Childhood Lessons You Must Unlearn (Ep. 4)

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In most households and in schools, the rules for children are different from the rules for adults. But the time you reach adulthood, these childhood rules become obsolete and have to be abandoned. In this episode, we identify several of these childhood lessons that you must abandon in adult life, like that your own opinions aren’t good enough, or that you can get things perfect in adult endeavours. We speak about how:

• By age 18, people should be able to trust and value their own thoughts, opinions, and ability to make decisions for themselves without needing validation or permission from others.
• Core life skills like making friends and being responsible can be mastered by one’s early 20s to serve a person for the rest of their life.
• It’s important for parents to allow their children to make mistakes and learn from experiences, even if it causes the parent distress, as it prevents overdependence.
• Power itself is not inherently bad; it depends on one’s values, morals, and how power is wielded in a responsible, pro-social manner.
• Simply existing and relaxing is a valid way to spend time and find pleasure, not just being productive. Non-commercialized pleasures like singing in the shower have intrinsic value.
• Meals and leisure time with friends are important parts of a balanced, adult life alongside periods of work and achievement.
• Perfection is an unrealistic and harmful standard, especially in creative or complex fields where failure provides learning opportunities and where perfection literally cannot be achieved.
• Adopting new views can help people develop better perspectives to become the independent, self-assured adults they are meant to be.

Table of contents:

00:00 – Introduction
01:39 – Anti-Principle #1: You have to turn to others for validation or permission
18:08 – Anti-Principle #2: You are incapable of handling power
22:15 – Anti-Principle #3: You always ought to follow your heart/emotions
28:14 – Anti-Principle #4: You are lazy when you are doing nothing
32:45 – Anti-Principle #5: You can achieve perfection
35:59 – Outro

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