Stop Trying to Become Someone New: Get Past Constant Comparison and Return to What Works For You | Sam Sanders

Hey, hey, how are we doing?

“I think quite commonly when we contemplate the various levers we could pull to upgrade our mental health to get happier.”

We consider things like sleep, exercise, meditation, etc.

But there's a ton of evidence to suggest that aesthetic experiences, i.e. beauty, are also extremely powerful ways to boost your wellbeing.

This could be nature, but also of course art. And not just fine art that you see in museums, I'm talking about movies, music, TV shows, the stuff that I personally love. So today, we're going to play you a conversation between me and my friend Sam. Well, I'll tell you about in a second about which pieces of art reliably produce happiness and meaning for us.

“The friend and question is Sam Sanders, who is the host of the Sam Sanders show.”

I should say that we initially recorded this conversation that you were about to hear four Sam's show back at around New Years.

But we're dropping it for you here because we think you like it, and also because we think you might want to check out Sam's show, which I highly recommend. He's awesome, as you'll hear. Sam has a term for the pieces of art, music, TV, or film that we return to again and again. He calls them modern scriptures. So you're going to hear us discuss our modern scriptures. Side note, I'm recording this after several days of being alone in our house, my wife and son are overseas. I've been going back to old movies in the evening, specifically the godfather movies and also some Martin Scorsese stuff, which I know just totally reveals my age.

But those are definitely modern scriptures for me, those old mafia movies and organized crime films. I can get totally sucked up into those. Anyway, Sam and I don't talk about those specifically, but I do mention many, many other modern scriptures of mine and we hear about his. It's also a wide-ranging conversation that we get into why Instagram is reliably making me miserable and why deleted it. What the research actually says about making resolutions stick, we recorded this close to New Years, but this is true for anybody ever trying to form a habit.

And we also talk about Sam's genuinely moving theory about why the act of return might be the most underrated practice there is. Okay, just a few quick things to say before we dive in here. This is the last day of a challenge that we're running over on the 10% with Dan Harris meditation app, the challenge has been called even you can meditate. It's been awesome. Don't worry, though, if you missed it, you can still access all of the great meditations from the challenge and much more head on over to Dan Harris.com to download the app. Also, I've got two live in person events coming up on May 17th. I'll be at the 90 second street. Why in New York City.

I'll guide meditation and take your questions and coming up in October. That's the annual workshop I do with seven A.C. in Jeff Warren meditation party October 16th through 18th at the Omega Institute in Upstate New York. I'll put links to both of these events in the show notes. Okay, long intro. Sorry. My conversation with Sam Sanders coming up after this. I thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last and that is where quince shines premium fabrics. Consider design and everyday essentials that feel effortless to wear and dependable even as the seasons chain quintess the everyday essentials I love with quality that lasts.

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It never happens at a good time. The pipe burst at midnight. The heater quits on the coldest night suddenly you're overwhelmed.

For plan starting to just 499 a month go to home serve dot com that's home serve dot com not available everywhere most plans range between 499 to 1199 a month your first year terms apply on covered repairs. I'm thinking about deleting instagram if I watch instagram for 45 minutes or half an hour 15 minutes I'm convinced that everyone else was a smart phone is making their own original music music videos and built in their own furniture and cooking all their own food like it makes me feel grossly inadequate.

So would you consider deleting it? No, not yet not until I hey I'll say I'm here so can I tell you a little secret I mean it's not really a secret I just haven't talked about it too much just yet any who the secret is that I went to a silent meditation retreat last year.

“I know this surprises me as well because my job is literally to talk this retreat was five days in upstate New York and I had to be totally quiet around other people who I couldn't talk to or even looked directly in the eye.”

But to my surprise it was great and it got me thinking a lot about how I can bring mindfulness into my life in all kinds of ways and even bring mindfulness into this show.

So let's say I am dedicating this episode to that intention but we're gonna do it in a roundabout way we're not gonna just sit in silence and meditate this entire episode me and my very special guest are gonna share some pop culture recommendations that help us stay grounded and centered and happy and mindful and all those good things. I call these recommendations modern scriptures because you can return to them over and over again like scripture get it to have this conversation and share some modern pop culture scriptures.

And join by the most mindful podcaster I know his name is Dan Harris. Dan is a former TV news anchor for shows like Nightline and Good Morning America. But for many years now Dan has become somewhat of a meditation and mindfulness expert.

“The other podcast is called 10% happier with Dan Harris and this show has all these really deep and interesting conversations about mental health and the science of the mind and how we can all live better lives.”

This show is really great and I say that not just because I was on there once.

