488 | Nontransactable Goods

The Minimalists are joined by Dr. Orion Taraban to talk about loyalty, respect, grace, love, friendship, forgiveness, desire, honesty, and other nontransactable goods. Discussed in this episode: How can I stop clinging to the good relationship memories from the past if they make me feel miserable now? (2:35) When is loyalty no longer worth it? (23:52) Listener tip: Sensory sensitivity is linked to overstimulation. (55:41) Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  You're listening to the Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and TK Coleman, recorded live at Earthing Studios in sunny California.

• 0:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, the sun is somewhere above those clouds, Malibu.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Very overcast today.

• 0:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hello, everybody. Today, we're talking about loyalty and respect and grace and love and friendship and forgiveness and other non-transactable goods. Joining us in the studio to answer your questions is Dr. Orion Taraban. Dr. Taraban is a clinical psychologist and the creator of PsychHacks, a popular podcast and YouTube channel devoted to relationships and personal development. He is also the author of The Value of Others. Coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about clinging to the good relationship memories from the past that make him feel miserable in the present moment. And then we've got a question about when loyalty is no longer worth it.

• 1:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip. You can check out the maximal edition of episode 488. That's the full three-hour excursion. We had quite the conversation with Dr. Orion Taraban. You can check that out on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to episode 001. That is a full Decade of podcast archives. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck.

• 2:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you. Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording to [email protected]. Our first question today is from Connor.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  Hey, minimalists. My name is Connor and I'm a Patreon subscriber as well as a member of Orion's online community, The Captain's Quarters. So recently I read the book, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, and was deeply affected by a section in chapter six where he discusses the idea of spiritual blockages called samskara's in the yogic tradition. Basically, a samskara is a pattern of energy that is stuck in our hearts and blocks our ability to be present, to live with an open heart, and to let energy freely flow through us. Singer describes that there are two kinds of samskara's, negative ones, which are caused by negative experiences, and perhaps in the West, we call this trauma, and positive ones, which are caused by positive experiences, and perhaps in the West, we call this nostalgia.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  My question is about letting go of positive samskara's stuck in my heart. A couple of years ago, I was in a very intense, two-year-long relationship with a woman diagnosed with BPD and bipolar disorder, whom I was deeply in love with and immensely attracted to. Our relationship was a roller coaster. The lows felt so low, but the highs felt so high. Though it's been over for more than a year now, and I have done a lot of processing and moving on, I still find myself clinging to the memories of the manic highs we experienced together. Spur of the moment road trips, wild sex, you're my soulmate type conversations, etc. I've come to recognize these positive memories are samskara's, which are blocking my ability to be fully present and live with an open heart.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  My question is, do you have any advice for how to let go of positive some scars and allow them to pass through? It's easy to rationalize how to let go of negative memories, but it's much harder to rationalize how to let go of positive ones. Thank you for your time and attention, Connor.

• 4:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Dr. Tara Ban, I wanted to start with this question. What a great question.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  It's a great question. Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard that one before.

• 4:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And what's fascinating here, I wanted to talk to you about non-transactable goods. And you and I were going back and forth. We actually had lunch and we were talking about this a bit, about how maybe friendship is a non-transactable good. Maybe love is a non-transactable good, maybe loyalty. And then I asked you for some other examples, and one of those was desire. And that's where we are right now with this question. There's a particular kind of desire here. But before we get into that, can you talk about what is a non-transactable good?

• 4:59Speaker 04

  Sure. So my book, The Value of Others, lays out what I call the economic model of relationships, which attempts to explain why people get into all kinds of consensual voluntary relationships. Business relationships, friendships, but also primarily in the book, romantic or sexual relationships. And the argument I make with respect to that is everyone is basically trying to secure the best possible relationship with their perceived best option. Now, that seems to be a fairly timid axiom to begin with, right? But that means that at the heart of human coupling is the perception of value, perceived best option, right? So to understand relationships, we need to have a lens of psychology, because we have

• 5:42Speaker 04

  to talk about perception, which is actually a very complicated cognitive act, and value, which has to do with economics and the transaction of that value. And basically, what I argue is that people enter into relationships to exchange unequal goods of comparable value. And when that doesn't happen, for whatever reason, no relationship exists. Now, this, I think, explains the vast majority of human relationships on the planet, but it can rub some folks the wrong way. And generally, the biggest, most common criticism I get of this model is, oh, Ryan, how heartless, how cynical, how jaded must you be? There are so many things that are good about relationships that you can't transact, you can't buy or earn.

• 6:26Speaker 04

  Things like love, things like loyalty, things like friendship. Who hurts you, my friend? And... I have a whole chapter in the book, Chapter 9, devoted to addressing this criticism. And I basically call these things like love and friendship and loyalty, non-transactable goods. Because not only do people not trade those things for relationships and other resources, they can't. Because as soon as you try to exchange love for something in return, it's no longer love. It's transaction disguised as love. So I have this whole category of great human qualities that are kind of outside the economic model. And basically, I come to the conclusion that you don't need relationships to experience

• 7:11Speaker 04

  and to give these non-transactable goods. That non-transactable goods are true gifts, in the sense that they come without any strings attached. They're given out of the free and spontaneous will of the giver, for as long as the giver would like to give them. And it doesn't expect any form of reciprocity. So, these are often given to others for their own inscrutable desires, for as long as they desire to do so. And they can't receive anything in return, and they can't make the giving contingent on receiving value or resources. Otherwise, you've cheapened those things to the point of becoming transactable goods, which defeats the whole purpose.

