Transcription
I'm pretty sure that the thumbnail on this video probably speaks to a lot of you guys. Remember when you were 25 and you had the world by the balls? It felt like everything was heading your way. Optimism was your frame of mind. Everything was looking good.
Fast forward 30 years and your life has become a circular firing squad. You're not sure if you're the guy with the blindfold, the guy with the rifle, or even if it matters. What happened? How did you find yourself on this path of self-destruction? Today, we're going to get into that. Figure out how it happens, when it happens, and what you can do to stop it. This is life 2.0. Let's talk about it.
When you're 25, you think you're Neo from the Matrix. You can dodge bullets and bend reality. By the time you're 50, you realize you've been swallowing the blue pill every morning. And now you're wondering, "What the hell happened?" Now you're thinking, "I wish there was a purple pill or some other color pill that just make me disappear all together. Why is my life like this?" This is what I call the descent into the hell of voluntary servitude. This is the path most men take. This is life 1.0 working just the way it's supposed to.
Now, for you guys who don't know, you can step into life 2.0 at any moment. All you need to do is reject the construct that there is such thing as sacrificial men and that we don't need to live in a world where our pain is invisible. In fact, we don't need to endure any pain on anyone's behalf ever again. It's time for men to start living their own lives and stop sacrificing.
Let's talk about being that fantastic 25-year-old filled with energy and optimism and confidence that you've got everything figured out. You literally have the world by the balls. Marriage, you'll do it better than other people. Career. You're gonna climb the corporate ladder like you're Spider-Man. Kids, you're gonna be the cool dad. Never loses his edge, always got it figured out. You see your life unfolding like some kind of a miraculous story. But for some reason, it never turns out that way, or at least doesn't turn out that way very often. Most of us believed that we could fulfill that vision of our reality. But somehow we lost it.
The first trap guys fall into is the responsibility trap. What are you going to do with your life? Remember that question people used to ask you when you were young, when you're like 18, 19, 20? What are you going to do for a living? What are you going to study? What's it all about, man? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? You need to start growing up. Look, champ, if you don't have a plan, your life is going to suck. And so, you feel all this pressure to do something. And of course, at that age, we don't know what the hell we're doing. We don't have any idea what the plan is. So, we adopt someone else's plan. We figured, all right, everybody else seems to be doing this, so I'm just going to go along with that. So, you go to school, you get a job, you do whatever you think you're supposed to do, but you're following someone else's trail here. You're not on your own authentic path. That's what happens to most guys.
I remember when I was in college, I didn't know what the hell I was going to do, and people were constantly asking me all the time. So, I just said, you know something, I'm going to be a lawyer. That just shut everybody up, you know. That took care of it. That took care of it. I didn't know the first thing about lawyers. I didn't know the first thing about the law. I didn't care about it. But at least it was a good answer. It was an answer that people liked. And so I liked saying it 'cause they liked hearing it. And then inevitably, once you get through all that, comes when are you going to get married, man? You need to grow up. You need to settle down.
Yeah. Again, life 1.0 coming at you. People are telling you how you're supposed to be doing it. They want you to follow in their footsteps. Their life sucks. They want your life to suck, too.
The marriage trap. This is the one where guys really sort of cement their mistakes. Most men, when I say most, I'm talking like 99%, are clueless about women. I don't care how many women you've slept with by that time, by the time you get married, how many girlfriends you've had. What you're entering into here is a completely different strata of relationship with marriage. Having a girlfriend and fooling around and taking her out on dates and all that stuff, it's all fun and games. You are entering into like UFC championship fighting here. I mean, this is hardcore. This is life-threatening stuff. Someone's going out on a stretcher.
The problem most men make is they think they've chosen a girl that's out of their league. Guys love saying that. "Yeah, she's so hot, man. She's way out of my league." Like you pulled some kind of a magic trick. Problem is, you were really out of her league. You just didn't realize it. What I mean by that is that you were so busy looking at her tits and her ass that you didn't realize that the real measurement was that of her character. Like, character makes more difference than tits and ass in the long run. So when you're dating, tits and ass matter. You know, you've got to be focused on that. That's what's most important. But when you enter into this marital realm, the game changes, and the tools that you need to be successful or to have a good healthy relationship are completely different. Because when you're dating someone, she can be a nut. She can be a narcissist. Hell, she can be a psychopath, and she can still be lots of fun. You know, but when you marry her and you're living with her day after day after day, oh, wait a second. I can't date a narcissist. I can't have a psychopath in my life. I can't have this nut job living with me all the time. Yes, she's got great tits and ass, but oh my god, I think she's gonna kill me. Yeah. You've got to be measuring character. You know, you've got to have an idea for what it's going to be like to be with this person forever. I mean, you're taking this romantic relationship and you're turning her into a roommate, and you're going to be co-workers, you're going to be raising kids, you're going to be taking care of houses and paying bills. This is a completely different strata of relationship. This is not a romantic relationship. There could be romance in it, but generally speaking, 90% of your relationship with your wife after the first couple years is not romantic. It's more like co-workers.
