In which we discuss the complexities of personal values and how those inform what we should or shouldn’t do.
Recorded October 24, 2024.
Show notes and links:
Franklin Planner – Productivity Pyramid
Garbage Disposal – Wikipedia
Is-Ought Problem – Wikipedia
Is-Ought Fallacy – Texas State Univ.
Transcript:
Jump to end
[Teaser clip] I know I’m not going to do it as a value statement
There must be something else you value beyond that
That’s got to be an untapped value
To say, I value this, I should do this
That’s got to be, I think that’s the answer
I think we got it right there
You have a certain value structure that identifies what you ought to do
If you find yourself saying, I don’t want to do that
I know I’m not going to do that
Then you have to search your value structure again
There’s some higher value, some other value that is competition with that one that you’re
not recognizing consciously
[Introduction] Hey there
This is our podcast, Do You Have a Minute?
In which my dad and I dive into deep discussions about both the most profound and most mundane
questions of life
While we know we don’t have all the answers, probably none of them actually, we are opening
our minds to new perspectives and most importantly, we are having a good time in conversation
Join us as we explore the unknown together
[Main conversation] So did you have any thoughts about anything?
Have you had any thoughts in the last while?
Yeah
I have not been thinking about anything
Nothing
So we’re totally empty brains
We’ll start with the topic
What I thought we’d talk about, yeah, is what we had thought we’d talk to, would talk about
is the what do you do when you know you should do something, but you know you’re never going
to do that
You know you’re not going to do it
Yeah
So that’s what you ought to do
And I did look into the is ought problem
You’ve heard that before?
No, tell me about that
It’s David Hume, I think is who brought it up from this 16
I don’t know when it was
We could look up when it was
It’s called the is ought problem
It says you can’t take an ought from an is from a fact
You can’t take facts and identify what you ought to do based on those facts
There is no connection to those two things
So what you ought to do, are you seeing it?
Is it David Hume?
What did you find?
The Texas State University Department of Philosophy, they don’t credit David Hume, but it says
the is ought fallacy occurs when the assumption is made that because things are a certain
way, they should be that way
It can also consist of the assumption that because something is not now occurring, this
means it should not occur
The assumption of those things
So that’s just trying to connect what truth is, what truth we should be following, we
ought to be following, or what things ought to be
Some examples they have here, if nature does not make it, we shouldn’t have it
Or the electoral college is specified in the Constitution, so we can’t do away with it
Or it’s totally natural to have many sexual partners go with it
So that’s kind of the basis, that’s what I’ve heard about is and ought and what you should
do
There is no real worldly secular way to identify what you should do
That’s what this problem is
David Hume was 1739 is when he wrote this treatise on human nature
Oh yeah, it does say David Hume on Wikipedia
I wonder why Texas State didn’t
Oh, because they don’t believe in the 18th century
I don’t know
We have nothing against Texas State University, right?
We don’t know enough about them to have an opinion
I don’t know, but they apparently have an opinion against the 18th century
They don’t want to credit anybody else for their ideas, perhaps
I guess perhaps, but I don’t think that we can even
Right
Who knows what you ought to think about that
So if you get things
So the question I have then is where do our oughts come from?
Where do our wants
What’s the first question?
It was phrased not as an ought, as a if you know you should do something
Should?
If your shoulds, where do your shoulds come from?
If it doesn’t come from society or secular life, where do our shoulds come from?
How do we know what you should do?
But it does come from society
How?
Well, like if I’m in a group of people and I want to fit in with them and they say things
like well, you should wear black shirts
We’re a group that wears black shirts, so you should wear a black shirt too if you want
to fit in
And I’ll be like, okay, so that’s a should that I’m receiving from my society, right?
My community, at least
So that’s the question
The thing that you want to be a part of, that you want to be well rounded in, the should
is how are they rounded and I want to be rounded like them
That’s my should
Yeah
Yeah
It comes from what you feel you need to do to fit in
Another thing is exercise
I think that’s a wide culture thing that a lot of people are into right now
It’s all over social media
There’s people making money off of making exercising easier for other people because
we know we should exercise, but it’s hard
But you know we’re not going to do it
Easy way to do it
Right
You do the easy thing
Get a chair
Exercise on a chair
Right
Only use a chair
You don’t have to go to a gym
You don’t need a membership
That’s social stuff
Right
Yeah
So that’s, you know, if someone wasn’t deciding that we need exercise, would we exercise?
Would we get the fitness, the activity?
Would our bodies be active still, regardless of whether someone is saying you should exercise
this many hours a day, a week, you know?
You should eat right, your health, health
Yeah, health
There are recommendations for all of that
But why don’t we take, the easy one is to take the university, what is it?
Texas State, their statement of it’s right to have sex with all kinds of people
What was that?
That seems like an incendiary statement
Yeah, it’s totally natural to have many sexual partners because that’s what happens in nature
Nature world
You’ve got one bull and 500 heads, well 20, 20 or 30
Cows that they can handle
But many
Yeah
Many
So why wouldn’t, it’s natural?
Since it’s natural and it’s in nature, it’s apparent that that’s what we ought to do
So what causes, okay, not necessarily
So I’m trying to identify where the ought comes from
If you see that
Where do we get that?
You say sometimes we get it from nature
Not in that case
We can’t get it from nature in the case of following the animals in their sexual habits
We can get it from the group we want to join if they happen to be a black shirt group
If you want to join, you want to be a part of them, you want to be well-rounded in that
group like our previous conversation, you do what they do
And that’s what you ought to do
Do what they do
You ought to do what they do
If it’s socially acceptable, what else?
