How to suffer like a total pro: Comedian Pete Holmes on ego, judgment, & feeling special | Big Think

How to suffer like a total pro: Comedian Pete Holmes on ego, judgment, & feeling special

New videos DAILY

Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you're going through a moment that tests your patience, even causes you to psychologically suffer, sometimes you have to step back and say, "Yes, thank you."

Suffering is like sandpaper, and, if we choose, it can buffer us and make us better versions of ourselves.

Also, it's critical to find a quiet place within where just the fundamental fact that you are participating in reality imbues you with enough value and dignity to draw upon at any moment. Regardless of exterior sentiments about you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PETE HOLMES

Pete Holmes is a comedian, writer, cartoonist, "Christ-leaning spiritual seeker", and podcast host. His wildly popular podcast, You Made It Weird, is a comedic exploration of the meaning of life with guests ranging from Deepak Chopra and Elizabeth Gilbert to Seth Rogen and Garry Shandling.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT:

PETE HOLMES: L.A., and we're here in New York. And something that I'll repeat in my head over and over is resist nothing, which seems so silly. But to me, it's a real key to happiness, is trying to-- again, Richard Rohr says, love is learning to say yes to what is. And that is one of the most fundamental spiritual-- I know people don't like that word, and we can talk about that and how I understand that. But one of the most fundamental principles of this thought prism is learning to say yes to what is. It is madness, as Eckhart Tolle says. It's madness to resist what's happening.

You know what I mean? Obviously, if you can change something, if something is unpleasant or physically painful and you can pivot, yeah, resist-- resist. I'm all for that. But if your flight is delayed, you can watch people start suffering. So there's an unpleasant thing happening-- a flight has been delayed. But the suffering happens when you start-- and you can watch this happen from what other people and myself call the witness place. You watch yourself constructing a story. And this is where suffering comes. It's your attachment to how you think things should be.

And of course, I still do this. Please, don't think I'm-- I'm sitting in a chair, I'm not floating. [LAUGHS] But you see the story begin to happen. And you go, Delta or United should do better. They're always doing this. That's the first level. And then you start going, I'm going to miss this thing, or, I'm going to be late to the dinner, and damn it, my ticket cost this much. This is the narrative that we build. Really, something has happened. The flight is delayed. Maybe it was completely preventable, but it's happening. So it's very useful-- I talk about in the book, one of my mantras that I repeat all the day-- not all the day-- all the livelong day isn't just resist nothing, but it's, yes, thank you. And I can't tell you what a shortcut to peace-- real peace, not story peace-- I'm being peaceful, but actual surrender peace is, yes, thank you.

Somebody, for some reason, brought my attention to somebody that was tweeting mean things about me. I don't know why I clicked the link. They were like, what's up with this person? They're tweeting mean things about you. I could have just deleted the email. I click on it. We have this weird masochistic-- so I click on it and I'm reading these, and it took me from such a nice place to such a bad place, until I said, thank you. Oh, wow, you just called bullshit on a really fundamental but flawed happiness system that I have running in my brain-- not my heart, in my brain. Which is that if people love me and if they think I'm really special and if they think I'm really smart-- oh, and this one thinks I'm good looking, this one likes my shirt. I must be worthy of love. Then somebody, just as valid and just as anonymous, says, I don't like him.

And then I start to suffer. There's a hole-- in the bowl that I hold my love, now there's a hole and it's dripping out. And I told my wife, Val, I told her about it. I was telling her how embarrassed I was that here I am with all this knowledge of these principles, but I can be taken down with a series of mean tweets. And I remembered in our discussion to say, thank you. I was like, oh, right. Suffering is like sandpaper, and it's buffing me and it called bullshit on me. And I was like, thank you. And as soon-- so here's the thought. This guy's being an asshole to me and I'm clinging onto it like this. Somebody doesn't like me. I wrote a book, maybe people won't like my book. Maybe they'll think I'm ...

For the full transcript, check out