This week, I’ve been watching Jordan Peterson on youtube.  When I went to college and obtained my BS in Psychology (pun intended), his lectures were the ones I really wanted instead of the ones I got at my college.  One of the segments I watched is on how to pick friends.  Friends are the ones who actually listen to you when you’ve got bad news to tell them, without judgment.  Friends are the ones who celebrate with you when something incredible happens, instead of talking about something that happened to them 3 years ago, or otherwise downplaying the good thing.  The “friends” you don’t want are the negative ones.  They are the ones who are constantly miserable and constantly making you miserable when you’re around them.  Why would you choose to have a person like that in your life?

I thought to myself, I wonder what other fields of knowledge I can apply that concept of choosing not to be miserable in?  So, the first thing I do, is give it the acid test.  The best way to feel miserable I know of, is to believe in Near Term Human Extinction.  I mean, let’s face it.  If humans go extinct within the next 50-100 years due to extreme habitat loss (i.e. they starve or suffocate to death), there is not much meaningful progress that the human race as a whole could possibly achieve, much less you, you worthless eater and heat producing individual.

When you take people’s meaning away, they experience a large amount of existential angst, in general.  You have to understand, though, that not everybody derives their meaning from human progress.  In fact, a great chunk of people don’t.  If you’re a Christian who believes the rapture could happen any minute, and you’re still around and doing great stuff?  Your meaning comes from a different place than outcome based surroundings.  A lot of people with higher IQs than you have contemplated the meaning of life in the face of certain destruction for many tens of thousands of years.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could hear their thoughts on the matter?  Well, due to the internet being a bigger force multiplier on information exchange than Gutenberg’s press, you can!  You can read all kinds of old books online for free, or not for free, at any time or place that is wifi enabled.

So, here you are, facing certain doom (again).  Can you choose not to be miserable?  Well, yeah.  Tons of your ancestors, and tons of childless people managed to successfully do it in the past, so we know for certain that it can be done.  You know what?  You can do even better than choosing not to be miserable.  I mean, that’s a pretty low bar.  You can choose to be satisfied.  You can choose to be your best self.  It’s a bit of a cliché, but what else have you got control over?  Not the climate, that’s for sure.  You can’t even control your local politicians!  What makes you think you can control the vast majority of the politicians on the entire planet plus every single banker and transnational corporate CEO?  What are you, some kind of control freak?

Obviously, being a control freak was an adaptive response to something or other in nature, or we would not have so many of them around!  However, the point remains, that your locus of control remains in your self.  Then you think to yourself, gosh, I can’t even control myself.  Look at what I eat!  Look at what I weigh!  Look how much I don’t exercise and procrastinate from doing the things I need to do but don’t want to do!  What the heck does this have to do with climate change, anyway?  Ah, there you go again.  Being your best self isn’t about controlling the planet.  It never was.  It was always about choosing not to be miserable.

It’s hard not to be miserable sometimes.  If you’re a stay at home mom, nothing you do is ever acknowledged externally.  Nobody will tell you “good job!” and mean it, because you did the laundry, but didn’t manage to fold it yet, and you somehow managed to get everybody fed, but didn’t wash all the dishes yet.  If you are motivated by extrinsic motivations like people telling you that you did a good job?  Stay-at-home motherhood is going to be one very depressing experience for you.  So what are you going to do about it?

You’re going to decide that it is worth it.  Figure out what it is that motivates you.  Is it smiling children?  Well, that’s a problem then, because children don’t smile from approximately 9 years old until maybe 22 years old.  That’s still an extrinsic motivation, controlled by somebody other than you.  To illustrate better, intrinsic motivation is wanting to be honorable and productive, and extrinsic motivation is wanting to be seen as honorable and productive.  It is character versus reputation.

When you are intrinsically motivated, then you can face Near Term Human Extinction, just as your ancestors did, and choose to be your best self instead of collapsing in a puddle of existential despair because no progress will ever be made.  You can also face the sleepless nights and endless diapers of raising babies without collapsing in a puddle of existential despair because no progress in your friendships or career will ever be made.  What kind of person do you want to be?  Hardworking?  Smart?  Honorable?  Compassionate?  A lazy bum?  A genocidal politician?  You still have all of those options, and more!  Even if you, the individual, will die tomorrow, next decade, in thirty years, or whatever.  Everybody dies eventually.  Face that, and choose not to be miserable.