Or if there’s results that you want to get in a specific
If you have a goal
Specific goal, right?
Like you want to have a million dollars by the time you’re age 30
So you ought to not spend all of your money all of the time and you ought to invest it
Right?
Yeah
There’s things you ought to do
You ought to have done that
Wait a minute
I mean, I’m trying to calculate real quick
Wasn’t that two years ago or something for you?
For me, that was eight years ago
Eight years ago
Yeah
You should have done that eight years ago then
So there’s some impossible odds
But if that was my goal, I could say
There’s some things you ought to do right now
If you’re going to be a millionaire by age 40
You could do that
You can’t say there’s some things
Yeah
If it were your goal, hypothetically, you could do that
But in my case, 40, I can’t do that
I could say I want to be a millionaire by the time I’m 65
And I can set up some oughts
I can’t set up some oughts of why I didn’t get to be a millionaire when I was 50
Yeah
Well, you can say I should have done that
Should have
So maybe that
I ought to have
That gets to our question of if you have a should that you should do and you know you’re
not going to do it
Yeah
What’s that?
So we’re trying to get to that quandary
First, we have to identify the oughts, the shoulds
So you can do shoulds in the past and oughts in the past
Now, shoulds and oughts are the same
They’re the same thing
The same meaning, right?
Okay
We’ll just use those interchangeably
Well, they might be
Let’s just say they’re the same
Well, you should have done it and maybe should has a bigger power than ought to
I think they’re the same thing
I don’t know that we can separate them
Let’s not separate them
Don’t worry about that
Okay
We shouldn’t worry about that
Right
We ought not to
Okay
If you have oughts in the past that you didn’t do, we want to get to the point that we don’t
have to say we should have done that because if it’s a should that we should have done,
we want to have done it
What do you say if you did do it?
We accomplished it
You don’t say we should have done it
We say we did it
We did it
Yeah
If you didn’t do it, if you did it, you did it
If you didn’t do it, I should have done it, but I didn’t do it
What’s the use of holding on to the should have done it though?
I mean, that’s kind of living in the past
I’m a victim of the past
I should have done that and I didn’t, so now I’m in a worse place
There’s nothing I can do about it, but there really is nothing you can do about it
So let’s let that go
Let’s be, yeah, I should have saved up $100 a month for the last 30 years, but I didn’t
I should have done it
That can only inform
We were talking about that too with-
Disappointment
The value, with the value of it, yeah, disappointments and it is to inform what your next action
is going to be
You have to use that
You have to use your should haves to help inform your next step
And just like millionaire by 30, that’s not possible because I’m past that, but I’ve got
two years to be 40
I can do it then
And what I should do now, I’ve got to learn what it was
Maybe it’d be different
And who knows if you should, so the question, if you choose a goal, why should you choose
that goal?
Why is that your goal?
Your values maybe will inform what your shoulds are
Values
So values are broken down into your values, your own personal values or your deepest held
beliefs
Is that what values are?
That sounds familiar
He talks about, Jordan Peterson talks about religious beliefs being your deepest held
beliefs and is that your values?
You’ve got the values in the Franklin Covey system
Say you want to make all your decisions and all your priorities based on your values
Yeah
So how are values defined?
What do you, what do you-
Well, I imagine that it has a lot to do with the communities that you have and if you want
to stay in them or not
You value what organizations you’re a part of
What communities you’re a part of
The reason you chose those is because you value what they value
Is that the only place?
Yeah
Is that the only place you get your values from?
Your own personal beliefs about things?
It has to be based on belief
It’s what you believe to be true
So yeah, if you believe that there is no moral law, then it’s easy to set the goal of many
partners
If you believe in a moral law and a structure of human relations, sexually, then you won’t
follow the animal kingdom
If you don’t believe in a moral law that there’s some different law for humans than there is
for cows, you may more easily follow the definition of cows
Your goal could be the other, you know, as many partners as possible
Right
So if I want to act more like modern day humans, then I’ll be monogamous
There’s humans that believe that monogamy is the modern day, like the standard, right?
It probably is the standard
But then there are those who say polygamy is the standard in my belief system or harems
are the standard in my system
Right
Or those who do not want to be married and still have many sexual partners, because it’s
not necessarily whether you’re married or not
You could be married and be only married to one person, but still have an open marriage
Yes
The open marriage concept is many partners as you desire
But not marrying any of them
Right
You just have your one partner
Married to the harem concept without having any obligation to the harem
They just
Yeah
Right
So your belief
Your values will
I think your belief, your values and your belief are instrumental in that’s the is ought
problem
That’s what they say
You can’t, you can’t use nature as your definition of what you ought to do
You can’t use any factor as the definition of what you ought to do
It is a fallacy, right?
It’s a fallacy
It’s a problem
It’s a fallacy
we, we don’t follow this
One example that I like to reference a lot apparently is the, the disposal, the trash
disposal in the sink
That’s good
Just because it can chew up all kinds of foods doesn’t mean that it ought to
That doesn’t mean that it should
Well in the ad, I’ve seen a recent ad saying, garbage disposal talking is saying you need
to feed me those things because I need them
Feed me all of that
Don’t put it in the garbage and let it ruin the landfill
Let it freshen our stuff
You know, your peels and your food excess and all that
We’re built to do that and we need it
So maybe the disposal itself needs it, but your pipes don’t need it
Well, your disposal company is trying to sell their disposal
You have a disposal in your house
Let me just do a quick test here
Let’s do a quick survey
Do you have a disposal in your house?
Okay, are you?
You
Yes
You do?