On a side note, I am working on a second book. The first book isn't quite finished yet, but I've already got the idea for the second one, and it's going to be great. It's going to be something along the lines of a man's field guide to identifying women in the wild. And it's going to use a few criteria. You know, do you marry them, do you [ __ ] them, or do you kill them? I love that concept because it's really simple and it's very straightforward. Now, obviously, I'm not advocating the killing of any women. This is a metaphorical death. This is like eliminating them from your life, but you get the idea. Watch for it. I'll be announcing it hopefully sometime in the next month or so 'cause I want to get it out there. I think it's going to be hilarious.
So, the next step in this slow-moving disaster movie is your domestication. When you get married, you are not a domesticated man. You are some kind of wild animal. And it's now your wife's job to domesticate you. And this is a gradual process. You don't really notice it. I definitely love that metaphor of the, you know, the dropping the frog in the water and then slowly turning up the heat until you've got boiled frog. Well, you're the frog in this metaphor, and she's turning up the heat on a continuous basis. It starts off with some really simple [ __ ] like, "Hey, would you pick up your socks?" And you're like, "Yeah, that's reasonable. I'll grab them." Then it's like, "Hey, can you do me some favors? I can run by the store on the way home and grab this, this, and this." You're like, "Okay, all right, whatever." And then it's going to turn into, you know, your friend Joe, he's kind of a bad guy. I'm not really feeling too good about you guys hanging out together. You mind kind of cutting him out? I don't want you hanging out with him so much. I don't want him over at the house. You know, he uses bad language. He drinks too much. He smokes cigars. You know, can you like just... You're going to hear that. So, next thing you know, Joe's going to be slipping away. Then it's going to be, you know, your hobby of working on classic cars is getting expensive. You're taking up a lot of time. It's taking up space in the garage. It's going to be just whining about these things until you finally just relent and say, "Fuck it. Whatever. I don't need another car."
Now, you've given up your hobby. You've given up your friend. You're responsive to all of her demands. And now you're working for her. Now she's slipped you out of the leadership role very subtly. It was very subtle. You didn't even notice it. And now she's in the captain's seat. She's driving the boat now. And you're like sitting in the co-pilot seat trying to figure out how the hell you lost command. Yeah. This is what happens to guys. You think that you've got your frame all set up. You think you got everything nailed down, and then slowly but surely, it's just this insidious, you know, it's like the way this little stream carved out this huge valley. You know, it was just thousands of years of just continuously running and just eating away all the soil until there's nothing left but these exposed rocks in this huge valley that goes for miles and miles and miles. And it all started off as just a leaky little spring, just a little bit of water running out. And now we've got this. Yeah, that's your life.
And then there's the career trap. So when you were 25, you had options. You had ideas. You had dreams about all the things that you could do. You could move easily from job to job. Hell, even career path to career path. You were agile. You could take advantage of opportunities when they popped up. You weren't stuck in some nine-to-five. You were a free agent. Yeah, you were a free agent, which meant you could go to the highest bidder. That was the way you wanted to live your life. Well, now you got to keep those health benefits in place, man. You don't know when she's going to get sick or have another baby. So, you definitely don't want to lose those benefits. Those golden handcuffs suddenly take on new meaning to you. It's like, "Oh, I need to have that 401k." You know, you start talking about the 401k with people. You know, you're becoming an old man. But now you're in the daily grind. You're in the grind. Yeah, you are in there. You're counting the days to retirement, you know. Your days of social climbing the ladder have been reduced because you need the stability. You don't take the job that has the greatest opportunity because it also comes with the greatest amount of risk. You like the job that gives you a lot of safety, you know, the one that has some guarantees in it, the one that looks like it has a long future. Yeah, you're not going to get paid as much, but at the end of the day, you'll have a stable job. Forget the fact that it's soul-sucking work and that you hate everything about it. Like, that's beside the point. You just assume at this point that all work is soul-sucking. You just assume it's all soul-sucking. So, I just want a soul-sucking job that pays me well and I can deal with because there's somebody at home who needs me to maintain this paycheck and maintain these benefits and keep this train rolling. And I'm going to do my part. I'm going to sacrifice here. I'm going to do my role. I'm going to fill my role as the man of the house and I'm going to keep this job until the very end.
