benefiting you keep them Do you see the difference? I'm giving you an option. I'm not moralizing to you. I'm not preaching you. I'm not telling you that you're gonna go to hell. If you don't listen to me, I'm not telling you that you're wrong, for not listening to me, I'm just telling you that your life won't be as nice as it could be. Now, that's a factual statement. And I can back that up, and psychology can back us up. And if you've been following along with me, and you've been doing this consciousness work that I'll be talking about, then you can verify all this stuff for yourself. So you don't have to believe me about any of this. Now, the question is, why? Why are should statements problematic. And this brings me to one of the most important insights that I learned over the last year, which is that the world is exactly as it should be. That's a huge insight. It seems simple and obvious. But it's hugely significant if you really plumb the depths of it, which I want to help you to do here. And by the way, I want to give credit to Byron Katie, who helped me to see the importance and significance of this insight. And then of course, I also followed it up with my own work, meditation, work consciousness work that I do. So it wasn't just like me reading it in a book. I had to connect the dots and pray Just didn't implement this in my life to see that the world is exactly how it should be. What this means is that the world should not be any other way than it is. Let me repeat that. Because this is super counterintuitive. And on first glance, you're not going to want to believe it or accept it. But what I'm saying is that the world should not be any other way than it is. Now, how can I say such a ridiculously seeming claim? Well, it's just a matter of reality. And I spent a bit of time explaining this in the prior episode. So go check that one out, if you really want to go into the depths of all the kind of metaphysics of it, I don't want to get too deep into it here. But basically, you have to look at reality. And what reality tells us is that what is is what is and then it's up to us, whether we accept it or not. But whether you do accept it, or you don't accept it, it still remains the same, it remains as it is, right? Reality simply is exactly what it is, it's like, it's just that simple. You just have to care enough about reality, to want to see it for what it actually is, when you tell yourself, that reality should be some other way. What that actually is, is that's an idea in your mind, that's a fantasy. That's a story you tell yourself, that's a limited expectation that you set upon reality. Based on your ego, and the agenda that you have, right, you're living in light as an organism, you have an agenda, primarily your agenda is to survive, and to reproduce, that is your agenda. But this agenda is not just limited to those two things. These two things are played out in your entire life, everything you do, from raising your children, to going to work, to having fun with your friends, to reading a book, all of these things, you have to recognize that they're all related to this self agenda of survival and reproduction. So when I say survival and reproduction, this is not just a very limited kind of like Darwinian notion. This is a very broad all encompassing notion, which basically encompasses your entire existence. It's mostly designed for you to survive and reproduce. Right? So from that perspective, when you look upon reality, it looks as though Well, certain things shouldn't be the way that they are. Why not because they're not conducive to your particular survival or reproduction needs. For example, the world should not have violence, according to you, because violence doesn't serve yourself agenda, se. But if you zoom out for a second, and you try to be little bit objective, and you look at the world, from the world's point of view, rather than your egoic point of view, then what you realize is that the world doesn't care about whether you survive or not, or whether you reproduce or not, the world is running kind of on its own terms. Right? The world is not limited to your perspective, or any other person's perspective, or even the combined perspectives of humanity, the world is not limited to that either. Right? The world kind of has a God's eye view perspective, you might say. And from that perspective, what is is exactly what should be if this notion is difficult for you to accept, or to really grasp, is because you have to realize that from your very childhood, you were told, things that you should and shouldn't do. So these things were put imprinted into you, and you've been indoctrinated with them. Right from childhood, from the very beginning of your life, your parents were telling you what you should and shouldn't do. And they were doing it from this kind of, like moralistic perspective. You know, they told you that children shouldn't do drugs and children shouldn't have sex. And you know, you shouldn't eat too much candy and you shouldn't masturbate. You shouldn't watch television, and you shouldn't pick your nose in public. And you should wear a safety belt when you're in the car. And you should respect your parents and you should be nice to people, and you shouldn't be angry all the time. And you shouldn't be sad. And so on and so on. So on, right all these rules, they filled your life with all these rules, and you just swallowed them up because well, you had no choice. And now those rules are running you The problem though, is that these rules, they're overly simplistic. They're so overly simplistic that you can't actually use these rules. To live a high quality life. To live a high quality life, you have to live it consciously, consciously means you have to actually assess situations in a nuanced, gray scale sort of way, not in a black and white way. It's not always wrong to eat candy. And it's not always wrong to have sex. And it's not always wrong to get a divorce. And it's not always wrong to go partying at night. And it's not always wrong to do some drugs. You see, the problem is that all these shoulds and rules, there are way, way, way too simplified for living real life. Not only that, but these rules are not grounded in anything. You can try to ground them in the Bible, or in the 10 commandments or in God or in some Kantian notion of the moral imperative. You can grant try to justify these rules. But the bottom line is, if you look at what these where these rules come from, you see that they're arbitrarily created. So this is something you don't believe me on, you can actually, look, look, where are your rules coming from? Why are you accepting them? Right? This is where questioning of dogmas and questioning of beliefs, this concept that I talked a lot about, in other episodes, this comes into real importance here. Because you really have to start to question actually question. Where did this rule come from? For example, if I have a rule, like my business should be earning more money? Where did that rule come from? Where did that expectation come from? Who said so? Who said my business should be earning more money? Maybe? Could it possibly be true that my business should be earning exactly as much money as it currently is? No more and no less? What about that? Could that be a possibility? So you have to sit down actually question this stuff. But um, but the way we're raised, this is