I don’t have one in my house
I haven’t had one in my houses for 30 years
When they came out, they were in my houses
But as soon as I bought a house, we pulled the disposal out first
Yeah
Because it’s a senseless thing
You built a new house and you put a disposal in it
Let me tell you about my disposal though
What kind of value must you have?
What kind of belief system are you on that you think you ought to have a disposal?
Right
Okay, so I bought my sink secondhand from someone selling it on the classified ads and
it came with the disposal already installed
Okay
So it was a free disposal and it was already there
So it’s still on there
It doesn’t get used
So it’s almost like I should remove it because we never use it
We have a strainer basket that everything catches and we just throw that away
Okay
So you didn’t put it there based on your beliefs
I didn’t go out and buy a brand new one
It wasn’t your belief system that put it there
And that’s why I think the ads are out there right now saying, you need to feed me this
so that because disposal systems, I think people realize they don’t have that much value
Yeah
The company’s trying to not go out of business
The companies are trying to not go out of business
Right
They’re creating value with their advertisements
Kind of like the got milk ads
Why do you think they exist?
Is it because milk is a value?
Big dairy
Is milk is a value people don’t adhere to anymore?
Yeah
If milk is bad for you, milk is for cows
Don’t drink milk
Right
It’s quick and easy protein, I guess
And so like the kids in the public schools, it’s necessary for them to have this milk
Otherwise they wouldn’t be getting enough protein because most of our diets are starches,
protein-less starch
Yeah
Okay
So the half pint of milk is necessary in that diet because they’re making all their food
out of garbage
Out of carbohydrates and fats
Yeah
So it tastes good
And then still the kids all throw them away
So they’re not eating the food
Maybe they’ll drink the milk and that’s why they put chocolate in the milk so they’ll
at least drink that
So it gets something good out of their free meal that they’re given
We discussed that in the previous podcast too
The benefits, the great benefits of being in a socialist government
Your values create what your oughts are
The advertisement is built to try to get your values to change so that you will select their product
Yeah
So what if you’re in a community where you like agree with most of the shoulds that they’re
giving you and you’re like, yeah, I should do that
That’s a good idea
I think I’m going to do that
But then maybe there’s a couple of them where you’re like, okay, you’re telling me I should
shave my head, but I know I’m never going to do that
Yeah, that gets you to the point of your belief isn’t necessarily the same belief as the group
you’re a part of
Individual beliefs, individual values and beliefs
Shave your head isn’t a good example
Who does that?
Why not?
Well, if I want to, if I’m interested in becoming a monk, a Buddhist monk for, you know, they
have those retreats where you can go for a year or two years or whatever and you do that,
but you’re like, but it’s really important to me that I don’t get rid of my hair, you
know, so I’ll just cover it up or something
I don’t think that exists
You wouldn’t go to a monastery without doing everything the monastery required you to do
Okay
And it’s not a should
Those are requirements, but I would, something softer than that
Exercise then
I know that I’m never going to go to a gym
You should have a gym membership
You know, weight lift
I’m not going to do any strength training for any of my muscle groups
Okay
That’s it
Like intentionally outside of hard work
We need this conversation because I believe you should do that
I believe you should have, you should, and I should, I’m not doing it yet, but I believe
I should and I believe I’m going to do it
Everyone should
I believe I should have a regimen of, a routine of strength training exercises that keep your
muscle groups toned appropriately
So I believe it should happen
I’ve got some equipment that does it
I don’t, I’ve not done it
I’ve done it before and you don’t necessarily need equipment
Remember when you bought that Bowflex and then nobody used it for years
Do you still have that?
So guess where it is?
It’s, it’s in the room
It’s still in the room
It definitely can, can be used
It’s sitting where it can be used, but there’s stuff all around it so it can’t be used until
we free the space
So freeing the space is necessary
That’s going to happen anyway
And when it is, then I can easily get into a routine again with that Bowflex
But one thing I did two months ago, I started and I did it for a week, seven days probably
I could look up on front of my paper and see, pushups
I can do pushups
Four second pushups is what I did as the routine
So four seconds is two seconds down, four seconds down to the floor and four seconds
back up
So a really slow pushup so that you’re exercising the group, that’s strength training
You want to do as much weight as you can and only eight reps
And I could do seven reps of that
I never got to eight reps
I didn’t get any faster because I only did it for seven days, but I was able to do it consistently
at seven
I think maybe one day I got six
I couldn’t get the seventh in
So you try to get it at eight and then when you get 14, then I’m going to go back down,
raise the weight rate or raise the amount of time it takes me to do one so that I can
do it
So that’s routine
I believe I should
And I started doing it, but I’m not doing it still
But it’s not a statement that I’m not going to do it
You don’t, you’re not certain that you’re not going to do it
You’re expecting that you’re going to do it
I’m expecting that I’m going to do it and I could do it now and you guys can listen to me do
it, but I won’t
No, let’s not
But you’re saying that you’re saying that you don’t want to do it
You believe you’re not going to go into a routine
I have no desire
I would much rather gain strength doing useful things
Pushing up off the floor feels like going on a road trip in a circle to come right back
home and you do it at night so you can’t see anything
Spend the night at your house, you know, I want to go, I want to go on it on a overnight adventure,
overnight drive and stay somewhere else for the night and then I’ll drive back home
the next day
You’re just driving in a circle
Okay, so no value
You didn’t really get anywhere
I mean, the value is the going, the journey, right?
