Boring.

I don't really drink alcohol.

Boring.

I enjoy reading.

Nerd.

Playing recreational sports.

Jock.

Going in sunlight.

Weirdo.

I'm just chatting with friends over coffee.

Maybe this is why I'm alone.

Maybe this is why my dating profile is so bad.

But I've done it.

I've done the partying from Wednesday to Sunday.

I've done the all nighters.

I've done drinking not one cup of coffee but two cups of coffee.

I've gone crazy.

And honestly, it was mostly peer pressure.

And beyond the evidence, and there is evidence that this stuff is bad for you, I just didn't feel happy. I just didn't feel good.

Finally, one day I asked myself, "Why am I doing all these things?"

It boiled down to wanting to look normal to like my friends in society.

It boiled down to FOMO.

But I never really asked myself why more than once.

And I should have. I should have said, "Zack, why are you doing this?"

"Well, because it's normal."

"Well, why do you want to be normal?" "I don't really know."

Because maybe I thought that's what it meant to be a normal, happy human, to, you know, go out all the time, drink, do these things with friends.

But is that true?

Is that the thing that defines a normal, happy human?

And why do I believe that?

And after several more of these wise part way through college, I realized I didn't want to be that average guy.

I didn't want to be normal.

I wanted to be weird.

I wanted to just do strange things.

I didn't really want to go out on the weekend.

I don't want to be a normal human.

I'd rather be an abnormal Ewok.

You know, one of the ones with one arm or that flies through the sky because he wants to take one of those a two whatever shooting gun things.

And so I embraced these weird things.

I began doing the things that I intrinsically wanted to do.

And this led to some of the best changes and best things that have happened to me ever in my life.

I started a YouTube channel and a website.

I took a yoga teacher training course.

I went to Buenos Aires and learned to tango.

I threw away 80% of my possessions or donated them.

I deleted Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, everything.

And I created a religion around Gordon Ramsay, who I pray to every morning, afternoon and night.

The formulation for a good life is identifying one's signature strengths and virtues and using them in work, love, play and parenting to produce abundant and authentic gratification.

Minimizing the variability in life, focusing on the weird things that I like to do and not the necessarily normal things that I like to do has allowed me to focus on the things that matter.

Does it matter what color clothes I wear?

Does it matter what things I eat every morning?

Does it matter if I visit all these foreign countries and spend a day or two there because that's what everyone else is doing?

Nope, to me, (it) doesn't matter.

What matters to me is to deepen relationships with the people I care about; to be a good doctor to create something cool and impactful on the world.

And the most important thing is to make fluffy amazing scrambled eggs.

Gordon Ramsay.

Beautiful, bloody, beautiful is beautiful Gordon.

It just feels better to live a boring life.

Point number two is, it's rarely hell yeah.

The one it is, I do it.

Inspired by Derek Sivers who initially said only do things that are fuck yeah, I do things that are only hell yeah.

And because I've eliminated those things that normally take up so much extra time in my life,

like 14 hours of TV a week, maybe two hours of picking clothes or certain random food I'm gonna eat a week,

entire day that I've lost, you know, being hung over or recovering from a night out.

I have that extra time to dedicate to the things that matter to dedicate to the things that I think are important.

I have nearly an extra 30 hours a week to do things that matter to me.

For example, I've always wanted to try living in Buenos Aires or Italy for an extended period of time.

Thanks to the opportunities that YouTube's created for me.

But also thanks to the scheduling that I've done to free up a lot of my time.

I was able to dedicate myself to do that at the end of my medical school.

And it's the worst feeling in the world to jump on something to do something or to see something on the calendar that you have to do that you only feel like meh about.

For example, when I first started this YouTube channel and it started to pick up a little bit of traction, I get so many emails, so many things like, "Do you want to sponsor this product?"

"Do you want to review this product?" "Do you want to come visit us here?"

"Do you want to?"

But I would accept a lot of it because, you know, I just thought I had to say yes to everything, but eventually it was too much.

I felt, you know, I don't really care about these things.

The money isn't that important to me.

It's more important to me, again, to focus on those things that are important to me.

So I started saying no to pretty much everything.

But now, when I see something that I'm excited about that I want to do, it's that much better because I only do the things that are hell yeah.

So now I commit infrequently and when I commit, it's only because I really wanna do it.