really not open to questioning. And especially, I want to point out that there are some extremely moralistic cultures out there. Especially certain Eastern or Asian cultures, because they come from a tradition of, for example, being heavily influenced by the philosophy of Confucius, you know, Confucius, Confucian ism, in, in China and in Asian thinking is a huge, huge, powerful force, moral force that goes back over 2000 years, to the point where people growing up in China now don't even know how deep this is rooted in their, in their culture, unless they study this stuff. And it's not acknowledged, that's an arbitrary cultural norm that was set 2000 years ago. That's not acknowledged, when you study Confucius in China. When you study Confucius in China, I imagine, it's just taught to you as though it's the law, as though it's how it's supposed to be. Likewise, for example, with Islam in the Middle East, and in the Middle East, you know, that's also a very highly moralistic culture, where certain values are like, mandated, for example, the value of family loyalty, and loyalty to your parents, this is mandated, you would be the devil, you will be a social outcast. If you challenge this notion, that parent or that family is of supreme importance, or that your parents should be respected. Right? These are things that are just like laid down as law, and it's never questioned. I mean, you can be in the Middle East, and you can study where these should originated from. And you might trace them back down to the Koran or something. But it's never acknowledged that that was an arbitrary, an arbitrary cultural norm that was that. Right? It's grounded in something probably metaphysical or supernatural, right to justify it. So if you do come from one of these extremely moralistic cultures Watch out. And I mean, those two are not the only cultures. There's others and there's plenty of moralism that goes on in every society, even in first world societies, and in United States and in Europe. There's still plenty of this going on. What you need to do in those cases, you need to read really questioned the dogmas despite your tendency to not want to test it and look for yourself. So let me give you an example here of how we can determine that what I'm saying is correct. So go ahead right now and pick a common should statement that you notice yourself saying to yourself. So, select any one you want, that is common to you. I'm going to use the example of something like, I should go to the gym. So as I'm speaking, I'm gonna be using this example, you can just substitute my example with your example. Right? So let's say that the should statement I tell myself is I should go to the gym. And it's like, you know, I have to I have to go to the gym, you know, it's not, it's not okay for me to be fat, it's not okay for me to be lazy, it's not okay for me to be overweight, I have to go, if I don't go Leo, I'm going to become a lazy slob, I'm going to be fat, like all those fat people. And I don't want that. So I have to go to the gym, I should go to the gym. Okay, now, whatever your statement is. Notice it. And now what I want you to do is I want you to actually flip it around. So turn it into its exact opposite. So if I were to do that, with this gym example, I would say, instead of I should go to the gym, I'll say I shouldn't go to the gym. I shouldn't go to the gym. And now just leave a little room to pause and to soak that in. I shouldn't go to the gym, and just notice what kind of resistance comes up in you to that statement. There will probably be some resistance, but also notice. If you're very mindful, you'll notice that it actually feels truer than your original statement. So if your example was for example, I should be respectful of my parents, let's say that you should statement. Now I'm telling you to flip it around. So now it's like I shouldn't be respectful to my parents. And at first glance is like, I shouldn't be respectful to my parents. Oh, no. That's horribly wrong. But stay with it. And you'll notice that actually, it feels more true. Now, what do I mean by this? I don't mean that you should never now be respectful to your parents. What we mean here is that not always, should you be respectful to your parents, not always should I go to the gym. That's an arbitrary rule that I have set upon life. And the fact is that life is more complicated than that. And you know what, sometimes I shouldn't go to the gym. And sometimes I shouldn't be respectful to my parents. That's reality, that actually feels fucking real, rather than the cartoon version of life that you're living in the moralistic model of the universe is very overly simplified. What I'm telling you to do is to, is to let go of that, and start to live in a sort of gray scale version of the universe, rather than a black and white one. And to acknowledge that all of your should statements are actually fantasy. And in fact, the more you insist that something should be the case, or something shouldn't be the case, the more of a fantasy it fucking is, because the only reason you insist on it so much, is because you're afraid of what would happen if you let it go. So fundamentally, you're acting from a place of insecurity, neurosis and fear, a self actualized person who's secure in himself, and who's secure in his dealings with the world and his relationship with the people. He doesn't need strict laws and rules to do the quote unquote, right things. You see, he doesn't need to always tell us to tell himself, I have to go to the gym. He doesn't need to do that. Only someone who really doesn't want to go to the gym in secret, has to say to himself, I should go to the gym and really be insistent about it. And someone who is respectful of his parents in a genuine authentic fashion and genuinely desires that does not need a law or a rule that tells them you have to be respectful your parents see So, the basic idea here is that any should statement, you have just flip it around to its opposite. And notice that it actually is truer and more real and less of a cartoon version of reality than what you had before. And that should sort of nullify, or make this thing obsolete. Now, it's still, it's still difficult to swallow some of these bitter pills that I'm feeding you here. So I want to tackle this right head on, right? Because to really grasp the significance of this, you're not going to grasp it unless we give you a lot of examples. So here's what I want to do, I want to give you a list of common should statements that are very common for most people, and which are going to be very hard for you to accept. They're polar opposites. Okay. So here we go. He should treat me better, or she should treat me better. Do you believe that he should treat me better, like my boyfriend or my boss should treat me better? So now we flip it around. And it becomes he or she should not treat me better. Now, that's reality, the idea that people should treat you better. That's fantasy. The reality is, is that sometimes people will not treat you well. That's the reality. How about the next one, I should be good. Or I shouldn't be bad. You tell yourself that. So what's the opposite of that? I shouldn't be good. And I should be bad. That's a really difficult one to swallow. But notice that it actually feels more real. The reality is that you should not be good, and that you should be bad. Not that you now