Love & Ambition: low expectations are no defense against disappointment.

I made a somewhat laconic remark on
Twitter recently saying that low expectations are no defense against disappointment huge ambitions our defense against disappointment and you know I meant it as inscrutable as that comment maybe it's it's sincere I'm not just joking around having big ambitions having big plans trying to accomplish something great in your life and having great disappointments great sorrows great tragedies in your life it really does put things in perspective me and my girlfriend we were we were killing time at the airport today was putting my girlfriend on the plane so and you know we were both talking about events in our lives in other relationships other boyfriends other girlfriends you know before we got together and you know the problems we had there with these people kind of throwing tantrums and freaking out over dishes doing the dishes and doing the laundry and this kind of stuff and how we just didn't see those types of conflicts that way and I said to her you know the kind of ambition of had in life the kind of sorrow of at life their periods in my life you know this came up in even conversations of like Jeff Nelson I can describe what went on with me in Cambodia as a succession of failures you know that everything I wanted to do in Cambodia failed with no false humility you know from a certain perspective that's true and I can also talk about it as a great experience experience I learned a lot from and it's something really worthwhile I did with my wife and some that may be more worthwhile than what Jeff does with his life you know I'm detached about it in both ways in you know in the sorrow and the suffering and what I learned from it but what I aspire to do the scope of the ambition itself really does make the whole experience more meaningful and it puts those kinds of setbacks in perspective what do we mean when we say that something is in perspective perspective is the difference between seeing something as big and seeing something as small right you you have to have some perspective and realize this isn't a big problem it's just real close to me right as opposed to maybe something else is a big problem but it's further away that's what i mean by having perspective it's easy to forget the literal and limited meaning of what that's really supposed to be so look you know got into this relationship with this young woman it's going great I mean it's not just going various understatement both she and I are really looking at this now as the last relationship where ever and half as being as serious as married as being you know really sure that's going to last the rest of our lives would be fabulous she's great um it's better than could be reasonably expected by anyone from so many different angles and you know she had to sacrifice a lot to get her to get her shot at love so to speak to have her chance i was living in china she was living the united states she had to overcome a whole bunch of hurdles in iran and you know it's a very asymmetrical situation because she'd watched probably several hundred of my youtube videos she'd read my articles she had a very very good understanding of who I was before she even started talking to me I didn't know who she was yet so it's not your usual kind of flirtation it's not your usual kind of the seduction whatever you want to say and it was made even more unusual but the fact that you know she already had a boyfriend at the time when she started talking to me and so she was talking to me as as just friends and we went through those conversations and we got to know each other as just friends but it was pretty obvious pretty soon from my end that you know even if I were not in the picture she and her boyfriend really should break up see how this is a story that unfolded over many months it is what it is there was a lot for me to reflect on that you know I don't want to talk about it in terms of you know me winning and this other guy losing but one of the most stark and striking differences between me and this other boyfriend that had been in their life up to a certain point is that issue of ambition of having huge ambitions you know in every relationship you can waste a lot of time you know i just spent several hours at the airport just to say goodbye you're going to do the dishes together you're going to do the laundry together you have all the doldrums of the univ the everyday activities that draw couples together and the drive them apart everybody wastes time I think nobody likes to sit down and calculate how many hours of the day they're really spending two weeks like useful and how many they're spending could be considered a waste from one perspective or another right I taught class today for four hours I lectured meant classroom for four hours today but on a level that I can't call subconscious on a level that's not very deep and not very hidden all for the woman in your life for the significant other in your life with a partner in your life you know it makes all the difference in the world when they're going through those minor frustrations with you well whether it's the laundry of the dishes if they know that you're trying to accomplish something great and maybe it's just something that's great to you maybe it's just thing that matters to you if they know you've got that passion and that drive in that ambition you know it justifies so much of the struggle and their end their struggle to support you there'll be a meaningful part of your life and you know by contrast we just have such a culture in the decadent West in the modern Western world now of saying that your life is just about your enjoyment that you know life should just consist of an endless series of video games that life should just be an endless series of opening weekend matinees that life is merely about being entertained and entertaining others and on the most intimate level of you know boyfriend and girlfriend man and wife I think that people in my generation the great majority of them they don't understand how your demoralizing the woman who loves you how your demoralizing the man who loves you how you're undermining the basic premise of the relationship itself just because you're expecting that person to wake up every morning and help you with breakfast and wash the dishes for you and do your laundry for you and support you and care about you Alyssa jansport your aspirations when your aspirations are nothing or your aspirations are trivial your aspirations are worthless your aspirations are contemptible maybe even in your own eyes right so there are a lot of really strong foundations to the relationship of just started with this one a lot I'm not going to list them I'm not even going to give four or five examples enough there are many different ways in which this relationship is starting on a very very firm basis but obviously one of them is the enormity of the ambition that I have for the future of veganism as a movement which is something she relates to something she first made or interested in my channel first druid award me and obviously those are ambition she sympathizes with and you don't want to support now maybe those ambitions in the next five years are only going to be exhibited in little ways you know maybe it's going to be publishing this children's book getting it illustrated and so on maybe it's going to be a whole bunch of little projects like that a whole bunch of little fundraisers maybe it's going to be a whole bunch of days where it slightly inconveniences her that I want to record a new YouTube video talk about vegan politics or it inconveniences both of us that we're going to go to a protest or go to a meeting you know little things you know washing somebody's laundry you're helping them out those are little things too but people want to know that their time is not being wasted people want to know that their love is not being wasted people want to know that they're not being patient and supportive and understanding for nothing I you know I don't think anybody out there you can talk about love as unconditional anybody with two brain cells they're going to know the difference they're going to feel the difference between supporting someone who's just living their life to smoke weed play video games watch movies make themselves happy and somebody who has an aspiration of any kind to do something that matters to somebody even if it's just something that matters to the two people in that relationship or in that marriage that's enough for now