It’s the climb
Yeah, it’s not about where you’re going
But but really, I want to, I want the journey a bit, a bit more scenic
Yeah
So shoveling dirt or carrying all of the groceries in, in one trip instead of five trips, you
know
Okay, but that’s probably not as beneficial as repeated stress
That doesn’t take you to your muscle
Failure, muscle failure
So the strength training process to take you to muscle failure so that you’re actually
building something new, something different
You could do that if you carried them if you carried them around the block instead of just
into the house
First before you came in
Yeah
So walk around the block with them
And everyone will look at you weird
But you say I got to wait till my muscles fail
And that’s why you hold them out straight
And you know, out there, they’re not that heavy
So I’m holding them out straight
And as soon as I fail the first time, I’ll turn around and walk back down the sidewalk
into my door with them held out straight still
So yeah, maybe you don’t value
So the only reason you do that or work towards muscle failures because you value the building
of muscle groups, the building of them and not just the maintenance of them
And to build them, you need to stress them
And if you understand that fact of stressing, it still doesn’t say that you ought to do
it
So you don’t have to stress your muscles by walking
Just walking, you’re stressing the muscles well enough
And if all you’re going to do is walk, if you’re never going to run
And I don’t even know
I’m never going to run
I’m not going to run again
OK
So that’s something I know I’m not going to do
But I don’t believe I ought to do it either
So I think we’re safe there
You will have a stronger heart, a stronger circulatory system if you run
So you should run
Oh, is that what someone could say for cardio health?
Yeah
OK
So my answer to that
Walking by itself will keep you just barely alive
But running is going to make you thrive
So you need some cardiovascular activity
So you do need you need to do cardio workout instead of just strength training
Strength training never gets your heart beat up, never gets your heart rate above whatever
and hold it for 20 minutes
Right
The thing I chose to do instead of running is you take an alternative
So I ought to do that, but I’m not going to
But here’s my alternative, which will accomplish the same fact
And my belief is swimming so I can go to a swimming pool and I could swim and get my
cardiovascular working for the same 20 minutes without having the stress on the beating of
my legs and knees and back
Right
Yeah
So you’d find another way
So maybe that’s the one of the answers
Possibles
If you ought to do something, you should do something, but you know, you’re not going
to do it
What are you doing that still meets that should desire?
Right
Or what have you replaced it with?
So you have to replace it with something based on your values
Yeah
An alternative
My my definition there, instead of running, I’m swimming
Swimming in my values makes more sense and less damage to other parts of my body that
I can do safely, probably for the next 20 or 30 years
A swimming pool isn’t going to be damaging to a 90 year old
Yeah
OK
Yeah
That’s a good alternative to running
Is there something, is there anything that you can think of that you should do, but you
know you’re never going to do and you can’t find an alternative for?
Personally
Stop eating candy
You should, you know, you should stop eating candy
Sugar
OK, let’s say sugar
Sugar
We know that sugar is bad for you
Everyone knows sugar is bad for you
Let me go with the easy one right now
The gluten
We know that gluten is bad for you
So gluten is the first one we’re working towards, getting rid of gluten in your diet
And I’ve tried to buy things and I’ve got the toaster pastries and different things
and and the soups
Soups have gluten in them, but some don’t
So I’m buying things
And when I go to the store now and I did that just the other day and I got crackers
and but you’re shopping the gluten free items and they cost twice as much as the other items
So you’re agreeing that they do
There’s a huge expense
But if people don’t start buying that, they’re never going to get less expensive
So right
So I’m buying based on a value
And if gluten free is the value and I’m not going as fast enough for my wife, she doesn’t
think I’m working fast enough on this, but I’m working fast
I am moving quickly on it and buying everything that I can see in the gluten free aisle
I stand there for minutes in front of, minutes
Yeah
Minutes in shopping for me is a long time
So I ought to do it
But sugar is the next thing I have to do it and I’m working on it and I probably will
get gluten done
You’ve got gluten and then you’ve got milk products
So dairy products is another thing that’s next
And then sugar
So dairy products are going to be really hard for me
And I don’t know that I want to do that
I probably if I had the choice
So you’re talking about values, I value the relationship with my wife probably more than
I value milk
And it’s probably going to work out that way that that’s the answer to this thing in the
end
But if I can at all keep her happy and keep milk in my diet, I probably will never do
that even though I should get rid of milk
My blood sensitivity says I should get rid of milk
So there is a should there even a factual should from medical science, but I’m not going to
do it
And I’m not going to take an alternative
I’m definitely not going to drink soy milk or almond milk or anything else like that
and act like it’s the same because it’s definitely not
It’s definitely not, right
Dairy products
I might find cheese
I might find cheese that would work
So I can take the dairy products out of all the processed foods, but I can’t, I can’t find
anything, actually tried yesterday
No, I didn’t really try
I’m trying to figure it out
I was walking through the store
I tried to say, what can I replace milk with?
That would be a creamy thing
And I thought mayonnaise, maybe mayonnaise
It’s eggs
Yes
We could mix it with something
Eggs and oil
And make it creamy enough
Make mayonnaise creamy enough and put some other taste into it so that it would be useful
I haven’t tried that yet, but that’s, that thought’s in my brain
So I may work that out
You might try it
What I did use was yogurt
Instead of milk, I used yogurt and fruit
Yogurt and fruit and peanuts
I mixed that together yesterday
It doesn’t taste like milk, but I can make I have to mix milk with it to make it milky enough
To make it milky enough
So I don’t know if I put water in it, if it will still work
But I am trying some different things
I’m just going to play with it for a bit
This is this is exactly the kind of stuff that I would expect from you
Right
So if I can’t have milk, how can I make milk out of other things?