always are bad, but that's sometimes you will be bad. And sometimes you won't be good. And to expect so is to set yourself up for neurosis. And to insist on it being so just shows you that you don't have a natural desire to be good. And that you have a natural desire to be bad. Right, you're defending something. Notice that each one of these should statements is a defense. It's a reluctance. It's a resistance towards something. About this next one, I shouldn't feel blank. I shouldn't feel sad. I shouldn't feel angry. I shouldn't feel guilty. I shouldn't feel afraid. I shouldn't feel whatever. How often you tell yourself that a lot, probably many times per day. But the reality is what the reality is that you should feel angry, you should feel sad, you should feel guilty, you should feel afraid. Right? The opposite of it is more true. Sometimes you should feel that way. What about people should like me? Do you have that expectation that everyone should like you? What's the reality? The reality is the exact opposite is that people shouldn't like you. How about, he shouldn't cheat on me, or she shouldn't cheat on me. Oh, man, that's a really difficult one to swallow. But look at this. We flip it around and turns into, he should cheat on me. She should cheat on me. And that's the reality. If you're telling yourself that people shouldn't cheat on you in relationships, you're kidding yourself. It's a joke. You're denying the fact that people do cheat. That's the reason you tell yourself so adamantly, and so self righteously, that he or she shouldn't cheat. The reason you do it is to resist the reality that people do cheat. You see this? That's exactly why it's so bitter to swallow for you. How about this one people shouldn't break the law. Do you get self righteous about that when people break the law do something illegal? Well, what's the reality? The reality is that people should break the law. Why? Because they do. And that's something for you to accept. Not to resist. How about people should be more considerate? You ever say to Seder is all that guy is such a bastard, he should have been more considerate of me. Well, the reality is that he shouldn't have been more considerate of you He shouldn't have. Why? Because he wasn't? How about my kids shouldn't do drugs? Well, the reality is that your kids should do drugs. Why? Because they did them. If they did drugs, that means they should have done them. That's the reality, you have to accept that you have been denied. And the reason that you're so hard on your kids for doing drugs, is because you don't want to accept that kids should do drugs. In fact, maybe you want to look back on your past. And see, when you were a kid, did you do drugs? Now it's irrelevant whether you did or didn't? If you did, I mean, it's blatant hypocrisy. But even if you didn't, even if you say, Leo, you know, when I was a student, I went through high school and, and college and I didn't do a single drug. So that's proof that kids shouldn't do drugs. No, it's not. That's proof that you shouldn't do drugs. That's not proof that your kids shouldn't do drugs. How do we know? Because if your kids actually did drugs, then that's the proof that they should have done them. That's reality. The only proof there is is reality, your fantasies and your ideas and opinions about what should be is not proof of anything. You see, I could have a fantasy that I should be a billionaire living on a tropical island sipping a pina colada with a with a jet that comes by and flies me to Europe. And there I have hot women rubbing me with oil. I could have that fantasy, but it doesn't mean that that's what's real. And it doesn't mean that that's what should be. Right? Your Your situation is no less ridiculous than that. Know that you think you think that you feel should statements that you hold are somehow more nuanced, and more practical, and are more realistic than the example their ludicrous example that I just gave you, but actually, they're not. They're just as ludicrous. You've just tricked yourself over the years to believe them? Because they seem so commonplace, because this is how society functions. Because this is how your parents function. Because it's how your whole family function. This is how your friends function. This is how at school, everything worked at school this way, it is how stuff works at your job. So you're like a fish in water? You don't see the water? How about a should statement like he shouldn't lie, or she shouldn't lie? Well, the reality is that he or she should lie, because people lie all the time. That's the reality. Don't kid yourself about that. And also notice that you lie all the time, too. How about a statement like I should be more confident? Do you have confidence issues? Are you shy? Well, have you considered that maybe you shouldn't be more confident? And that you should remain shy? Doesn't that feel more true? Than the opposite? And the last one, which I really like is I shouldn't feel frustrated when I meditate. Do you have a meditation habit? Do you feel frustrated when you meditate? Do you feel like you're overthinking everything? Like I should not think so much. I shouldn't overthink, I should just be calm and peaceful. I shouldn't be frustrated when I meditate. Well, what's the reality? The reality is that you should feel frustrated when you meditate. And if you take on meditation as a lifelong practice, with the expectation that you should be frustrated, you're gonna have a lot better time, it'll go a lot easier for you that if you do that, and you have the expectation that you should not be frustrated, because you're fighting reality. In all these situations, the problem is that you're fighting reality. And the reason that this magical insight that I gave you, which is just to drop your should statements, the reason that this has any power whatsoever, is because it works by helping you to accept what is and to stop resisting. It's like you've been tensed up and you've been resisting your whole life. And now I'm giving you permission to let go. And that's at the same time very liberating, but also very scary. It's very scary because now you have all these objections about you will Lea, what's gonna happen to the world? If if everybody let's go, you know, what's gonna happen to my life? What's gonna happen to my kids? You're saying all these things, you know, but what happens when your kids start doing drugs? I know you have a lot of these objections, I'm going to cover them in a minute, right. But I want to say a few more things about truth statements here. So what we're having you do is we're having you acknowledge your humanity and your imperfection. Because what should that statements do is they put an ideal, like an ideal picture in your mind of what you should be like. And it's a picture of perfection. So you should be perfect, you should be perfect, wait, you should be perfect financial, you should be have a perfect career, you should have perfect emotions, you should have a perfect marriage, you should have perfect kids, you should have perfect everything. But this is fantasy. This is fantasy. Nothing will ever be perfect. At least not in your, by your definition of perfection. We can redefine perfection, with reality. And we can say what's perfect is what's real. That's a lot more healthy than the way you're going about it now redefine perfection as reality. So if