It's a great show. Anywho Dan Harris joins me today to share his modern scriptures. So let's get into it. I am going to tell you why I brought you on and my idea for the episode but first Dan Harris please tell our listeners and viewers who you are on what you do.

“Okay, the brief bio. My name is Dan Harris. I used to be a network news anchor. I was an anchor man on ABC news and a correspondent more correspondent in fact for 20 years and then I had a panic attack.”

This is probably the best the thing I am best known for in my entire TV career was freaking out in front of an audience of 5 million people on Good Morning America.

I had a panic attack and that led me to meditation and then I wrote a book about that called 10% happier and that book which Barbara Walters confidently told me don't quit your day job. I was able to quit my day job and now I'm like a full time. I don't know what I am happiness, expert or meditation evangelist something in that zone. I like that and you have a podcast called 10% happier. I am an app, it's called 10% with Dan Harris for legal reasons right now that I won't get into but eventually it will be called 10% happier.

And I've had the privilege of getting to know you through your work. I was on your show. Gosh, a while back now and I had the honor of being able to meditate with you. I are a while back and that was just the treat. So yeah, as very proud of you. I don't think you had done much meditation before you showed up for a little retreat that with me and a few other friends and you did a great job. I was very brave thing to do and you did a great job. You say little, it was several days in silence. I don't think I told you but you know there were moments where we could go outside to meditate and have what y'all called walking meditations.

I walked further than I was supposed to on the grounds and when I got far enough to where no one could hear me, I just yelled out to the woods.

I'm talking and then I came back.

“A little active rebellion, nice. But I made it and it felt really good. And yeah, it's, I have been getting back into my meditation practice since the retreat, so I'm very grateful for it.”

That was fun. It's all just part of my grand plan to make you part of my cult. Done. I'm in. Yeah.

What have the dues? Do we get uniforms? I'm ready.

So I had this idea for us. I've been wanting to figure out a way to get you on the show.

“Because I'm such a fan and I think the work that you do and the words that you speak help people who hear them.”

And I was like, all right, he's in to mindfulness. My whole bread and butter with this show was entertainment books and TV and movies and music and the things that we like to entertain us. And I was like, what if we could find some way to talk about both of those things? And it reminded me of a conceit that I have used in previous podcast episodes before. I like to have people share with me what I call modern scriptures.

And these are things in the culture, books or movies or TV or whatever, music, whatever. That you return to often or frequently and they ground you in some way or make you happy or give you a good cry or whatever. This whole thing began for me when I read in 2018. A New York Times profile of Melissa McCarthy. It was written by Taffy Brottis or Ackner and I read it and by the end of it I was in tears.

It was really crazy. And then I noticed every few months when I was having a bad day I would go back and read this article and feel better. The entire premise of the piece is that Melissa McCarthy is a comedian and an artist that lives above the free of daily life of modern life. Of the news of headlines and she centers and grounds herself so much in her comedic work and her work of emotion that it helps her to literally fly above it. And the scene at the open and close of the piece is Melissa McCarthy at one of those fake skydiving gems where the air blows you up in the metaphors that she floats above it all.

You know, it's really sweet, really beautiful. But it reminds me whenever I read it to preserve whatever special place in our hearts that resides for art and for creativity and for things that bring us purpose and meaning and that we have to have things that we love that we hold on to that no one else can take from us.

So when I noticed that I would always revisit that article that profile I said, "What are some other things that I go back to in the culture that bring me joy?"

And then I began to ask friends and it became a thing that I would talk about in podcasts and so I was hoping to have you, Dan, share some modern scriptures of your own with us. This episode, talk about why you like them, what they mean to you, and maybe in the midst of all that we will give some folks some good recommendations of things that could make them a little bit happier too. Maybe even 10% happier. Who's just that? I love that conceit. And just to say, I don't have the data right here with me, but in the 10 years of hosting my podcast and interviewing tons and tons of researchers, I've had a lot of people come into my world who've made the case that access to beauty.

“Yes, to a aesthetic experiences. It's a key part of human flourishing. And the other case that I've heard made is that you can use our specifically music as powerful in this way.”

Too shift your mood, the way you were doing with that with Taffee's piece on on Melissa McCarthy. So there's a lot here from my perspective. I love it. I love it. Well, with that, let's get into your modern scriptures and I'll share a few of my own. You sent us the list. I'm going to just select from this list and have you start by talking to us about fair spuelers they off.

This is a film that you said that you returned to. That brings you joy. Talk about it. Yes, so I saw it. When it came out, I'm showing my age here, but I was not quite a grown-ass man, but like, you know, close enough when that came out. I was a teenager and loved it in real time.

And we have watched this movie probably five or six times together.

“So he loves it so much Alexander does that he recently had a birthday just a couple of weeks ago.”