I remember when I was in that phase, and it always felt like no matter how much money I made, it was never enough. Like there was always something else to spend money on. And so the retirement date just kept getting pushed back further and further. It was like a carrot on a stick, and the stick just kept getting longer and longer and longer. Like one of those selfie sticks that just keeps extending out forever and ever. And just as it gets close, you're thinking, "Ah, I it's right there." And then something comes up and, "Oh my god, we need money for that. Oh my god, we got to do this." And it's just always just out of reach. Life turns into this gray haze of servitude, and you realize that you have lost control. There is no more hope or optimism or joy in your life. Happiness is Friday afternoon. You know, joy is that two-week vacation you get. If you get that, that's when you know that the 25-year-old that had all those dreams and hopes, he's dead and gone. And in his place is this shadow of a man in his dreams. A guy that followed life 1.0 to this moment in time. And everything has worked out terribly. It could not have gone worse. If you would have just randomly selected any other path, it would have been better than this.
But that's just the beginning of the realization because the next thing you know, someone that you know, love, care about, whatever, is going to die. There's going to be this sense of mortality that you never experienced before. Usually, it comes sometime in your mid-40s. So, you're on the downhill slide into 50 at this point. And yeah, some best friend that you had when you were a teenager, you're going to die from something stupid like a heart attack or cancer. Your parents are going to start getting sick and dying. Suddenly, life and the time that you have left takes on this whole new concept. You're like, "Oh my god, like I didn't know you could die like that in your 40s." Like, what the hell? I thought I had more time. Why is this happening? Why am I in this situation? Why is it I'm spending this energy, this valuable asset that I have, my greatest resource, on this life that I hate? Why am I here doing this? My best friend just passed away from some stupid disease. He doesn't have the chance to change things up. He doesn't have an opportunity to live out his dreams. His days are over. Mine could be over at any moment.
The mortality math looks a little bit like this. You start doing a little bit of accounting and decide, okay, what have I accomplished? Where am I in my life? And you give yourself some good billing. Okay, I got a good job. I've got a family and all that. But then you start using a different measuring stick. You're like, wait a second. What have I accomplished for me? I become really good at making other people happy. I've become really good at satisfying other people's needs and desires. In fact, I've been really good at living my life for someone else altogether. What's in this for me? Where have I gone in this equation? I feel like I'm in a play and I'm not even the main actor. I'm like an extra. I'm like the furniture in this play where no one really notices me until something is needed or something goes wrong. How is it I have come to this place? How has I've gotten to this moment in time where I'm not even the protagonist in my own story?
It's at this point where most guys frequently will just lose their minds, go out and buy a sports car, get a girlfriend on the side, start spending money on stupid [ __ ]. It's like watching someone who hasn't ridden a bike for 30 years and then they suddenly get back on for the first time and try navigating some crazy trail down a mountain. It's not pretty. It's hard to watch. But this is what guys do. You know, they're going to get hair implants. You know, they're going to wear boots with higher heels. I swear to God, I've seen it happen so many times. You can tell when the midlife crisis hits. You know, their wardrobe changes, you know, the car they're driving changes, you know, they start wearing cologne, you know, they become really, I wouldn't say aggressive, but definitely a lot more assertive with the ladies in the office or the people they come in contact with. Yeah, it's ugly. It's ugly. Everyone can see what's happening here except for the guy that's doing it. He's the only one who's out of the loop on this. He thinks he is reclaiming that youth. He thinks he's going back in time like he's still that guy from 25 years ago. He's still got it. He's still got it. He doesn't. It's gone. Whatever it was, it left long ago.
Sooner or later, there's going to be this reality check where you look in the mirror and you go, "Wow, who the hell is that? Who's that old man looking back at me right now? This is who I become. This is the man that I am today. Is this the man that I hope to be? Have I lived my life in a way that makes me feel like I have fulfilled my dreams of that 25-year-old? Have I done him proud?" And the vast majority of us have not because we have released our autonomy to a process that we believed was going to take us to the destinations that we wanted to go. The reality is it took us to a life of servitude, one in which every moment is dedicated to the happiness and the needs, satisfying the needs of someone else.
Now, there are people out there who are listening right now and saying, "John, you're talking about being a selfish prick." No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not talking about being a selfish prick. I'm talking about honoring yourself. Honoring your own needs first. Taking care of the one person that needs to be taken care of. Because if you're well cared for, and I can tell you this empirically from my own experience, since my divorce and since I've entered into this life 2.0, and I've been able to dedicate a lot of my time and energy into living the life that I choose to live on my own terms, on my time scale. Well, what's happened is it's given me the ability to be much more generous in helping the people around me in my life financially. I am better off because I don't have these soul-sucking responsibilities to pay anymore. So now my money can go to really helping people achieve the things that they want to achieve. Especially with my kids. It's a different feeling when someone is taking money from you. It feels like you're being violated. When you're giving money freely, it feels like you are like you're this generous benefactor, someone who is a mentor, someone who steps into the breach when someone really needs help and helps them achieve their dream. You're giving them that hand up. You're not having it taken from you. You're giving it. And that's a huge, huge difference.
