Sometimes I just love having an all out philosophical conversation where we explore the seemingly unanswerable questions of the universe to see what we can learn. My conversation with Jeevan was very much that. He started off the conversation by saying "optimism" is the key value to hold because it can act as a protective bubble against the hardships of the world and give you the best chance to achieve happiness. So we dove right in and started exploring that idea and if it was true, if there are downsides to optimism, if optimism is just a luxury for some people and not others, etc. Before we finished we ended up talking about the recent Joe Rogan controversy, we pressure tested some Jordan Peterson beliefs, and tried to understand if there are overall objective rules to trying to "win" at the game of life.

As way of a brief background, Jeevan is an author and transformational coach, who likes to learn and think about philosophical questions. He made for a really good "dance partner" for this conversation because he had clearly thought through the value of optimism and his approach to life, so it was fun to pressure test it all. One of the more interesting threads we hit on was the idea that ultimately society acts as a market system. By this we meant that there is not necessarily an objective "right or wrong" but rather the markets (i.e., society) tells us what is OK and what isn't. That has some interesting implications though-- is the market always fair/right, what happens if you disagree with the market decision, etc.?

If you really enjoy these types of discussions than this episode is for you. I know it can be frustrating that there are not clear answers, but I firmly believe we have to think about these questions to improve as a society. Big thanks to Jeevan for being on and for a really fun conversation.