How to stop living the provisional life — a decade later

Summary

In this reflective and deeply personal discussion, the speaker revisits their previous insights on living a 'provisional life'—a state of being where individuals drift through life without fully investing in it—10 to 15 years later. They explore the lessons learned from past struggles with depression, job dissatisfaction, and personal growth. The speaker stresses the importance of taking risks, embracing antifragility, and allowing oneself to patinate, or develop unique personal characteristics, by facing life's challenges. They share the transformative journey from feeling stuck to finding fulfillment in newer ventures, leading to a more authentic and enjoyable life today.

Highlights

• Discover how living a 'provisional life' keeps you a bystander in your own story 📖
• Learn from Marie Lise's insights on why people avoid fully investing in life 🌟
• Explore the concept of antifragility and how stress can lead to growth 💪
• Find out how personal crises can be catalysts for major change 🚀
• Read about the journey from a depressing job to discovering personal passions and freedom 🎨

Key Takeaways

• The 'provisional life' concept helps identify how fear and lack of direction keep people from fully engaging in life 🚣‍♂️
• Embracing stress and challenges can foster growth and develop personal 'patina' over time 🌿
• Personal crises or hardships often lead to significant self-discovery and change 🔍
• Knowing oneself and allowing personal freedom are key to overcoming negative cycles and finding true satisfaction 🦋
• Intellectual pursuits can sometimes mask underlying fears of embracing life fully 📚

Overview

The speaker reflects on their journey of evolving from someone living a 'provisional life' to taking initiative and embracing change. Initially, they lived without direction, influenced heavily by outside forces rather than steering their life purposefully. Over the years, they began to understand the importance of taking measured risks and the concept of antifragility—where life’s challenges can lead to growth rather than causing harm. This shift in mindset marked the beginning of their transformation.

Balancing personal hardships, such as depression and difficult work environments, with the pursuit of intellectual growth, the speaker recounts the struggles that acted as a foundation for personal development. They realize that therapy and honest self-reflection helped identify subconscious barriers and the importance of allowing oneself to develop personal 'patina' through life's experiences, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling and adventurous life.

Through transformative personal stories, the speaker illustrates how embracing life’s uncertainties and leaning into one’s authentic interests can lead to unexpected success and happiness. From working in uninspiring jobs to discovering true passions, they offer a hopeful narrative of breaking free from societal and self-imposed limitations, developing genuine self-worth, and learning to live a life filled with engagement and contentment.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Reflection on Provisional Life The chapter begins with a reflective tone as the author revisits a topic discussed 10 to 15 years prior, concerning Mari Lise from France and the concept of 'provisional life.' The author intends to provide an update on their thoughts and how their perspective has evolved over the years. This updated position is also shared, offering insights into personal development and changes in belief or understanding regarding the discussed philosophical or life-concept topic.
• 01:00 - 05:00: Influence of Marie-Louise von Franz and the Concept of the Provisional Life The chapter discusses the influence of Marie-Louise von Franz, an analyst who worked closely with Carl Jung, particularly on the concept of the 'provisional life'. The provisional life is characterized as a state where an individual, described as the 'Eternal Youth' or 'Puer Aeternus', continuously lives without really getting direction or becoming an active participant in their own life. This is analogous to being in a turbulent river, where despite the constant movement, the individual remains a bystander in their own existence.
• 05:00 - 11:00: Struggles with Fear and Personal Growth The chapter 'Struggles with Fear and Personal Growth' delves into the tension between external forces that drive us and the personal influence we can exert on our life's direction. It uses the metaphor of a river to describe life's journey, implying that while we may feel tossed into life's challenges, we have the ability – and necessity – to navigate and paddle our way towards our desired destination, thus highlighting the dual nature of passivity and active participation in personal growth.
• 11:00 - 16:00: Life Experiences and Overcoming Depression The chapter delves into the concept of making a decisive choice between actively living or succumbing to despair, particularly in the context of depression. It suggests that living passively, without true engagement or investment, leads to a life without 'skin in the game.' The discourse encourages full participation in life to avoid the fear-driven, provisional existence many people, including the narrator, have experienced by isolating themselves instead of embracing life's challenges.
• 16:00 - 23:00: Career Challenges and Personal Development This chapter delves into the common internal excuses people make and rationalize for avoiding actions or opportunities, such as speaking to someone new, taking new opportunities, or maintaining fitness routines. It particularly highlights the speaker's personal feeling of fragility and the need to protect oneself, which often hindered personal growth and decision-making. It references the concept of 'anti-fragility,' proposed by an author who argues for the benefits of exposing oneself to challenges to build resilience and personal development.
• 23:00 - 30:00: Journey to Self-Discovery and Entrepreneurship In this chapter, the concept of antifragility is explored, which suggests that systems can grow when exposed to stress, similar to how muscles develop through training. It emphasizes the importance of taking small, incremental risks rather than huge ones, in order to build strength and become antifragile. This principle is likened to life itself, where controlled exposure to challenges leads to personal growth and resilience.
• 30:00 - 41:00: Personal Insights and Philosophies The chapter, titled 'Personal Insights and Philosophies,' explores the concept of developing individuality and uniqueness over time. The speaker draws an analogy between a human being and a leather shoe. Like a shoe that starts off as a commodity—one of many identical items—and gradually develops its own unique pattern through use and exposure to various conditions, a person can also develop a distinctive personality or style. This process, referred to as 'patinating,' suggests that openness to change and experience contributes to personal growth and individuality.

