2315: [Part 2] Missed Connections by Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle on Relationship Advice

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Optimal Relationships Daily, Missed Connections Part 2 by Colin Wright of ExileLifeStyle.com

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Hello everybody, I am your host Greg Audino and welcome back to the podcast where I narrate content to improve the different relationships in your life

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And welcome back specifically to part 2 of a post from author and full-time traveler Colin Wright

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're new here, you might want to check out yesterday's episode first to hear part 1

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That would be episode 621

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Might want to check out the other 8 trillion episodes we have to across all of the podcasts and the old universe because they're all golden my opinion

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_00]: But you're here now so if you are all caught up, let's get right into it and continue optimizing your life

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Missed Connections Part 2 by Colin Wright of ExileLifeStyle.com

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I prefer to be a complete individual first and this is part of why I date very carefully and actually very seldom

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: A complete individual has trouble dating anyone except other complete individuals

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is not something we're encouraged to be, it's a shockingly rare trait

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Groups of people are easier to sort and manage

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Pairs of people can form families can be predictable, organisable members of society

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not some kind of conspiracy that we're encouraged to pair off in this way, it's just practical, traditional

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Things have worked this way for a long time for many different reasons and as such our whole social infrastructure is based around it

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: People who fall outside of this scheme of them can make those who play by the rules a little uncomfortable

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Because an odd number is someone with whom you cannot double date

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00]: There are also someone who isn't on the same lifestyle track as you, no marriage, no kids, no mortgage

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00]: You lack the shared concerns that tend to make for better friendships

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00]: To some, you may even seem like a threat like some kind of potential spouse-stueer, not good

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: These are not things we think about consciously of course but they're things that we act upon

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Part of what makes the weight staff uncomfortable when I walk in the door is that the smallest table they've got is a two-seater

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Even our restaurants and tears are predicated on pairs or larger groups

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And an individual is relegated to the bar where he or she can hopefully find someone that they can bring back to a table someday

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I understand the desire to settle at least in the historical context

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Settle as in settle down, I mean though it can sometimes more clearly resemble settling in the context of silt at the bottom of a lake

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The idea of settling down is to find someone with whom you can start a family

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy the years you're both fortunate to have and hopefully find some meaning along the way

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Modern technology and society has thrown a stick in those spokes though

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I hear a lot of talk about millennials

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: A generation that is often talked down about by Gen Xers and baby boomers because they defy much of what these other generations took for granted

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Owning homes, having a bunch of kids, two cars and the garage working for the same company your entire life

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: These are things that were once reliable aspects of life

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: But aren't any longer

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: The millennials rejection of these recent traditions in order to avoid getting into an immense debt to cease consuming more than is necessary

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And to refocus on doing work that they're passionate about rather than something that will simply pay the bills

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Is confounding to many of their parents and older contemporaries

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: But the way millennials approach relationships can stir up scorn in their older peers

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Where a generation that was exposed to the internet at a young-ish age

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And younger millennials cannot remember a time in which they were not connected to a significant percentage of the global population via this network

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Think about that for a second

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: That means this generation is aware of many, many more variables than those who came before them

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It means they are aware of different ways of looking at the world and the consequences of their and their forebearers actions

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: While once a person would be exposed to perhaps a few hundred people over the course of their entire life

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, each and every person with a smartphone in their pocket and a social network sending them way too many notifications each day

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Is exposed to millions of people, hundreds of millions

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Their reach is godlike compared to members of any other generation before them

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So the idea of settling, of taking the best you can find of the people who happened to go to your school, live in your neighborhood

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Or work in your office seems downright quaint

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Why settle for what you can stumble into when you can instead search for someone optimal and a much larger pool of potentials

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Now consider modern healthcare and ask yourself why

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: When an ever increasing number of us can expect to live productive lives into our 80s and 90s

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: We would want to have kids while in our teens and 20s

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Why not go out and see the world first?

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Get educated and figure out who we are before being expected to properly raise and educate a kid of our own

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: The world being what it is today with global climate change and the other repercussions of overpopulation

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Why not just skip the kids thing altogether?

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Why not have dogs, cats, turtles or a cactus garden instead?

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Why not be happy with your partner or partners?

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Live a happy life and leave the having of children to other people

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a good question with many answers

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_00]: There are plenty of excellent reasons to have kids and to go through some of the traditional motions

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Even if they're edited a bit for relative age and lifestyle priorities

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But there are an increasing number of acceptable, even desirable models for relationships

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And many of them having nothing to do at all with raising children and having families

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_00]: This is due to the aforementioned technologies

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And increased international awareness and the widespread availability of new options worth considering in nearly every vital sector of life

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: This potential for change is not something we should look down upon

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It's something we should embrace

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not scary, it's wonderful

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It will result in a greater number of happy people

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Enjoying custom-fitted lives

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than the majority of us trying to squeeze into something clearly shown for someone else

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I applaud this change and not only because my own relationship model already deviates from the norm

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I applaud it because relationships like everything else around us are going to evolve

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: They always have

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you think people in the 1950s were dating according to the dearly held traditions of the 1850s?

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Nope

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Embracing this evolution

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It allows us to bend with the times rather than being bent by the times

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It allows us to be part of new movements as they emerge

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than feeling like we're outside of them

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Watching from a safe distance as life goes by without us

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00]: As I travel

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I sometimes feel as if my choices in life have set me apart

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Have pulled me into another orbit far from the primary motion of the planet

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: As if I'm not walking in the footprints of the majority of people who have come before me

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I fall in out of some understood lockstep and ask such a no longer part of that larger story being written

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: But when I stop and take stock

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Consider all the variables and opportunities

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I know that's not the case

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I know we're each dancing to our own dance

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Figuring out our own steps as we go along

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Even those who live what seem to be very traditional lifestyles have worked in their own variations

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Their own bend of the knee, tap of the heel, wink at their partner

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Or partners, or beautiful cactus-carded

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: There are no wrong steps in this dance

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And even if we sometimes feel that we're in the middle of a competition

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Judged on our mastery of the Charleston or the tango or the wife and kids shuffle

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: There are plenty of other yardsticks by which we can measure our own independent growth and progression

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Which ever dance we might prefer

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You just listen to part two of the post titled Miss Connections

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: By Colin Wright of xiolifestyled.com

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Can't help but to create unique perspectives on relationships

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're a full-time traveler as Colin is

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Certainly all things including relationships are constantly influx

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_00]: As Colin mentioned

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And I couldn't think of a better person to represent and illustrate that idea than him

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you very much Colin for letting us share your work

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And for everyone else I hope you enjoyed this two part feature on ORD

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Just plenty more where that came from

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And we will be back with more of it tomorrow

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Where you're optimal life awaits