On Overcoming Ennui
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Summary
A 23-year-old man who graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Biology is stuck in a rut and wondering what he should do with himself. I break down how he got into this rut in the first place and how so many of us find ourselves in this sort of rut. The next step is identifying ennui, which is a French word which I absolutely love and I think it perfectly sums up your position. And the third section is about what he can do career wise to advance himself.
Transcript
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on overcoming ennui. Now, this requested video comes from a 23-year-old man who
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graduated with a degree in biology, which as Aaron Clary pointed out in
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Worthless is actually a pretty worthless degree if you haven't specialized in
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something. It's not very employable on its own. And he's finding himself in a
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position right now where he can't find work and he's stuck in a rut, not a
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completely unproductive rut, but one that isn't going anywhere. And he's
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wondering what he should do with himself. Well, I'd like to break this video down
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into three segments, starting with talking about how he got into this rut in the
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first place and how so many of us find ourselves in this sort of a rut. The next
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is identifying ennui. This is a French word which I absolutely love and I think it
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perfectly sums up your position. Having a word for it will help. And the third
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section talk about some specifics that he can do career-wise to advance himself.
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So how did he get into the situation where he graduated with a degree in
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biology, not the best of marks, he probably could have done better, but he was
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slacking off. Well, you know, this is something I was talking with William Rome
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about the other day. About how retarded the education system is. How it's set
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down to the lowest common denominator. So if you are, if you have an IQ above a
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hundred, you are going to be bored out of your skull in school. Now this is what
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happened to me. This is what happened to William Rome. That high school is so
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freaking easy that any idiot can do it. I was just reading a report about a family
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that homeschooled their kids and five of their seven kids, and they're still in
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their early teens, five of their seven kids have already been accepted to
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colleges and universities. Because they're not retarded. So what winds up
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happening if you're a, you know, a decently bright student is you don't need to
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study. You don't need to work. There is so little expected from you that you are
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just craving stimulation. You know, I used to, back in grade three, I was asking for
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extra bonus math workbooks to do because I was bored, because I completed the entire
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year in six months. By the time I got to high school, I'd pass out during most of my
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classes because it was so boring, and have to teach myself everything from home.
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God, I skipped most of that year, and I still got, you know, some of the top marks in
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the school, top marks on math. And then you get to university. Now, on the one hand, you
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absolutely do need to study in university if you want to understand the source
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material. But you don't have to. See, the whole university system is designed for
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mediocre intelligences. If you want to get good marks, you do have to work, but you
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never developed those skills back in high school, because it was such a breeze. You
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were trying to find something more to do, but they wouldn't give it to you. So you
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never develop study habits. So you get to university. And when you're there, you can
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just skate by on your intelligence. And now you're not getting A's like you were in
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high school, but you're getting, you know, C pluses, B minuses. When you're not
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reading the textbook, you're only showing up to half the classes and half-assing
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everything. Because again, it is retarded. It is designed. It is slowed down for the
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stupid people to get a larger group of people there. So they're not challenging
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you. They're primarily testing if you're any good at vomiting up answers onto a
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test to get a certification. You're not there to learn. You're there to get
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certified. Which completely defeats the purpose of taking something in the
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humanities. If you're just getting a certification saying you know history,
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that's useless, especially if you haven't actually learned any history in the
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process. So all of this, all the lowered expectations of society, the ease with
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which you can get by and yet not succeed, not succeed and achieve greatness, but
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just get by with ease. And the fact that you never have to learn any discipline or
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study habits winds up leaving you in a position of incredible ennui. And so what
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is ennui? Like I said, it's a French word. It's one of my favorite French words.
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And it's a state similar to boredom. Except boredom, you don't want to do
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anything. You lay on the couch and you complain that nothing's entertaining you.
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And then you watch some stupid rerun sitcom on TV. That's boredom. Ennui is just
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like you're inured to the world. You're very bored. You want to sit around drinking
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absinthe, but not do anything interesting. It's like a mild form of creative, deep blue
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depression. Passionate depression, if you will.