It's at about this point in life when most guys are hitting 50, 55 years old, and they're looking at the single guys and they're realizing that the path that they followed was more satisfying. That the path that they followed checked more boxes. That 30 years ago you thought that they were idiots for not getting married. You thought they were broken because they couldn't find a woman. Now you look at them and you realize that they had been thinking long-term the whole time. They had seen that there was an alternative path, one that allowed you to live a more authentic life, one that gave you the freedom and autonomy that you so desire right now. And you're trapped. Like they're lions out there on the Serengeti. You know, they're out there making kills. You're not even allowed to roar. You know, if you speak up, the boss is going to put you in your place. You know, you're in the zoo. You are in the zoo. And there's some woman there with a chair and a whip, and she's keeping you in place. She's not letting you get out there and run with the other lions.
So, that's how it happens. That's how you get there. That's how you go from being 25 and filled with piss and vinegar and ready to destroy the world, to 50 and you're turned into this shadow of a man. This man who no longer has a will to achieve anything. Hell, just getting up every morning takes all this willpower. Just facing the next day when all of your energy is associated with, "God, I can't wait till my next break. How many more hours is it until Friday? You know, when can I go home? When can I just get home and sit on my couch?" Your physical fitness has gone to hell. You're fat. You get joy from food. Your happiest moments are spent in front of a television. I mean, this whole picture of life in the domesticated life 1.0, I know is just miserable for a man. You think about what men were, what men are. Why would we subject ourselves to this? Why would we do it? Well, we didn't choose it. We made the mistake of not choosing for ourselves, and we allowed life 1.0 to take over and drive our lives into this [ __ ] hole that we call life now.
Here's the thing. Once you recognize that these things are happening, you can choose to change at any moment. You do not have to ride this plane to its inevitable end, crashing into the mountain. You have parachutes. You can jump at any moment. You do not have to wait for her to throw you out. You can leave on your own accord. You can decide that this isn't making you happy, that you're the one who's not happy. You're the one who's not fulfilled. You see that this isn't working. You can take leadership now. Just because she's taken the leadership away from you doesn't mean you need to allow her to lead you on this final part of the journey. You can take control here and now.
I know a lot of guys in the comments complain that, well, women get such an advantage in court. They're going to take your money. They're going to take your retirement. And I kind of understand that. I mean, I understand where you're coming from with that, but I disagree with you wholeheartedly because your time on this planet in this life at this moment is your most valuable resource. You cannot replace it. You cannot get more. You can make more money. You apply a little creativity. You tap into that 25-year-old version of yourself, and I guarantee you, you will find a way to make all the money you need to achieve the things that you want in your life, and you'll enjoy doing it. You'll enjoy doing it. Because you know something, if you want to get rich, you can't work for someone. You're going to have to take control of this and start a business. And with AI coming and all this upheaval in our economy, I'm telling you, the only way you're going to be able to take control and to have some kind of financial independence and have some real sense of security is if you're in charge of your own paycheck. But that's a whole another video. We'll get to that some other day.
But at the same time, right now, don't stay in a bad marriage. Don't stay in a life that sucks. Don't stay in the situation and let it drag on to the end. There is no value in that. You're not going to get an award. There's no medal. There's nothing good that comes from that. You're just going to be laying on your deathbed thinking, "Well, that wasn't any fun." You know, that wasn't as much fun as I hoped it was going to be.
All right, you guys. I think that's all I got for you on this today. At the end of the day, it's just a matter of how much courage do you have in this moment? I would bet most of you are experiencing a lot of disappointment in your life. You're disappointed in the way things are going, and I would bet that your wife is disappointed in you. So, what it really boils down to, do you have the courage to disappoint her one last time? You know, and say, "Honey, I think we need to split up. I think we need to go in different directions with our lives because I'm not happy." And you know, you don't need to make it into some kind of a nasty split. You can make it kind and nice and thoughtful. You can be even about it. Especially if your kids are grown, there's very little at stake here. But at the end of the day, time is your most valuable resource. And if you're not using it for yourself, and you're not using it to live your dream and to be the man that you always wanted to be, then unfortunately, you're going to miss out. You're going to miss out on your last chance. Because at age 50 or 55, there's still time enough to achieve some greatness in your life, to do the things that really have lived in your subconscious or in your dreams and to turn them into a reality that will make your life feel meaningful and fulfilled.
All right, if you know someone who's in a bad marriage who needs to hear this, please share it with them. If you like the video, please like and subscribe. Until next time, stay healthy and if you can, stay single.