And we went to one of those movie theaters where you can, where they deliver you a meal while you're in the movie theater. And you can recline in the seats. And he, you could pick the movie. And so he and his friends watched Ferris Bueller and the kids are all right. Wow, I loved it. Yes. Yes. A lot of the kids hadn't seen it, but everybody loved it. And I thought I would, this is so embarrassing, but I've kind of thought like, I've seen this movie enough.

I'm probably going to work and I'm going to go out in the hallway and work while watching this movie. It's true, but I didn't because of, for that exact reason, this is my child's birthday. You know, for the fifth time in probably two years, it is a perfect movie. It is so tight, and every beat in the movie is perfect. There, and not just from a writing standpoint and from the standpoint of narrative propulsion,

it is a flawless, frothy, but flawless work of art. And I'll say notwithstanding it's fraught, I mean, it is light.

It has an incredible message.

Do you remember Ferris's tagline is, I said it before and I'll say it again. Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. It's a very Buddhist sentiment. I love this, very Buddhist.

Ferris feels day off is Buddhist. I love this. I like how, because I watched it a lot in my youth, because TBS would play it all the time. All the time I would watch whenever it came on.

“And I remember that scene towards the end, where the really, really expensive vintage car,”

like crashes out of its garage, and is destroyed. And in that moment, you like take a beat, and then I think the characters involved, and kind of just like, okay, the car has gone now. The car has gone now and move on. And I don't know, I fixed it on that part of it a lot when I watched that movie.

And it's like this reminder, it's like, it's never really about the car.

The car has a car. Like, they're these things that we fixed it on and hold on to. I guess when you look at it and when these things break and when these things fall apart, you're still okay. Your dad's not going to physically kill you.

The car's gone. It's fine. I don't know. That scene for me sticks out the most. Well, also Buddhist.

“You know, one of the central tenets, as you know, having sat through a non-travel amount of silence”

with me and a bunch of Buddhist teachers. You know, one of the things you see, if you stop and look at your mind, is that things are changing all the time and this is not my analogy. But one of the most reliable ways to suffer is to cling too tightly in a world of unremitting, non-negotiable change.

And if you cling too tightly, this is the analogy. You will get rope burn. And so what we see when that fancy car goes flying out of the glass enclosed garage in which it's been kept at like a museum piece. What you see is, okay.

Well, it's gone. This is the truth and we have to deal with what is now reality. Thank you, Ferris Bueller. Yeah. I love it.

I have a pick for a modern scripture. And I was thinking about Ferris Bueller and that made me think of another movie that I recently saw that as soon as I saw it, I said, "I'm going to be watching this at least once a year for the next several years." There is this new musical, not quite biopic that is in theaters now.

Had a big marketing push around Christmas. Starts Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. It is a musical called song "Song Blue." So in this film, the two of them play average joes who have made a Neil Diamond tribute band that gets pretty big.

It's like shimmering, you know? You know, my hair guy does clothes too. Awesome. Neil is special and I just want everyone to get that feeling. I get when I listen to America and Forever Blue jeans.

We Caroline.

Sweet Caroline, yeah, but I'm never going to be the real McCoy.

I mean, I don't really look like Neil. I don't even really sound like Neil. I've got to be Neil, but I've just got to be me too. Yeah, you don't want to be a Neil Diamond impersonator. You want to be a Neil Diamond interpreter.

I was looking for the right way to say, and you just came right out and said, "The commercials for it are laughable. It looks like a farce. You're like this can't be real. Who cooked up this idea?

Fire all the executives?

So cheesy.

But something about a joe as you in and then you watch it

and you realize one, Kate Hudson deserves an Oscar. And two, you're a Neil Diamond fan, even if you don't even know it. But what I love about this movie and why I want to keep returning to it is that

“it is a film that, as a friend told me, feels like a movie you should feel.”

At every step, it hits the beat that a melodrama of that sort should. At the moment, it's supposed to laugh. You laugh. When it's time to cry. You cry.

And at the end, they put a nice bow on it. And you're like, yes, it feels fulfilling. I watched it once. And cried like a baby. And then over the course of New Year's hanging with the friends.

I said, I have a great plan for us tonight. We're going to watch this movie and cry like a baby together. And I just love it. So, and it's one of those movies that you put on. When you don't even know that you need a good cry, and you get one.

And it's this reminder that, like, sometimes, the well that I want to return to, is a reliable, well, I want to play this song that takes me there. I want to watch the film that gets me there. I want to, like, tap into those things that I know are going to give me this emotional

catharsis that will feel good. And my newest of that ilk is songs on blue. It's a really good movie. Okay, I'm convinced. I'm going to see it.