it's real, it's perfect. And there's nothing to resist. If it's real, there's no need to resist it. If it's real, accept it. Okay, so turn your resistance in on itself. Here's the problem with should statements is that they make you feel obligated to do things. You're not doing things out of natural desire, but out of obligation. And then that actually feeds your resistance in life. So if you have motivation problems, this is why it also puts you out of integrity with yourself. It makes you feel conflicted, because you have to deny genuine desires that you have. Sometimes you might have a desire to eat a doughnut when you shouldn't. And sometimes you have a might have a desire to cheat on your girlfriend or boyfriend even though you shouldn't. Those, we might say those are bad desires, we shouldn't have such desires. But what's the reality? The reality is that we have these desires. So what we need to do is we need to take your picture of reality and bring it closer to reality, ideally, to the point where the picture and reality merge, and they're like this, they're a one, one to one correspondence relationship, right? But right now, that's not what you've got. Right now what you've got is you've got this super idealized cartoon caricature version of heaven of reality, and then you've got real reality. And then, of course, you've got this giant gulf between the two. And you wonder why your life is so frustrating and painful and has all this suffering. And it Well, it's because you're expecting this, but you're getting this. See? Also, when you should a lot, you make yourself angry, you're going to experience a lot of guilt, you're gonna experience shame, you're going to experience bitterness towards things in the world, because how could you not, if you expect reality to be something other than what is given to you as, of course, you're gonna feel angry, of course, you're going to feel bitter. Of course, you're gonna feel guilty when you don't live up to your own super idealized expectations of what you should and shouldn't do. To eliminate guilt, simply drop all your rules about how you should be and accept yourself as you are. And then no more guilt as possible. Also recognize that what you resist persists. So anything that you think you're resisting for some noble purpose, like, let's say you're resisting sex because of, you don't want to break up your marriage, and you're resisting food, because you don't want to be fat. And you're resisting being mean to people, because you don't want to do something bad. Okay? That's just going to keep you in resistance for the rest of your life. That means your problems will never get solved. They will never be brought out into the light of consciousness. The problem will remain submerged in your subconscious and it will keep sticking you in the sciatica form for the rest of your life. Right. And you're not going to be able to perfectly hold it back either. The more you resist the temptation for sex, the more tempted you will be, and eventually that's going to lead to a catastrophic situation. That's the reality. If you don't like it tough, that's the thing that needs to be fixed, is you not liking it. I'm not saying you're gonna like what I'm telling you. That's where the work happens. Again, it's a matter of internal versus external work. See, most people think that these problems get resolved on the outside. No, they get resolved on the inside, by biting the bullet and seeing that the only problem is the fact that you're resisting what I'm telling you know, the problem with should statements is they make you feel trapped. Like I was talking about my ex girlfriend, you know, she felt very trapped in life. Because when you have all these rules, telling you what you can and can't do that, it's like, every one of those rules is an extra ball and chain that's tied to you. And not in a good way. Because it limits your ability to be fully conscious. It's only when you have full freedom. That then you can apply full consciousness to make deliberate choices, strategic choices about how you want your life to go. When you get used to just following rules blindly, that's when you really get into trouble. And one of the big problems with that is that you now have improper motivation in life, you're now negatively motivated, you're motivated by all the things you shouldn't do. You're motivated by obligations. And to such a degree, that when I tell this to people, what I described this whole, this whole should topic to people. Then they asked me questions like, well, Leo, if I don't shoot myself to death, how do I get anything accomplished? How will I ever be motivated? I'm going to be a lazy slob. Yeah, because the only source of motivation you've known for your whole life is this improper neurotic form of motivation, which is like you kicking yourself in the ass. That's a highly neurotic form of motivation. You can't really achieve anything great in life. Through that kind of motivation, you're guaranteed to stall out. And to sabotage yourself, in those situations, you need positive motivations that I want you to start to notice. Throughout your day, as you're going through your day, I want you to notice that every time you make a should statement it's leading to suffering into pain in your life. In some way it is. Because an artificial limit that you don't really need. And I want you to notice how bad the habit is. I want you to notice that you just even when you want to stop, you still can't stop. You're really addicted. It's a terrible habit like smoking. Right? You're addicted to it. But imagine for a second a totally new paradigm for living life. So let's say that your paradigm is this moralistic should paradigm. What's the alternative? The alternative is this. Imagine for a moment that your life contains no shoulds statements anymore. And try to imagine now how you would feel in all the following areas of your life. How would you feel about the gym, about nutrition, about parenting, about finances and money, about politics, about sex, about drugs, about relationships, about your work schedule, about your career or your business? About being a nice person. How would you feel about religion? What would your attitude be towards murder, theft, rape, abuse and terrorism? Be careful here not to bring in your old paradigm and not to judge this from the old paradigm. It would be a mistake to say, well, you know, Leo, if I didn't have any should statements, that means I think terrorism wouldn't be bad. That means terrorism would be good. That means I would become a terrorist. No, that's preposterous. That would not happen. That's fucking stupid. The reality. If you want to take it to this extreme, you're talking about terrorism. What would happen if you actually adopted this paradigm that I'm telling you, and you had no short statements? When you saw terrorism, what would happen is that you would still have a negative reaction towards it if you're normal. person, you have a negative reaction towards violence, because that's how the human mind is wired. But you shouldn't have any shoulds about it right. So you wouldn't moralize or condemn terrorists. You wouldn't call them evil, you wouldn't get into a fury about it, you wouldn't get angry or pissed off, you just recognize that that's not the kind of behavior or the kind of society that you want to live in. Right? And you would probably be