What's up everybody Mark Manson here and I'm here in New York City in a podcast studio that I rented as some of you remember a couple months ago I did a Q&A episode I asked you guys all a bunch of questions I got like 1200 questions sent in and I think on that episode I maybe answered 50.

So for this bonus episode I'm going to be attacking a bunch of those other questions, a bunch of

the questions that I didn't get to, but we're still really interesting and good and hopefully I have decent answers too.

So without further ado, let's jump into it.

Hey Mark, love your work. Is there anything that you've changed your mind about lately?

And if yes, why?

I love this question.

I feel like more public intellectuals, public figures should be asked this question more frequently.

And this is something that I try to keep tabs on myself and be honest with the audience

about.

Things that have changed my mind about recently, I would say the biggest thing is this idea.

It's come up in a number of podcast episodes

called the prevalence inflation hypothesis.

It's basically this idea that the more you talk about mental health issues,

people can kind of quietly talk themselves into having mental health issues.

I think this is something that for me is very feels intuitively correct and I think it

explains a little bit of the paradox and the mental health data that's been

going on over the last 10 years or so. We are more aware of mental health issues

than ever before. It is less stigmatized than ever before to talk about mental health issues

than ever before. Yet mental health data is just fucking terrible at the

moment and it keeps getting worse. And so that apparent paradox I think would

partially be explained by the fact that there's probably a threshold where you're talking about mental health to such an extent and making it so socially acceptable that it actually becomes socially validating to have mental health issues in which you are now

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