How to stop living the provisional life — a decade later Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello this is a follow-up video 10 to 15 years later after I made a video about Mari lis France and the question of Po aternos in the following you see what I said about it around 10 15 years ago and I also added the new position what I think about it today how I developed in the meantime and I hope you enjoy it so stay tuned hello I want to speak about the provisional life as Marie Lise from France um spoke about it you know wrote
• 00:30 - 01:00 about it in the book um poor eternus and she actually was a young analyst and work closely together with CG young and zarich and uh the entire point of the book is that um the Eternal youling or young uh is uh who continuously lives the provisional lives and never really lives and never really gets Direction in his life and always is kind of a bystander uh in his own life when actually life is like like being in a in a river that's actually like shaking all the time and uh of course you're being
• 01:00 - 01:30 driven by outside forces but at the same time um you do have some influence that you can exert and uh where you actually have a chance to steer the boat into to the right direction or the direction you actually wanted to go and uh to have like an impact an influence and not only be driven because you have to kind of be in the river you cannot stand outside or not interact that's not how this life Works you're being thrown into life aside I would say and you're being thrown into the river and uh well you better paddle This is the existential situation where um you actually have to
• 01:30 - 02:00 decide whether you're going to Suicide yourself or whether you're going to live actively because like if you stand in between well you do exist you live but uh you never really invested in life as nothing seem to live I would say you never really have skin in the game so um yes and mostly why do people not live the provisional life and do never really um play it with full stakes and never really invested it's mostly because people are afraid and um yeah so they and I did it myself like uh you withdraw to your own self you don't go out you
• 02:00 - 02:30 find excuses you rationalize things why don't you do it and I mean if if you start at this you always find a reason I always did find reason why not to speak to that girl or uh why not to take this opportunity why not to go out to the gym and mostly in my case it was due to the fact that I thought I was I was too fragile that I need to yeah be protective of myself that I just can't do it and uh coming back to nothing to left the the author of anti fragility he actually comes up with a a theory um
• 02:30 - 03:00 that depict um but the concept of antifragility is that those are systems that actually grow while being under stress it's like a muscle the more you train it the more you actually stress it um the more it GRS and uh life is also like this in a way um you should be sure that the stressors are not too big of course um but actually the more you actually the more you use it and the more risks you take small incremental risks not the huge risk you don't need to jump out of a plane but the more you actually become like strong or antifragile if if you're going to follow n part um and it definitely has its
• 03:00 - 03:30 perks I call it patina you know um like a leather shoe that in the very beginning has like is a commodity and there are like many many others that look alike and then during time and uh uh during usage in the rain and in the streets and uh all the well all the different climates you go uh throughout the year it develops its style its own kind of unique pattern and it's patinating and uh I think if you as a human being if you ready to patinate and
• 03:30 - 04:00 if you always like think Oh no I got to I got to I got to be protective of my shoe and never use it then you never get your own patina and uh your own kind of unique pattern on it and uh and can never really age gracefully and um I think it takes a lot of a lot of uh courage to really go for it and uh to actually take the risk because you might actually want to F that was FR because you actually you actually might want to fail actually yes yes some people want to fail and they don't want to they don't want to go into the deep details
• 04:00 - 04:30 so just to sum this up um the really big PS to playing the game to be fully invested in life and to take the hits when they're hits but at the same time you open up a space that allows you some new opportunities you know um laon like a big psycho analyst he called he made the distinction between automaton and touche and automaton is like the repetition of things for example you live in every day you go to work and you never speak to anybody and you go back at night and of course if you do this um
• 04:30 - 05:00 You probably will never mostly never experience any new thing it's the automaton whereas the touche is when you actually give it a possibility or give life a possibility that they actually bring something new that there emerges a crack that lets in a new experience an unforeseen experience and there are many different names for it some people call it touche um some other yeah I don't know like also calls the real in a way um yeah and this opens up cracks and it takes courage because this is this is something we don't know we're afraid of mostly and uh