I had the trailers are crazy. Well, so I had seen trailers and had that reaction. I thought this looks ridiculous.

“But Kate Hudson, I think is an under-heralded actor.”

She got my son in my blue. Yeah. Can she really? My son and I have been watching The Knives Out Movies.

And she's really good in the second word, good.

It's a very good fun fact. She has a band outside of her film work. She just, she sings around LA. I kind of want to become her grippy now. I'm really obsessed.

It's, it's, it's really good. And there's this scene where she has this really, like, tight to the camera monologue in this collectible Midwestern accent. And you just watch her do it. And you're like, "Oh, give me the Oscar right now."

Hmm. Right now. Yeah. Yeah. So you, but I don't want to gloss over something.

You said there for you, there's a well that you want to return to frequently of, give me a good cry. Give me some catharsis. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, there's, there's certain things where you go to them.

And you know that they'll, like, release the pressure of out. This, this movie will give me a good cry. This song will give me a good hug. This, this film will make me laugh. This TV show.

Like, I can always, like, go back to the freshman at the belly.

And have a good belly laugh and just relax. Or like the, the film rat race, which is not a great movie, but it's a terribly bad, bad movie. Um, it's got Wippie Goldberg and Mr. B. And it's a Kaper film with a bunch of poop jokes and it's stupid.

But I watch it. And whenever I watch it, like the rest of the world's problems just kind of roll away.

“I think with songs on blue, it's like, I want art.”

Sometimes that will reliably take me out of an everplace I'm in. And usually it's either a good laugh or a good cry. Songs on blue gives you both. They didn't pay me to say this. Uh, but yeah, you know, there's, there's some,

sometimes art can be transcendent. And I like that. I agree. I don't know. And I say this has a kind of self criticism. I don't know that I'm ever looking for a cry. Although I love a good one.

Entrap. Yeah. I think that's the best. I see this as a sign of your being more evolved than I am. And it may be, you know, whatever version of it. Oh, it's just being fundamentally broken.

No, I don't hear that as fundamentally broken at all. But I will say that I was about to kind of criticize myself for not being somebody who cries that frequently. But as I've gotten older and, you know, probably on the influence of a lot of, you know, meditation practice. The TikTok algorithm has learned that I like to watch an emotional reunion.

And I will cry if it's like a pet owner reunion or a people reunion. Pet owner soldier and his or her family soldier. Solders are done. Yes, best friends who haven't seen each other at a long time. And this spouse arranges a reunion of parents,

especially when a parent sees a child. There's, when a parent sees a child. They haven't seen it a long time. Those videos kill me. I've watched the same videos over and over and over.

And they get me every time. I love it. Alright, time for a break. When we come back more modern pop culture scriptures with Dan Harris, host of the podcast 10% happier.

Stick around.

Fleetwood Mack, you picked two albums, Fleetwood Mack, that you returned to.

And they make you feel good. Rumors, of course, we all agree. But you also chose, and I'm with you on this. They're much maligned follow up. Tusk.

Yeah. Are you a Tusk Defender? It was maligned. I'm definitely a Tusk Defender. I mean, it was maligned the way the Beatles' white album was maligned in the time

as being overly, maybe self-indulgent, that too many songs. It could have been one record instead of a double record. And sure, yeah, there are some songs on that record that I don't love.

But there are some incredible songs on there.

And now I'm really, what I'm about to say is going to expose the fallacy of the story. I'm telling myself about not being sufficiently emotional. Because for me, Fleetwood Mack makes me quite emotional because I was raised with those records. And so it brings you back to when my parents were healthy. Ah, that's beautiful.

“What did they dance with at home and vibe to it on Saturday morning?”

I don't remember my parents dancing, but I danced to it. Yeah. But my parents were recovering hippies. Well, full on hippies, really. I mean, if you ask my mom, you know, everybody of that generation, the boomers, you know,

where were you in a man landed on the moon? My mom's answer, which is a legit answer, was I was at a Black Panther rally. After the importance of doubt, my mom is not Black. So she was really, she was very, both my parents were very politically attuned in the late '60s. My dad got drafted, managed to be able to serve in DC instead of having to go to Vietnam.

And all of the music of that time, we were raised with, Fleetwood Mack comes in the mid '70s, but they were still kind of in that mode, even though at that time they were no longer kids, but I was a kid. And so those, like the opening sounds, the opening chords, I guess, is the right term of the first song on rumors.

“I think it's second-hand news, second-hand news.”

It just always gives me the full body kind of tingle and it brings me back to,

yeah, being a kid and my parents, you've gone through some of this yourself. My parents are still alive, but they're in a very different condition than they were when I was a kid. And they were kind of my alpha and omega, you know, like I really looked up to them. And now I'm more of the parent. And so that's been dizzying, head spinning for me. So the music is pointing it in that way.

