5 reasons to stop planning for the future according to Alan Watts... and the one exception.
Summary of episodes 207-213 of the With Joe Wehbe Podcast
Careers are not an echo chamber. You can’t treat a headache in isolation from the rest of the body — nothing is unrelated from reality. Alan Watts helps us understand reality.
1/ ‘Don’t plan for the future if you can’t live in the present’ — Alan Watts.
In the 1942 classic film Citizen Kane, a young boy is sold by his poor parents to a wealthy benefactor so he can have ‘a better life’. He’s given money, but not love. He spends his entire life trying to mend the wounds — controlling others and bribing them for their love. He dies rich and alone in his empty mansion.
When you can’t be satisfied with the present, your plans become fruitless attempts to fill a void, as a pose to planning to do things that will actually make you happy. In this film, the one time Charles was truly happy was when he had the least — as a poor boy who could just play in the snow.
Insecure people are the most likely to chase prestige and other cheap extrinsic motivators.
2/ Parents should live for themselves, not their children
Watts says that the family unit is not surviving industrial society. Parents see their role as bringing home this money thing by any means necessary so their children can have a better life — but this just teaches children to do the same.
People follow what they see, not what they’re told — Scott McKeon
In Arthur Miller’s classic play, The Death of a Salesman, protagonist Willy Loman kills himself so his family can benefit from the life insurance payment. He’s worth more dead than alive to them. But it’s too late — he’s already messed up his children by projecting his inadequacies onto them.
According to Watts, parents should live for themselves — and their children will follow this example.
3/ Alan Watts predicted the education revolution 50 years ago
Watts repeatedly warns us — we’re chasing something that will never arrive. Success, money, status, being number one… even if we get it, we won’t feel any different than we’ve always felt.
Watts died in 1973, but he predicted that we would have a young generation that would start settling for less money, with the advantage that they’d no longer ‘live this fragmented abstract work life that is completely cut off from all the rest of their truly human associations.’
It will be very disruptive of things as we know, but better by far, better by far… live in contact with the actual here and now, than to live a life of perpetual suspense waiting for a gorgeous thing… that is going to turn up, but never, never does — Alan Watts
4/ We should let some people quit the game
According to Watts, we should let some people quit the game of society — these people have a role to play.
They force us to ask, how can a hippy be more content with life than a big CEO or celebrity? How can there be people who are so content when they have so little?
They provide a reality check.
5/ Why you don’t really want certainty
We don’t get to control our world. But if we could, say, in our dreams, we could make everything go our way. And we’d do that every night until we got bored of reliving the same dream over and over. So what would we do?
Watts says we’d start throwing in surprises. Setbacks. Twists and turns. We would hide things from ourselves, and create a story for ourselves… and we’d keep doing this night by night until we created the exact life we’re living now.
You don’t want to play games that are too easy, and you don’t want to know the ending of a book or movie, even though the drama of watching it is to find out.
End your discontent with your current reality. It is exactly how you’d design it if you had a choice.
Note: If you share this with someone, it might be sending them the message that you think they’re an over-planner, someone who can’t live in the present. That’s awkward to say to someone😂.
🎙 Recent Episodes
Below I’ve linked to Youtube episodes. I really recommend episode #211 myself.
You can also go to your preferred podcast player here like Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.
#207: Alan Watts Predicted The Education Revolution More Than 50 Years Ago (13 min 33 sec)
#208: ‘He Knew We’d Be The Generation To Break Free’ (13:24)
#209: Alan Watts – What If You Quit The Rat Race? (14 min 16 sec)
#210: ‘Don’t Plan For The Future If You Can’t live In The Present’ (16 min 4 sec)
#211: Education Prepares Us For Something That Never Comes – Alan Watts (11 min 49 sec)
#212: Naval Ravikant Series On Education, Early Career And Life (6 min 0 sec)
#213: Naval Ravikant — Should Young People Go To University? (10 min 22 sec)
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🖊 Recent articles
These are on the figures in upcoming podcast episodes, including Peter Thiel and Alan Watts!
🔄 Not up to these yet? See previous issues
Episodes 200-206 — How to avoid mediocrity, where we tied together the thoughts of Peter Thiel and Alan Watts.
Episodes 193-199 — Recover From Your Education In 5 Steps With Peter Thiel ⛑(PayPal Co-Founder) with his great ideas on innovation, and how we head in the opposite direction.
Episodes 185-192 — on why risk-taking is more important than knowledge, and the heart of the Nassim Taleb mini-series. God I love this guy, #lecturingbirdshowtofly
Episodes 178-184 — on how idiots can beat experts. This links to a couple of very deep and meaningful ‘new year, new me’ episodes and then gets into the first of the thought leader series on Nassim Nicholas Taleb!
Episodes 171-177 — about where university is useful, the pressures on education decisions for young people and our suppression of teen entrepreneurs and the creativity of youth.
Episodes 161-170 — about the biases we put into advice and finding our direction.
Episodes 154-160 — why you need a compass, not a map, and why people say ‘one day’.
Episodes 147-153 — broad thinking about careers
Episodes 140-146 — open-mindedness and thinking, an important precursor to discussing any educational or career breakthrough concepts
Episodes 122-139 — foundational ideas about education and learning.
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