• 05:00 - 05:30 it opens up new spaces but we don't know what's going to happen and so this is kind of the the biggest adventure and it scares us but at the same time if we don't have this kind of Adventure as a human being there's no real point to life because this is also in the end why we why we do live I mean if you could foresee everything right from the start probably you'd sleep sometimes bad at night but it might be this this would be really really really really boring life and uh in the end it's a decision uh you're going to make whether you want to actually live a life full invested and take the risks but also take the benefits and uh uh and just see where it goes you know or um if you cling to
• 05:30 - 06:00 stability which actually doesn't really exist or the world doesn't have stability it's it's it's just an illusion that came up with the big governments and and the big nation states but who knows um there will be changes and uh some people are being forced into it and some others are not but uh people normally don't change some the Swiss guys at some point said um people only change during a personal crisis or during war and uh see running it up um take risks and uh it's worth it this is is 10 15 years later after this
• 06:00 - 06:30 initial video that I shot here and um well let's let's let's talk about what happened during that time I was living in the 18th District of yenna at the time near real nice park however I shared a room with a woman and she was kind of cool she was from Eastern Germany and yeah she had kind of a par I think it was a kakat a white haired kakat with yellow features she was super nice so I moved in with her and then
• 06:30 - 07:00 once I finally moved in the parrot well the kakatu I mean it sounded like at 6:00 in the morning somebody's tooting a car down there tooting the horn and it turned out to be the kakatu upon further investigation I found out that the the white haired kakatu with yellow features is the most the craziest kakatu there is and he has a lot of need to communicate and he does that very loudly so at the same time I was working a absolutely shitty job in Consulting it was two guys
• 07:00 - 07:30 two partners they earned kind of a lot of money however they never paid us they were apart from me there was another consultant there we were in the middle of Vienna and it wasn't real Consulting projects it was more like a political lobbying and they invited this party this guy the mayor of this town and then the company that builds hospitals and they put them together and then they sold an exploration study or study or feasibility study to everybody however um yeah sometimes they would just say uh
• 07:30 - 08:00 yeah you can go now you don't need to work anymore I was paid by the hour so and they communicated it as a benefit hey you can already go you're free cool so at the time I I tried to find better positions I just had graduated my studies two or three years before that and I was thinking like what what can I go I wasn't really motivated to do anything in particular Consulting sounded great but but yeah so I was
• 08:00 - 08:30 still working at that consulting company and I was trying to find a better job better paid Etc and uh that didn't go so well didn't have any skills and I was living with a kakatu in some room that didn't get a lot of natural light in Vienna I didn't really have money and uh I didn't really think about saving some money what for you're going to buy a house or something no it was just basically survival ever since my studies um and during the last years of my
• 08:30 - 09:00 studies I studied in in in Holland and Paris and in Paris I I I really fell depressed I've started therapy the whole nine yards and suddenly somebody who could concentrate and who generally uh got good assessments with within companies and internships and and all that um yeah so I had I had a hard time putting my power on the street and I found it hard to perform I I I couldn't really concentrate I was fully in a depression and and absolutely beyond
• 09:00 - 09:30 that I I never knew what I wanted beyond my studies because I I come from a relatively small village in the black forest and uh I did a bank apprenticeship um later I went on to to to finish high school but it was really really bad I I didn't study for a whole year and it was kind of a coincidence that I that I even passed it um and I didn't give a damn because I was kind of struggling there was a lot of conflict at my house my parents got divorced Etc so I didn't really care uh at the time I was just focused on on what I loved at
• 09:30 - 10:00 the time that was that was Street dancing really and um so somehow I made it to Holland I studied their international business um and uh well it turned out I I wasn't too bad at it and then I made it to a double degree with a French business school that is kind of considered the French Harvard which was awesome yet I never knew what to do after my studies it was kind of a black Cole and uh as as I mentioned I fell