• 7:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So the tagline of the minimalist is, "Love people and use things because the opposite never works." And there's something about the transaction side of things, you're right, it does rub people the wrong way. Relationships do happen to be transactional, at least on some level, but often relationships can come accompanied with these non-transactable goods. Now TK, it's fascinating, you and I were having a conversation a couple of weeks ago, we knew we were preparing for this episode, and you're like, "Hmm, I wonder if there's any such thing as an actual non-transactable good." And maybe, maybe love, or maybe friendship, maybe even those things at some level are transactable. What were you saying there? Because I sense a sort of split between you and Dr. Terabam, but I imagine there's also

• 8:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a détente here in your philosophies.

• 8:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, not a split in the sense that, "Hey, I can have a debate on this because that's where I come down," but only in the sense that I'm still wondering, I'm thinking out loud about this. So- There's definitely a distinction between the non-transactable and the immeasurable. Right? We can say there are some things that are so difficult to measure that practically speaking, it would be a waste of our time to try to define the exact point at which a pile of sand or a grain of sand becomes a heap of sand, right? At the same time, that doesn't mean that the realities don't exist. We know that at some point, if you keep adding grains of sand, you will eventually get to a heap. And my inability to define at what point it becomes that doesn't negate the underlying

• 9:22Speaker 05

  reality. And so it could very well be the case that there is a transactable component at play when it comes to things like love, or honesty, or desire. It's just that pragmatically speaking, it will be a waste of time to try to quantify them, to try to define them, and try to say exactly at what point this becomes that. And we see some foreshadowings of this in the way we deal with transactable goods. Even when it comes to transactable goods, apart from me buying a product from you at a set price, we often find that by spelling out the transaction, a little magic is lost, and we don't feel as good about it. So for instance, we know that we want our politicians to be positive. We do not

• 10:04Speaker 05

  want our politicians to say, hey, look, the economy is totally wrecked. Nothing's gonna get fixed during my time, and it's gonna be a long, ugly process towards getting things right. We know that that's the truth, and we know that if he spoke to us in that way, that's the truth. But we also want him to play the game a little bit. And we also want him to talk to us in a certain way, right? And so when we go on dates, when we have friendships, there's a magic that's lost if we're always spelling out the game, saying, hey, you know, I'm just doing this because I know you would do the same thing for me, right? It's like, oh, I know it, but when you spell it out, it's kind of like, I know you have to use the bathroom to live life, but I don't want to be there when you're doing it. I don't want to know about it specifically. I don't want to understand the particulars. I just want to know it in theory.

• 10:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And by the way, I don't care if I found out that TK has never used the bathroom in his life. I'm gonna be fascinated by it. But it doesn't measurably change my, my life in any way. Now, let's, let's get to the heart of the question here, because I see this component of desire. What about desire TK? Is desire a non-transactable good? Or can desire be transacted? I ask this question because it feels to me that like, if I could pay you to desire me more, then it kind of ruins the desire. It's no longer desire.

• 11:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's an old saying, you can't negotiate genuine desire. And I agree with that. I believe that. You can negotiate behavior, which is maybe outwardly indistinguishable from desire. I can pay you to follow me around. I can pay you to act in all the ways that a friend would act, based on how I can delineate that in a contract. But can I pay you to desire me? I don't think I can do that. I can influence you to desire me by maybe changing my behavior, by influencing your outlook on life. But I don't think desire is the sort of thing that I could simply buy.

• 11:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, Dr. Tereban, I get to Connor's question here. And I think it's great that he supports us on Patreon. He's also part of your membership club as well. And so there's some overlap here. And where he's struggling ultimately is there's something about the past. There's a clinging to the past. Like almost these good relationship memories that kind of make him miserable in the present moment. And we often hear that comparison is the thief of joy. But I think the opposite of that is true, that joy can be the fire extinguisher for comparison. When you experience joy, you start forgetting about those things you were clinging to from the past.

• 12:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So if we're talking to Connor head on, what insights do you have for him?

• 12:39Speaker 04

  It's a good question. And it's one that I've had to resolve personally over the course of my relationship history. And it makes me think of the work of Marsha Linehan, who I have a great deal of respect for. She's a therapist who invented dialectical behavior therapy, which is, in my mind, the only empirically validated treatment for borderline personality disorder. So it's a very comprehensive philosophically oriented therapeutic modality. I have a lot of respect for it. It's really cool. She has this whole module on emotional management and emotional regulation. Basically, we can't really impact emotions directly. There are two handles that we can kind of leverage change in the emotional realm.

• 13:21Speaker 04

  There are thoughts and our behaviors, and we can kind of influence how we feel indirectly through thoughts and behavior, which we do have more direct control over. And in this module, she goes over all of these emotions. It's like, if you're feeling anger and you don't want to feel it anymore, here are some things you can do. If you're feeling envy and you don't want to feel it anymore, here are some things that you can do. The vast majority of the emotions are negative, but then you come to love.

• 13:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hmm.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  And you think, well, what is love doing in there? And Marcia basically makes the argument that sometimes it's inappropriate to continue to love somebody. This is her words that I'm summarizing. And that it could be that that love is binding someone to a toxic or an abusive relationship, that that love is closing out your heart so that you can't move forward into a new relationship that might actually serve you better.