Out of not milk
But yogurt is milk
So I kind of cheated there and that’s not that’s not the right thing
I should have used the mayonnaise to start with mayonnaise and fruit and peanuts
See what happens there
Yeah
It doesn’t make appetizing
Make the mayonnaise from scratch so you don’t have the lemon juice in it
You know, the, you don’t have, because because they add stuff besides just the egg white
and oil
And so like if you take the bottle off of the shelf, you’re going to have so
Yeah
So I just use eggs as the as the base
So maybe I’ll just use eggs instead of mayonnaise
I can cream it up myself with whatever else I want to use
Coconut oil
Maybe start working on that
Or ghee butter
But that’s yeah
Maybe that’s not dairy
I don’t know if ghee is
So it’s a butter a replacement
This is something that you know you should get rid of
I think
Yeah
Milk, I probably never get rid of, though I’m trying, I guess, sugar candy
You started with that
And that is the third level of this thing
Starts with gluten and then milk and then sugar
You got to get rid of milk first before you can even think about getting rid of sugar
Right
Sugar
Yeah
Because there’s sugar in milk and sugar is the last thing
And sugar is the hardest thing
I mean, are you never going to taste anything sweet again or be stuck with the alternatives,
the stevia
You can’t use the pharmaceutical sugars
They’re worse than sugar
Right
Saccharin or whatever those are
So it’s going to be stevia and you’re going to have natural sugars and not glucose
Yeah, you can’t even have it glucose is sugar
Right
Anything that, what do they call it, triggers a glucose response in your body
Glucose response in your body
Yeah
A ketogenic diet is without sugar, right?
Is it?
Yeah, I don’t know
I mean, that may be without sugar
It’s just proteins, just meats
Yeah
So it’s high in fat, low in carbs and moderate in protein
So you go with as few carbs as you can and sugar is a carbohydrate
Okay
Yeah
So
I don’t know that I would agree not to do anything on either of those things
So yeah, you propose that as whether I would say I’m never going to do it
What is there something I’m never going to do?
Maybe we’ll cut this out
This is gross
This is gross
I’m never going to eat my boogers
Okay
This stuff that comes out of your nose
There’s people that do that that say that’s fine
So if they say, if there’s some medical study that says, yeah, it’s fine to take the refuse
that from your nose and ingest it again and you get more value out of it by doing that
More value
If that came out, even if that value proposition came out that says it’s more value to do that,
I’m not going to do it
You’re not going to do it
So I would say that I’m not going to do that based on my values, based on the way I just,
I cringe at that
Right
So it’s something I cringe at
So I can say safely, I’m never going to do that
Even if the scientists prove it
Okay
That you have to
Good
You know, you might, I don’t know what you might do
You have to trick me
You have to trick you into
So yeah, when you’re sick, do you ever sniff and then swallow?
Yeah
Sometimes it is
It goes down my throat, but that’s not me enjoying the taste of the salty treat
Right
You’re not enjoying it, but you are being tricked into ingesting your snot
Yeah
Because, well, because I’m, it’s not, and maybe I’m in a situation community wise or
somewhere that I don’t want to blow it out
Because yeah
So I’m just going to suck it back in and take care of it that way
But anytime, yeah, I would much rather have it just be gone
Right
So
Then maintain a part of it
Is there any value in knowing that you’re not going to get rid of milk and you’re not
going to stop eating sugar?
You know you should
You’re what you’re on the journey to, to that goal that you’re hoping you never reach
Of incapacity, of poor health?
No, the goal of a milk free diet and a sugar free diet
Okay
So I’m on a journey that, but let’s say that I, what would be the value of me saying, I,
I know I’m not going to do it
Yeah
Milk is part of my life until I die
And that’ll be what kills you
That’s what they’ll say
That’ll be what kills you then
Well, okay
I’ve chosen
I think only a couple of people would say that’s what kills you
Anxiety
I’d say anxiety is part of it right now on this journey of trying to figure it out
It’s an anxious thing
There’s stress involved in spending minutes in front of a grocery store shelf
I don’t want to do that
That stress and trying to think it through and trying to mix something up or figuring
something else out
You have less stress, your anxiety can be less
If you say, I made this decision, I’m just not going to do that
So let’s use something, something religious, which is easy to talk about is prayer
If you say you should pray, well, if there’s no God, what should I pray to?
How do I pray?
What’s prayer?
And there’s even those people that say, even if there is no God, prayer is still valuable
Affirmations, identifying what your goal is, what you’re, what you’re really, centrally
thinking about the same, you know, I’m not, I’m never going to do that
I say enough affirmations just in my regular life
I’m not going to pray
I’m never going to call it prayer
If it’s what I do and you can call it prayer, that’s fine, but I’m never going to pray
That could avoid anxiety
You may have anxiety of saying, you know, I forgot to pray this morning
I didn’t pray, you know, and someone asks you the question, well, did you pray about
it?
Then you’re anxious
You feel some feeling of maybe I did, I should have done something and I didn’t do it
And I, instead of saying prayer is not part of my life, then you have no anxiety
Yeah
I think that’s, it can also be related to being, calling yourself agnostic versus atheist
Atheist is kind of like a final, I believe there are no gods
Agnostic is until further proven, there are no gods, you know?
