I often get this feeling like my ability to enjoy my own life is connected to a battery that's constantly being drained and I have to do things to keep that battery charged or else I get pretty miserable pretty quickly it seems like some people are generally content and happy in their lives unless there is an active problem unless something is working to undermine their happiness but then other people I think are in a constant state of discontentment and feel generally unhappy unless there's something actively happening to make them feel happy unfortunately I am the second
type of person I don't find existing in this world in and of itself to be an inherently enjoyable experience and it's caused a lot of misunder understandings between myself and people who I love who happen to be that first type of person people whose default State seems to be one of contentment and joy and peace I can be visibly and obviously in a bad mood and if someone were to ask me why like what's wrong what is the problem I don't always have a super compelling answer I can always think of something to be upset
about and sometimes I will just to make that conversation make sense to the other person and and give them an answer as to why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling so maybe I'll say like oh I'm just you know I'm stressed about the economy or you know work is hard whatever that's not necessarily the actual reason that I was upset though plus sometimes when I try to think of a reason that I'm upset to justify my mood in order to think of all the things that are screwed up about my life or the world in
general it actually then puts me in a worse mood because then not only am I still upset just because that's my General Baseline unless I have a reason not to feel that way now I'm also more Mindful and more conscious of other big picture problems in my life or just in the world and that gets stacked on top of my emotional state now I feel even worse than I did before I don't like that this is true about me but it is I can be in a bad mood for absolutely no reason or at least
more accurately no reason Beyond like nothing that would make me feel good is currently happening or it's been a few days since anything exciting or special happened it if you're hoping I can explain why this happens to me physiologically like like on a biological level I can't I have theories about that but I'm not certain about them and I don't like to present stuff to you guys unless I'm pretty sure about them this channel is not meant to to be Scott's crackpot theories about how the world works but despite being built the way that I
am built I think that I've managed to end up with a pretty good life there was certainly some help in that there was probably some luck involved in that but I've learned quite a few things in my 41 years of doing this about how to manage the type of brain that I have and so if you relate to me on this if what I've described so far sounds a bit like you I am making this content for for you I'm going to teach you the main ways that I've been able to feel pretty good most
of the time despite being what I would consider to be a pretty naturally unhappy person so the first thing and probably the most complicated by far is to try to keep that battery charged if you know that you're not the kind of person who's going to just be content to exist on a normal or average day and that's actually a relatively unpleasant experience for you you can't expect yourself to just keep trudging through life indefinitely with no system in place to help you enjoy it you aren't built for that I like to think of myself
as being kind of like an electric car which is a little unflattering because I don't totally love electric cars but it's a good metaphor I can only go so far before I need to stop at a charging station for a while and what I'm charging is my emotions it's my joy it's my excitement it's my sense of reward for existing I have to build these things in they don't just happen for me so I try to build my life around these so-called charging stations and I think I think of smaller ones and bigger ones because
I'm a very busy person right I have a family I have a business I have this YouTube channel it's not like I can just build my life around doing things that make me feel good and having fun all the time even if I could logistically do that there's problems with that which we'll talk about in a second but so I have daily charging stations set up and they're fairly small things this is going to be very individualized from one person to the next but just to give you an example of what I'm talking about my
morning charging station is I I try to get outside within an hour of waking up what I do outside might vary from one day to the next often I go for a walk listen to a podcast I might just sit on my swing I might do a project outside like yard work or something being outside for me is incredibly recharging it quiets the chaos it gives me something beautiful to focus on and it helps me just get away from the inherent negativity and pessimism and nihilism that is my brain so that's my morning charging station
midday is hard because Monday through Friday you know I work a pretty like 8 to fiveish schedule so I don't have a ton of free time it's little but it really does help me I try to make sure I always have a good lunch ideally that's something I've already brought from home or something that my wife has made me worst case scenario there's always door Dash there's always Jimmy Johns but I I don't get much during the day cuz my my midday is mostly work so I need something in the middle of the day that
I'm like okay I just got to get through this and then I get to have my sandwich or whatever and and it has to be an actual good sandwich it has to be something that is actually rewarding or reinforcing to me so my midday charging station is usually food and then evening soon as I come home I always try within an hour of getting home to try to do something special with my family that when I say special I don't mean like something super dramatic I mean like bike ride with my daughter little fishing trip
with my son we we are fortunate to have water 50 ft away even just taking them out on the swing set or something just little things that make my day feel special because I know that if I don't have those it just does not go well for me I can feel like the life and the joy draining out of me I also try to make sure that at least once per week I have something quote big and and and big doesn't have to be like a vacation again it could be you know maybe there's a
maybe there's a fair that we're going to go to or maybe I'm going to cook a new piece of meat on a barbecue or you know working on a project whatever it it doesn't have to be massive it doesn't have to be expensive but just something that isn't just your mundane routine so that that's how I keep my battery charged morning afternoon evening charging stations one big thing per week that helps me always have something on the horizon usually never more than a few hours away that I am anticipating because I have learned through trial