• 10:00 - 10:30 into a depression my mother died while I was in Paris kind of finished my studies and then uh it took a time till I found my first job it was in Zurich with a big large International electronics company I really hated that one and again I just couldn't concentrate so it was just a matter of time until I got fired there I moved to Vienna because I had a lot of friends there I really liked it and I thought okay first you go to a city that you actually enjoy and then you can try
• 10:30 - 11:00 to find a job Etc and yeah it wasn't that easy so I kind of knew that i h had something to give and that I could Excel excel at something but somehow I I I just couldn't uh put all of the power on the street um apart from that I was I was always ever since my studies I was reading philosophy all day psychology slav xek on YouTube all the nine yards you know very very intellectual mindish you know uh very very in the books all of the time and and you can hear that
• 11:00 - 11:30 the way I speak all of this I mean I'm kind of impressed by what I what I what I knew you know like reading all of these books and and Nasim talb and having knowing all of these quotes it sounds like I'm I was a I was a walking book you know so at the time when I was actually recording the video there was a positive movement forward because I wanted to do something and I got a lot of comments uh for this video at some point I lost a lock in for this YouTube channel and then people request that uh
• 11:30 - 12:00 yeah do do another video Etc and um so I was just wondering like 10 15 years later now what would have happened if I would have just continued uh with something that I actually enjoyed but that kind of was one of the first steps to to uh to get active and to do something that I would enjoy that that is born out of my own motivation and not because somebody imposed it you know um I kind of made it out of my family with a real authoritarian and oppressive father and then just def find myself again in a situation where yeah I
• 12:00 - 12:30 have a boss and the guy can basically decide everything about you and I mean it is an absolute truth that you you you get out of school you know you get out of your parents house that might have been gone well or not um for a couple of years in Freedom that's your studies if if if you opt to study just then again to to have a boss you know and be kind of like in an author authoritarian system where you have to show up at a certain time every morning and that can be all good and proper you know
• 12:30 - 13:00 um everybody's different but for me uh with my mind and everything it it just wouldn't work at the time because looking back um yeah working with a with a boss and and in a certain setting it it triggered so many old emotional emotional traumas that uh well on the one hand I wanted to be perfect but then I on the other hand I I didn't allow myself subconsciously to be there because wow being a consult a Management Consultant
• 13:00 - 13:30 in a town like Vienna that wasn't uh sketched out for me that was I I was stepping out of the Zone I was supposed to be but at the very moment I couldn't fathom all of this I didn't know about all of this I just realized some things off and eventually I sabotaged myself um from doing stuff that I actually could have would have been able to do I did have the the intellectual capabilities to work in that Consulting job yet
• 13:30 - 14:00 something in me would just sabotaged myself I couldn't concentrate um and for me it was kind of I was put in an imposs I put myself in an impossible position where I just couldn't perform on a different note I always knew that I wanted to do something beyond that and I have some talents or things that I enjoy and apart from the the videos it was writing so at at around that time 2014 I I I started to sketch out the to to I I started writing uh my first book my first text and
• 14:00 - 14:30 later right after I got fired from the actual consulting company I went after that to um then I just started doing a podcast where I interviewed like a writer that I that I admired at the time and once I gave myself the the permission to do this without having any expectation in mind of earning money or anything just to start something right then then the things started turning out pretty pretty well uh eventually but I was toally scared I didn't allow myself
• 14:30 - 15:00 emotionally or subconsciously to to well maybe I would have allowed myself to work in a really odd job but definitely not in a consulting company and hell no not in a in uh working as an entrepreneur you know doing your own thing or being a writer God forbid so after a certain while uh being an unemployment benefits I I I still kept applying for jobs and I I kind of had the feeling I was already over 30 uh I would have just repeated the whole thing over and over again to try a new job you