Yes. Well, and I left Fleetwood Mack for so many reasons, but I think that they speak to, and actually I did a whole episode about their song "Dreams" for this music podcast, one song. And my biggest takeaway with "Dreams" is that, like, they are a band that managed to work together and spite of all of their fighting and still make good art. So "Dreams" was Stevie Nix's answer to Lindsey Buckingham's, you can go your own way.

They're both two different songs about the same breakup. And imagine two lovers of a broken up that are in a band, making songs about the breakup on their own, and then saying as a band will do them together.

“And that's what they did. And in the making of "Dreams" Lindsey really kind of helped Stevie fix the song.”

It wasn't ready right about to do them, and he helped, and then they sung it together and made it art. I find that so inspiring. There are other parts of them that I hear express emotionally, like, on-task. If you listen to the song "What Makes You Think You're the One," I love it. Lindsey Buckingham is hitting that snare at the rage of all the ancestors. And they're like, "Oh, they are working through a breakup on wax.

And they're still going to work together."

If we can work together and be created together, even in spite of all of these things, maybe it can still be good art.

They stuck through it. That's wild to me.

“I think, I think Lindsey Buckingham might have also been pissed about her about Stevie's solo career taking off.”

The way he was accomplishing his and the band. Oh, yeah. And you just hear rage in there, and you hear sadness in there, and they make it art. And it's like, I don't know, whenever we talk about Fleetwood Mac, we talk about all the break-ups, all the break-ups, all the break-ups, and I'm like, "Oh, the story of Fleetwood Mac, if they stuck together."

Through the break-ups. They can't make it stuff. That is remarkable to me. The task is so underrated. I love task. Another thing about task is that Lindsey Buckingham at that time, and this was true for Paul McCartney, who at that time was a solo, while he was in Wings, but also making Wings a lot. I like Wings a lot.

I've been thinking a lot about Wings because my wife for Christmas gave me a book that came out in November,

“which is kind of an oral history of Wings, so I've been reading it and listening to a lot of their records.”

But Paul McCartney and his Wings work in the late '80s, and then a little bit in the late '70s, and then a little bit in the early '80s when he was solo. Both he and Lindsey Buckingham were influenced at that time by punk music. And now their music clearly is not punk, but if you listen to Tusk and if you listen to some of the songs that Wings made in their last two records, they're channeling little bits of that spirit of punk.

Wow, I love that. I love that. Yeah, just as for Tusk, just as for Wings. (laughs) So my next pick is a music pick as well. I am of the controversial opinion that a Ruther Franklin's best work was her gospel work,

and there is an incredible live album she did in Watts way back on the day.

She recorded this album, added church with a choir, with a live audience. And there's a video documentary where you can watch the whole thing. Her father, a minister, introduces her, and her organist and choir director for the entire album is the gospel legend James Cleveland. The entire thing is one of the most captivating performances you'll ever see in your life.

The entire thing is one of the most captivating performances you'll ever see in your life. The entire thing is one of the most captivating performances you'll ever see in your life. And there are these little sprinkles that make it even more special. So they kind of just had a regular church service and recorded it. It was like a choir concert that they recorded and people could just come and show up.

And as they pan through the audience, you see these wonderfully beautifully dressed black people. But then they get way to the back and the camera goes long and they go to the back of the church. And there's just a white guy sitting there, just Bob and his head. And you're like, "Oh, how did he get there?" And he's a man closer, guess who it is.

It's Mick Jagger. Mick Jagger is there, so can it all up? Because he knows there's no greatest standard bearer for good music that I read the Franklin. And it's funny, I'll all through his career. All through the Rolling Stones career.

You can hear the ways in which they are directly influenced by black music, by gospel music, to see him in that room during this recording is really kind of beautiful. Another fun fact for me watching this thing. This is one of the best review gospel albums of all time.

“And the open secret of the album and of the music itself, as James Cleveland,”

the choir director and organist, he was a very, very gay. Very, very gay had a lot of male lovers in the church.

But as someone who grew up queer in the church, I was always wondering,

what is there space for me in this place? Is there space for me? And adulthood, I've finally watched the doc of this Aritha album. And saw James Cleveland right there playing the organ the whole time. And it's like, oh yeah, there's always been space for us.

Thankfully, I'm allowed to live a more open life than he was allowed to live back then. But it's a wonderful reminder that queer people have been everywhere all the time.

You can even watch this thing on mute Dan. It's so gorgeous. Yeah, Aritha Franklin, amazing grace.

The album and the live documentary always works for all ages, all people all the time.

