Arnie works in asset management at a global investment bank, he served as an Army officer and aviator/helicopter pilot for 10 years, and he is a long time family friend. Maybe most importantly for this conversation, Arnie is someone who is willing to question his own thoughts and beliefs. He's trying to figure it out- he is trying to figure out how to live his "best life", how to be happy, how to be a good son, how to be a good a person, etc. He knows those are things he wants to achieve. He knows he feels a sense of responsibility to live up to his potential. He also knows that is what makes life so challenging, because there are things we want to achieve but there is no way to know for sure how to do it. And he seems to know that the best he can do is question his thinking and hope it eventually leads him down the right path.

This was definitely one of the more philosophical conversations we've had on the show. We went back and forth a lot. We tried to figure out if this thing called life makes any sense at all. Arnie is more of a believer that if we work "bottoms up" and take even small actions every day in the right direction, that might be the blue print to a "good life." I am more skeptical of that, because I still worry that even those small actions need to be rooted in some value/morality system that tells you what the "right direction" is. I think we need to figure out at a very high level what the meaning of life is for us, what we value, and then do the hard work to live in accordance with that. But how we do ever determine with any confidence what the meaning of our life is? Those are the types of discussions we had on this episode. Arnie was awesome because he wasn't afraid to swim in the mud of uncertainty. It is uncomfortable and it can be unsatisfying because it doesn't always (if ever) leave us with concrete answers. But as Arnie showed on this episode, that might just be life. There are no comfortable conclusions, there are no easy answers, there is no peace that comes with figuring it all out. Our job is to do the work every day to try and figure it out, while accepting the reality that we likely never will.

I told you this one was real philosophical, but I hope you still find it valuable and enjoy it. As always, thanks a lot for listening.