Yeah
I don’t know
Well, it’s, it’s not there are no gods
It’s just, I don’t know
And it doesn’t matter to me
So an agnostic position is a position that you take to avoid stress, to avoid anxiety
But an atheist position is even more, even more that
Anxious
No, I would say it’s, it’s like, I’m atheist, that’s it
I don’t have to think about it anymore
I’m not even going to look for it
So if you take the atheist position, you said my faith sits on this side and that’s where
it is
That’s my belief
What I’m trying to identify is the belief, and I think it’s the belief that identifies
whether you know you’re going to or not do something
If you ought to do it, someone says you ought to do it
We’re assuming that comes from the outside
What if you know in yourself that you ought to do something?
Is there any way that you know in yourself you ought to do something and you’re not going
to do it?
Nothing from outside studies or outside organizations saying this is, you know, to be a part of
us you do this and so you’re going to do it
Something just in yourself like scratching, itching
That’s something that happens just within you
My leg itches and so I’m going to scratch it
I ought to not scratch it, but I know I’m never going to not scratch it
I know I’m never not
From the outside they tell you don’t enjoy the itch, but I enjoy the itch so much and
I scratch it and it keeps it and I love it that it stays there
I think my knee itches and I want to scratch it
They say about itches that you shouldn’t scratch it
You put calamine lotion on it
You put something on it to calm it, soothe it so that you don’t have to scratch because
you’re going to tear things up if you scratch it or you’re going to spread the disease if
you scratch it
Right
So there’s all those reasons
I know that that’s possible
That’s potential
That’s what happens, but I love to scratch it so much
My value is to scratch it
I know that I’m not going to put calamine lotion or try to eliminate that itch
I’m not going to do anything to get rid of the itch
It always itches the same place
It’s something that’s there growing
It’s a fungus
It’s whatever it is, but I love it so much I’m going to keep it
It’s my fungus
It’s my itch
It’s one thing to say that you know you should stop something, but you know you’re not going
to stop it, but is there anything that you know you should start and you know you’re
not going to start?
Start for my personal, my person, for me individually
What I would like to start that I know I’m not going to do
Is it something business-wise, something activity-wise maybe even?
You’re thinking on your side too, or do you know something on your side?
I’m thinking like self-defense classes or skills or something
I’m probably never going to get around to doing something like that
I’m going to think about things, but I’m not going to actually move my body in ways to
get used to kicking someone in the neck even though maybe as is, my status as a, I don’t
know, moderately attractive female then maybe I should be doing that because, I mean, and
I am not particularly afraid of walking around in the city at night
Because of my lack of fear, I should be ready to fend off an attacker, but I don’t think
I’m ever going to get to that point
You haven’t had the chance of facing anyone
I haven’t
When you do, I think, so you’re not going to prepare by, you know you’re not going to
prepare by going through a course on that topic
I know I’m not going to
That’s what you’re saying
I’ll think about it
I’ll think about what am I going to do if it comes down to it
If anyone approached you in the dark, you have a way you’ll respond to that and it’s
going to be effective and you don’t have to battle them
You just have to incapacitate them enough that they can’t continue whatever they were
doing
Or, or here’s, here’s what I would say you’re going to do
Okay
More than that, you’re going to impress them that you know what you’re doing, even though
you have no idea what to do
You’ll face them
You’ll face them like you can hurt them and they’ll believe it
Yeah
Confidence
That’s the confidence will do it
And they’ll say, do you know karate or something?
You’re going to hurt me
We’ll see
You’ll just have to see
That’s for me to know and you to find out
I think you better walk the other way
That’s what I’d advise you to do
And they’ll walk the other way
They’ll be gone because you’ll with confidence be able to talk them out of anything that
they dreamed up
Yeah
I mean, and I have seen Walker Texas Ranger and so I know how they stand when they’re
going to do a karate thing
Yeah, you know how to do that
Exactly
You’ve watched it on TV
I learned all my skills from Kung Fu
From Kung Fu
Right
Seventies
Yeah
David Carradine, he taught me how to stand and I did have it
I did have that confrontation once
I was going to get into a fight behind the gym
Did you really?
I went behind the gym
Yeah
The quintessential meet behind the gym
Let’s work this out
And he stood there in front of me, Tony and I was standing there and he said, and I just
stood there and I looked at him like Kung Fu would look at him
I just, he said do you know Kung Fu or something?
I said, well, you’ll find out
And he never hit, he never threw a punch
I said, you’re going to have to start first because I have no intention
I have no desire to hit you
You’ll have to throw that first, but watch out
And he said, you probably, let’s just not do this
Let’s just not do this
Okay
Okay
You’ve convinced me
I said, that’s fine
We were battling over some friend thing
I said, just leave him alone
Okay
And I’ll, I’ll be fine and you’ll be fine
So he walked away
He didn’t, he, he didn’t want to be the aggressor and hit first
So most people don’t, it would have been an interesting fight, but I wasn’t going to
hit first
So I knew that, I knew I wasn’t going to hit first
I still probably know I’m not going to hit first if I’m ever in a battle and maybe you
should hit first
Should I hit first?
If you meet someone in the dark out at night and they look like they’re nefarious
What are your values?
Should you hit first? What do your values say about that?
Are you the kind of person that would take the, um, offensive point?
And that’s why, that’s why I wouldn’t hit first
Cause my values indicate not to be the, the aggressor, but to be, to accept the first
punch and then annihilate them
If I knew how, so put off that air
That’s why I think that’s why you do that
Put off the air that you can annihilate them
And that’s what they, they can expect
Hit me
But that’s the last thing you see
So do you think there’s anything that we can do?
Maybe change our thinking or something when there’s something that we know we should do,
but we’re expecting that we’re never going to do it
Like how can, how can we make it so that we’re more likely to follow through with what we
should do?
What we know we should do based on our values and our communities
That’s what motivation is all about
Right?