• 15:00 - 15:30 know try a new kind of career work there for one year one and a half years and then kind of to to find out that ah it's possibly not for you and then either get fired or wanting to change again I just thought I need to do my own thing obviously it wasn't it wasn't really um realistic I don't know to to say oh I'm gonna become a writer or I don't know or or whatever I studied marketing and I went on on YouTube and I I just entered what can I do online how can I earn money and then I I looked at a couple of
• 15:30 - 16:00 different things it was Google AdWords it was uh SEO search engine optimization marketing and I thought well that kind of sounds good let's stick to this and then I just made a decision this is not perfect this is not what I want to do my whole life possibly or forever for for for decades but hey this good enough I could myself I could see myself doing that I can work autonomously I can do the work for clients I can do that work for for companies and I can also studied myself so what followed was many 16 hour
• 16:00 - 16:30 days I got up in the morning went from the bed directly to the couch where I worked uh 16 hours um then my even my arms and my hands did hurt because I had I did work so much in the evening I went out at 11: I went to that bar where they had a cheap wine and and and salt uh they sold single cigarettes for 20 cents or whatever and then I would smoke a cigarette have my wine and that was kind of the the Romantic phase of of doing
• 16:30 - 17:00 this and then I went to bed and it it repeated the next day and then I more or less took a decision I'm going to go all in on this I'm going to burn all my boats uh doesn't matter nothing is ever perfect you're just going to start somewhere this seems good enough you're just going to go for it eventually right when I needed it I got a call from a guy I I once met in Switzerland and he said hey I'm building this company I would want you to help me can you do some work for me and I said oh my God this is perfect comes at the right time because
• 17:00 - 17:30 I actually I don't know I I I started something and then the universe gave me this guy um so I kind of had some security um for around half a year when I worked for this guy or a little bit longer even actually then I went to Thailand because there was this big big conference for SEO search engine optimization then I met a friend there or or a guy who's now a friend I met a lot of great people who who who helped me and uh I got my first client there you know my first SEO only client
• 17:30 - 18:00 because for this for this other guy that it's General marketing work and also SEO uh working on his website Etc so yeah over the years that just started out and I was so scared uh all of the time but whenever I was I would just focus and say well this is your only way out you're just going to continue and I I had to believe uh that by just continuing that I will eventually uh grow and and and and and overcome
• 18:00 - 18:30 certain fears and and and and and evolve as a professional and as a person so long story short I met my girlfriend in Bulgaria of all places in a co-working space in a mountain town uh we then went um to Mexico uh got stranded there during covid in a beach house with a beach being our garden and yeah especially then SEO took off I thought I'm going to lose all my clients because of the this crisis you know Health crisis and contrarily to this I got
• 18:30 - 19:00 clients than ever better clients than ever and things started to develop really well eventually I made a lot of money uh considering where I started from I started with a ,000 in my bank had to go to my father um and started from there uh live with him which or is not a lot of fun but that was kind of the thing I had to do well and long story short nowadays live in Portugal with my girlfriend with my dog and life
• 19:00 - 19:30 is kind of great so when I kind of look back to the to this video that I recorded 10 15 years ago I'm kind of impressed by this guy because he knows all of these things that some somehow I I don't seem to know these days because I don't read that much anymore um the guy in the video he feel very brainy to me he seems like he's overly into books and intellectualize a lot and possibly I mean this is great I love when people know all of these these things don't get me wrong but it seems like a defense
• 19:30 - 20:00 somehow and uh and I see a guy who who's afraid of of trying stuff and going all in but I see a guy who actually was on his way and uh again shooting this video was one of the first steps towards towards doing that so what I think I learned during all of these years and and and and and building a company and going for it and and dealing with all of the emotions also a lot of these negative emotions of fear and guilt and whatever that that came up in my case
• 20:00 - 20:30 you know I mean a lot of people use different words to talk about different things and I was definitely doing that so I can just talk about my case what helped me back and in the end definitely the toughest thing for me was subconsciously I did not allow myself to succeed I didn't allow myself to enjoy that led to me even creating a lot of problems I had this bias that I was that