I feel like that's a great thing for me to watch with my son. I'm curious, are you still an active church gore? Not really. I go here and there. I go when there's a funeral. I think about church a lot.

I've thought about going to some more frequently,

“but I think I kind of just live in church in my head.”

And so when I want to go back to those feelings into those sounds, one of the things that I'll play is Aritha Franklin's amazing grace. I tell people and as someone who grew up playing this saxophone in the church band with most churches, the better the music, the more harmful the doctrine. And so when I thought about going back to church,

I want one that's welcome and opening and affirming and then you end up with these really well-intentioned unitarians who can barely play the acoustic guitar and I need a little and I need a good stuff. Anyone listening if you can offer up a church that is wonderful and welcome and opening, but has really good gospel music too. Let me know when I'll go. Let me know.

All right, time for a break. When we come back more modern pop culture scriptures with Dan Harris host of the podcast 10% happier. Stick around. I want to highlight another pick that you sent us for a piece of pop culture Dan Harris that helps you feel good and that you can go back to a lot.

You recommended parks and rec. I like that one too. Tell me why you like it. Kind of got me through the pandemic actually and you know it's a show. Let me just say I then rewatched it maybe twice with my son. Who loves sitcoms?

Yeah, so we've rewatched that and 30 rock and Brooklyn 99. But parks and rec are favorite and to me it's really a show about love. If you watch the office for example, it's quite mean. It's not really. They all hate each other.

But parks and rec really is not. It is about friendship and romantic love and romantic friendship. And you feel the warmth alongside the humor the humor is not overly cutting.

“And it has something that I think Abbott Elementary has.”

It has professionals who have chosen vocations that will never make them rich,

but they chose it because they believe in the mission. Yeah. Leslie Nope actually believes in the power of local government. The teachers in Abbott Elementary believe in the power of public education. It is really nice to see that on screen.

I've talked at length with other thinkers about culture and entertainment. A lot of TV that we watch now. Everyone's rich. And so it's refreshing when you see people who are solidly middle class or working class, who have chosen a vocation because they want to help people.

And I feel that in parks and rec all the time. And I like that. I like it a lot. So that's a great insight. Yeah.

So it's not only about the love among the characters on screen. It's about their collective love of the community. Yeah. Totally. Totally.

I'm going to offer one off of that just because I want folks to watch this show. It deserves more love. You're speaking of people on screen following a vocation because they believe in it. I have to recommend, as a modern scripture, this HBO show that did not get enough love when it was on.

“When on for three seasons, I think it was an adaptation of a British show.”

It's called Getting On. Have you ever watched this show? No. It's very good. It's got Alex Borestein, Nisi Nash, and Laurie Metcalf, playing nurses in a geriatric unit.

And it's equal parts drama and comedy. But half the show you're just watching these really well-intentioned nurses. Deal with calamity every day. Kind of just like live, laugh, love, through it.

You've never seen Nisi Nash at a more understated and sublime performance.

And you've never laughed harder watching Alex Borestein.

It is such a good show.

And it's another one of those reminders that people don't go into things like nursing to get rich in famous.

They go into it because they believe in it, and so watching people believe in something and pursue it in spite of the crazy of it. It's really great. And they're just like, I mean, they're all three of them. Laurie Metcalf, Nisi Nash, and Alex Borestein at the top of their game. Just iconic performances.

Everyone should know this show. Everyone should know this show. I'm legit taking notes as I'm listening to you. I'm not a child of these.

“Can I watch getting on with my son? Is it appropriate for an 11 year old do you think?”

A lot of the show deals with aging and death. Often in a funny way, but you're watching these nurses do with people who are like slowly dying. So it might welcome those kind of conversations.

If you're open to having them with your kid, I also think there's this profanity like they cuss on that show.

It's definitely HBO. Yeah, profanity is not a problem in this house. And I try to minimize the sex drugs and violence with him. But the death part is the medical stuff. I think that can be just for my son, every kid's different.

I used to take him with me. I used to be a hospice volunteer, and I would take him with me. I didn't know that. Yeah, so in fact, so either was his one patient that I was very close with who's no longer with us. But this guy got brought to the hospice.

Told he had three days to live and he lived there for six years. Oh, he's the man of the hospice at that point. Oh, my. So Ronnie was the mayor of the hospice, and I was very close with Ronnie. Yeah.

And Alexander used to come with me and hang out with Ronnie. And then Ronnie had a god daughter who was a year older than Alexander. And they would have play dates running around the hospice. So I don't have any problem showing. Okay.

This sounds like a show he could watch. It's, yeah. It's a really good show. I'm very curious. You are talking a lot in this episode with me about watching TV and movies with your son. I'm betting there are a bunch of listeners who would love to know any insights you've gained by watching stuff with your kid and thinking about it and thinking about how he consumes it.

