If you've ever wondered when to keep going and when the stop,

it comes down to a counterintuitive truth about creativity and suffering.

Isn't it weird how sometimes the hardest answer is the most simple one that's right in front of you,

but you just don't see it for whatever reason?

It was right here in front of my nose for five years. And I was looking over here.

My name is Mark Manson and you are listening to the future.

Okay, Mark, I'm going to start off this way. I think I heard you say this where you wrote in your book.

The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering.

Yes.

Can you expand on that?

I think the avoidance of any emotion, there's something weird in our psychology in that like anytime we resist an emotion, we unintentionally amplify that

emotion. So anybody who suffers from anxiety has had the experience of like the worst thing you can

do when you feel anxious is to stop trying to feel anxious because that just makes you feel more

anxious. You start becoming anxious about the fact that you're anxious. Same thing for anger. If you start trying to like prevent your anger, you become angry

that you're angry. And so you get this weird kind of like feedback loop that happens.

Trying to eliminate any sort of struggle or pain or suffering in your life ultimately becomes

its own form of struggle pain or suffering.

Because now you're you're constantly censoring and limiting yourself to prevent yourself

from ever potentially having an experience that might be uncomfortable.

And that in and of itself is uncomfortable.

To me, this is kind of like the core thing I got from Buddhism.

It's just that suffering's ever present.

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