• 14:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:11Speaker 04

  And this is really hard, because what she argues throughout that module is to get rid of any emotion, you basically want to do the opposite action to the behavioral impulse inside of that emotion. And so, the behavioral impulse inside of love is to adore, is to cherish, is to remember. And the opposite action is to denigrate and to forget. And that's a tough sell for people, because there are folks who, even though the relationship was over years ago, have built an altar in their hearts. They keep a candle burning, which is a religious metaphor for these folks. And I think that's because, even though the relationship is over, that bittersweet pain of hanging on is the last emotional tether that binds the person to the thought or the

• 14:56Speaker 04

  memory of that lost loved one. But you have to be real and understand that that's a delusion. Like, that only exists in the mind of the person that's holding on. The other person might be dead, or married, or moving on. And this person is sitting there, not even connected to the other individual, to the living human being, but to the thought, to this chimeric memory of who this person used to be. But as much as it hurts, it's like that pain is a reminder that the connection is still alive. It's the last death pang of closure in that relationship. And it's for every person to decide when it's time to pull the plug on the life support of that relationship.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  It's not something that you can force anybody else to do before they're ready. But I do think that there is a time and a place to do so. And one of the recommendations might be, I mean, Connor said it. It's like, there are many highs, but there were also lows, right? So, to actually create a list, write it down on a scrap of paper, put it in your wallet, or have it in your phone, so you can pull it out. List all of the less-than-flattering parts of that relationship, the less-than-ideal characteristics of that partner. It's gonna feel really nasty to be so one-sided. That's okay, this is an emotional survival strategy. We need to liberate you from your heartache. And every time you catch yourself reminiscing in a positive way about that relationship, block and replace.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Nope, I'm not gonna think about that right now. You pull out the list, and you force yourself to meditate on these qualities and characteristics of the relationship and the person, until you start to feel, oh, okay, yeah, I remember why that relationship ended. I'm okay now. And you might have to do that dozens of times a day, but over some days, some weeks, or some months, you'll have to do it less and less. And then you can have a more balanced perspective of that person and that relationship. And ultimately, the way to get over any relationship is to find someone and something that works better for you.

• 17:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, Dan Savage says this in a very pithy way. He says, "The best way to get over someone is to get under someone."

• 17:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But that's kind of what I mean by-

• 17:10Speaker 04

  There's some truth to that.

• 17:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The joy being a fire extinguisher for comparison, because right now, and this is why nostalgia is so dangerous, by the way, because in the rearview, all I see are the mountain tops. And I can't see the valleys from that nostalgic rearview. And you don't remember the valleys the same way. I just am selectively remembering-

• 17:31Speaker 04

  There's a word for that.

• 17:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What is it?

• 17:32Speaker 04

  It's the fading effect bias. So, negative memories seem to fade more rapidly than positive ones. Evolutionary psychologists say that humans have this so that women would have more than one child.

• 17:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, because pregnancy and giving birth to a child is such a traumatic and painful experience, that if you couldn't forget that, you'd be like, forget this, I'm never doing that again. Please don't ever touch me. Wow. So, let's get concrete for Connor here, TK. Let's talk a bit about this level of desire and maybe replacing that desire with desire. Because here's the weird thing, like, you desire someone, but I love what Peter Rowland says when he's been on this podcast. Says, "We actually don't desire other people, we desire the desire of others." And so, there could be something here where it's like, I don't, I know this relationship doesn't work,

• 18:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  but that other person desired me in a way that made me feel good, made me feel complete. And so, I'm willing to put up with the misery. I love what Orion said about creating that list of things that amplified your misery in that relationship as a constant reminder. But do you have anything practical for Connor?

• 18:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think, so I like what Dr. Orion says about the identifying those qualities that reinforce why you can't go back and why you do need to move on and look forward to something new. There's another aspect to it as well that's complementary. And that involves the same principle at work when we are having negative thoughts. So let's say you're feeling jealous of someone, or you're feeling resentful towards someone. What's the instinct there? The instinct is to say, "Oh, I shouldn't feel like this. If I were more enlightened, I wouldn't be jealous. I would just feel neutral about it." And then so we suppress the emotion, or we try to fight against it and resist it. And we reinforce it in the spirit of the old principle, what you resist persists.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  But what you can do is you can move through that emotion by allowing that emotion to serve as a teacher and tell you something very important about your values. What's right about my jealousy? What's right about my anger? What's right about my bitterness? Well, I was done, done wrong. Well, I didn't like that outcome. Well, I don't appreciate being treated like that. Well, that was something that was inconsistent with my values. And I should be upset about that to some degree. And when you uncouple it in that way, by discovering what's right about it, you're able to let go of one thing without being attached to everything that comes with it. We see this a lot when it comes to family heirlooms or inherited objects.

• 20:14Speaker 05

  If I throw this thing away, or if I give it away, I'm also giving away my grandfather. And so you have to do this exercise where you learn to uncouple those things. I can appreciate my grandfather, but separate the typewriter from his reality, from his essence, and from the memory of him. So in a similar way, positive emotions. You mentioned a few things like spontaneous trips, the wild intoxicating sex, the conversations about how you're my soulmate. It's important to understand that all of these things that you appreciate are not inextricably bound together with that partner. They are things that you appreciate because they represent some aspect of your vision for life and your values that existed before that partner, that existed during that partner, and that continues to exist after them. And so it's a little similar to like having a hero.

• 21:00Speaker 05

  You look up to them, they inspire you, and then they do something scandalous, and you go, "Oh, my gosh, my hero let me down." Well, hold on, you can be honest about that, but let's uncouple their virtues. From this terrible, disgusting thing they did, they're still intelligent. They're still an amazing artist. They're still an inspiring person. And you can hang on to that influence while still letting go of them as maybe a mentor or as a trusted ally. In a similar way, I would spend some time, in addition to the exercise where you're going over those undesirable things, and I would ask myself about those positive things, what is it about those spontaneous trips we took together that I really love?

• 21:40Speaker 05

  And what are those memories that keep haunting me, telling me about the void that is in my life that I depended on that relationship to fulfill? How can I introduce that energy apart from this person? What is it about somebody telling me that they love me and I'm the one for them that I really like so much? What is the underlying essence of that energy? And how can I seek that out or make space for that in my life in a way that's not coupled together with them?