“You know, I remember watching stuff with my mom when I was a kid or my dad with my dad.”

He was going to fall asleep and my mom was just going to watch to make sure that we weren't seeing sex. So cover your eyes, cover your eyes, cover your eyes. It seems as if or it sounds like you have an interesting relationship with your kid around watching stuff together. What does it look and feel like for y'all? I'm very curious.

I mean, I definitely try to be a little vigilant for on the sex stuff. The drugs part can lead to good conversations actually. We have done very well with sitcoms. So I mentioned 30 rock and we watched the office and Brooklyn 99 and he loves Abbott Elementary. So we've had a good luck with that.

He loves series of movies. So we watched the now you see me series. We watched the oceans, oceans 11 series. We watched knives out. We just started avatar last night.

That's been so weird. It's going to be we only got through the first one. It's a tough slog. I suspect we have a tough slog ahead of us. Fun fact about avatar is falling asleep at every viewing.

I've not made it through a full avatar in my lifetime. I'm not trying to watch them all. God bless those good people. We'll see if I can. That actually you know avatar the first one which we watched last night was a good.

“He was worried about some of the blue people the Navi I think.”

They they have battle cries that he was worried. It was cultural appropriation or racist for them to do which then led to a whole conversation about. This is an analogy for indigenous people all over the world.

You never know that in any show an opportunity can arise organically.

My son hates to be lectured to or taught anything by me. But if it comes up in the course of a piece of pop culture then he is open to it for about 15 seconds. That's something. I find with kids it's like because I have kids in my life. A lot of times the conversation that needs to be had will happen in a better way if they think the conversation was their idea.

So if you can wait for them to raise the question first before you say let's talk about this. It'll go better. A hundred percent. I am very relieved to know that the kids are concerned with questions of appropriation. The kids are all right as I said earlier.

The kids are all right. I love that. Interesting about this generation, my son's generation which is Gen Alpha, there's a bit of reaction to the perceived political correctness of Gen Z in Millennials.

They just they want to have the conversations with a little less stride and see. Absolutely.

I'm assuming that they have rejected quote unquote cancel culture which was never as dominant as we thought it was.

“But yeah, I think what I'm hearing is that you know the young folks are just kind of like well we can talk it out.”

Could be good. Yes, it's like they want all of the respect and inclusion. My sense is based on my son and his friends. They want the respect and the inclusion and they want it to be okay for boys to cry and have therapists and all of that. I think they don't want as much of the soap box as they perceive their elders to have.

I agree. I agree. Also, no one should stand on a soap box. I'm not meant for standing. Think about it.

It's a soap box. It's not for people to stand on. But I do want to ask you kind of an unrelated question to close our conversation. I was talking with a friend over the break and I like what's up in your new year.

“Do you have any interviews that you're looking forward to?”

And I was like, yeah, you know, my first interview of the new year is going to be with Dan Harris.

I admire him so much. I think he's great. It's going to be a great chat. And my friend who knows your work said, oh, that's great. You're going to do a new year's resolution episode with Dan Harris.

And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to do that because I've kind of given up on the New Year's resolutions writ large. But I'm wondering Dan Harris, someone who thinks a lot about spirituality and mindfulness and being a centered in the whole human being. We are in January this season of New Year's resolutions. A lot of folks are at the gym or trying to not drink alcohol right now or whatever.

Do you have some central grounding principle around New Year's resolutions and the New Year's resolution industrial complex as I've come in? Historically, I've not been a big resolutions person. That being said, there is quite a bit of research to suggest that there's real power in what's known as the fresh start effect. So birthdays, even Mondays or the start of a new month, but definitely the start of a new year can give people fuel to make change. It is also true nonetheless that by February the vast majority of us will have bailed on our resolutions.

And so that raises the question, like, what can you do to make these things actually stick? And there's there are a few little guidelines. It is to have very specific resolution. So instead of I'm going to get fit, I'm going to go to the gym three times a week. And it's much better. Another is to start very, very small. Sometimes I've certainly small. There's a lot of evidence to show that.

So for example, if your your goal is to exercise or to run.

Starting by simply putting your sneakers by the door can be very powerful.

If if if meditation is on your list, I often tell people start with one minute, one minute, really counts. Two other things to recommend in terms of helping you do this. Doing it with other people can be incredibly powerful. A lot of evidence there that so-called social support helps people get over the hump because other people give you enthusiasm and accountability.

“And then finally, and I think this is probably the most important. I think of what I'm about to tell you about as a kind of the Uber or or upstream habit out of which all other habits can sustainably flow.”