supportive of efforts to try to stop terrorism, you'd have no problem with those efforts. You'd want bigger police force, you'd maybe want a military presence in the area to curtail terrorism, you'd probably be okay with all that. And, and that's it. That's it, you would have no, you'd have no bitterness towards it, you'd have no self righteousness, there wouldn't be a whole ego complex about how you're better than the terrorist and how the terrorists are doing these evil acts. And how dare they, you know, what about what about Islamic Islam is creating more terrorists in the United go to this whole fury. There'll be none of that. There will just be sort of calm, cool, very kind of like rational, but grounded, common sense approach to terrorism and so on, with all these other areas in your life. Right? Not only that, but you would actually understand, you would say, oh, you know, I can kind of see the world from the terrorists perspective, I can kind of understand why they're pissed off, I can kind of understand why they're doing what they're doing. I don't agree with it, but I can kind of understand it. I mean, they are human beings, they do have human needs, I can see the factors that have led to that to happen in the world. And I acknowledge it, I accept it. That's how the world is that's what reality is. Reality should have terrorism in it because it does. And if I were to deny that I would be living in a fantasy of my own arrogant egoic. Limited. Self agenda. Prospective, see? Okay, so now let's tackle some objections, common objections to everything I'm saying. So number one is, Leo. But no, you've gone too far, you've gone totally too far. Because what you're saying is, you're saying that there are no wrong, there is no evil. But really, Leo, there are things that are clearly evil, like terrorists, and pedophiles and Hitler, and this and this and that. I don't want to waste too much time on this. Because I've talked about this in other places. The reality is very simple, is that what you call evil is the creation of your mind. Now, the acts that you attach the label evil to those acts do exist, but those acts are not evil. You may not like them, and I may not like them. But what we like or don't like, doesn't matter to reality. The reality is that these acts exist. Whether you call them evil or not, is irrelevant. What you think about them is irrelevant. They exist. Are these things really wrong? No. Because for something to be really wrong, there has to be an ego that says so. Without an ego, without a mind, there is no right or wrong. Plants and Animals do not have notions of right and wrong only humans do. The human ego has created this notion of right and wrong. Now, I'm not telling you to believe me, this is a fucking fact. Sit down and actually examine what you believe is right and what you believe is wrong. And look at where is it grounded in and you'll notice that it's grounded in your ego. Okay, I talked about other places, so I won't cover that anymore. Here. second objection is but Leo. So then how do I be good? Sounds like you're opening the doors for me to be evil here. And the answer is, you be good by following your desire. And you might say, well, Leah, but what if my desire leads me to be evil? Well, then it's going to happen anyways. You are run by your desires, not by your moralistic ideals. When are you going to acknowledge that when are you gonna become mindful that your desires run you completely? Including your moralistic ideals, you understand that your moralistic ideals are actually coming from your desires? You cannot avoid this problem. No matter how much you moralize to yourself, if you have a desire to kill someone you will and if you have a desire to rape someone you will and if you have a desire to become terrorists, you will anyways So let's stop pretending here that your morals are actually preventing you from evil. They aren't. They're actually enabling evil because you're repressing, and what you repress tends to come out in greater force. So how do you be good, you'll be good, but becoming accepting of reality, to the point where you're not angry and bitter at anyone anymore. And so now you don't need to do anything bad to people. That's how you be good. Or just follow your natural desires. For most people, their natural desires lead them to be good. If anything gets in your way, it's the moralizing. Also, notice that this idea of being good, dropped this fucking idea. That's not what life is about, is being good. This is completely artificial. This is all part of your old paradigm, drop it. Another objection people have to what I'm saying here is they'll say, Well, how, how will I get things done, Leo? Why don't I just become a lazy slob? And again, the answer is, follow your desire. You're a lazy slob now, because you keep telling yourself that you should and shouldn't do stuff. being lazy is a function of this shooting paradigm. Once you let go of that, and you accept everything that is you accept all your natural desires, you will have tons of valuable high quality, high consciousness desires that come up within you, these desires will lead to positive motivation, you will genuinely be passionate about things and those things. Now you will follow those things. And now you will have authentic motivation. And now you will get more done than you could have possibly imagined in your old paradigm. And it will come effortlessly. You won't need to work or grind it out. It will come effortlessly, because you're following your passions. But to follow your passions, you need to first let go of all the rules, because the rules tell you oh, well, you can't be passionate about this. And you shouldn't be passionate about that. And this desire here is wrong. And of course, when you grew up your whole life, everybody telling you all your desires are wrong. You're so disconnected from your authentic desires. The now it feels like you can't trust yourself and you can't trust your desires. You might not even feel like you have desires. You do have desires. But you're not gonna realize them until you let go of this shooting paradigm. That's very, very important. It's very important for you to get this one. The next objection is Billy Oh, aren't you contradicting yourself? aren't you telling me now that I should, I should do what you're saying. And I, you know, I should stop shooting on myself. And I should stop saying all these things. And I should stop moralizing? No. Again, to see what I'm saying from that perspective is coming from the old paradigm. My point is not to really tell you to never shoot again. My point is to tell you is to accept yourself more and to change paradigms. And when you apply what I'm telling you don't apply it in a moralistic fashion. So I don't want you to wake up in the morning and tell yourself Well, today, I shouldn't make any short statements. That would be to totally misunderstand what I'm saying. You need to change paradigms to the point where you wake up in the morning. And then a thought comes up such as I should have woken up earlier today. You notice it because you're mindful and conscious. You notice it and you say ah that's a short statement. Oh, well. Yeah. What are you going to do? Sometimes I should sometimes I make a silly short statement. I know I shouldn't. I kind of know that. It's hurting me in the long run. But you know, I can't control