• 22:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you might find that that underlying essence is a type of insecurity. Or you might find that it's a type of fear or a type of frustration. And so these sort of good memories you have, it's weird, I love that metaphor you use, like haunted by the good memories in a way, because these memories from the past, the good ones that I'm holding on to, actually keep me from being present here. And they amplify the negative emotions I'm experiencing in the moment. Speaking of emotions, I'd love for Connor to download TK's ebook. It's free. You can get it on the minimalists.com. It's called Emotional Clutter. I really enjoyed doing the audiobook version of that with you as well. We record like a little podcast in between each chapter, but you can download the ebook for free over at

• 22:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  the minimalists.com. Just click the resources page. We have a bunch of free resources over there that you can download, Connor. Or if you want the audiobook version, I'd be happy to send that to you as well. Now, before we get back to our callers, Alabama, what time is it?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  You know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week.

• 23:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. Now, Dr. Tara Band, I'll just remind you that during the lightning round, we try to answer questions with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. But don't worry, we have our maxims prepared. We'll let you ramble on, wander on as much as you want, because that's what we're going to do anyway. TK's here. He can't not wander on.

• 23:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  By the way, you can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com/podcast and every minimal maxim ever over at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.e-mail. We'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements, but we'll start your week off with a dose of simplicity. What is the question of the week this week, Bama?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  When is loyalty no longer worth it?

• 23:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Loyalty, another one of those non-transactable goods. Or maybe TK would disagree with that, I don't know. But before we get to our pithy answers here, I do want to hear from some of our simpletons. What do our listeners have to say, Bama?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Lauren said, "When I was younger, I thought loyalty meant be loyal no matter what. What I've learned over the years is that loyalty should be reevaluated on a regular basis, because that which no longer aligns with me, no longer deserves my loyalty."

• 24:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, let me get my pithy answer out of its packaging right away, because I thought it was perfect to talk about Lauren's comment here. And that pithy answer is this, this is my maxim. Blind loyalty creates a smokescreen between rationality and reality. In our book, Love People Use Things, I wrote about 13 overrated virtues. And I wrote that loyalty might actually be one of the most overrated of the virtues. Now, when I wrote that, people got upset because they're like, "Why are you saying loyalty's bad?" I'm like, "No, no, it's not bad. I'm just saying we might prize it a bit more than what it is worth, or we consider it more than we would consider other parts of a relationship."

• 25:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Because I think being loyal is noble, but loyalty at the expense of integrity is going to be detrimental to a relationship. So Dr. Tara Ban, talk to me a bit about loyalty. Why is it a non-transactable good? And when is loyalty no longer worth it?

• 25:27Speaker 04

  Oh, this is such a good question, and it's so complicated. So loyalty is a non-transactable good, just like all the others, because you technically can't buy or earn it. If you tried to buy loyalty, you don't really buy loyalty. You basically buy a mercenary. You buy somebody who is going to stay by your side as long as they get what they want. And we don't really respect mercenaries. We might understand their lifestyle, but they don't really inspire in us, respect, admiration. And they don't accumulate honor to themselves. Now, the quote that Bama shared is, it makes sense. Like, as a therapist, we're talking about boundaries. We're talking about making sure that you're aligned in your values with your partner.

• 26:12Speaker 04

  But on some level, that's not actually loyalty anymore. It's like, we can't be loyal until the ship starts to go down. And then you say, I'm reevaluating my relationship to this vessel. Like, no one is going to respect that. When the oncoming rush of the enemy soldiers, I'm like, I'm reevaluating my relationship to America. It's like, nobody is going to think, well, that's fair. Your boundaries were going to get crossed there in a second. So that's what makes, that's what makes loyalty and all the non-transactable goods so dangerous. Because there is no reason to withdraw them other than the free and spontaneous will of the one who gives it to begin with.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  And loyalty is a particularly tricky one, because on some level, that can't ever be withdrawn. I mean, think about Benedict Arnold. He was loyal to America. Up until the point, he was loyal to the British. Like, he was loyal the entire time. He just changed who he was loyal to, but we don't really hold him up as a paragon of loyalty and honor.

• 27:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, we've turned him into a verb of being the opposite of that.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Exactly. But he, he had to be loyal to the British. Otherwise, they would have just stuck a knife in his back, right? They wouldn't have been able to trust him to turn over the fort. So there are certain things about non-transactable goods that...

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Are really dangerous and enter people into higher forms of spiritual living. It's like, think about Jesus on the cross, which is an example that I give in the book. It's not like he's up there getting the nails pounded into him thinking, boundaries, guys. You know, it's like this is no longer aligned with my values. Like, I'm not willing to go this far. Like, he wouldn't be held up as the sine qua non of love and sacrifice if he held back. Now, that's why so many people don't actually have non-transactable goods, at least in their purest form. Like, I hear what you're saying. It's very difficult to see if it's actually possible to have non-transactable goods indefinitely

• 28:18Speaker 04

  in their pure form. I think it's more a question of proportion as opposed to quantity. And the way I think about it is this, let's take an NTG like love. I think that love is always pure. Love is like water. Water is always pure. The liquid can have impurities in it, but what is water? Water is H2O. If it's not H2O, it's not water. But the water in the liquid is always water and the water is always pure. But it can be mixed in with a lot of other impurities that make you sick. So, some people do feel and express love for others, but it's mixed in with jealousy, with selfishness, with self-interest, with resentment, with guilt. And it's our work, if we choose to undertake it,

• 29:01Speaker 04

  to kind of filter and clarify the expression of our love, so that it can become pure and pure. And not because it's good for anyone else, per se, or that we expect to get recognition or relationship or sex in return. Most likely, we're not. That's another argument I make in the book, is that the purer the expression of love, the less attractive it tends to look.

• 29:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hmm, and why is that?