And it's self-compassion. It's the ability to speak to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend. And the research is very clear that if you can just learn to talk to yourself in a kind or way, you're more likely to reach your goals, whether it's resolutions or whatever it is you're trying to do. I will finally just say that I'm not even though I'm not a huge resolution person. I'm thinking about deleting Instagram.

Don't you kind of have to do that? Well, I have someone to do that for you. Well, so that's been my story. I kind of have to do that. I need to, you know, I'm a creator or influencer or whatever the hell I am. And so I need to be have a presence on social media.

Yeah. But I do have people on my team who are doing most of the work. And I have just noticed that the most reliable way to make myself unhappy is to open Instagram. And I'm not trying to run down Instagram in particular. But for me, it's just, it's so, I get a ruthlessly effective at making me unhappy.

Same, yeah. And I think it's because it, like, it immediately invites comparison.

You're comparing yourself to your friends and their stories.

Yeah. You're comparing yourself to the randoms who cut up on your for you page and in your scroll. And I'll find sometimes because my algorithm now gives me people who are making music and making art and making comedy. If I watch Instagram for 45 minutes or half an hour or 15 minutes, I'm convinced that everyone else who has a smart phone is making their own original music and music videos and building their own furniture and cooking all their own food.

Like, it makes me feel grossly inadequate. And after I'm on myself, no.

“Like, everyone's performing for that app and you should just put it down.”

But yeah, comparison immediately arises as soon as I open up Instagram immediately. So would you consider deleting it? No. Not yet. Not until I, I need to, okay, listen, okay, short W. If you're going to pay somebody to do my social awkward Instagram.

But until then, I got to make some of this stuff myself.

Someone else cuts the videos. I'll say that. But yeah, the update and stuff come from me. But one day, one day, I would love to. And I've been trying to just build in activities in my day where a phone is involved. So two things I've done recently that have been really helpful.

I put my phone in the trunk whenever I'm driving. So before I start the car, the phone is not with me. It's with me, but like in the back of the car. So I'm not on Instagram at a red light or I'm not stuck in traffic scrolling. It's separate and that makes driving now a lot more meditative for me, which is great.

And then safer and safer. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

“And then two, I, um, I try to build in other activities where the phone is just not there.”

So every time I walk the dog, the phone's at home. When I walk the dog, it's me and Wesley Snipes. It's a pickle and that's it. So that's been helpful. Oh, that's my, yeah.

I love pickles. Pit bulls are one or two or three. They're the best. They're the best. I have friend two close friends of mine.

Each have a pit bull. Beautiful. Amazing dog. Yeah. The sweetest.

Yes. Yes. And then my last thought on resolutions. You know, I was thinking about this practice of modern scripture that I've been doing now for years. I was thinking about a lot in the context of the new year.

And I had to like tell myself that a lot of what I do when I talk with folks about their ideas and modern scriptures. I'm doing something that has become for me. And every day resolution that we have to remind ourselves is a resolution. The act of returning to things that bring us joy to bring to things that bring us solace and to things that bring us peace.

It's a really big and powerful thing.

And finding those things and giving ourselves permission to return to them as needed can be revolutionary. And so I have to remind myself at the start of a new year when everyone is resolving to become a new person or to do new things or to go into different directions. Sometimes the act of return can be just as fulfilling. We already have things in our life that bring us joy, that bring us solace, that bring us peace. We already have people in our lives that help us in the nurture us and love us.

Returning to them and to those ideas and to those scriptures or whatever they are. Just doing that it might not feel revolutionary but it is edifying and after remind myself. Just just return is enough sometimes.

“It is literally revolutionary because you are turning in place to remember and look back and the thing you know is good for you.”

And so, and that's the theme of this conceit that that is the conceit that you've come up with for this episode which I love. It's brilliant. I appreciate you. I love it. Listen, we have resolved to return. Thank you for this chat, Dan Harris.

My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me to do it at any chance to hang out with you. I will take it. Likewise. Likewise. Listeners, thank you so much for listening today. If you like what you've heard, tell your friends about us in real life. Help us spread the good word of this show.

Also, if you want, leave us a review on your favorite podcast app and subscribe to this show there as well. This show was a co-production between Sam Sanders Productions and KCRW. We are distributed nationally by PRX. Our showrunner is Tyler Green. Our senior producer has been at Persor. Andre about Tsta is our producer and social media editor. Phil Richards is our technical director.

Bo Delmore is our video lead. Luis Pena is our switcher in video editor. Ramell Akantura is our graphic designer. Alicia But YouTube composed our theme music. And together, Arnie Cypal and I, executive producer, this show. If you like what you've heard today, you can find more of my interviews on your favorite podcast app on YouTube for the visuals.

All right, y'all, until next time, be good to yourselves.