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And this strikes me as where this young man is right now. Because he's saying he's
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reading some self-help books, which are kicking his ass, which is good. Trying to
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learn some discipline. Trying to discipline himself. He's going to the gym. But he just
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doesn't, meh. So he's doing stuff. He's not bored. He's not properly depressed. But he's
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not really doing anything that goes anywhere. He's just spinning his wheels in the driveway.
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Now, we did mention reading some self-help books. And if you're interested in another one,
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I highly recommend Cernovich's book, Gorilla Mindset. I'll be doing a review of that soon.
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So let's talk about that for a minute. You see, you're trying to learn discipline.
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And he mentioned his roommate who is really switched on, very hardworking, got a useful
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degree, and has a responsible position. I think one of the big mistakes that you can
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make, when you're trying to teach yourself discipline, is teaching yourself discipline
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for discipline's sake. You're asking me, many of the questions you asked me were along the
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lines of, you know, is this smart? Should I discipline myself to do this or that or the
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other thing? And those are the wrong questions to be asking. What you need is a goal, a purpose
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for having this discipline. It's great when you're in the army, you know, they teach you
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discipline because you need discipline to get all that stuff done. You know, and in
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theory, if school challenged you, school would have taught you the discipline to study and
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actually achieve, instead of just letting you skate on by and refusing to challenge you
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because that might make some of the numpties feel bad about themselves. But now that you have
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self-discipline, you need to start from a different perspective.
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Discipline for discipline's sake, you'll do that for about a week, and then you'll quit.
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You know, you'll get sick a bit. You're like, ah, I don't feel like this today.
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What you need to do, and a great example of this is from Cernovich's book,
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Gorilla Mindset, where he says, plan out your perfect day.
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See, in the past, I've tried planning out my productive day, a day where I get a lot
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accomplished. And for a while, I adhere to that schedule, and I am very productive for a while,
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until, oh God, I just don't feel like that today. Because I'm being productive for production's sake,
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not for my sake. I mean, ultimately, it does serve me, but it's an indirect correlation.
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And so what Cernovich challenges you to do is plan out your perfect day. And you know what's
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interesting? When you plan out your perfect day, it winds up being pretty productive. It is a rather
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productive day that you outline for yourself. But because you start with the premise of,
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this is my perfect day. This is the day that I want to live. This is how I want every day of my
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life to be. Suddenly, you've got some motivation. You schedule, when are you going to work out in
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the day? You know, I like working out about 10, 11 a.m. Right? And, but I work out not because I
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have some long-term fitness program that's going to pay off, or because, you know, I'm going to
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dedicate myself to disciplining myself to work out. I work out because that's my workout period. I have
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to shower right afterwards, and I just feel better. It's part of me having a, like, when I look at the
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whole day, I know if I don't work out, I'm going to feel sluggish, and my blood won't be flowing, and
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I'll be miserable. And so what I'm doing at 10 a.m. is related to what I'm doing later on at 6 p.m.
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And so all of a sudden, all of this work I'm doing fits into a pattern of me being happy.
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I'm now disciplining myself for very selfish reasons, and it winds up being very goal-oriented.
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So now that you're disciplining yourself for yourself, it's much, much easier to do.
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And the final point about moving forward, because he asked, should he build on his degree?
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You know, get some sort of specification, some subset of biology that would actually get him a job.
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Well, of course, this is going to depend on what your perfect day is. What do you want to do in life?
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But once you figure that out, once you have a direction you're headed, once you have a goal,
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once you know why you're doing it, like, you were taking biology because it interests you,
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because it's science, because it's etc. You had your reasons, but you didn't have a goal.
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It wasn't serving you. You didn't have a selfish enough reason.
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now you figure out how biology fits into that, and what you can do to get to that place.
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So if you need to take a one-year certification or something, one-year upgrade,
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Yeah, your academic performance in the past was bad.
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Now it's serving you. Now you've got a selfish reason.