• 29:23Speaker 04

  Because love is ultimately concerned with the good of the loved one. It only wants what's good for the loved one. It doesn't care about self. It's often kind of blind to self. And this creates a paradox, which is basically that the more you love someone, the more you have to surrender the possibility of a relationship with them. Because if you actually want the best for someone, then you can only legitimately want a relationship. With them, if a relationship with you is the very best thing for that person, which let's be honest, it probably isn't.

• 30:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  It probably isn't. That's why love is a tragedy. That's why romances in the classical literary sense end in death.

• 30:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Which is actually the spiritual union of the loved ones when they've transcended the separation of the living world.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  But in all the romances, I give the example of Rick Blaine in Casablanca, which is that he loved Ilsa so much that he put her on the plane with Laszlo.

• 30:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  And that was actually a larger expression of his love than if he threw Laszlo on the bus and got the girl in the end. So to actually have the love, to express it, to enter into that level of spiritual reality, you have to surrender your own self-interest. I think the same thing goes with loyalty. Loyalty is really interesting. One of the best examples of loyalty in history, this is a historical example, is the forty-seven ronin. Do you know that story?

• 31:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  Takes place in feudal Japan, and there were forty-seven loyal retainers of a lord. I think I'll try to get the details right. The lord was dealing with a really annoying, punctilious, pompous counselor of the shogun. And this counselor kept insulting him indirectly and dishonoring him. And finally, the lord couldn't take it anymore and like cut off the sash of his robe. Like, didn't even hurt the person, but just like slashed his clothing just to say, you know what, no more. But an attack on the shogun's counselor is an attack on the shogun himself. And so the lord was put to death.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  And so suddenly, there's forty-seven ronin that... Everyone is looking at them to avenge their master. And they said, you know what, we're, we're just not going to do this anymore. And they fell into dishonor. The lead Ronan became a drunk. He was sleeping in the gutters. Everyone shamed him. They kicked him when he was, you know, crawling around in the streets. He lived in ignominy for a couple of years. Until the counselor let his guard down. And he had been playing along for years. Because that counselor was really expecting the Ronan to come and get their retribution. And after four, five, six, seven years of this, he finally started to relax. And he brought all the Ronan together. They went and avenged their master.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  And then they all committed harakiri en masse. And now they're held up as one of the paragons of loyalty. Because they were willing to forgo even honor to do so.

• 32:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And if you take that in a snapshot, you may say, these are some of the most disloyal people. If you just saw the, the Tik Tok version of, of their loyalty. All of a sudden you'd say, you know what? Look how disloyal they were. And I do want to talk a bit, maybe on page two, we could talk about, I don't know what you would call them. Non-transactable liabilities, maybe. Because like, you, you have things like grief or anxiety and fear. And maybe these are like, uh, non-transactable liabilities. Jealousy is something you mentioned a moment ago. And I, I, it's something I've never experienced personally. And I want to talk a bit about that. But also, you, you, when you were talking a moment ago, the word compersion came into my mind.

• 33:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I know it's something in the ethical, non-monogamy community. It's something that is prized. It's like, hey, end of Casablanca, that is compersion in a way.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  Need to find that word? I haven't heard that one.

• 33:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, so compersion is like experiencing joy through the joy of others. And so I think the, you, you can see that when you're like in a polyamorous relationship. And you would need that level of avoiding jealousy by actually being happy for the other person. You know, to going on the plane with, with another man. Or I think it's easier to understand when you have kids and you get joy through the joy of your kids. Kids, you get to see that experience through their eyes. And your first time the kid gets on the monkey bars, like it's not a big deal to me, but it's a big deal to them. And so therefore it is a big deal to me. I I experienced that level of joy. Let's let's check in with a few more of our simpletons here. Bam, what do you got?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Sean said, there's another aspect of loyalty that needs to be looked at as well. How often do we hear people say they're loyal fans of a sports team or a particular product such as the make of a car or a computer company? I think we could benefit from continually reviewing why we're preferential to a brand or identity.

• 34:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know what, Dr. Terapan, is loyalty merely a virtuous way to say I'm preferential toward? When we when we use loyalty, is that what we often mean?

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Sure. I mean, I think we're very uncareful with our language at times. And we certainly could use a lot more words around love per se. Like, it's very confusing to just have one word for all of those things. But I give the example of loyalty in the book to demonstrate that you don't need to be in a relationship in order to express your loyalty. Is that right in this moment, there are millions of people who are loyal to celebrities, to politicians, to sports teams, to athletes. And these people have no idea that their loyal fans even exist. And if these fans were to say, I'm actually in a relationship with that politician or that celebrity, everyone would think that they were crazy. They would be delusional. And yet, that person might actually be more loyal in his heart

• 35:27Speaker 04

  or in his mind to that person than any living human being in his actual life. It's very interesting. And why did that person decide to become so loyal to that celebrity, to that team? For their own inscrutable reasons, they decided to do it. They don't expect anything in return. Could it be that there's some sort of emptiness inside of them that motivates them to become loyal to something that they actually can't ever truly relate to? There there probably is, but there might also be some wisdom to that. It's like, people need hope more than we commonly admit. And on some level, having a relationship

• 36:14Speaker 04

  You know, having relating to something that you can't actually have a relationship means that you can constantly be moving towards something. You never actually attain it, which is never as satisfying as you hope it to be. And you can constantly live in the anticipation of a future relationship.

• 36:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 36:31Speaker 04

  Which is interesting because people are disappointing.

• 36:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, that's and especially when it comes to something like loyalty. Like, I expected you to be loyalty because I was loyal to you. And that then makes loyalty a transactable sort of situation. It doesn't really work that way.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  Not at all.

• 36:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, I'm wondering here. So does true loyalty exist for the average person? And do you consider it to be a non-transactable good?