• 20:30 - 21:00 I thought I have to sacrifice myself for other people and so I was allocating a lot of problems or seeing them in the world when actually 80% of them were inside of me and the way I grew up and the info I was given subconsciously by my parents and because kind kind of violated this I I went out of my of the city I lived you know I didn't follow what my father wanted me to be he wanted me to be be a policeman he wanted my
• 21:00 - 21:30 brother to be a bus driver that I had you see I succeeded with my studies International Studies a big thing but suddenly then right after I was about to graduate the big depression comes that is not a coincidence and then when I'm ready to cash it in to get a great job with a great company or whatever I want to do then I fall depressed and then I kind of have to struggle for 10 years until I takeing heads on do my own thing in my
• 21:30 - 22:00 case um it's really tough up until like already two years ago things were kind of great I was making enough money I I I lived at the beach in Portugal I had a dog great partner everything you want great clients and I kind of realized I told to my therap I told my therapist well this could be My Reality right um that I basically acknowledge what's there and that I enjoy this but it took me a couple of even more years to allow
• 22:00 - 22:30 myself to enjoy it and to accept that this is the reality because whenever something whenever I realize that something is amazing I I I and I just found out a while ago another negative thought came in you think about me thinking about envisaging this playing tennis you know and at the same time there comes another visualization and I feel like oh this will be amazing you know oh positive Vision the next thought is something that destroys it again that
• 22:30 - 23:00 would be oh you play and then you're you injure yourself or something and that's quite something to fight against and it is unconscious and most people possibly a lot of people will say now if you're watching this oh it's the guy crazy or whatever but uh actually this virus runs in a lot of heads out there and people just don't know it so younger guys who suffer from this they they go read books they intellectualize they they want to understand the world and you can't blame
• 23:00 - 23:30 them as as I wanted to do and I still don't know what this this whole thing is all about and I keep reading philosophy and all of this but it is mostly within ourselves often but it's so tough to find out what it is and how to how to get to that level where you where you become aware and then actually have a have a grip on it and and and and can deal with it and realize how your life can be so much better and it is you above a certain thing you don't have to
• 23:30 - 24:00 improve your environment necessarily you have to improve your perception of it and as I mentioned in the video before maybe you don't want to let yourself succeed maybe you're sabotaging yourself and then at the same time you read philosophy and and and psychology and think about oh why is this world so bad why am I unhappy right who's doing that to me some people project it onto other people oh my partner she's so bad or why is my my my boss so bad you know uh why is everybody against me when unfortunately so many people are
• 24:00 - 24:30 creating it themselves and uh it's so sad and there's no easy solution for that so coming back to Marie Louise from France she argues that depression is an absolute gift I don't know if I would follow that uh that reading but definitely as I also mentioned in the video um people only change during a personal crisis or War I have a concept of I call it the lucky extremes it means that if you're doing badly on a scale from 1 to 10 maybe it's better to do to
• 24:30 - 25:00 suffer on a level on level seven rather than on level two because with level two or three you might just make it through life and no big crisis whatever but you're still not doing so well but on level seven you're so effed up and I was definitely level8 n um that I had to address it and then you get to get to look into a lot of things that possibly else you would have never addressed and you just accept it as oh this yeah life is like this and I can't change it so some people uh recommend Psychotherapy
• 25:00 - 25:30 and it is great but I think it's all about becoming conscious it's about getting the inside and inside and action what you need the inside you need to realize oh for example I'm sabotaging myself with this or I I have this negative thought or and when I go to the gym I feel guilty for going to the gym I mean it really happens then it's not it's not enough to just sit there and say oh well I I wait until the these bad feelings go away no you go out confront it and by confronting it you bring up
• 25:30 - 26:00 new stuff and it's a Never Ending Story you always have to kind of evolve but I think he can reach a certain level where you're going to be so much happier I don't know I know a guy he believes in he believes in God in Jesus and finds his salvation in him and that's all right uh for me so far it's been Psychotherapy and going for the stuff you actually want in life that might not be the most comfortable life you might
• 26:00 - 26:30 be scared often there might be a lot of stress but at least for me that's at least at least you feel something and it's exciting so have a good one