myself. Sometimes I'll make a short statement. Oh, well, On we go with the rest of the day. It's a sort of laws a fair attitude, right? You're chilling out rather than becoming neurotic. So I'm not contradicting myself here. Another common objection is, well, Leo, what about making reality better? So it sounds like you're you know, you're saying that we shouldn't make reality better, we should just accept everything that is so what would have happened if we accepted slavery, and we accepted the Nazis and we accept the terrorists and we accepted you know, religious ideologies and we accepted wrong scientific models. What if we accepted all this stuff? What would happen I mean, society would self destruct it would be chaos. Know, again, that's to miss interpret what I'm saying here. First, you accept reality. then your desires, whatever those are, you follow those, and they will naturally lead to change and to the making of a better reality. You see? So how do you make reality better? Well, if there's slavery, you acknowledge that there's slavery, you acknowledge the reality you don't resist it. And then if you have a natural desire to end slavery, you follow it authentically. And you're very effective and you stop slavery. See? How do you make reality better? If there are Nazis around? Well, you accept the Nazis. You acknowledge it as a reality. And then if you deem it necessary to go to war with them, you go to war with them. But here's the difference. You don't call them evil? You don't build a whole worldview where you demonize them. You just acknowledge that? Hey, you know, I don't like Nazis. I don't want to live around Nazis. I don't think the world is a good place with Nazis in it. Not in any moral sense. But just, you know, it's not a it's not a pleasant place. When people are getting sent to gas chambers. That's not the kind of world I want. So yeah, I think it's worthwhile to maybe go to war with these people. And to stop them. Okay, fine. Do it that way. So you can make reality better. And the same applies to your life, right? So you might say to like, well, Leo, how do I lose weight? How do I drop 50 pounds. If I don't tell myself, I should stop eating donuts. And I should, should go to the gym. Well, you completely change paradigms, you let go of those shoulds. And you get in touch with your authentic desire to be healthy. Rather than all these obligations, when you get in touch with your authentic desire to be healthy, you will naturally naturally effortlessly desire to go to the gym, you will effortlessly put down the donut, you won't need to fight yourself, it won't be like, Oh, I have the door in my hand. And now I have to like hold back, I have to hold back from putting it in my mouth. It won't be like that. It will be just like, oh, donut. That's disgusting. Why would I put that in my body? That's the mature, healthy, non neurotic version of health. Right? And you will never by the way, you will never keep your 50 pounds off. You will never accomplish that goal through this neurotic should paradigm that you're using now it's never going to happen. Even if you lose the 50 pounds, you'll gain them back in a couple of years, you will because you can't should on yourself forever, at some point that that system is inherently out of integrity. It's inherently going to break down it's only a matter of time. So making reality better is in abled by dropping your shifts enabled. Another common question people have is well, okay, Leo. So what about my kids? Should I stop telling my kids that they should do stuff and shouldn't do other stuff? Well, first of all, notice that you're still part of that paradigm of shooting. So drop that. How do you raise your kids? Base Basically, first of all, fix the shooting paradigm and yourself. When you stop shooting yourself? Only then will you be able to stop it with your kids. Is it a Good Idea to stop shooting with your kids? Yeah, it probably is. If you want healthy, emotionally mature kids. Because if you shoot on them all the time, then you're going to become neurotic. Now you might say well, Leo, how do I set boundaries and rules? Notice, I did not say that you can't set boundaries and rules. This is a subtle distinction, but it's very important. Listen to this. So let's say I have kids, I don't have kids, but if I have kids, I probably wouldn't want them doing drugs. Okay. So there's two ways to go about that. One way is I say you shouldn't do drugs, because drugs are bad. Yada yada, yada, yada yada. Kids shouldn't do drugs. Never do drugs, don't touch drugs. They're dangerous and they're bad. I could do that. Or what I could do is I could say I don't want you doing drugs. here here's the problems with drugs. Here's some of the benefits of drugs. Here's some reasons why drugs are done. If you do drugs When you're very young, that could screw up your whole life. Now go do whatever you want to do. That would be the more mature adult way to raise kids, right? Notice, notice the honesty here. It's basically just a fact, matter of honesty. Because if I tell them that they should never do drugs, I'm basically lying to them. lying to them, I'm presenting a one sided version of this option that they have. Right? The fact is that they could have legitimate reasons for wanting to do drugs, they could, now you make that decision for them, you're denying them their their freedom to live consciously, right? When you give yourself your kids a bunch of rules their whole life, that means you don't train them to make decisions, you don't train them to be wise, they just follow your stupid rules. And then eventually, those rules. Teach them that the only way to live through life is by following rules, and that there's no other way. When in fact, the way you want to live life is consciously let your kid make important decisions. And be honest about the fact that if you don't want them doing drugs, that's, that's your opinion. So I don't want you doing drugs that's very different from you should not do drugs, because when you tell them you should not do drugs, that makes it seem as though it's wrong, as though it's like breaking God's commandment. When that's not what it is. The reality is, if you're fucking honest with yourself, is that you as a parent are paranoid, overly paranoid about protecting them. And so now, because of that, you're overreacting, you're being over protective, and you don't want them ever doing drugs. That's the reality. That's your problem to deal with, not your kids problem. Okay. So that addresses the problem of with kids. Now, another objection here. And this brings forth an important distinction we have to make this other objection is something like well, Leo, you know, in your other episodes, you give us various kinds of advice. And sometimes what you do is you moralize to us. And you tell us, Oh, you should you should meditate, and you shouldn't do that thing there. And you know, you shouldn't judge people and you should, and you should do this and you should go for enlightenment, and you shouldn't state you're in your bad relationship. Yes, sometimes I use the word should. So we have to make an important distinction. The important distinction is the word itself is meaningless. It's not important. What's important is the intent and the belief behind the word. So, you know, in common language, the word should and shouldn't, is used automatically, very