• 36:56Speaker 05

  I think true loyalty does exist. And I think, Dr. Ryan, you captured it very well when you talked about we're all loyal, but loyal to what? Maybe I'm loyal to the highest bidder. Maybe I'm loyal to some deeper kind of value, but we're all loyal. We all have loyalty. And just as if just as water is always pure, loyalty is always true. But where is it directed? And how can we improve our ability to sort of discern what another person's loyalties are anchored in before we make important decisions? I think that a part of what we despise in situations like the ship is going down and I say, you know, I'm reconsidering my commitment to the ship is because there is a sort of

• 37:38Speaker 05

  flighty, lazy kind of evaluation of commitment. And then there is a more thoughtful, critical thinking based evaluation of commitment. And that's all determined by how much do you think about it before you're in the heat of the moment? Because if loyalty is some form of commitment, even when it gets costly, you know, when I get married, you want to think about things like, hey, this person that I'm married to, they may not always look like they're like they look today. If there's an accident and they get scarred and they don't look the same, am I out? Yes or no? It's good to think about that ahead of time, right? What if there's a medical issue? And although we have dreams of having children, I discover they can't have kids.

• 38:22Speaker 05

  Am I in or am I out? Or what if they have a disability that I can anticipate? And we spend the last 30 years of our lives with me taking care of them significantly compromising. My freedom in this world, am I in or am I out? It's actually okay to answer those questions however you want to answer them. But what's important is that you think about those types of questions ahead of time. And that's the person that we tend to respect. The person who says, I was clear about this. I was honest about this. This was my boundary. I'm not making a decision in reaction to the heat of the moment. Versus the person who says, yeah, things are kind of hard. Yeah, I think I'm out. And that's when we tend to like, respect it a little bit less.

• 39:05Speaker 05

  Because that person is more loyal to whim than loyal to principle. And I think that's the key question. Are you loyal to principle or are you loyal to whim?

• 39:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's Teraband. Anything to add to that?

• 39:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, that brought up a lot in me. I think that one of the best ways that we generally measure loyalty in particular, and love and all these other non-transactable goods, is whether they're still present in the absence of anything that the giver is receiving in return. And I think that the most common example of this is when a husband or a wife stays loyal in the event of a tragic medical issue or accident. It's like, maybe the person is in a coma. Maybe the person has changed their personality irrevocably. Maybe that person can't ever provide any kind of reciprocity in any true measure ever again.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  And we certainly love hearing stories of the rare and occasional individual who does stay loyal under those conditions. They're very heartwarming. But to actually live in that state indefinitely with no hope of improvement or reciprocity for the rest of your life, foregoing all other possibilities and opportunities, is an enormous cost that most people just aren't willing to pay. And I've, I've had to learn that lesson personally. Like, one of the things, one of the relationships that taught me a lot about what I write about and what I talk about, was one of my first relationships, my first long-term relationship. It was, it started when I was 20 years old. And about five years into that relationship, the woman had a brain aneurysm.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  And she lost the ability to speak. She was aphasic for a very long time. She couldn't read, she couldn't write. And connected to that was also a significant loss of memory, because so much of our memory is encoded with language and mediated through language. And it also significantly changed her personality. Now, when this happened, when I was 25, I had made the conscious decision to stick with it. There's reasons for that, that I guess I can share. It's almost to the day, 10 years before, something very similar happened to my mother.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  And at 15 years old, it was, it was very difficult for me to deal with that at that time. And I don't, I didn't like how I showed up when that happened, when I was 15. This happened, my mother was dying, my parents were getting divorced. I had just moved to a new city. I didn't have any friends. I didn't know anybody. It was an extremely difficult time. And I dealt with it the best I could, but I, looking back, wasn't proud of how I behaved. And so this time, through some strange coincidence, the same thing was happening, or a similar thing was happening to my, my long-term girlfriend. And I said, okay, well, I'm not going to make the same mistake twice. I'm going to show up and I'm going to be loyal and I'm going to stick with this. And over the next year or two years,

• 42:10Speaker 04

  I worked with her every day to get her language back. And it was a slow but very interesting process. She was very different. It was almost like she was a child again, but not in the way that she, she still had all this deep procedural knowledge of being an adult. But because the language was removed, it was almost like she was having this unmediated experience of the here and now. So she had this like joyful connection to the present moment, which was really, really cool. So it wasn't all bad, but it was, it did take some adjustments, right?

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Now, this went on for a couple of years and I was fully expecting that at the end of this time, we would get back together and resume our life together. And I thought, okay, well, I certainly have showed that I've stepped up and I've done this. But things change. And after two years, more or less that she had healed, she told me that she wasn't interested in being in a relationship anymore. It was very heartbreaking. And, you know, at the time, I said, well, well, you know, what about all the things that I did? And I, I stayed true and I was, I was loyal. And she said, I never asked you to do any of that.

• 43:32Speaker 04

  Which was like, the deepest cut that I'd ever received in my life up until that point. Because she's right, she didn't. She didn't ever tell me to stop. She seemed to be okay with receiving that over the years. But I couldn't not because I loved her. But it taught me a lot about this, which is, there was still a part of me that was expecting or hoping that by being loyal, I would have the dream fulfilled once she had healed. And that was the adulteration of my loyalty. That was the adulteration of my love. Because I was expecting that I would receive relationship in return.

• 44:16Speaker 05

  Were you being transactional with your loyalty?