Yeah
So how do you gain the motivation to do something that you don’t want to do?
The definition of motivation is, are you motivated enough?
Or are you, do you have the desire, the action to do something?
You’re motivated to do it
What is the definition of motivation?
The drive to achieve. An internal state that propels individuals to engage in a goal directed
behavior
So a value directed behavior, the same thing
So propels you to engage, engaging, motivation is what causes your engagement in anything
So if you’re reticent, reluctant to engage, you don’t want to engage
I know that I should do this, but it would take, I would have to set an alarm, you know,
whatever to do exercise
I’d have to set some time
I’d have to clean off a space for me to sit down on the ground or on this chair
I’ve cleared that chair off so I could use the chair for my exercise
I don’t want to engage in that
What would cause me?
You would need a reason to, to motivate you
Like you would want, you’d have to find out how to actually do it
You know, how to, how to be motivated
Find your reason, find your why
Yeah
Motivation is why you begin
You begin, continue or stop and you’re motivated to stop something
You motivated to start something motivated to continue it
So those are, those are the actions of motivation
And if you know you’re not going to do it, if you know you’re not motivated, if you’re
sick, why wouldn’t you be motivated?
If someone’s sick, they’re not motivated to do anything
They’re not going to engage in something, even stuff that they know they should do
I’m not feeling well enough to do it
Energy
Yeah
If you’re sick, you’re definitely not motivated to do it
You’re motivated to, you can’t be motivated to do anything
You just sit, lay in bed
That’s what you can do
I can lay in bed and I’ve got these goals and these responsibilities and work assignments,
whatever needs done
I’m not going to do it
I know I’m not going to do it because I’m sick
So you have a reason, an excuse, a reason that doesn’t necessarily make you feel better
about it or decrease your stress levels
What I was talking about earlier, your stress isn’t necessarily decreased, but you have
an excuse
You have a reason
There is a higher level reason than your desire, than your goal
Not necessarily your goal
There’s a higher reason than your base level
Your values or your belief
Just knowing that you should, there’s something higher than that
You have a desire for that
That’s back where we’re talking about the zeroth tier of a community
You’ve got to have the ability
If you don’t have the ability, that ability is going to jump ahead of any should that
you feel like you should do
If you don’t have the ability to do it, you don’t have the capacity
You’re sick
You’re depleted so much that you can’t even do, take the next step
So you should take another step, but you can’t
So I won’t
So I won’t
That’s that song
What song is that?
Tell me
Oh Helena
Oh Helena
Oh
That’s how it ends
It must be louder
It must be louder
And it goes like so
And they sing the song louder
Right
The end of the song
It must be louder
But I can’t
So it’s done
So I won’t
Get as loud as you can go
You get to the edge of what you can do and you can’t do anymore
And then that’s when you say, I ought to do this, but I’m not going to
Because you can’t
Is can’t
What they say can’t means won’t
There’s that dichotomy
Maybe that’s what we’re talking about
You won’t do it
You know you won’t do it because you know you can’t do it
Can we relate those?
Okay
If you can’t do it, it’s kind of out of your control, out of your willpower
If you won’t do something, there’s an implication that you could if you really wanted to, but
you’re not going to do it
But if you can’t do something, then there’s nothing you can do
In what case would they say can’t means won’t?
When you’re training your children and they say, I can’t do that
Can’t means won’t
You can do that
I know you can do it
Just push
And they do that in gyms all the time
I’m done
I can’t do anymore
Push
You can do more
You gotta do it
Count to five and push up
And whatever, however they do that, the trainers, the army sergeants, you feel like giving up
and you can do that
You do that with yourself all the time
When you feel like you’re done carrying something, you get to the breaking point
I can’t go another foot with this, but walk another foot
You’ll find you can
Yeah
That reminds me of that rat, rats in a bucket or mice in a bucket thing
Where if you put a mouse in a bucket of water, it’ll swim until it’s exhausted and then it’ll
die
But if you save it before it dies and then let it recuperate and then put it back in,
then the point of exhaustion just is much farther, much further, much longer than that
second time
They can swim much longer in hopes of being saved versus if you just let them think that
They’ll give up
So their can is based on their expectation of success
We’ll get success at some point
The first time they die, they can’t
I can’t swim anymore, so I’m going to die
The second time after saving them, they say, and they end up swimming a longer timeframe
because there’s some possibility, some motivation of continuing a little bit longer
So I think the point on that that you can’t, you may think you can’t, but your body can
go on much further than your mind is going to think it can go
Your will, longer than your will, will decide
Right
So that’s where can’t means won’t comes in
It’s like, you know, I mean, it is proven that you can actually, but we’re just not
willing to
But you want to say, I can’t, I want, you’re sick
You’re sick
You’re feeling sick
You want to be in bed
So you can’t do the task that, you can’t mow the yard
You can’t go to work
You can’t necessarily, you can mow the yard when you’re sick
Go ahead
Read a book
Right
Yes
Do it
Be sick
Mow the yard
If your leg’s broken
Yeah, there’s there
There are
You have no legs
You can’t run if you have no legs, unless they put the prosthetics on
So maybe you still can even
So you can run
And if your leg is broken, you say, I can’t go anywhere
I can’t walk anywhere, but they have those, you know, crutches, you could go anywhere
on crutches
It’s a real thing
You can put your knee on and people, you can get around and anything
People can carry you
You can go
So can’t means won’t
I don’t know if you could find anything that, maybe that is an odd question
There’s nothing that says there is this is event that happens that causes you to ought
to not be able to do anything
You can’t
They say there, there is no functional facts
No fact that means that something can or cannot be done around it
That’s the is-ought problem
The fact itself doesn’t eliminate your ability to accomplish
There’s plenty of people that have done impossible things
Right
Even even to the extent I can’t pick up that 2000 pound car
But there are stories, people that have done that, picked up the 2000 pound car and got
it off of their, got their child out, or whatever caused them to have to do that
Right
Superhuman activities
So I know I ought to do something, but I won’t do it
I know I’m not going to do it
It doesn’t say I won’t do it
I know I’m not going to do it is still a statement of will
So right in that statement, it’s not saying I can’t
You’re not using that excuse
You could use that excuse
I can’t
But that’s just an excuse
Can’t do it because I’m sick
I know I’m not going to do it
I know I’m not going to do it is a value statement
There must be something else you value beyond that
That’s got to be an untapped value
They say I value this
I should do this
That’s got to
I think that’s the answer
I think we got it right there
You have a certain value structure that identifies what you ought to do
If you find yourself saying, I don’t want to do that
I know I’m not going to do that
Then you have to search your value structure again
There’s some higher value, some other value that is competition with that
You’re not recognizing consciously
You don’t want to waste your time in a value system that you actually don’t value
Yeah
So you may be saying to yourself, I value this and I know I ought to do this
I should do this because I value this
But in reality, there’s a bigger value by, causing you to say, I’m not going to do it
And if you would introspect enough, you’d be able to find out what that value is that’s
stopping you from doing it
Yeah
So your expectation that you’re never going to give up milk, that means what are you valuing
more than health?