and error that if I look in the near future and I just see nothing that's going to be a problem for me pretty quickly now again those are just my specific ideas if you listen to that and you're like that sounds miserable that life would not make me happy at all that doesn't mean this idea is a bad idea it just means you and I are not the same so you might need to replace my charging stations with your charging stations but if you're this sort of inherently unhappy type of person always having something on
the horizon that gives you that reason and that next step to look forward to within reason is critical now I am emphasized within reason because it is my personal opinion that this brain type that we have makes us substantially more prone to addictions and I don't just mean substances I mean behavioral addictions things that don't necessarily have a physiological element of addiction but that we get sucked into and want to do over and over and over again for me personally drugs and alcohol never really got a hold of me they had plenty of opportunities to
do so but they those things didn't stick but the thing that almost ruined my life was video games because that was the first thing that I stumbled upon that I could do easily and consistently like it's pretty much always available that my brain went whoa I like this this feels good I look forward to this this triggers my Reward Center in a way that just being alive and doing normal Being Alive stuff does not do and it nearly destroyed my life because once you find things that actually feel good to you if that is a
dramatic departure from how you feel most of the time that thing can very quickly and very easily become the only thing you want to do so you have to be really careful with this to make sure that whatever the things you organize your life around are whatever your charging stations are that they aren't things that are going to destroy your finances or your health or your relationships use them sparingly the second thing that helps me cope with having this type of brain and this one is going to sound a little un therapist likee just so
you know but this is my personal opinion don't try to get people to understand unless you know that they are the same way that you are this one has caused me so much heartache in my life because I've not generally been around especially earlier in my life as far as like friends and family I've not been around a lot of people who seemed to feel the way that I felt and so when I tried to explain to them why I was unhappy or like how my brain works I was met with blank stairs confusion doubts
judgment invalidation not on purpose I don't think I don't think people who have an inherent happiness that is only not present if it is disrupted are any more able to understand us who lack that than we are to understand them and I don't mean this to sound judgmental at all like when I look at people who can just be walking around smiling and there doesn't appear to be a reason for it I don't understand that I don't know how that works I don't know how that's possible um I literally cannot comprehend it and and no
matter how much someone would try to explain that to me I'm not going to understand what it is like to be that person I don't think they're any better able to understand us that doesn't mean we shouldn't have relationships with them can't love them they they can't be good people but I think if you try to really get them to understand on a visceral level who you are and how you operate emotionally it's just going to be an exercise in futility maybe that's part of why I've chosen to mostly surround myself with depressed people all
day long because they are my people but this is not my therapy session some people will get it and some people won't keep the ones that get it close because in my experience they are rare the third thing that has helped me deal with being this type of person is to stop wishing that I was someone or something that I am not this one probably took me the longest out of everything I used to get so jealous of people who seem to naturally enjoy existing like they're smiling but nothing is happening what did someone like
cast a spell on them like what why are they happy what's what's going on how does this work want you figure out how to operate your brain want you understand how to keep yourself charged want you know who to open up to and who not to open up to being this way isn't all bad and if you're much earlier in the process of understanding and coping with who you are than I am that might sound insensitive that's not my intent this is a total stereotype but I think it makes us more creative and I think
it makes us more productive because we're we're more driven it if it takes more for you to enjoy being alive than it does for most people and you Embrace that and you just harness that and you just say okay then that's what I have to do you're probably going to have a higher output than most people you're probably going to end up doing a lot of really cool stuff if you just roll with it and accept that you are built that way and that's legitimately a need that you have just like some people need more
sleep than others that's probably part of why I have the output that I have like I think if I were not that kind of person I don't think I would have bothered to write a book I don't think I would have felt compelled to and if nothing else being the way that you are can allow you to help other people who are like you and I know how lonely it can be to be that kind of person so I think that's an incredibly valuable thing and I don't want you to ever underestimate how important that
is which is a perfect lead into to my last Point know that you are not alone I spent so long thinking I was literally the only human being on Earth who had this type of brain I'm not and neither are you you've got me right I mean if if what I've described sounds accurate to your internal experience you know I'm with you on this many of my therapy clients who I can't tell you who they are because confidentiality but this is these are the kind of people I talk to all day long and they all
think they're alone too and that's part of why I run so many groups here is because I wanted to prove to them that that wasn't the case and get them together with a group of other people to say No in fact here are some awesome people who are very similar to you Bond now doesn't always work that way but it's not just you there are many of us and I think I think maybe I don't think we're the majority I do think there's more of us than we think because these things are hard to talk
about it's hard to let this stuff out it's hard to be vulnerable around something that most of the world doesn't understand but I don't think we're like one in a million we'll see how well this video does that'll be a good barometer of it but it's not just you you don't have some glitchy faulty brain you're not a mistake you're just built different in a way that has pros and cons and it might feel like it has more cons than Pros I'm not even necessarily trying to say that you're wrong about that but if you
are this way you just got to roll with it you just got to figure out ways to make it work for you in your life it can be done my path may not be exactly the same as yours but hopefully you can at least use what I have done as a rough template to figure out your own path forward and make this work for you I'll keep making content around this topic if that helps I know it's complicated this is just sort of the entry point into this idea I hope this helped take care and
I'll see you next time
