I made a terrible mistake with the house.

So, I made a terrible mistake with my house. I can't even believe the situation. I'm flying back. Pipes may have burst, which they very well may have, given that things froze over. And if that is the case, I almost don't even want to think about it. Oh my god. I'm feeling kind of dumb right now for what I did. I promise I will explain, but I thought I'd tell a little story on my way there. So when I was 15 or 16 years old, There was a girl in my math class called Emily and I thought she was cute. She was a dancer. School dance was coming up and so I summoned up the courage to ask her out. The plan was to go to zoo lights. This thing that the zoo would do where they would light it up at night. It was a common date idea with the high schoolers in my high school. And then from there we'd go to the dance. And I remember as I was proposing this idea I could tell immediately she was not interested. So we didn't go. So I felt horrible and I took it personally and I think she ended up going with somebody else I felt small and ugly and invisible and this is how it went for years Every time with rejection like this with women I just felt like there was something wrong with me like I wasn't masculine enough and it took years of therapy and emotional work to realize eventually one day that maybe This wasn't true all this I'm ugly, there must be something wrong with me, shit. And I didn't even realize that those were stories that I was telling myself. I just believed my thoughts. Basically, I was taking an event that was actually taking place. Girl doesn't want to go out with me. And then jumping to all kinds of conclusions, emotionally charged conclusions about this, that, and the other. Because of course, when you do get rejected like this, it could be for any of a million reasons. And oftentimes, you don't really get to know why. People just have their preferences and there isn't anything you can do about it. I have my preferences and it's okay. I definitely was not going to go with just anybody to the zoo. And that says a lot more about me than it says about anybody else. It took me years to realize that the victory happens before she even says anything. Before there's any response, it's that moment of vulnerability, that moment of expressing yourself freely, taking the risk and not playing it safe. The outcome, whatever she says, whatever she does, whatever we end up doing or not doing, all of that is secondary. Doesn't matter anywhere near as much as what's going on inside of me. And I remember seeing this so clearly one beautiful summer night in Sweden a couple of years ago when I asked a woman if I could kiss her. Beautiful, smart, driven. She was taller than me. She was older than me. And she said no. And this time, I didn't feel ugly. I didn't take it as there's something wrong with me. And yeah, of course it's a bummer. I asked for a kiss because I wanted it. So there's always going to be that clash between desire and reality. I just feel that it just made me feel super alive. And after that rejection, if we can even call it that, I don't even like calling it that. I remember singing and beaming to myself as I walked through a still not yet dark Stockholm at... 1 a.m. And that was just the most magical walk. I mean, I was just marveling at the immense feeling of possibility on the other side of this big fear. And in that way, I'm just so grateful that she said no to me. Can you believe that? I almost can't even believe I'm saying that. And yet, I do believe it. It's just like, how else would I have discovered that feeling any other way? Isn't it curious that the same reaction, the same rejection... to my desire, to my wish, could provoke two such wildly different reactions in me. I think it was a rare moment where I had stumbled upon something way bigger than I had first realized. I just think it's so funny and weird and miraculous that the disaster scenario could feel so good. This applies to so much more than just romantic exploits. I guess I tell this story as a way to make a point about missing the point. I think what I'm trying to point to is actually a different way of living. Before I go any further... Before I bring this back to the house and make it all make sense I do want to take a moment to talk about straight arrow news Who are the sponsors of this video as you probably all know at this point? This is how I make a living and it's thanks to sponsor support that I'm able to continue this unusual Life of mine that I've got I really like what straight arrow news have done Which is build something that lays out coverage of the news that's from the left from the right from the center And it shows where it's coming from. It shows the biases. And it allows you to see beyond a specific narrative. It allows you to see different perspectives and make up your own mind about things. We can get trapped in our own narratives. And we all know that this happens politically. We all know that this happens with the stories that are told about what's going on in the world. So I find it so valuable and so helpful to have tools that allow me to... look beyond that. It's really beautifully laid out. For me, it's all about becoming less reactive and more open. So if you're interested, you can go to san.com slash Nathaniel Drew, or you can go to the link down in the description below. Checking them out also supports my work. Thank you, Straight Arrow News, for sponsoring my work. This is the confusing trend of my entire life. I set my mind to something, and with enough attention, effort, and stress, I can get there. I can't say it is always the case, but oftentimes it's kind of miserable stressing your way there. I mean, even in this fucking video, making the music for this video, I thought it'd be so cool to add something fresh, something different. But to be honest with you, that song is beyond my ability level as a guitar player. I just started getting so frustrated trying to play it and I had to actually walk away from it for a bit and then come back and play a simplified version as well as I could. The point was never to make it. exceptionally high quality music I just got caught up in this outcome. 25 oh here we are. So I'd like to propose a different interpretation of the story the fable of the tortoise and the hare. It's a famous fable so you've probably already heard of it. And it tells of the story of the tortoise and the hare that are in a race with each other. And the hare, proud of its speed and power races on ahead and decides to take a nap. under a tree and the nap goes for too long and the tortoise ends up winning the race. The classic reading of this story is that slow and steady wins the race, which is a great lesson, a great takeaway. I'd like to propose a different interpretation. That all of us are both the tortoise and the hare. That we can go through this world in a rushed, hurried way. The tortoise is the opposite. He or she is unhurried. It's like the two animals live in entirely different paradigms. In the hare's world, this is actually a race. But maybe for the tortoise, this isn't even a race at all. I know I'm getting kind of philosophical here. I'm getting very philosophical here. I just feel like we're missing the point when we rush, when we hurry, when we stress about everything. And that's what I've been doing my entire life. At some level, I do feel like I've been missing the whole point. It's so easy to forget. I am the hare most of the time Sadly, but sometimes like in Sweden in rare moments where I'm just accepting things and flowing with them I feel like I can be the tortoise and once you do that a few times. It's kind of like ooh Maybe there's a better way to move through the world. You have to lose the plot like a thousand times to remember it once only to lose it a thousand times again. And that's what brings me back to the mistake I made with my house. I left a few weeks ago to escape the cold weather for a little bit, and I recently had a call with my plumber who asked me if I had closed my pipes, the water pipes. And I was like, what? No. And he was asking because things froze over, so there's a really good chance that the pipes have exploded. But that's not even the bigger mistake that I'm referring to. The bigger mistake I'm referring to is all the stressing and the getting caught up in the hysteria and the drama. You know, the thing that I've been battling against for most of the time that I've even been out in the countryside. On a different level, on a bigger level, the mistake I've been making is freaking out about this kind of thing over and over and over again. It's not that the pipes don't matter. There are practical realities we've all got to navigate. Making a really expensive or destructive mistake always sucks. Alrighty. It's dark, it's night, back at last. I'm just trying to unlearn the deep patterns of inventing so much stuff that isn't there. Of anticipating things that have not yet and may not ever happen. Doesn't look like there's anything wrong. I don't know what to look for exactly. And even though I still forget it most of the time, I'm trying to remember the plot. the bigger plot of my life. No water explosion anywhere. It was never about everything going smoothly in the first place, even though it still does feel quite nice when things work out how I want them to.

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The song I covered a bit of is called "Eu Pensei" by Pedro Mizutani 

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Timestamps:

0:00 – Flying back
0:33 – "I am ugly"
2:44 – Something I learned in Stockholm
5:14 – Sponsor
6:27 – The confusing trend of my entire life
7:19 – A different interpretation of the Tortoise & the Hare
9:06 – The mistake I made
10:05 – What I found getting back