• 44:19Speaker 04

  I mean, to your, well, the point I made about proportionality, it's very difficult to have pure loyalty or pure love. And I did have to admit to myself that, yeah, there was a selfish component to what I was doing. Now, it was a good selfishness. Like, I thought that it was a lovely dream that I was having about the future and the relationship. But it was still my dream that I was working towards a fulfillment in spite of maybe her plans and expectations. So that experience caused me to look very carefully. Because this is something that you hear all the time when you're talking to, let's say, disgruntled married partners. It's the phrase like, after all I've done, generally comes up

• 45:00Speaker 04

  in these conversations. Like, I gave you the kids, I bought you the house. And all of that is, is an admission of an attempt to barter for continued relationship, sex, love, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, I gave you children in return for the expectation that you would continue to love me, or you would at least continue to be my wife, or you at least continue to be in a relationship with me. And

• 45:25Speaker 04

  That's no longer love. That's no longer loyalty. It's a really hard thing to admit, but that person was trying to use children or commitment in order to obtain other desired goods, which isn't necessarily a problem. That's what human beings do when they come together to form in relationships. But we shouldn't confuse ourselves into say that that's selfless love what you did, or that's selfless loyalty that you did. And it was an examination of that relationship that helped me to move more in the direction of loving as purely as I possibly can, which I'm sure is still not pure.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  It's very difficult to do. But I made an episode about that called Love Like the Sun, which is one of my all time favorites. And that's kind of the lesson that I learned from that relationship, which is you just have to give it. And you have to surrender any expectation that you will ever receive anything in return. And ultimately, I'm very proud of how I showed up over those years after that relationship. I'm glad that I did that. I don't feel like I wasted my time. I don't know if loving is ever a waste of time. But that said, it wasn't a happy ending for me, right? So sometimes the love and the loyalty doesn't actually lead to getting what you want. If you want to get what you want, you have to be good at negotiating. You have to have something of value. You have to be able to provide continuously

• 46:50Speaker 04

  what other people might desire. And as long as you can do that indefinitely, you'll be rich in relationships. But if you start to go down the pathway of loyalty, or friendship, or desire, or grace, I hope we can talk about that. That's a very juicy one. Then your life will definitely take a detour. It might move into a higher realm of living, potentially. Maybe that's just a judgment. But it'll take you away from what our culture and society says your life is and your relationships are supposed to look like.

• 47:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think if you pan out far enough, though, it is a happy ending, ultimately, right? And so that's the thing about when you see the movie, the rom com with the happy ending, but then you know, like, oh, they're just gonna ride off into the sunset and get into an argument tomorrow. Is that really a happy? It's a happy ending at that snapshot, but then the opposite of that is true. Like, your movie ended on a down, sort of depressing note, but then you go beyond that and it resolves to the right of the frame in a way where it's like, oh, there is a happy ending. The lessons that Dr. Orion Taraban learned from that, he brought into his practice, he's helped clients with it, he's been able to make videos and books with that wisdom. So there is a sort of happy ending.

• 48:02Speaker 04

  That's certainly true. The story never ends on some level, and whether it's a happy ending or a sad one depends on when we arbitrarily decide to stop rolling the tape. But just to, so that people don't get the wrong idea, is that, yeah, maybe this did turn out for the best. I really do think it did at the end of the day, but it didn't happen that way effortlessly. Like, it took, the other possibility is I could have turned into a really cynical and jaded and close-hearted person. I'm never gonna love again. Like, see what that got me? You know, there's tons of people in the world like that. So, and there was a constant seductive pull to move in that direction, to be honest. And it takes a long time to, to integrate those lessons and to move forward and to

• 48:45Speaker 04

  have the hard talks with yourself in the mirror and to eventually find relationships that work even better.

• 48:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 48:54Speaker 05

  You know, I wanna challenge the notion of selfless love. I'm not sure if I believe selfless love is possible.

• 48:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Wow.

• 49:00Speaker 05

  I'm not sure if I believe it's desirable.

• 49:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay.

• 49:03Speaker 05

  We may have a semantic issue, I don't know. But- One of the ways I think in which I resonate strongly with a lot of what you say is the role of economic thought in your analysis of human relationships and how self-interest plays a part of everything that we do. And this is a very contentious point because many people believe that virtue is not possible unless self-interest is absent. I see self-interest as being distinct from selfishness, whereas selfishness is the pursuit of one's well-being at the expense of other people and their rights. Self-interest is the consideration of one's own well-being and how your various choices might affect that. And so if you fail to do something or choose not to do something

• 49:47Speaker 05

  because you might lose your job or you might feel bad, that's a consideration of your own well-being. You're influenced by self-interest. And self-interest isn't just about money or physical things. So for instance, if you say, you know, I could never treat a human being like that because I just would feel bad. I couldn't live with myself. Well, that's a consideration of your own self-interest. You are thinking about how it makes you feel to be someone that you believe is a jerk and you are literally trying to protect yourself from that undesirable experience of feeling bad about the way you show up in the world. That's self-interest. I do not see love or virtue as being the absence of a desired end, but rather as having been characterized by the presence of a well-ordered end.

• 50:30Speaker 05

  That I do what I do expecting something in return because I believe in cause and effect and expecting something to result from my actions as part of what it means to be rational. However, the real question is who, where, and what do I expect it from? One of the greatest lessons my father taught me is the idea that what goes around comes around, but it doesn't necessarily come in a roundabout way. A similar way of thinking about it is you could say, we reap what we sow, but we don't necessarily reap where we sow. So here's a brother that's mistreating me and because I choose to be a person of principle, I'm going to treat that person in accordance with my understanding of what the right way to conduct myself is. That person may never appreciate me. They may never thank me. They may never express gratitude.

• 51:15Speaker 05

  They might try to exploit me and walk away bragging about how they got over on TK Coleman. Did I lose? Absolutely not. I expect something in return. I don't expect money. I don't expect something that is a perfect match to the energy that I gave out. But I expect a certain measure of inner peace. I expect a certain measure of inner transformation. I expect a certain measure of maturity. I expect a certain measure of wisdom because I know that these things are the product of orienting our desires and orienting our lifestyles in a certain way. I am literally choosing to be virtuous when I live like that, and that is a kind of reward. And so you, you, you look at someone like, my mom is in a position now where she is taking care of my father a lot.