commonly, you probably say it 100 times a day. Saying it isn't the problem so much. So if you just remove the words from your vocabulary, that itself is not the solution here. The solution is actually to stop setting the rule, it's the rule behind the word of the problem. Do you actually believe that you should? Or shouldn't you actually believe that it's like a moral imperative? You actually believe that this is a law of nature, or a love of humanity or something like that? You? Do you give it that kind of weight or importance? That's what's important. So yeah, sometimes all contradict myself in the sense that I'll, I'll tell you in some episodes future episode, I'll tell you, you shouldn't. I don't know. You shouldn't judge people. But when I say that, I'm not really being serious about it. Right? It's like I'm not putting that kind of weight behind it. I don't literally mean that. If you judge people, then you're doing something wrong in some absolute sense. I'm saying you should stop judging people in the sense that in the context of self actualization, if you want to self actualize, which is kind of our, our joint effort here is what we're all trying to accomplish here. It's kind of the theme of of this work. So if you want to self actualize, and you want to be happier, and you want yada yada yada, then you shouldn't judge. You see? But hey, if you don't want to self actualize, don't. Most people don't and that's fine, that's fine. No one has to self actualize. I'm not forcing you. There's no moral imperative to you're not going to be a better person. If you self actualize. You're not going to be superior. You're not going to be more godly. Nothing like that. Right it so. So keep that distinction in mind. It's not the words, it's the it's the kind of the the seriousness behind the words. Also be careful about misinterpreting me. So if anything I ever say you use as an excuse to be a victim, or to not take action, that means you misinterpreted me. Nothing I ever say, will enable victim thinking, everything I say, is the exact opposite of that. So if you ever interpret it that way, then you're wrong. Okay? Also be careful to not misinterpret me as saying that there are no consequences for action. There are grave consequences for action. So when I say that, for example, you shouldn't cheat on your spouse. Or I mean, when you say that, and then I say you should cheat on your spouse because it happens. And then you use that as, as some, you know, notion comes to you and such as like, well, if Leo says I should cheat on my spouse, then you know what, I'm gonna go cheat on my spouse, and there's gonna be no consequences. No, that's not what I'm saying. If you go cheat on your spouse, then most likely what's gonna happen is the divorce will happen. And maybe even your spouse will cut your dick off. Okay, so there are consequences. And you know what, when your spouse cut your deck off for cheating, that should happen too. So you have to be very nuanced here with how you interpret what I say nothing that I said in this episode, in any way justifies anything at all. What I'm doing is I'm removing the justification from all your actions, to the point where you now act from authentic desire, from authentic motives. It's a form of being authentic. It doesn't allow you to justify anything. So if you tell yourself something like, Well, you know, today, I'm not going to go to work, because Leo told me that going to work well, I thought I shouldn't go to you know, I thought I should go to work. But now Leo told me that I shouldn't go to work. So I'll just sit at home on my ass and not go to work and not going to any consequences. And it's all justified. But what Leo said, No, that's a gross misunderstanding of what I said. You have no justification for anything, is what I'm saying. And there's no destiny. There's no destiny here. So be careful about that. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Should you go to work? Or shouldn't you go to work? Well, we will know when we get there. So when tomorrow comes, and we come and look at your house and see if you're in it, when you're supposed to be at work, and you're in it, or you're at work, that's when we'll know what should have happened. We can't know ahead of time, what reality has up its sleeve, so to speak. Okay, so what I'm talking about here is not a form of destiny. It's actually the opposite is the form of total freedom. Follow your desires, trust your desires and do what you want to do. And that's the best you can do. You can't do better than that. If you think you can supplement that with a layer of rules to keep you hemmed in from doing all the dangerous evil stuff, that's not going to be a better paradigm that's going to be only worse, that's gonna lead to all the problems that come with that. Also, as a warning. This is a rather advanced technique. You may not be ready for this. So right now, if the only thing that's keeping you from cheating on your spouse, is a rule that says I shouldn't cheat on my spouse. If that's the only thing that's keeping you in line, then you know what? I would say probably hang on to that rule. Because you're not ready yet. The things I'm talking about to implement this new paradigm requires growth requires conscious requires mindfulness, right. It requires a certain trusting of your intuition. A certain trusting of your desires is the only thing that's keeping you from going to school and shooting the place up. Because you're so pissed off at everybody is over. rule that says that that's morally wrong, then keep that rule. Because you're in such a weak and fragile state that you're not ready to move on, right? Do some more basic kind of therapy work to get over that. So you don't have these kinds of desires to fucking murder people and rape people and cheat on people. These are neurotic desires. So be careful about that take full responsibility for applying what I'm saying here. Nothing that I'm saying here should be used to commit atrocities, automate, even to manipulate people don't use this town to justify your lying, and your swindling and your cheating and all the secret stuff that you've been wanting to do your whole life. Don't use what I'm saying as a justification for that. Take responsibility for the fact that you had those desires. And you had them before I even spoke to you. How do you apply what I said, to apply what I said, start doing it in baby steps. I don't recommend that you just completely wipe away every rule you have in life. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, firstly, just become mindful, become aware of how many rules you have of these short statements. Then slowly start questioning the ones that are probably not going to make or break your life, right. Like for example, you have a should statements something like I shouldn't eat doughnuts. Well, that's not going to make or break your life, you can play around with that one, play around with it. See, see what happens when you can get rid of that one. What you might notice is that you actually take a step backwards, not forwards. When you drop the rule, I should not eat doughnuts, what might happen initially for the first month is that actually you eat a bunch of doughnuts, and you get fat. But your friggin eyes that this wasn't a failure. This is part of the growth process, you learn by fucking up. So be okay with that. That's what it takes to move up to the next paradigm. Now, you probably of course, don't want to make major fuck ups in your life. So if you have a rule in place, such as like, go cheat on my wife, and you want to play with that rule. I don't recommend you play with that rule. Because that's more of a serious rule. And if you fuck that one up, you're probably going to do something that you're going to regret. And then you might come back and blame me for it say, well, Leo, look, look what you did, you ruined my life. So start with little things, build your trust with the little things like I should put the toilet seat down. Start with that one. That's an innocent one, the stakes aren't high. And then when you can trust yourself there, move to the next one to the next one. The next one is ultimately after years of work, you can fully embody this, and then you're completely free, completely conscious, you can completely trust yourself. This process here that I'm sharing with you is a process of loosening the reins, because right now what you want is like horse, your horse with blinders on and you've been needing to be kicked in the ass your whole life with spurs sharp razor sharp spurs, were kicking your ass to get you to move and to go and to obey. And a whip was used on you. And now what we're doing is we're taking this horse that was completely taken out of his natural environment. And now we're slowly removing the blinders, removing the reins, removing the whips, removing all this stuff. And we're teaching the horse to function in a natural setting again, like it would in the wild. And at first the horse is uncomfortable with that. At first, the horse isn't very motivated. It might take steps backwards, it might be lazy. It might stumble, right. But eventually it'll get back in touch with its natural desire, its natural motivations, and it will become authentic and it will become free, fully free. So this is the process of learning to trust yourself. And the way that you build trust with yourself is not in one giant leap. But through baby steps. Start with the foundation of there is nothing that I should do. There's nothing that I should do. I'm just going to do the things that feel authentic and write to me. And I'm going to trust myself in that and start there and kind of build up and see where you can apply that in your life. You'll find many places slowly you'll start to apply it more and more and more. So I want to finish up with with The, with an exercise for you. Okay, I would like you to do is pull out a pen and paper. And I want you to write down your top 50 most common should statements could be should statements or should not statements. So stuff like, I shouldn't eat donuts and I should put the toilet toilet seat down and I shouldn't smoke too much pot and I shouldn't masturbate. I shouldn't cheat, write all those down, then what I want you to do is to flip each one of those around. So everything I just said, flip it all around. So I should eat doughnuts, and I shouldn't put the toilet seat down. And I should cheat on my spouse. And I should masturbate and so forth, right. And just notice that, be conscious of this as you're doing it. And then throughout your day, tomorrow, and the next week or the next week, just be more mindful of all the shoulds you make throughout your day. Notice how when you create these statements, and you tell yourself, I should do this, or I shouldn't do that. Notice how that creates guilt creates resistance, it creates lack of integrity, it leads to laziness, and all these other problems. Okay, that's your assignment. This is a long episode because I cover a lot of stuff. There's a lot of objections, a lot of complexity to this. It's a whole paradigm, which is why I've spent so much time covering all these different angles. It's not easy to talk about this stuff in this way. We're bringing together many concepts here from other episodes, we're bringing here to this mind, open mindedness. You need radical open mindedness to be able to grasp this new paradigm. We're bringing in the concept of mindfulness, you need mindfulness to be aware of when you're making short statements, you also need to be mindful of how your ego plays into this thing. We're bringing the concept of the ego, this idea that you need to surrender that you're gonna watch out for the ego, and that your ego is distorting your views of reality and what you think should and shouldn't be real. Your ego is preventing you from seeing reality as it really is. We're bringing the concept of acceptance and self acceptance, accepting yourself and accepting the world. That's an important concept in the self actualization work, we're bringing this concept of counter intuitiveness and paradigm shifting. And we're bringing the concept of truth. This idea that the world should be as it is, that's ultimately truth. And to really, really fathom that, you have to be interested in discovering the truth for yourself not as the belief but actually digging in introspecting, seeing what's true, that has to be something you desire, something that you're sort of passionate about, and willing to commit time and effort towards. And lastly, I just want to mention, notice the practical power of enlightenment. I haven't talked about enlightenment much. But if you're following me, you know, I like to talk about enlightened sometimes. And sometimes you might wonder, well, enlightenment, it's a very lofty, you know, faraway notion about the nature of existence and so forth. What does it have to do with my day to day life? Well, this whole shift in paradigm is all founded upon seeing reality accurately, without distortion of your ego, which is basically enlightenment. This is an enlightenment truth. This whole idea of stopping shooting, this is a truth that stems from the deepest possible source. So one thing that I want you to notice is that even though enlightenment seems like a very abstract, philosophical sort of thing, actually, when you start start working towards it and tapping into it, you will discover wisdom and insights that are profoundly practical, that will create a trickle down or ripple effect that can not affect your everyday life, the way you relate to people the way you talk to yourself. Your motivation levels, your integrity, things like guilt and shame and fear and anger, all these things will be affected by the truth. The truth here is is your ultimate savior. So, notice that all right, that's it. I'm done signing off. Go ahead, click the like button for me. Please post your comments down below. Share this episode with friend and lastly, come check out actualized. Org right here. This is my website, I have a newsletter on there that helps you stay on track with self actualization. This work is very powerful. It can be very exciting at first when you start doing it and very eye opening. But what inevitably happens that you fall off track very, very easily you forget, you get sucked back into old patterns. So, the solution to that is to stick around, sign up, watch a new episode every single week, learn more and more and more and more. As you learn more as you start to apply some of these exercises that I gave you and so forth. Your life will start to transform your whole perspective on life will transform in amazing ways. So I'm excited to help you along that journey. If you just signed up. Alright, do that and I'll see you soon with more.