And the third reason I love my boring life and the probably the most important reason, but the most kind of cliche corny reason is I've learned to find happiness kind of in the day to day.

I've learned that happiness isn't found in another country or with a specific person or with the most brilliant chef's knife in the world (even though it comes close with the chef's knife),

it's found in yourself and it's kind of cheesy, but it's found in me.

Finding happiness in the day-to-day life and walking to and from the hospital and eating dinner and watching a movie and sleeping is one of the biggest life hacks ever.

Epictetus said, "He is wise who doesn't grieve for the things he doesn't have but rejoices for the things he does have."

Well, how do you implement this life hack?

Well, some of the ways I found to implement this life hack are gratefulness, practice, journaling and meditation and constant vigilance.

Really, 'cause this mind can throw around lots of things. Just being constantly vigilant to kind of what you're thinking about.

How nice is it that you feel safe where you live?

Have a washing machine in your apartment, never really have to worry about food.

Get to have the weekends off and like enjoy time with people you care about.

Have two functioning legs, two functioning eyes, two functioning arms.

Imagine the people that don't have these things.

Again, it seems like silly things and these are things that I feel like my parents used to tell me all the time.

But studies show that these things actually have a beneficial impact.

And finally, the internet isn't everything.

What I try to do with my YouTube channel is try to bring a more level-headed approach to a lot of things and a lot of times this isn't gonna get me more views, right?

Because that's not the way the internet works.

The way the internet works usually is off the incentive of money, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, TV shows, right, movies.

These things are usually gonna get more views, the more extreme they are.

because the more extreme things people have found, get more views and the things that get more views get paid more to advertise on.

And if you get paid more to do this, you're getting feedback, you're getting positive feedback to create more extreme and crazy things.

So you can get paid more money and it just goes around and around and around.

And these can be highly positive, right? Things with like models, lavish lifestyles and really fancy cars.

Or this can be extremely negative, right? With horrific crimes. Look at all the crime shows that are out there, right?

Or extreme and exaggerated and dramatized sadness on some of these reality TV shows.

Or radical political statements on either end or religious statements on either end that I don't think the people actually believe,

but they're just saying it because they found that this is the way to get more views.

This is the way to get more eyes on whatever you're doing.

And by definition, these extreme things aren't normal.

However, because these extreme things are more exciting, they're more interesting to people.

That's because our lizard brains are kind of programmed to react to these things.

They get more views and when they get more views, advertisers will pay more money.

And when the people that create this content, see, "OK, we can get more money, the crazier we go, they get crazier."

And the problem is our poor human brains which still have a lot of lizard in them, still have a lot of other lower evolutionary things in them react to these things.

And we start to sometimes believe that these extreme things are normal.

When again, by definition, they're not.

The algorithms are much smarter than me. I can't beat them.

And some of the best times of my life are when I've escaped these algorithms.

When I'm just having a conversation with my family or friends over dinner with no phones.

Or when I'm playing a great intense game of soccer, I can't think about anything else.

My mind is just soccer, soccer, soccer, I suck. Soccer, soccer, soccer. I'm good.

Soccer, soccer, soccer, I suck. It's just soccer

Or when I have an interaction with a patient in the hospital I'm thinking not only is this cool and interesting.

Wow. I learned all this medicine stuff and I actually get to learn about the human body and kind of have an impact with medicine and drugs and interventions.

And I kind of understand what's going on here. That's cool.

And this person is looking up to me kind of for help in this moment and what a privilege it is right to help this person at such a vulnerable time.

They're sharing their deepest, darkest secrets with me, with me.

This crazy 29-year-old kid who is just crazy pumped and excited to be here and to hear these things, what a privilege that is.

Embracing my boring life was difficult, but I'm so much happier because of it. Thank you, Gordon.

And here's a quote from Seneca.

"Once inner peace is achieved, any place or environment will be pleasant.

If you saw this fact, clearly, you would not be surprised at getting no benefit from the fresh scenes.

As it is, however, you are not journeying; you are drifting and being driven only exchanging one place for another,

although that which you seek to live well is found everywhere."

I'm boring and I like it.

But that's it. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you on the next one.

Do you approve?

Oh, master.

Oh, Lord and Savior Gordon, the seven tables.

Gordon, the Holy Gordon, the ruler.