• 52:00Speaker 05

  And I can't save her from that. She's carrying a cross. You know, he spent most of his life taking care of her. Now she's spending her life taking care of him. And I don't think she expects to get any, any kind of reward on this earth from that other than the inner sense of satisfaction of knowing that her virtue is being tested and she is choosing to live what she has preached all of these years. But there is a certain spiritual sense, you could argue, where she will be handsomely rewarded, immeasurably rewarded for this. So it's not where you sow it, but it's you do reap what you sow. And so I, I, when I look at situations like that, I, I think of like, okay,

• 52:43Speaker 05

  maybe there is an opportunity for us to say, hmm, I should be more honest with myself in the future. I shouldn't be bitter at this person. I can understand how somebody would be bitter at that person. But at the end of the day, I never lose when I love someone as purely as I can. And if I believe that it's important for me to stick with this person during a difficult season of their life because I know I can help them. Yeah, they probably won't, even if they try, be able to appreciate me in the way that I think I deserve. But that's all right because my reward doesn't come from them. Loyalty to love is life. Loyalty to hate is death. When I think about love, I don't think about sentiment. I don't think about devotion. I don't think about conviction. I think about the will.

• 53:25Speaker 05

  To do what is right by another. And when I think about hatred, I don't think you make me feel bad. You criticize me. You hurt my ego. I mean, the willingness to do right by the willingness to do wrong by me, the unwillingness to do right. And so when you are loyal to that which is life giving, even if that which is life giving doesn't always feel good, even if that which is life giving is a good friend that will tell you a truth that you don't want to hear, then that produces more life. But when you're a loyalty to something that doesn't really calculate your well being, and it's just there to run over you or make you feel bad with no desire to actually make you better, then that's the kind of arbitrary loyalty that needs to be reevaluated.

• 54:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How about you listeners? When is loyalty no longer worth it? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free, even if you don't subscribe to the private podcast. We're coming up on the end of page one here. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to. A bunch of people called in to talk to Dr. Tara Band. But first, real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. Just a few days of brand new month is here, which means it's time for the 30 day minimalism game. Maybe you can get rid of some of those transactable goods, the physical goods in your home. If you want the details of that, theminimalists.com/game. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. You could download our free calendar over there as well. If you want

• 54:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to play the 30 day minimalism game. Also on page two, maybe we could talk a bit about, are there any non transactable material goods? I think the answer to that is yes, but my answer will probably surprise you. But check in with the 30 day minimalism game. We've had 10s of thousands of people clear out their homes. It gives you an advantage to get started. You just start with one item on the first day, two items on the second day, three items in the third. The only rule is you have to get the stuff out of the house before the end of the day. But as the month progresses, it gets more and more difficult. By day 15, it's like, oh, my gosh, I gotta get rid of 15 items today. And then tomorrow or 16, you can partner up with someone in your household,

• 55:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a friend, a family member, a coworker, whomever, and play this game together. Whoever goes the longest wins. If you both make it to the end of the month, then you've both won because you've gotten rid of about 500 items. And that is a really good start. Alabama, what else you got for us?

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 55:46Speaker 06

  Hi, minimalists. This is Courtney from Ontario. I have a resource for Arianna, whose comment Malabama read out in episode 484, Conflict Frequencies. The question had been, "What is the hardest thing about being honest?" And Arianna responded that she has spent most of her life learning how to read the nuances of the people around her, figure out the best response at all times. And she said, while she's been able to overcome some social awkwardness and can mask as an extrovert, the result is that she can't stay connected to herself, the moment, or her surroundings, when anyone else is in the room, even if they're not interacting. And what came barreling into my mind the second I heard that read is that she may have high sensitivity, or sensory

• 56:31Speaker 06

  processing sensitivity is another word for it. It's a neurodivergent trait that they are finally just starting to research from a neurology perspective. It is finally being acknowledged as something that is not learned. It's biological. And there are two resources that I want to recommend. One is called Sensitive Refuge. It's a website. There's like a quiz on there and a blog, a newsletter you can sign up for. There's also a book called Sensitive, and the subtitle is "The Power of a Thoughtful Mind in an Overwhelming World." It's by Jen Graneman and Andre Solow. Not only do I think Arianna might want to

• 57:14Speaker 06

  look into these resources, but I'm sure, as a highly sensitive person myself, I know that I take a lot of benefit from minimalism because it just reduces that overstimulation. And so maybe some of your other listeners want to look into this, and maybe they've been drawn to you because of those biological traits that they have. And I just thought that these resources might be helpful.

• 57:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Courtney, thank you so much for that lovely comment. TK, on page two, I want to talk to you about, is honesty a non-transactable good? And then Dr. Terabam, I'm wondering about your insights about sensory sensitivity, or overstimulation, sensory processing disorder, as some people might call it. If anyone else has a listener tip or insight for about this episode, or any other episode, you can leave a voice memo over at [email protected]. Just email it to us there. We'll feature your voice on the show. Coming up, page two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 58:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that's like the first 29% of episode 488. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Dr. Orion Taraban, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, "When is emotional abuse grounds to leave a relationship?" "Should I let go of my inconsiderate and egocentric friends?" "Is it ever okay to keep a secret from my significant other?" "And does it make sense to stay in a miserable marriage for the kids?" Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. Big thanks to Dr. Orion Taraban for joining us today. We'll put a link to his YouTube channel and his book and his website where

• 58:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  you can sign up for his email newsletter. We'll put links to all of that in the show notes. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, who will be here in studio next week, TK Coleman, Malabama, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, Inspire Dave, Savvy D on the board, and the rest of our team. I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this: Love people and use things, because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  We'll see you next time.

• 59:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Stay non-transactable.