I’m valuing pleasure
Pleasure over health
Yeah
Yeah
And you don’t believe that it’s important enough
Yeah
So you’re going to die when you’re 95 anyway
Right
So you’re going to die as well die full of milk
You get my numbers wrong
I’m going to be 100
Oh, sorry
Don’t kill me
You’re going to die when you’re 100 anyway
Don’t kill me off five years earlier
I’m going to drink milk and still live to be 100
So but I, and then you need to consider those values
So if you’re saying that, I’m saying that I’ve never, I know I’m not going to stop drinking
milk and I’m not going to do something
You identify the value behind it
And the only value I come up with that is pleasure
There’s no other reason
It’s pleasing to drink milk
It’s a taste that I’ve become accustomed to and that’s what I’m going to use
And I’m not going to give it up unless now I consider my values
So if I determine it’s a value of health and all the good positive things of living or
this pleasure thing, pleasure certainly doesn’t hold the weight that health holds in anyone’s
respect
I don’t know
well, it shouldn’t, but does it?
That’s that seems to be, well in my value system, pleasure should be a lower value than health
It should
Right
But I know it’s never going to be there
So that’s what we’re, that’s the same thing
It’s always going to hold a higher position because I’m always going to want to want to
do, like to do what I’m doing
I’m always going to want to like to eat what I’m eating
If I have to eat something just for nutrition that doesn’t taste good, I know I’m not going
to do that
Right
So that’s why you need sugar and milk products because that tastes good
Yeah
And it’s not that you can’t go without it
It’s that you won’t go without it
I won’t
You’re not willing to do that
Yeah
I know I’m not going to do it
So the switch to I know, but that still leaves it in your willpower
So it’s in it’s in your, you can still accomplish something with it
You still do it, but it’s going to take a change of that value
So the value that says I value the pleasure of the taste and the effect that I feel with
it
If something happened to where you needed to be fed with a feeding tube, I think in
that case you could probably go without milk and sugar
See, and that’s, that’s, that’s why I made that mixture that I mentioned to you that
the honey or the honey, the yogurt and fruit and peanuts
If I can drink it, if I can drink it and it gives me the same sensation, same texture type
feel and it’s not horribly tasting, I could probably replace milk with something like
that that I could drink
Okay
I want to be able to drink something that is more substantial than water
Water, drinking water is great
It’s fine
It’s useful, but I want something more thick and texture, texture
Thicker
Yeah
What if you blended bananas with water and just, just a banana water smoothie and you
used enough water just to make it like it
And it has few bananas, but just a little, I mean a teaspoon of banana is going to make
the thing taste banana
It’s going to make the whole thing taste like banana
It ruins it
So it has to be something
Lentils
Yeah
Cook some lentils and mix that in with some, some good bean that you can’t taste
Right
And you could just add like a drop of vanilla or drop of stevia to make it a little bit
sweet
Yeah
We’ll see
Those are good ideas
Of course
Of course
Okay
That might be all for, so you identify the higher
Yeah
You identify higher value and then determine you’re, you’re doing value battles
That’s what it, what it means
I ought to do something
I’m not going to do it
It’s a value battle that you have to do within yourself
And that’s all just within you
Yeah
But if you place it on the level of values, then at least you can talk about it and you
can consider which value really should take precedent and which value am I really going
to let win out in this case
It’s more than just somebody telling you, you should do something
Yeah
Or yourself telling you, you should do something
Yeah
And then you determine your, your value structure internally
And that may make decisions on all kinds of levels
If you can clearly put your values in order
That’s why I mentioned the, the Franklin Covey system, Franklin day planners and, and Covey’s
saying your values are the first part of identifying your priorities
Yeah
That’s the seven habits guy, right?
Yeah
Seven habits idea
Yeah
But the value triangle is the first place you start to start on that before you can
identify what you’re going to do in your day, what your action steps are in the Franklin
system
Your values have to be identified first
So do your values in order and you’ll never have to say, I know I’m not going to do that
Right
Okay
Okay
Very cool
Thanks
That’s good
We’ll work on the next thing next
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