The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr Kenner.com

Here's a question I got from Benson. See what you what's your gut response to this? He's deciding what to do with the rest of his life, dear Dr Kenner, I just turned 23 and I don't know what to do with my life. I am a Job Hopper. The longest I've ever stuck with any job is eight months as a pizza delivery boy. I could do anything I wanted in terms of intelligence, but not in terms of qualification. What I really want to do in my life is illegal, to grow marijuana, not deal drugs, but either grow for myself or for a company, something along those lines. I want a job that makes me a decent amount of money so I can support myself and hopefully retire early. I'm starting to worry because all my friends, even my younger sister, are living their lives and moving towards their goals. My biggest fear in life is being a failure, and it looks like that's where I'm heading at this moment. Thanks, Benson.

Benson, it is so good that you took the time to write me this question, because you're gathering your own thoughts and you're seeing that the trajectory, trajectory for your own life is vague. You somehow want to make a lot of money, so you can retire earlier, and you want a job, and it's vague, and the trajectory does seem like you're aiming towards being a failure. So some of the things you can do, you want to turn your life around, and you have that opportunity, you want to grasp that work is not something that you do just to get to retirement or just to get a bundle of money. It's certainly that the whole focus of your life, having a productive career for you should be the central purpose of your life. It's what you organize all your days around, all your activities, and if you can make it something you thoroughly enjoy, and that is legal, and that will aim towards your goals, even if you have to start on a lower rung initially. That is what you're looking for. So you don't want to go through life feeling like a loser or a drifter with vague dreams. Take the responsibility of thinking, asking yourself questions. What would make me happy?

Get rid of the term Job Hopper, because if you see yourself as a Job Hopper, that is going to limit your ceiling. You also don't want to just think, all I want to do in life is grow pot and that's it. You need to broaden your scope. Because if you're thinking that, that's the only option, you know, unless you're doing some of this compassion pot growing, forget it. Sometimes you just have to drop a goal that's unrealistic. I had to drop becoming an Olympic ice skating champion when I was 20 years old. I couldn't even do a spin on the ice. So sometimes, if a goal is not going to head you in the right direction, drop it. You see other choice makers, your sister, your friends, learn from them. Observe. How are they making longer range goals? You say you have intelligence, but that's going to wear thin in your own mind if you don't use it, so you can get a book. I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was by Barbara Sher. And you want to find a career. Take career finding seriously. Don't think of it as job hopping. Know that that's the most valuable thing that you could do at this point in your life. You're 23 years old. This is a wake up call for you. You don't have to measure yourself against other people, but you definitely want to learn how to set goals, so you could do some, basically, some career goal setting work for yourself.

And here's a little more from Dr Kenner: Look, Jeff, we had two wonderful months this summer, but that was it. Happens all the time. Wife and kids go away to the country, and the boss has a fling with the secretary or the manicurist or the elevator girl. Come September, the picnic’s over. Goodbye, the kids go back to school, the boss goes back to the wife, and the girl...

They don't think they shrink like they used to, and that’s from the movie The Apartment, and those very poignant moments when you feel betrayed by someone or you're betraying someone else. He's betraying his wife. How do you keep a romance going? Obviously, having an affair messes you up, messes your partner up, and devastates your romantic partner. When I say your partner, I mean your lover. It devastates your wife or husband, the person you're married to, when they find out. And how do you deal with a romantic relationship in a way that doesn't involve affairs?

My book that I wrote with Dr Ed Locke, The Selfish Path to Romance, talks about relationship breakers, love destroyers. Now, what are love destroyers? It could be anger. It could be someone that never expresses emotions, affairs, affairs and lies—even white lies become a problem. Money issues, putting the kids or the relatives, the in-laws or your parents above your partner—those are things that cause problems in many relationships. So if you are truly self-valuing, not self-destructive, but self-valuing, then you really want to get the book, The Selfish Path to Romance, which you can get at selfishromance.com.

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